Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles Lamb to Jacob Vale Asbury, [1830?]
DEAR Sir, It is an observation of a wise man that
“moderation is best in all things.” I cannot agree with
him “in liquor.” There is a smoothness and oiliness in wine
that makes it go down by a natural channel, which I am positive was made for
that descending. Else, why does not wine choke us? could Nature have made that
sloping lane, not to facilitate the down-going? She does nothing in vain. You
know that better than I. You know how often she has helped you at a dead lift,
and how much better entitled she is to a fee than yourself sometimes, when you
carry off” the credit. Still there is something due to manners and
customs, and I should apologise to you and Mrs. Asbury for
being absolutely carried home upon a man’s shoulders thro’ Silver
Street, up Parson’s Lane, by the Chapels (which might have taught me
better), and then to be deposited like a dead log at Gaffar Westwood’s,
who it seems does not “insure” against intoxication. Not that the
mode of conveyance is objectionable. On the contrary, it is more easy than a
one-horse chaise. Ariel in the “Tempest” says
“On a Bat’s back do I fly, after sunset merrily.”
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Now I take it that Ariel must
sometimes have stayed out late of nights. Indeed, he pretends that
“where the bee sucks, there lurks he,” as much as to say
that his suction is as innocent as that little innocent (but damnably stinging
when he is provok’d) winged creature. But I take it, that Ariel was fond of metheglin, of which ![]()
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the Bees are notorious Brewers. But then you
will say: What a shocking sight to see a middle-aged gentleman-and-a-half
riding upon a Gentleman’s back up Parson’s Lane at midnight.
Exactly the time for that sort of conveyance, when nobody can see him, nobody
but Heaven and his own conscience; now Heaven makes fools, and don’t
expect much from her own creation; and as for conscience, She and I have long
since come to a compromise. I have given up false modesty, and she allows me to
abate a little of the true. I like to be liked, but I don’t care about
being respected. I don’t respect myself. But, as I was saying, I thought
he would have let me down just as we got to Lieutenant
Barker’s Coal-shed (or emporium) but by a cunning jerk I
eased myself, and righted my posture. I protest, I thought myself in a
palanquin, and never felt myself so grandly carried. It was a slave under me.
There was I, all but my reason. And what is reason? and what is the loss of it?
and how often in a day do we do without it, just as well? Reason is only
counting, two and two makes four. And if on my passage home, I thought it made
five, what matter? Two and two will just make four, as it always did, before I
took the finishing glass that did my business. My sister has begged me to write
an apology to Mrs. A. and you for disgracing your party;
now it does seem to me, that I rather honoured your party, for every one that
was not drunk (and one or two of the ladies, I am sure, were not) must have
been set off greatly in the contrast to me. I was the scapegoat. The soberer
they seemed. By the way is magnesia good on these occasions?
iii pol: med: sum: ante noct: in rub: can:. I am no
licentiate, but know enough of simples to beg you to send me a draught after
this model. But still you will say (or the men and maids at your house will
say) that it is not a seemly sight for an old gentleman to go home picka-back.
Well, may be it is not. But I never studied grace. I take it to be a mere
superficial accomplishment. I regard more the internal acquisitions. The great
object after supper is to get home, and whether that is obtained in a
horizontal posture or perpendicular (as foolish men and apes affect for
dignity) I think is little to the purpose. The end is always greater than the
means. Here I am, able to compose a sensible rational apology, and what
signifies how I got here? I have just sense enough to remember I was very happy
last night, and to thank our kind host and hostess, and that’s sense
enough, I hope.
N.B.—What is good for a desperate head-ache? Why,
patience, and a determination not to mind being miserable all day long. And
that I have made my mind up to. So, here goes. It is better than not being
alive at all, which I might have been, had your man ![]()
| 846 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | April |
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toppled me down at Lieut.
Barker’s Coal-shed. My sister sends her sober
compliments to Mrs. A. She is not much the worse.
