THOMAS DE QUINCEY.

In the notice of so memorable a man, even the briefest prelusive

flourish seems uncalled for; and so indeed it would be, if by such means

it were meant simply to justify the undertaking. In regard to any of the

great powers in literature there exists already a prevailing interest,

which cannot be presumed to slumber for one moment in any thinking

mind.[A] By way of notification, there is no need of prelude. Yet there

are occasions, as, for example, the entrances of kings, which absolutely

demand the inaugural flourish of arms,--which, like the rosy flood of

dawn, require to be ushered in by a train of twilight glories. And there

are lives which proceed as by the movements of music,--which, must

therefore be heralded by overtures: majestic steppings, heard in the

background, compel us, through mere sympathy with their pomp of

procession, to sound the note of preparation.

[Footnote A: "_In any thinking mind_." Yet it must be confessed that

there _does_ exist a woful ignorance or negligence concerning De Quincey

in quarters from which better things might be expected. Misappreciation

it cannot be called, where no trouble has been taken to estimate claims

that needed only to be weighed to be truly valued. Up to this time,

there has never been published in England a single essay on the life or

the genius of De Quincey that indicated even a good acquaintance, on the

part of the writer, with that author's works; and in such a case, of

course, not much could be looked for in the way of just interpretation.

Gilfillan did him gross injustice: indeed, from what he condescended to

say of the man, it would be difficult to conjecture that a greater than

Gilfillan was there. And, will the reader believe it? in Professor

Craik's "English Literature"--a work of great excellence--the name of De

Quincey is not mentioned! "Sam Johnson," says Craik, "was the last king

that sat upon the throne of English prose literature." Let it be that

Sam was a proper king; yet it is just as true that De Quincey was

legitimately his successor. First, in the matter of time: Sam died in

1784, and De Quincey was born in 1785, just in time to continue the

regal line. What was it, again, that entitled Johnson to kingly honors?

Was it learning? De Quincey was as erudite. Was it his style? There is

no writer in the language who in that matter may look down on De

Quincey.

If there ever was a writer "damned with faint praise," it was De

Quincey. Some stupid writer for the London "Athenæum," for instance,

dared to compliment the poor "opium-chewer" after the following

style:--"He possessed taste, but _he lacked creative energy_; and his

subtle and highly refined intellect was ingenious and acute rather than

powerful." This reminds me of a criticism once passed upon Shakspeare by

a mere pedagogue, to the effect that the great poet had considerable

genius, but very little taste!]

Else I should plunge _in medias res_ upon a sketch of De Quincey's life;

were it not a rudeness amounting to downright profanity to omit the

important ceremony of prelibation, and that at a banquet to which,

implicitly, gods are invited. The reader will assuredly unite with me in

all such courtesies,--

"Neu desint epulis rosæ";

particularly as the shade we deal with can be evoked only by peculiar

incantations,--only the heralding of certain precise claims will this

monarch listen to as the just _inferiæ_, the fitting sacrifice or

hecatomb of our homage.

The key-note of preparation, the claim which preëminently should be set

forth in advance, is this: that De Quincey was the prince of

hierophants, or of pontifical hierarchs, as regards all those profound

mysteries which from the beginning have swayed the human heart,

sometimes through the light of angelic smiles lifting it upwards to an

altitude just beneath the heavens, and sometimes shattering it, with the

shock of quaking anguish, down to earth. As it was the function of the

hierophant, in the Grecian mysteries, to show the sacred symbols as

concrete incarnations of faith, so was it De Quincey's to reveal in open

light the everlasting symbols, universally intelligible when once

disclosed, which are folded in the involutions of dreams and of those

meditations which most resemble dreams; and as to the manner of these

revelations, no Roman _pontifex maximus_, were it even Cæsar himself,

could have rivalled their magisterial pomp.

The peculiarities of his life all point in the direction here indicated.

