DE QUINCEY.--HIS DESCRIPTION OF MISS WORDSWORTH.--ALLAN BANK.
It was in the year 1807 that De Quincey was added to the number of the
literary friends of the Wordsworths. He has given an interesting account
of the way in which the acquaintanceship was first formed. He had,
indeed, been for some years an ardent admirer of the poet, and had had
some correspondence with him in 1803. The characteristic timidity of
this wayward genius is illustrated by the fact, that although De Quincey
had conceived an eager longing to form the personal acquaintance of
Wordsworth, and had been favoured with a standing invitation to visit
him, he allowed upwards of four years to pass without availing himself
of the privilege of the meeting, "for which, beyond all things under
heaven, he longed."
He has recorded how he had on two occasions taken a long journey with no
other object. On one of these occasions he had proceeded as far only as
Coniston--a distance from Grasmere of eight miles--when, his courage
failing him, he returned.
The second time he actually so far kept up his courage as to traverse
the distance between Coniston and the Vale of Grasmere, and came in
sight of the "little white cottage gleaming among trees," which was the
goal of his desire. After, however, he had caught "one hasty glimpse of
this loveliest of landscapes," he "retreated like a guilty thing." This
was in 1806. During the following year circumstances combined to bring
about the much desired meeting.
A short time after an introduction to Coleridge, in the summer of this
year, De Quincey learnt that Coleridge, who was engaged to lecture in
town, desired to send his family to Keswick, and he was glad to accept
De Quincey's offer to escort them. As Grasmere lay in their route, and
Mrs. Coleridge was a cherished friend of the Wordsworths, a call upon
them was the most natural thing, as was also an invitation to spend the
night, and resume their journey on the following day.
Describing the cottage, De Quincey says: "A little semi-vestibule
between two doors prefaces the entrance into what may be considered the
principal room. It was an oblong square, not above eight and a-half feet
high, sixteen feet long, and twelve feet broad; very prettily
wainscotted from the floor to the ceiling with dark-polished oak,
slightly embellished with carving. One window there was, a perfect and
unpretending cottage window, with little diamond panes, embowered at
almost every season of the year with roses, and, in the summer and
autumn, with a profusion of jasmine, and other fragrant shrubs."
After a description of Mrs. Wordsworth, as before alluded to, he follows
with a most interesting account of the appearance of Miss Wordsworth:
"Immediately behind her moved a lady shorter, slighter, and, perhaps,
in all other respects, as different from her in personal
characteristics, as could have been wished for the most effective
contrast. Her face was of Egyptian brown; rarely in a woman of English
birth had I seen a more determinate Gipsy tan. Her eyes were not soft,
as Mrs. Wordsworth's, nor were they fierce or bold; but they were wild
and startling, and hurried in their motion. Her manner was warm, and
even ardent; her sensibility seemed constitutionally deep; and some
subtle fire of impassioned intellect apparently burned within her,
which, being alternately pushed forward into a conspicuous expression,
by the irrepressible instincts of her temperament, and then immediately
checked, in obedience to the decorum of her sex and age, and her
maidenly condition, gave to her whole demeanour, and to her
conversation, an air of embarrassment, and even of self-conflict, that
was almost distressing to witness. Even her very utterance and
enunciation often suffered in point of clearness and steadiness from the
agitation of her excessive organic sensibility. At times the
self-counteraction and self-baffling of her feelings caused her even to
stammer, and so determinately to stammer, that a stranger who should
have seen her, and quitted her in that state of feeling, would certainly
have set her down for one plagued with that infirmity of speech as
distressingly as Charles Lamb himself. This was Miss Wordsworth, the
only sister of the poet--his 'Dorothy,' who naturally owed so much to
the life-long intercourse with her great brother, in his most solitary
and sequestered years; but, on the other hand, to whom he has
acknowledged obligations of the profoundest nature; and, in particular,
this mighty one, through which we also, the admirers and worshippers of
this great poet, are become equally her debtors--that whereas the
intellect of Wordsworth was, by its original tendency, too stern, too
austere, too much enamoured of an ascetic harsh sublimity, she it
was,--the lady who paced by his side continually through sylvan and
mountain tracts--in Highland glens and in the dim recesses of German
charcoal burners--that first _couched_ his eye to the sense of beauty,
humanised him by the gentler charities, and engrafted with her delicate
female touch those graces upon the ruder growths of his nature, which
have since clothed the forest of his genius with a foliage corresponding
in loveliness and beauty to the strength of its boughs and the massiness
of its trunks. The greatest deductions from Miss Wordsworth's
attractions, and from the exceeding interest which surrounded her in
right of her character, of her history, and of the relation which she
fulfilled towards her brother, were the glancing quickness of her
motions, and other circumstances in her deportment (such as her stooping
attitude when walking) which gave an ungraceful, and even unsexual,
character to her appearance when out of doors. She did not cultivate the
graces which preside over the person and its carriage. But, on the other
hand, she was a person of very remarkable endowments, intellectually;
and, in addition to the other great services which she rendered to her
brother, this I may mention as greater than all the rest, and it was one
which equally operated to the benefit of every casual companion in a
walk--viz., the exceeding sympathy, always ready and always profound,
by which she made all that one could tell her, all that one could
describe, all that one could quote from a foreign author, reverberate,
as it were, _à plusieurs reprises_, to one's own feelings, by the
manifest impression it made upon _hers_. The pulses of light are not
more quick or more inevitable in their flow and undulation than were the
answering and echoing movements of her sympathising attention. Her
knowledge of literature was irregular and thoroughly unsystematic. She
was content to be ignorant of many things; but what she knew and had
really mastered lay where it could not be disturbed--in the temple of
her own most fervid heart."
