Dream Children: A Reverie

Charles Lamb (1775-1834) was an English essayist. He was famous for his informal and easy style.  He wrote essays under the pseudonym ‘Elia’. He used to write about commonplace events with a touch of humour and pathos.  Lamb was born in London and educated at Christ’s Hospital. One of his schoolmates was the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship. From 1792 until his retirement on pension in 1825, Lamb was a clerk in the accounting department of the East India House, London. In 1796 Lamb’s sister Mary Ann Lamb, seized by temporary homicidal mania, killed their invalid mother. To prevent his sister from being committed to an asylum, Lamb himself appointed himself as her guardian and, despite his own nervous temperament, cared for her the rest of his life.

Lamb’s literary career included the writing of poetry, plays, and literary criticism. The popular Tales from Shakespeare was written in collaboration with his sister. It was published in 1807. His most important literary work consists of the essays he contributed to the London Magazine between 1820 and 1825; they were published in book form as Essays of Elia (1823) and Last Essays of Elia (1833).

            The essay ‘Dream Children: A Reverie’ expresses the feelings of loss and regret faced by the narrator. It is based on the description of a place, the relationships and the feelings that have been part of the narrator’s past.

Summary

The essay begins with the statement that children love to listen to stories of their elders as children. This happens because children in this way can imagine those elders that they themselves cannot meet. Just like all children, Lamb’s children also wanted to hear their parents’ childhood stories. One day Lamb’s  children gather around him to hear stories about their great-grandmother Field. She lived in a mansion. Lamb tells the children that the grandmother Field had been given the charge of the big house because the owner liked to live in a more fashionable mansion.

The children had also heard (‘from the ballad of the Children in the Wood ‘) about the tragic incidents that had supposedly taken place at that house.  The tragic story of the children and their cruel uncle had been carved out in wood upon a chimney piece. However, a rich man replaced the wooden one with a marble one and the story was lost. Lamb mentions that Alice displayed her displeasure when she heard that. He tells that she was religious and very good lady, and was respected by everyone. She took care of the house very carefully. After her, the old ornaments of the house were stripped and set up in the owner’s house. When Lamb mentioned that the old ornaments could not fit decently in new mansion, John smiled to express his agreement that it was a foolish act. She was such ‘a good and religious woman’ that huge number of people attended her funeral. She also used to be considered the best dancer till a disease called cancer forced her to stoop. However, her spirits still remained upright. Lamb mentions that she slept ‘in a lone chamber of the great lone house’ on her own despite that the ghosts of two infants glided up and down the stairs near which she slept. During those days, Lamb himself would sleep with the maid being afraid. He mentions that he was far less religious but he never noticed the ghosts. John was trying to look courageous at this moment. Lamb also mentions that she was very good to her grand children.  When he would visit ‘the great house’ in the holidays, he liked gazing upon ‘busts of Twelve Cæsars’. Lamb also mentions various things that used to attract him while being at the mansion. He enjoyed spending time among various things there, even more than ‘sweet flavours of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such like common baits of children’. Both children showed the influence of his description by ignoring the bunch of grapes they had otherwise wanted to have. Lamb tells that the children’s uncle John L—— was liked particularly by grandmother Field from amongst all her grandchildren. He was more handsome and spirited than the rest. He was so spirited that when the rest would spend time at the mansion, he would ride a horse for long distance and would even join hunters. Lamb mentions how he had missed their uncle when he died, although he did not show it that much. He missed the uncle’s kindness as well as crossness. Lamb also mentions the uncle’s lameness repeatedly which shows that he had been very concerned for him. The children felt uncomfortable with the description of the uncle and urged Lamb to tell about ‘their pretty, dead mother’. Then, Lamb told that he courted their mother ‘the fair Alice W——n’ for seven years. He also tried to clarify to the children how he faced problems due to her ‘coyness’ and ‘denial’. At this point, he noticed the strong similarity between the appearance of his wife and that of Alice. He feels as if his wife was communicating with him through Alice. Finally, he woke up and found himself in his armchair where he had fallen asleep. He states that James Elia was no more there and everything that has been mentioned in the essay so far was being described by Elia.