" You must yield self for William's sake. It is not
easy, but it is noble, because it conquers your bitterest
enemy. Self has such just rights. It is so plausible,
so powerful, so sensitive, that it is the hardest enemy in
the world to overcome, especially as it always holds
our inclinations and specious arguments of duty and
right on its own side. But you can conquer for your
brother's sake."

Through the winter, the little home was snug and
pleasant enough, and the wife would take her sewing
and knitting and sit close to her husband's side while



LIFE'S SHOALS AND QUICKSANDS. 183

he wrote, or frequently she wrote as he dictated, and
he found her a most willing listener, who reverenced
his beautiful thoughts, and poured her adulation upon
his already self-satisfied soul. He thawed in the sun of
admiration and love, as most men do ; but his women
spoiled him, by making him an oracle. His friends,
Coleridge and Lamb, looked up to him with the same
reverence — Coleridge as to a beloved master, and Lamb
as to a superior being who must be honored and court-
ed. Wordsworth was fond of Lamb, but looked some-
what questioningly upon the constant by-play of wit,
and the irrepressible interlarding of puns, in his con-
versation. Wordsworth's serious face seldom relaxed
at Lamb's levity, and Charles always felt somewhat
apologetic for ruffling the surface of the long discus-
sions upon learned subjects and poetry, by skimming
his pebbles of fun into the midst. They were second
nature, and Lamb could no more help punning, and
seeing the absurdity which ever underlies the pathetic,
than he could help breathing. In later years, when
Tom Hood and Lamb became intimates, they often
compared notes upon this habit of " squinting at life."
Both had had deep sorrows that brought grief and tears
very near their hearts ; yet each turned the sting aside
by the glittering shield of humor.