It was his remarkable experience which furnished him the key to certain

secret recesses of human nature hitherto sealed up in darkness. Along

that border-line by which the glimmerings of consciousness are, as by

the thinnest, yet the most impervious veil, separated from the regions

of the unexplored and the undefinable, De Quincey walked familiarly and

with privileged eye and ear. Many a nebulous mass of hieroglyphically

inscribed meanings did he--this Champollion, defying all human enigmas,

this Herschel, or Lord Rosse, forever peering into the obscure chasms

and yawning abysses of human astronomy--resolve into orderly

constellations, that, once and for all, through his telescopic

interpretation and enlargement, were rendered distinct and commensurable

amongst men. The conditions of his power in this respect are

psychologically inseparable from the remarkable conditions of his life,

two of which are especially to be noticed. First, a ruling disposition

towards meditation, constituting him, in the highest sense of the word,

a poet. Secondly, the peculiar qualities which this singular mental

constitution derived from his use of opium,--qualities which, although

they did not increase, or even give direction to his meditative power,

at least magnified it, both optically, as to its visual capacity, and

creatively, as to its constructive faculty. These two conditions, each

concurrent with the other in its ruling influence, impart to his life a

degree of psychological interest which belongs to no other on record.

Nor is this all. The reader knows how often a secondary interest will

attach to the mightiest of conquerors or to the wisest of sovereigns,

who is not merely in himself, and through his own deeds, magnificent,

but whose glory is many times repeated and piled up by numerous

reverberations of itself from a contemporary race of Titans. Thus,

doubtless, Charles V., although himself King of Spain, Germany, the

Netherlands, and a portion of Italy, gloried in the sublime empery of

the Turkish Solyman, as by some subtile connection of fate sympathetic

with his own. A secondary interest of this nature belongs to the life of

De Quincey,--a life which inclosed, as an island, a whole period of

English literature, one, too, which in activity and originality is

unsurpassed by any other, including the names of Scott and Dickens, of

Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, and Southey, of Moore, Byron, Shelley, and

Keats. His connection with very many of these was not simply that of

coëxistence, but also of familiar intercourse.

Between De Quincey's life and his writings it is impossible that there

should be any distraction of interest, so intimately are the two

interwoven: in this case more so than in that of any known author.

Particularly is this true of his more impassioned writings, which are a

faithful rescript of his all-impassioned life. Hierophant we have called

him,--the prince of hierophants,--having reference to the matter of his

revelations; but in his _manner_, in his style of composition, he is

something more than this: here he stands the _monarch_ amongst

rhapsodists. In these writings are displayed the main peculiarities of

his life and genius.

But, besides these, there is a large section of his works, the aim of

which is purely intellectual, where feeling is not at all involved; and

surely there is not, in either ancient or modern literature, a section

which, in the same amount of space, exhibits the same degree of intense

activity on the part of the analytic understanding, applied to the

illustration of truth or to the solution of vexed problems. This latter

class is the more remarkable from its polar antithesis to the former;

just as, in his life, it is a most remarkable characteristic of the man,

that, rising above all other men through the rhapsodies of dreams, he

should yet be able truly to say of himself that he had devoted a greater

number of hours to intellectual pursuits than any other man whom he had

seen, heard of, or read of. A wider range is thus exhibited, not of

thought merely, but also of the possible modes of expressing thought,

than is elsewhere to be found, even in writers the most skilled in

rhetorical subtilty. The distance between these two opposites De Quincey

does not traverse by violent leaps; he does not by some feat of

legerdemain evanish from the fields of impassioned eloquence, where he

is an unrivalled master, to appear forthwith in those of intellectual

gymnastics, where, at least, he is not surpassed. He is familiar with

every one of the intervening stages between the rhapsody and the

demonstration,--between the loftiest reach of aspirant passion, from

which, with reptile instinct, the understanding slinks downwards to the

earth, and that fierce antagonism of naked thoughts, where the crested

serpent "mounts and burns." His alchemy is infinite, combining light

with warmth in all degrees,--in pathos, in humor,[A] in genial

illumination. Let the reader, if he can, imagine Rousseau to have

written "Dinner, Real and Reputed," or the paper on "The Essenes," in

both of which great erudition is necessary, but in which erudition is as

nothing when compared to the faculty of recombining into novel forms

what previously had been so grouped as to be misunderstood, or had

lacked just the one element necessary for introducing order. To have

written these would have entitled Rousseau to a separate sceptre. Or,

moving into a realm of art totally distinct from this, suppose him to

have been the author of "Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts":

