The following gives a variation on a famous passage in the 'Dream
Fugue,' and it may be interesting to the reader to compare it with that
which the author printed. From these variations it will be seen that De
Quincey often wrote and re-wrote his finest passages, and sometimes, no
doubt, found it hard to choose between the readings:
Thus as we ran like torrents; thus as with bridal rapture our flying
equipage swept over the _campo santo_ of the graves; thus as our burning
wheels carried warrior instincts, kindled earthly passions amongst the
trembling dust below us, suddenly we became aware of a vast necropolis
to which from afar we were hurrying. In a moment our maddening wheels
were nearing it.
'Of purple granite in massive piles was this city of the dead, and yet
for one moment it lay like a visionary purple stain on the horizon, so
mighty was the distance. In the second moment this purple city trembled
through many changes, and grew as by fiery pulsations, so mighty was the
pace. In the third moment already with our dreadful gallop we were
entering its suburbs. Systems of sarcophagi rose with crests aerial of
terraces and turrets into the upper glooms, strode forward with haughty
encroachment upon the central aisle, ran back with mighty shadows into
answering recesses. When the sarcophagi wheeled, then did our horses
wheel. Like rivers in horned floods wheeling in pomp of unfathomable
waters round headlands; like hurricanes that ride into the secrets of
forests, faster than ever light travels through the wilderness of
darkness, we shot the angles, we fled round the curves of the
labyrinthine city. With the storm of our horses' feet, and of our
burning wheels, did we carry earthly passions, kindle warrior instincts
amongst the silent dust around us, dust of our noble fathers that had
slept in God since Creci. Every sarcophagus showed many bas-reliefs,
bas-reliefs of battles, bas-reliefs of battlefields, battles from
forgotten ages, battles from yesterday; battlefields that long since
Nature had healed and reconciled to herself with the sweet oblivion of
flowers; battlefields that were yet angry and crimson with carnage.
And now had we reached the last sarcophagus, already we were abreast of
the last bas-relief; already we were recovering the arrow-like flight of
the central aisle, when coming up it in counterview to ourselves we
beheld the frailest of cars, built as might seem from floral wreaths,
and from the shells of Indian seas. Half concealed were the fawns that
drew it by the floating mists that went before it in pomp. But the mists
hid not the lovely countenance of the infant girl that sate wistful upon
the ear, and hid not the birds of tropic plumage with which she played.
Face to face she rode forward to meet us, and baby laughter in her eyes
saluted the ruin that approached. 'Oh, baby,' I said in anguish, 'must
we that carry tidings of great joy to every people be God's messengers
of ruin to thee?' In horror I rose at the thought. But then also, in
horror at the thought, rose one that was sculptured in the bas-relief--a
dying trumpeter. Solemnly from the field of Waterloo he rose to his
feet, and, unslinging his stony trumpet, carried it in his dying anguish
to his stony lips, sounding once, and yet once again, proclamation that
to _thy_ ears, oh baby, must have spoken from the battlements of death.
Immediately deep shadows fell between us, and shuddering silence. The
choir had ceased to sing; the uproar of our laurelled equipage alarmed
the graves no more. By horror the bas-relief had been unlocked into
life. By horror we that were so full of life--we men, and our horses
with their fiery forelegs rising in mid-air to their everlasting
gallop--were petrified to a bas-relief. Oh, glacial pageantry of death,
that from end to end of the gorgeous cathedral for a moment froze every
eye by contagion of panic. Then for the third time the trumpet sounded.
Back with the shattering burst came the infinite rushing of life. The
seals of frost were raised from our stifling hearts.