during life. There was always in it a tender spot, which Time was unable
to touch. He gave away _greatly_, when the amount of his means are taken
into consideration; he gave away money--even annuities, I believe--to old
impoverished friends whose wants were known to him. I remember that once,
when we were sauntering together on Pentonville Hill, and he noticed great
depression in me, which he attributed to want of money, he said, suddenly,
in his stammering way, "My dear boy, I--I have a quantity of useless
things. I have now--in my desk, a--a hundred pounds--that I don't--don't
_know_ what to do with. Take it." I was much touched; but I assured him
that my depression did not arise from want of money.

He was very home-loving; he loved London as the best of places; he loved
his home as the dearest spot in London: it was the inmost heart of the
sanctuary. Whilst at home he had no curiosity for what passed beyond his
own territory. His eyes were never truant; no one ever saw him peering out
of window, examining the crowds flowing by; no one ever surprised him
gazing on vacancy. "I lose myself," he says, "in other men's minds. When I
am not walking I am reading; I cannot sit and think; books think for me."
If it was not the time for his pipe, it was always the time for an old
play, or for a talk with friends. In the midst of this society his own
mind grew green again and blossomed; or, as he would have said,
"burgeoned."

In the foregoing desultory account of Charles Lamb I have, without doubt,
set forth many things that are frequently held as trivial. Nothing,
however, seems to me unimportant which serves in any way to illustrate a
character. The floating straws, it is said, show from what quarter the
wind is blowing. So the arching or knitting of the brow is sometimes
sufficient to indicate wonder or pride, anger or contempt. On the stage,
indeed, it is often the sole means of expressing the fluctuation of the