that would mount a new plume in Rousseau's hat. But I happen just now to

be reminded of another little paper, numbering about six pages,

entitled, "On the Knocking at the Gate, in Macbeth": give him _that_,

too. Why, the little French king is beginning to assume an imperial

consequence! We beg the reader's pardon for indulging in comparisons of

this nature, which are always disagreeable; but we have this excuse,

that the two writers are often mentioned as on the same level, and with

no appreciation of that unlimited range of power which belongs to De

Quincey, but not at all to Rousseau. All but one of the trophies which

we have hypothetically transferred to the Frenchman adorn a single

volume out of twenty-two, in the Boston edition. Nor is this one

imperial column adorned by these alone: there are, besides,--alas for

Rousseau!--two other _spolia opima_ by which the French master is, in

his own field, proved not the first, nor even the second,--_proximus,

sed non secundus_,--so wide is the distance between De Quincey and _any_

other antagonist. These two are the essays respectively entitled, "Joan

of Arc," and "The English Mail-Coach."

[Footnote A: Of De Quincey's humor, a friend once remarked to me, that

it always reminded him of an elephant attempting to dance. Now, without

any doubt, an elephant could dance after an elephantine fashion; but

surely you would never catch him going through the movements of a jig or

a Virginia "breakdown." He never lets you forget that he is an elephant.

So with De Quincey. Levity is an element farthest removed from _his_

humor; in fact, whenever he allows himself to indulge in humor at all,

you may be sure that murder is going on somewhere in the vicinity, a

tragedy of pretty frequent occurrence in De Quincey's works.

There was sufficient humor in De Quincey to have endowed a dozen

Aristophaneses. There was something, too, in its order, by which it

resembled the gigantesque features of the old Greek master. I will

illustrate my meaning by a single instance from each. In Aristophanes's

"Clouds," Strepsiades is being initiated into the Socratic

_Phrontisterium_, and in the course of the ceremony Socrates directs his

pupil's attention to the moon for certain mysterious purposes. But the

moon only reminds Strepsy of numerous imperturbable duns that storm

about his ears with lunar exactness, (literally so, since the Greeks

paid, or refused to pay, regularly on the last day of the month,)--and

here it is that the opportunity is offered for a monstrous stroke of

humor; for, at this crisis, Strepsy is made to exclaim, "Some magic is

it, O Socrates, about the moon? Well! since you are up to that sort of

thing, what do you say, now, to a spell by which I could snap the old

monster out of her course for a generation or so?" Now for the parallel

case from De Quincey. It is from his paper on "California," a

politico-economical treatise. The author's object is to illustrate the

fact that scarcity of gold is not due to its non-existence, but to the

difficulty of obtaining it. "Emeralds and sapphires," says he, "are

lying at this moment in a place which I could indicate, and no policeman

is on duty in the whole neighborhood to hinder me or the reader from

pocketing as many as we please. We are also at perfect liberty to pocket

the anchors of Her Majesty's ship the Victoria, (one hundred and twenty

guns,) and to sell them for old iron. Pocket them by all means, and I

engage that the magistrate sitting at the Thames police-office will have

too much respect for your powers to think of detaining you. If he does,

your course is to pocket the police-office, and all which it inherits.

The man that pockets an anchor may be a dangerous customer, but not a

customer to be sneezed at." This strikes us as very similar to

Strepsiades's bagging the moon.]

It is impossible to be exhaustive upon such a subject as that which I

have undertaken. I shall select, therefore, two prominent centres, about

which the thoughts which I wish to present naturally revolve: De

Quincey's childhood, and his opium-experiences.

