1786-1859
[Sidenote: Masson’s _de Quincey_.]
“In addition to the general impression of his diminutiveness and
fragility, one was struck with the peculiar beauty of his head and
forehead, rising disproportionately high over his small, wrinkly
visage and gentle, deep-set eyes. His talk was in the form of
really harmonious and considerate colloquy, and not at all in that
of monologue.... That evening passed, and though I saw him once or
twice again, it is the last sight I remember best. It must have been,
I think, in 1846, on a summer afternoon. A friend, a stranger in
Edinburgh, was walking with me in one of the pleasant, quiet, country
lanes near Edinburgh. Meeting us, and the sole living thing in the
lane beside ourselves, came a small figure, not untidily dressed,
but with his hat pushed far up in front of his forehead, and hanging
on his hindhead, so that the back rim must have been resting on his
coat-collar. At a little distance I recognised it to be De Quincey;
but, not considering myself entitled to interrupt his meditations, I
only whispered the information to my friend, that he might not miss
what the look at such a celebrity was worth. So we passed him, giving
him the wall. Not unnaturally, however, after we passed, we turned
round for the pleasure of a back view of the wee, intellectual wizard.
Whether my whisper and our glance had alarmed him, as a ticket-of-leave
man might be rendered uneasy in his solitary walk by the scrutiny of
two passing strangers, or whether he had some recollection of me (which
was likely enough, as he seemed to forget nothing), I do not know,
but we found that he, too, had stopped, and was looking round at us.
Apparently scared at being caught doing so, he immediately wheeled
round again, and hurried his face towards a side-turning in the lane,
into which he disappeared, his hat still hanging on the back of his
head. That was my last sight of De Quincey.”--1846.
[Sidenote: Page’s _de Quincey_.]
“Pale he was, with a head of wonderful size, which served to make more
apparent the inferior dimensions of his body, and a face which lived
the sculptured past in every lineament from brow to chin. One seeing
him would surely be tempted to ask who he was that took off his hat
with such grave politeness, remaining uncovered if a lady were passing
almost until she was out of sight, and would get for an answer likely
enough, ‘Oh, that is little De Quincey, who hears strange sounds and
eats opium. Did you ever see such a little man?’ Little he was, indeed,
like Dickens and Jeffrey, the latter of whom had so little flesh that
it was said that his intellect was indecently exposed.”
[Sidenote: James Payn’s _Literary Recollections_.]
“In the ensuing summer, after the publication of another volume of
poems, I visited Edinburgh, and called upon De Quincey, to whom I
had a letter of introduction from Miss Mitford. He was at that time
residing at Lasswade, a few miles from the town, and I went thither
by coach. He lived a secluded life, and even at that date had become
to the world a name rather than a real personage; but it was a great
name. Considerable alarm agitated my youthful heart as I drew near
the house: I felt like Burns on the occasion when he was first about
‘to dinner wi’ a Lord.’... My apprehensions, however, proved to be
utterly groundless, for a more gracious and genial personage I never
met. Picture to yourself a very diminutive man, carelessly--very
carelessly--dressed; a face lined, careworn, and so expressionless
that it reminded one of ‘that chill changeless brow, where cold
Obstruction’s apathy appals the gazing mourners heart’--a face like
death in life. The instant he began to speak, however, it lit up as
though by electric light; this came from his marvellous eyes, brighter
and more intelligent (though by fits) than I have ever seen in any
other mortal. They seemed to me to glow with eloquence. He spoke of my
introducer, of Cambridge, of the Lake Country, and of English poets.
Each theme was interesting to me, but made infinitely more so by some
apt personal reminiscence. As for the last-named subject, it was like
talking of the Olympian gods to one not only cradled in their creed,
but who had mingled with them, himself half an immortal.”