than love any other mortal writer.

These people all read Lamb, talk Lamb, quote Lamb, but they do not
_suggest_ Lamb; they do not "smack," as our ancestors used to say,
of the true Elia vein.

But the immense humour of the situation does not stop here. Not
only has this evasive City Clerk succeeded in fooling the "good
people;" he has fooled the "wicked ones." I have myself in the circle
of my acquaintance more than half a dozen charming people, of the
type who enjoy Aubrey Beardsley, and have a mania for Oscar
Wilde, and sometimes dip into Remy de Gourmont, and not one of
them "can read" Charles Lamb. He has succeeded in fooling them;
in making them suppose he is something quite different from what
he is. He used to tell his friends that every day he felt himself
growing more "official" and "moral." He even swore he had been
taken for a Verger or a Church warden. Well, our friends of the
"enclosed gardens" still take him for a Verger. But he is a more
remarkable Verger than they dream. As a matter of fact, there were
some extremely daring and modern spirits in Elia's "entourage,"
spirits who went further in an antinomian direction than--I devoutly
pray--my friends are ever likely to go, and these scandalous ones
adored him. And for his part, he seems to have liked them--more
than he ought.

It is, indeed, very curious and interesting, the literary fate of Charles
Lamb. Jocular Bishops, archly toying Rural Deans, Rectors with a
"penchant" for anecdote, scholarly Canons with a weakness for Rum
Punch, are all inclined to speak as if in some odd way he was of
their own very tribe. He had absolutely nothing in common with
them, except a talent for giving false impressions! With regard to the
devotion to him which certain gentle and old-fashioned ladies
have--one's great-aunts, for instance--I am inclined to think that much
more might be said. There is a quality, a super-refined, exquisite
quality, and one with a pinch of true ironic salt in it, which the more
thick-skinned among us sensationalists may easily miss.

It is all very well for us to talk of "burning with a hard gem-like
flame," when, as a matter of fact, we move along, dull as cave-men,
to some of the finest aesthetic effects in the world. Not to appreciate
the humour of that rarest and sweetest of all human types, the
mischievous-tongued Great-Aunt, is to be nothing short of a profane
fool.

But Charles Lamb is a very different person from our Goldsmit