DREAM CHILDREN: A REVERY CHARLES LAMB HILDREN love to listen to stories about their elders when they were children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to hear about their great-grandmother Field,' who lived in a great house in Norfolk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa lived) which had been the scene-so at least it was generally believed in that part of the country of the tragic incidents which they had lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the Wood.2 Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin Redbreast; till a foolish rich person pulled it down 1. Lamb's grandmother, Mary Field, was for a long time housekeeper in one of the great English country houses, but not in the county alluded to in the text. 2. This means that the incidents had but lately become familiar to the children. The story is the old one of the Babes in the Wood, as it is sometimes called. 3. One of Lamb's fancies; the chimney-carving in the real house represented 'stag and boar hunts. DREAM CHILDREN: A REVERY CHARLES LAMB HILDREN love to listen to stories about their elders when they were children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to hear about their great-grandmother Field,' who lived in a great house in Norfolk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa lived) which had been the scene-so at least it was generally believed in that part of the country of the tragic incidents which they had lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the Wood.2 Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin Redbreast; till a foolish rich person pulled it down 1. Lamb's grandmother, Mary Field, was for a long time housekeeper in one of the great English country houses, but not in the county alluded to in the text. 2. This means that the incidents had but lately become familiar to the children. The story is the old one of the Babes in the Wood, as it is sometimes called. 3. One of Lamb's fancies; the chimney-carving in the real house represented 'stag and boar hunts. |