Whenever the sailor, after that, wrote to
his friends in London, he wished to be particularly remembered to Mr.
Charles Lamb, who wouldn't be humbugged about that old painting.
It was this strong sympathy with human character which made Elia rather
a contemner of the worship of Nature. He liked things that were as
definite as the works of men, and found great difficulty in sympathizing
with a landscape. There was nothing on Fleet Street for which he did not
feel a personal attachment; all the hurry and majestic order of a great
city, all the little by-ways and hedges of city life, the wealth, the
poverty, the splendor, the rags, the men and women, all acting under
the stern discipline of an immense society, the boys, the beggars, the
chimney-sweeps, the hilarious and the sorrowful, the fine ladies and
noble lords, were all duly appreciated by him. If he had been taken
up to the pinnacle of a mountain, instead of entertaining one of
Wordsworth's sublime contemplations, he would have been very likely to
flap his arms and crow like chanticleer. Indeed, in middle age he was
accustomed to boast that he had never seen a mountain.
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