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"This was the thought--the sentiment--the bright solitary star of your lives,--ye mild and happy pair--which cheered you in the night of intellect, and in the obscurity of your station!"

— Lamb, Charles (1775-1834)

Author

Lamb, Charles (1775-1834)

Work Title

The South-Sea House [from the Essays of Elia]

Date

1823

Metaphor

"This was the thought--the sentiment--the bright solitary star of your lives,--ye mild and happy pair--which cheered you in the night of intellect, and in the obscurity of your station!"

Metaphor in Context

Deputy, under Evans, was Thomas Tame. He had the air and stoop of a nobleman. You would have taken him for one, had you met him in one of the passages leading to Westminster Hall. By stoop, I mean that gentle bending of the body forwards, which, in great men, must be supposed to be the effect of an habitual condescending attention to the applications of their inferiors. While he held you in converse, you felt strained to the height in the colloquy. The conference over, you were at leisure to smile at the comparative insignificance of the pretensions which had just awed you. His intellect was of the shallowest order. It did not reach to a saw or a proverb. His mind was in its original state of white paper. A sucking-babe might have posed him. What was it then? Was he rich? Alas, no! Thomas Tame was very poor. Both he and his wife looked outwardly gentlefolks, when I fear all was not well at all times within. She had a neat meagre person, which it was evident she had not sinned in over-pampering; but in its veins was noble blood. She traced her descent, by some labyrinth of relationship, which I never thoroughly understood,- much less can explain with any heraldic certainty at this time of day,- to the illustrious, but unfortunate house of Derwentwater. This was the secret of Thomas's stoop. This was the thought- the sentiment- the bright solitary star of your lives,- ye mild and happy pair- which cheered you in the night of intellect, and in the obscurity of your station! This was to you instead of riches, instead of rank, instead of glittering attainments: and it was worth them all together. You insulted none with it; but while you wore it as a piece of defensive armour only, no insult likewise could reach you through it. Decus et solamen.