Thomas de Quincey--hierophant, rhapsodist, philosopher--was born at

Greenhay, then a suburb of Manchester, in Lancashire County, England, on

the 15th of August, 1785. According to his own account, the family of

the De Quinceys was of Norwegian origin; and after its transfer to

France, in connection with William the Norman, it received its

territorial appellation from the village of Quincy, in Normandy. Thence,

at the time of the Norman Invasion, it was transplanted to England,

where, as afterwards in Scotland, it rose to the highest position, not

merely in connection with a lordly title and princely estates, but

chiefly on account of valuable services rendered to the State, and

conferring preeminence in baronial privilege and consideration.

So sensitive was De Quincey, even at the early age of fifteen, on the

point of his descent, lest from his name he might be supposed of French

extraction, that, even into the ears of George III. (that king having,

in an accidental interview with him at Frogmore, suggested the

possibility of his family having come to England at the time of the

Huguenot exodus from France) he ventured to breathe the most earnest

protest against any supposition of that nature, and boldly insisted upon

his purely Norman blood,--blood that in the baronial wars had helped to

establish the earliest basis of English constitutional liberty, and that

had flowed from knightly veins in the wars of the Crusades. Robert De

Quincey came into England with William the Conqueror, uniting with whose

fortunes, he fared after the Conquest as a feudal baron, founding the

line of Winchester; and that he was a baron of the first water is

evident from the statement of Gerard Leigh,--that his armorial device

was inscribed (and how inscribed, if not memorially and as a mark of

eminent distinction?) on the stained glass in the old church of St.

Paul's.

And here it is proper that the reader's attention should be momentarily

diverted to the American branch of this family, at the head of which

stands the Hon. Josiah Quincy, (the aristocratic _De_ being omitted,)--a

branch which fled from England in the early part of the seventeenth

century, to avoid a strife which had then become too intense and fiery

to admit of reconciliation, and which, indeed, a few years after their

withdrawal, culminated in civil war. As illustrating the inevitableness

of any great moral issue, no matter how vast the distance which at a

critical moment we may put between it and ourselves,--as indicating how

surely the Nemesis, seemingly avoided, but really only postponed, will

continue to track our flying footsteps, even across the barren wastes of

ocean, that ought, if anything could, to interpose an effectual barrier

between us and all pursuers, and, having caught up with us in our

fancied retreat, will precipitate upon our devoted heads its

accumulated violence,--as demonstrating thus the melancholy persistence

with which that ugly Sphinx who impersonates Justice in our human

affairs doggedly insists on having her questions answered, and, coming

by a circuitous route upon those who by good luck have escaped her

direct path, through an incarnation of unusual terror compels her dread

alternative,--it is interesting to note how this same family, separated

by over seven generations from one political revolution, the momentous

crisis of which was by them successfully evaded, are now, after an

interval of unsound and hollow peace, compelled to witness the precise

reiteration of that storm, in the very land to which they fled for

refuge,--a reiteration that repeats, only on a different stage, and

under an aggravation of horror as to minute details, not merely two

antagonistic races corresponding on either side to those which met in

battle on Marston Moor, but also interests far outweighing any that

could possibly attach to a conflict between royalty and democracy.

