I cannot agree with Dr. Japp {48} when, in the course of some laudatory
remarks on De Quincey's humour, he says: "It is precisely here that De
Quincey parts company, alike from Coleridge and from Wordsworth; neither
of them had humour."
In the first place De Quincey's humour never seems to me very genuine.
He could play with ideas occasionally in a queer fantastic way, as in his
elaborate gibe on Dr. Andrew Bell.
"First came Dr. Andrew Bell. We knew him. Was he dull? Is a wooden
spoon dull? Fishy were his eyes, torpedinous was his manner; and his
main idea, out of two which he really had, related to the moon--from
which you infer, perhaps, that he was lunatic. By no means. It was
no craze, under the influence of the moon, which possessed him; it
was an idea of mere hostility to the moon. . . . His wrath did not
pass into lunacy; it produced simple distraction; and uneasy fumbling
with the idea--like that of an old superannuated dog who longs to
worry, but cannot for want of teeth."
A clever piece of analytical satire, if you like, but not humorous so
much as witty. Incongruity, unexpectedness, belongs to the essence of
humour. Here there is that cunning display of congruity between the old
dog and the Doctor which the wit is so adroit in evolving.
Similarly in the essay on "Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts,"
the style of clever extravaganza adopted in certain passages is witty,
certainly, but lacks the airy irresponsibility characterizing humour.
Sometimes he indulges in pure clowning, which is humorous in a
heavy-handed way. But grimacing humour is surely a poor kind of humour.
Without going into any dismal academic discussion on Wit and Humour, I
think it is quite possible to differentiate these two offsprings of
imagination, making Wit the intellectual brother of the twain.
Analytical minds naturally turn to wit, by preference: Impressionistic
minds to humour. Dickens, who had no gift for analysis, and whose
writings are a series of delightful unreflective, personal impressions,
is always humorous, never witty. Reflective writers like George Eliot or
George Meredith are more often witty than humorous.
I do not rate De Quincey's wit very highly, though it is agreeably
diverting at times, but it was preferable to his humour.
The second point to be noted against Dr. Japp is his reference to
Coleridge. No one would claim Wordsworth as a humorist, but Coleridge
cannot be dismissed with this comfortable finality. Perhaps he was more
witty than humorous; he also had an analytic mind of rarer quality even
than De Quincey's, and his _Table Talk_ is full of delightful flashes.
But the amusing account he gives of his early journalistic experiences
and the pleasant way in which he pokes fun at himself, can scarcely be
compatible with the assertion that he had "no humour."
Indeed, it was this quality, I think, which endeared him especially to
Lamb, and it was the absence of this quality which prevented Lamb from
giving that personal attachment to Wordsworth which he held for both
Coleridge and Hazlitt.
But the comparative absence of humour in De Quincey is another
characteristic of Vagabondage. Humour is largely a product of
civilization, and the Vagabond is only half-civilized. I can see little
genuine humour in either Hazlitt or De Quincey. They had wit to an
extent, it is true, but they had this despite, not because, of their
Vagabondage. Thoreau, notwithstanding flashes of shrewd American wit,
can scarcely be accounted a humorist. Whitman was entirely devoid of
humour. A lack of humour is felt as a serious deficiency in reading the
novels of Jefferies; and the airy wit of Stevenson is scarcely
full-bodied enough to rank him among the humorists.
This deficiency of humour may be traced to the characteristic attitude of
the Vagabond towards life, which is one of eager curiosity. He is
inquisitive about its many issues, but with a good deal of the child's
eagerness to know how a thing happened, and who this is, and what that
is. Differing in many ways, as did Borrow and De Quincey, we find the
same insatiable curiosity; true, it expressed itself differently, but
there is a basic similarity between the impulse that took Borrow over the
English highways and gave him that zest for travel in other countries,
and the impulse that sent De Quincey wandering over the various roads of
intellectual and emotional inquiry. Thoreau's main reason for his two
years' sojourn in the woods was one of curiosity. He "wanted to know"
what he could find out by "fronting" for a while the essential facts of
life, and he left, as he says, "for as good a reason as I went there.
Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live." In other
words, inquisitiveness inspired the experiment, and inquisitiveness as to
other experiments induced him to terminate the Walden episode.
Now, in his own way, De Quincey was possibly the most inquisitive of all
the Vagabonds. The complete absence of the imperative mood in his
writings has moved certain moralists like Carlyle to impatience with him.
There is a fine moral tone about his disposition, but his writings are
engagingly unmoral (quite different, of course, from immoral). He has
called himself "an intellectual creature," and this happy epithet exactly
describes him. He collected facts, as an enthusiast collects curios, for
purposes of decoration. He observed them, analysed their features, but
almost always with a view to aesthetic comparisons.
And to understand De Quincey aright one must follow him in his
multitudinous excursions, not merely rest content with a few fragments of
"impassioned prose," and the avowedly autobiographic writings. For the
autobiography extends through the sixteen volumes of his works. The
writings, no doubt, vary in quality; in many, as in the criticism of
German and French writers, acute discernment and astounding prejudices
jostle one another. But this is no reason for turning impatiently away.
Indeed, it is an additional incentive to proceed, for they supply such
splendid psychological material for illustrating the temperament and
tastes of the writer. And this may confidently be said: There is
"fundamental brainwork" in every article that De Quincey has written.
V
What gives his works their especial attraction is not so much the
analytic faculty, interesting as it is, or the mystical turn of mind, as
in the piquant blend of the two. Thus, while he is poking fun at
Astrology or Witchcraft, we are conscious all the time that he retains a
sneaking fondness for the occult. He delights in dreams, omens, and
coincidences. He reminds one at times of the lecturer on
"Superstitions," who, in the midst of a brilliant analysis of its
futility and absurdity, was interrupted by a black cat walking on to the
platform, and was so disturbed by this portent that he brought his
lecture to an abrupt conclusion.
On the whole the Mystic trampled over the Logician. His poetic
imagination impresses his work with a rich inventiveness, while the
logical faculty, though subsidiary, is utilized for giving form and
substance to the visions.
It is curious to contrast the stateliness of De Quincey's literary style,
the elaborate full-dress manner, with the extreme simplicity of the man.
One might be tempted to add, surely here the style is _not_ the man. His
friends have testified that he was a gentle, timid, shrinking little man,
and abnormally sensitive to giving offence; and to those whom he cared
for--his family, for instance--he was the incarnation of affection and
tenderness.
Yet in the writings we see another side, a considerable sprinkle of
sturdy prejudices, no little self-assertion and pugnacity. But there is
no real disparity. The style is the man here as ever. When roused by
opposition he could even in converse show the claws beneath the velvet.
Only the militant, the more aggressive side of the man is expressed more
readily in his writings. And the gentle and amiable side more readily in
personal intimacy. Both the life and the writings are wanted to supply a
complete picture.
In one respect the records of his life efface a suspicion that haunts the
reader of his works. More than once the reader is apt to speculate as to
how far the arrogance that marks certain of his essays is a superficial
quality, a literary trick; how far a moral trait. The record of his
conversations tends to show that much of this was merely surface. Unlike
Coleridge, unlike Carlyle, he was as willing to listen as to talk; and he
said many of his best things with a delightful unconsciousness that they
were especially good. He never seemed to have the least wish to impress
people by his cleverness or aptness of speech.
But when all has been said as to the personality of the man as expressed
in his writings--especially his _Confessions_, and to his personality as
interpreted by friends and acquaintances--there remains a measure of
mystery about De Quincey. This is part of his fascination, just as it is
part of the fascination attaching to Coleridge. The frank confidences of
his _Confessions_ hide from view the inner ring of reserve, which gave a
strange impenetrability to his character, even to those who knew and
loved him best. A simple nature and a complex temperament.
Well, after all, such personalities are the most interesting of all, for
each time we greet them it is with a note of interrogation.
III
GEORGE BORROW
"The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise."