"My aunt was lying apparently dying" (writes Lamb), "my father with a
wound on his poor forehead, and my mother a murdered corpse, in the next
room. I felt that I had something else to do than to regret. _I had the
whole weight of the family upon me;_ for my brother--little disposed at
any time to take care of old age and infirmity--has now, with his bad leg,
exemption from such duties; and I am now left alone."
In about a month after his mother's death (3d October), Charles writes,
"My poor, dear, dearest sister, the unhappy and unconscious instrument of
the Almighty's judgment on our house, is restored to her senses; to a
dreadful sense of what has passed; awful to her mind, but tempered with a
religious resignation. She knows how to distinguish between a deed
committed in a fit of frenzy and the terrible guilt of a mother's murder."
In another place he says, "She bears her situation as one who has no right
to complain." He himself visits her and upholds her, and rejoices in her
continued reason. For her use he borrows books ("for reading was her daily
bread"), and gives up his time and all his thoughts to her comfort.
Thus, in their quiet grief, making no show, yet suffering more than could
be shown by clamorous sobs or frantic words, the two--brother and sister--
enter upon the bleak world together.
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