But the Earls of Winchester, in England, whatever may have been their

prosperity during the nine or ten generations after the Conquest, came

suddenly to an abrupt termination, abutting at length on some guilty

traitor in the line, who, like a special Adam for the family, involved

in his own ruin that prosperity which would else have continued to his

successors. The dissevered fragments of the old feudal estate, however,

remained in possession of separate members of the family, as De Quincey

tells us, until the generation next preceding his own, when the last

vestige slipped out of the hands of the one sole squire who, together

with the name, held also some relic of its ancient belongings. But above

the diluvial wreck of the Winchester estates there has arisen an estate

far more royal and magnificent, and beneath a far-reaching bow of

promise, sealed in magical security against a similar disaster. For just

here, where every hold is lost upon the original heritage, is the family

freshly grounded upon a second heritage,--one sublime in its order above

that of all earthly possessions, one that is forever

imperishable,--namely, the large domain which the gigantic intellect of

Thomas De Quincey has absolved from aboriginal darkness and brought

under distinct illumination for all time to come. These are the vast

acres over which human pride must henceforth soar,--acres that have

been, through the mighty realizations of human genius, built out into

the mysterious ocean-depths of chaotic Nature, and that have in some

measure bridged over infinite chasms in thought, and by just so far have

extended the fluctuating boundaries of human empire. And for De Quincey

himself, in view of that monumental structure which rises above the

shattered wrecks of his poor, frail body, as above the mummied dust of

Egyptian kings remain eternally the pyramids which they wrought in their

lifetime, we find it impossible to cherish a single regret, that,

possibly, by the treasonable slip of a predecessor, he may have been

robbed of an earldom,--or even that, during a life which by some years

overlapped the average allotment to humanity, and through which were

daily accumulating the most splendid results in the very highest

departments of philosophy and art, these accumulations nevertheless went

on without any notable recognition from a court the most liberal in all

Europe; no badge of outward knighthood coming to him through all these

years, as formerly to Sir Thomas Browne for his subtile meditations, and

to Sir William Hamilton for his philosophic speculations. The absence of

such merely _nominal_ titles excites in us no deep regret; there is in

them little that is monumental, and the pretty tinsel, with which they

gild monuments already based on substantial worth, is easily, and

without a sigh, exchanged for that everlasting sunshine reflected from

the loving remembrances of human hearts.

But at the same time that we so willingly dispense with these nominal

conditions in the case of De Quincey,--though, assuredly, there was

never a man upon earth whom these conditions, considered as aërial

hieroglyphs of the most regal pomp and magnificence, would more

consistently fit,--we cannot thus easily set aside those other outward

conditions of affluence and respectability, which, by their presence or

absence, so materially shape and mould the life, and particularly in its

earliest tendencies and impulses,--in that season of immature

preparation when the channels of habit are in the process of formation,

and while yet a marvellous uncertainty hangs and broods over the

beginnings of life, as over the infant rivulet yet dandled and tended by

its mountain-nurses. For, although there are certain elements which

rigidly and by a foreseen certainty determine its course, as, for

instance, an extraordinary vantage-height of source, securing for it the

force and swiftness of a torrent,--yet how shifting are the

mountain-winds, chilling into frosty silence or quickening with Favonian

warmth, and how shifting the flying clouds, which, whether marshalled in

mimic tournament above it, or in the shock of a real conflict, forever

sway its tender fountains! Thus, even in inexperienced childhood, do the

scales of the individual destiny begin, favorably or unfavorably, to

determine their future preponderations, by reason of influences merely

material, and before, indeed, any sovereignty save a corporeal one (in

conjunction with heavenly powers) is at all recognized in life. For, in

this period, with which above all others we associate influences the

most divine, "with trailing clouds of glory," those influences which are

purely material are the most efficiently operative. Against the former,

adult man, in whom reason is developed, _may_ battle, though ignobly,

and, for himself, ruinously; and against the latter oftentimes he _must_

struggle, to escape ignominious shipwreck. But the child, helpless alike

for both these conflicts, is, through the very ignorance which shields

him from all conscious guilt, bound over in the most impotent (though,

because impotent and unconscious, the least humiliating) slavery to

material circumstance,--a slavery which he cannot escape, and which,

during the period of its absolutism, absorbs his very blood, bone, and

nerve. To poverty, which the strong man resists, the child succumbs; on

the other hand, that affluence of comfort, from which philosophy often

weans the adult, wraps childhood about with a sheltering care; and

fortunate indeed it is, if the mastery of Nature over us during our

first years is thus a gentle dealing with us, fertilizing our powers

with the rich juices of an earthly prosperity. And in this respect De

Quincey _was_ eminently fortunate. The powers of heaven and of earth

and--if we side with Milton and _other_ pagan mythologists in

attributing the gift of wealth to some Plutonian dynasty--the dark

powers _under_ the earth seem to have conjointly arrayed themselves in

his behalf. Whatever storms were in the book of Fate written against his

name they postponed till a far-off future, in the mean time granting him

the happiest of all childhoods. Really of gentle blood, and thus gaining

whatever substantial benefits in constitutional temperament and

susceptibilities _could_ be thence derived, although lacking, as Pope

also had lacked, the factitious circumstance and airy heralding of this

distinction, he was, in addition to this, surrounded by elements of

aristocratic refinement and luxury, and thus hedged in not merely

against the assault, in any form, of pinching poverty, (as would be any

one in tolerably comfortable circumstances,) but even against the most

trivial hint of possible want,--against all necessity of limitation or

retrenchment in any normal line of expenditure.