Proceeding to compare his impressions of the two ladies he adds:--"Miss
Wordsworth had seen more of life, and even of good company; for she had
lived, when quite a girl, under the protection of Dr. Cookson, a near
relative, Canon of Windsor, and a personal favourite of the Royal
family, especially of George III. Consequently she ought to have been
the more polished of the two; and yet, from greater natural aptitudes
for refinement of manner in her sister-in-law, and partly, perhaps, from
her more quiet and subdued manner, Mrs. Wordsworth would have been
pronounced very much the more lady-like person."
De Quincey excuses the large latitude used in his descriptions on the
ground of "the interest which attaches to any one so nearly connected
with a great poet," and the repetition of them is, perhaps, to be
justified only for the same reason.
In further allusion to Miss Wordsworth he says:--"Miss Wordsworth was
too ardent and fiery a creature to maintain the reserve essential to
dignity; and dignity was the last thing one thought of in the presence
of one so natural, so fervent in her feelings, and so embarrassed in
their utterance--sometimes, also, in the attempt to check them. It must
not, however, be supposed, that there was any silliness, or weakness of
enthusiasm, about her. She was under the continual restraint of severe
good sense, though liberated from that false shame which, in so many
persons, accompanies all expressions of natural emotion; and she had too
long enjoyed the ennobling conversation of her brother, and his
admirable comments on the poets, which they read in common, to fail in
any essential point of logic or propriety of thought. Accordingly, her
letters, though the most careless and unelaborate--nay, the most hearty
that can be imagined--are models of good sense and just feeling. In
short, beyond any person I have known in this world, Miss Wordsworth was
the creature of impulse; but, as a woman most thoroughly virtuous and
well principled, as one who could not fail to be kept right by her own
excellent heart, and as an intellectual creature from her cradle, with
much of her illustrious brother's peculiarity of mind--finally as one
who had been, in effect, educated and trained by that very brother--she
won the sympathy and respectful regard of every man worthy to approach
her."
De Quincey subsequently relates how he was entertained for the night in
the best bedroom of the poet's home, and on the following morning
discovered Miss Wordsworth preparing the breakfast in the little
sitting-room. He adds:--"On the third morning the whole family, except
the two children, prepared for the expedition across the mountains. I
had heard of no horses, and took it for granted that we were to walk;
however, at the moment of starting, a cart--the common farmer's cart of
the country--made its appearance; and the driver was a bonny young woman
of the vale. Accordingly, we were carted along to the little town, or
village, of Ambleside--three and a half miles distant. Our style of
travelling occasioned no astonishment; on the contrary, we met a smiling
salutation wherever we appeared--Miss Wordsworth being, as I observed,
the person the most familiarly known of our party, and the one who took
upon herself the whole expenses of the flying colloquies exchanged with
stragglers on the road."
Although the little home at Town End is so closely identified with
Wordsworth as being his residence in his poetic prime he this year
(1807) found it necessary, in consequence of his increasing family, to
remove to a larger house. He went to Allan Bank, about a mile distant,
and remained there four years. This residence is not nearly so closely
connected with the memory of the Wordsworths as either Dove Cottage or
Rydal Mount. The time was not, however, by any means an unproductive
one, for here he composed the greater part of the "Excursion," the whole
of which poem is said to have been transcribed by his faithful and
industrious sister. It is interesting to know that the now historic
cottage, which is possessed of such a charm as the first mountain home
of Miss Wordsworth in this district, was afterwards for some years the
residence of De Quincey himself. After his first visit, of which he has
given such a graphic account, it appears that he paid another towards
the end of 1808; and that he then enjoyed the hospitality of the
Wordsworths until the February following, when, having assisted during a
stay in London in the correction in its progress through the press of
Wordsworth's pamphlet, "The Convention of Cintra," he formed the project
of settling in Grasmere. Writing to him Miss Wordsworth says:--"Soon you
must have rest, and we shall all be thankful. You have indeed been a
treasure to us while you have been in London, having spared my brother
so much anxiety and care. We are very grateful to you."
