humor and of jocose speech for which Charles Lamb in his lifetime was well
known. These (not his best thoughts) can be separated from the rest, and
may attract the notice of the reader, here and there, and relieve the
tameness of a not very eventful narrative.

It is possible to define wit (which, as Mr. Coleridge says, is
"impersonal"), and humor also; but it is not easy to distinguish the humor
of one man from that of all other humorists, so as to bring his special
quality clearly before the apprehension of the reader. Perhaps the best
(if not the most scientific) way might be to produce specimens of each. In
Charles Lamb's case, instances of his humor are to be found in his essays,
in his sayings (already partially reported), and throughout his letters,
where they are very frequent. They are often of the composite order, in
which humor, and wit, and (sometimes) pathos are intermingled. Sometimes
they merely exhibit the character of the man.

He once said of himself that his biography "would go into an epigram." His
sayings require greater space. Some of those which have been circulated
are apocryphal. The following are taken chiefly from his letters, and from
my own recollections.

In his exultation on being released from his thirty-four years of labor at
the India House, he says, "Had I a little son, I would christen him
'Nothing to do'" (This is in the "Superannuated Man.")

Speaking of Don Quixote, he calls him "the errant Star of Knighthood, made
more tender by eclipse."

On being asked by a schoolmistress for some sign indicative of her
calling, he recommended "The Murder of the Innocents."