Whatever service De Quincey rendered to Wordsworth in assisting in the
publication of "The Convention of Cintra" was much more than repaid in
the active kindness of Miss Wordsworth herself, who, was for some months
engaged in preparing the cottage at Town End for its new resident. It
was, indeed, no small service for her to undertake the multifarious and
exhausting duties in connection with the furnishing and fitting up of a
home; and shows not only her unflagging activity and energy, but also
her sound sense and excellent judgment. As an instance of her thoughtful
economy on the occasion may be mentioned her reason for choosing
mahogany for book shelves instead of deal, for she says:--"Native woods
are dear; and that in case De Quincey should leave the country and have
a sale, no sort of wood sells so well at second-hand as mahogany." To
Miss Wordsworth was also entrusted the duty of engaging a housekeeper
for De Quincey.
The frequent allusions in these pages to De Quincey, and his close
association for some years with the Wordsworths, render it necessary
that some further reference should be made to his subsequent connection
with Grasmere. The following is a description given by him of his own
life in 1812:--
"And what am I doing among the mountains? Taking opium. Yes; but what
else? Why, reader, in 1812, the year we are now arrived at, as well as
for some years previous, I have been chiefly studying German
metaphysics, as the writings of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, &c. And how,
and in what manner do I live? In short, what class or description of men
do I belong to? I am at this period,--viz., in 1812,--living in a
cottage; and with a single female servant, who, amongst my neighbours,
passes by the name of my 'housekeeper.' And, as a scholar and a man of
learned education, I may presume to class myself as an unworthy member
of that indefinite body called _gentlemen_. Partly on the ground I have
assigned,--partly because, from having no visible calling or business,
it is rightly judged that I must be living on my private fortune,--I am
so classed by my neighbours; and by the courtesy of modern England, I am
usually addressed on letters, &c., _Esquire_.... Am I married? Not yet.
And I still take opium? On Saturday nights.... And how do I find my
health after all this opium-eating? In short, how do I do? Why, pretty
well, I thank you, reader. In fact, if I dared to say the simple truth
(though, in order to satisfy the theories of some medical men, I ought
to be ill), I was never better in my life than in the spring of 1812;
and I hope, sincerely, that the quantity of claret, port, or 'London
particular Madeira,' which, in all probability, you, good reader, have
taken, and design to take, for every term of eight years during your
natural life, may as little disorder your health as mine was disordered
by all the opium I had taken (though in quantity such that I might well
have bathed and swum in it) for the eight years between 1804 and 1812."
In 1816 De Quincey married a young woman named Margaret Simpson, the
daughter of a farmer living in a cottage under Nab Scar, not far from
his own at Town End, who became devoted to his interests. He continued
to reside partly at Grasmere until the year 1830, although his literary
duties necessitated his being much at London and Edinburgh. It was in
1821 that his now famous "Confessions of an Opium Eater" began to appear
in the pages of the _London Magazine_. Afterwards his connection with
Blackwood took him a good deal to Edinburgh. Although he and his wife
did not like the idea of quitting altogether the peaceful vale where she
had been reared, it became evident that it was undesirable to keep up
two houses, leaving his wife and children so much alone at Grasmere. The
following extract from a letter written by Miss Wordsworth to him in
November of this year shows her warm interest in him and his family, and
her readiness to give well-timed sympathy and aid. After alluding to a
visit paid by her to Mrs. De Quincey, and the health of the children,
she says:--"Mrs. De Quincey seemed, on the whole, in very good spirits;
but, with something of sadness in her manner, she told me you were not
likely very soon to be at home. She then said that you had, at present,
some literary employments at Edinburgh, and had, besides, an offer (or
something to this effect) of a permanent engagement, the nature of which
she did not know, but that you hesitated about accepting it, as it might
necessitate you to settle in Edinburgh. To this I replied, 'Why not
settle there, for the time, at least, that this engagement lasts?
Lodgings are cheap at Edinburgh, and provisions and coals not dear. Of
this fact I had some weeks' experience four years ago.' I then added
that it was my firm opinion that you could never regularly keep up your
engagements at a distance from the press, and, said I, 'pray tell him so
when you write.' She replied, 'do write yourself.' Now I could not
refuse to give her pleasure by so doing, especially being assured that
my letter would not be wholly worthless to you, having such agreeable
news to send of your family."
This excellent advice was soon afterwards acted upon, and Edinburgh
became the scene of De Quincey's further life and labours. Here he died
on the 8th of December, 1859, aged 74 years.