He was the son of a merchant, who, at the early age of thirty-nine,

died, leaving to his family--a wife and six children--an estate yielding

annually an income of sixteen hundred pounds. And as at his father's

death De Quincey was seven years old, we may reasonably infer, that,

during this previous period, while his father was still living, and

adding to this fixed a fluctuating income from his yearly gains, (which

to a wholesale merchant of his standing were considerable,) the

family-fortunes were even more auspicious, amounting to the yearly

realization of between two and three thousand pounds, and that at a time

when Napoleon had not as yet meddled with the financial affairs of

Europe, nor by his intimidations caused even pounds and shillings to

shrink into less worth and significance than they formerly had,--in view

of which fact, if we are to charge Alexander the Great (as in a famous

anecdote he was charged) with the crime of highway-robbery, as the

"snapper-up of unconsidered trifles" in the way of crowns and a few

dozen sceptres, what a heinous charge must be brought against this

Corsican as universal pickpocket! This pecuniary depreciation De Quincey

himself realized some years later, when, determining to quit school, he

thought himself compelled[A] to cut off all communication with his

guardians, and gave himself up to a Bohemian life among the Welsh

mountains, wandering from one rustic valley to another with the most

scanty means of support,--for just then the Allies were in full rig

against France, and the shrinkage of guineas in our young wanderer's

pocket became palpably evident in view of the increased price of his

dinner.

[Footnote A: But afterwards he discovered his mistake, and that it was

only by the lack on his part of that frankness which the kindness of his

guardians deserved that he had brought so much misery upon himself in

after-life. His younger brother, Richard,--the Pink of the

"Autobiographic Sketches,"--made the same mistake, a mistake which in

his case was never rectified, but led to a life of perilous wanderings

and adventures.]

The time _did_ come at length when the full epos of a remarkable

prosperity was closed up and sealed for De Quincey. But that was in the

unseen future. To the child it was not permitted to look beyond the hazy

lines that bounded his oasis of flowers into the fruitless waste abroad.

Poverty, want, at least so great as to compel the daily exercise of his

mind for mercenary ends, was stealthily advancing from the rear; but the

sound of its stern steppings was wholly muffled by intervening years of

luxurious opulence and ease.

I dwell thus at length upon the aristocratic elegance of De Quincey's

earliest surroundings, (which, coming at a later period, I should notice

merely as an accident,) because, although not a _potential_ element,

capable of producing or of adding one single iota to the essential

character of genius, it is yet a negative condition--a _sine qua

non_--to the displays of genius in certain directions and under certain

aspects. By misfortune it is true that power may be intensified. So may

it by the baptism of malice. But, given a certain degree of power, there

still remains a question as to its _kind_. So deep is the sky: but of

what _hue_, of what aspect? Wine is strong, and so is the crude alcohol

but what the _mellowness_? And the blood in our veins, it is an infinite

force: but of what temper? Is it warm, or is it cold? Does it minister

to Moloch, or to Apollo? Will it shape the Madonna face, or the Medusa?

Why, the simple fact that the rich blue sky over-arches this earth of

ours, or that it is warm blood which flows in our veins, is sufficient

to prove that no malignant Ahriman made the world. Just here the

question is not, what increment or what momentum genius may receive from

outward circumstances, but what coloring, what mood. Here it is that a

Mozart differs from a Mendelssohn. The important difference which

obtains, in this respect, between great powers in literature, otherwise

coördinate, will receive illustration from a comparison between De

Quincey and Byron. For both these writers were capable, in a degree

rarely equalled in any literature, of reproducing, or rather, we should

say, of reconstructing, the pomp of Nature and of human life. In this

general office they stand together: both wear, in our eyes, the regal

purple; both have caused to rise between earth and heaven miracles of

grandeur, such as never Cheops wrought through his myriad slaves, or

Solomon with his fabled ring. But in the final result, as in the whole

_modus operandi_, of their architecture, they stand apart _toto coelo_.

Byron builds a structure that repeats certain elements in Nature or

humanity; but they are those elements only which are allied to gloom,

for he builds in suspicion and distrust, and upon the basis of a

cynicism that has been nurtured in his very flesh and blood from birth;

he erects a Pisa-like tower which overhangs and threatens all human

hopes and all that is beautiful in human love. Who else, save this

archangelic intellect, shut out by a mighty shadow of eclipse from the

bright hopes and warm affections of all sunny hearts, could have

originated such a Pandemonian monster as the poem on "Darkness"? The

most striking specimen of Byron's imaginative power, and nearly the most

striking that has ever been produced, is the apostrophe to the sea, in

"Childe Harold." But what is it in the sea which affects Lord Byron's

susceptibilities to grandeur? Its destructiveness alone. And _how_? Is

it through any high moral purpose or meaning that seems to sway the

movements of destruction? No; it is only through the gloomy mystery of

the ruin itself,--ruin revealed upon a scale so vast and under

conditions of terror the most appalling,--ruin wrought under the

semblance of an almighty passion for revenge directed against the human

race. Thus, as an expression of the attitude which the sea maintains

toward man, we have the following passage of Æschylian grandeur, but

also of Æschylian gloom:--

"Thou dost arise

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields

For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,

And send'st him, shivering in thy _playful_ spray,

And howling, to his gods, where haply lies

His petty hope in some near port or bay,

And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay!"

Who but this dark spirit, forever wooing the powers of darkness, and of

darkness the most sullen, praying to Nemesis alone, could, with such

lamentable lack of faith in the purity and soundness of human

affections, have given utterance to a sentiment like this:--

"O love! no habitant of earth thou art,--

An _unseen_ seraph we believe in thee"?

or the following:--

"Who loves, raves,--'tis youth's frenzy," etc.?

and again:--

"Few--_none_--find what they love or could have loved,

Though accident, blind contact, and the strong

Necessity of loving having removed

Antipathies"?

This, then, is the nearest approach to human love,--the removal of all

antipathies! But even these

"recur erelong,

Envenomed with irrevocable wrong:

And circumstance--that unspiritual god

And miscreator--makes and helps along

Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod,

Whose touch turns hope to dust,--the dust which all have trod."

De Quincey, on the other hand, in whose heart there was laid no such

hollow basis for infidelity toward the master-passions of humanity,

repeated the pomps of joy or of sorrow, as evolved out of universal

human nature, and as, through sunshine and tempest, typified in the

outside world,--but never for one instant did he seek alliance, on the

one side, with the shallow enthusiasm of the raving Bacchante, or, on

the other, with the overshadowing despotism of gloom; nor can there be

found on a single page of all his writings the slightest hint indicating

even a latent sympathy with the power which builds only to crush, or

with the intellect that denies, and that against the dearest objects of

human faith fulminates its denials and shocking recantations solely for

the purposes of scorn.

Whence this marked difference? To account for it, we must needs trace

back to the first haunts of childhood the steps of these two fugitives,

each of whom has passed thence, the one into a desert _mirage_, teeming

with processions of the gloomiest falsities in life, and the other--also

into the desert, but where he is yet refreshed and solaced by an

unshaken faith in the genial verities of life, though separated from

them by irrecoverable miles of trackless wastes, and where, however

apparently abandoned and desolate, he is yet ministered unto by angels,

and no mimic fantasies are suffered to exercise upon his heart their

overmastering seductions to

"Allure, or terrify, or undermine."

Whether the days of childhood be our happiest days, is a question all by

itself. But there can be no question as to the inevitable certainty with

which the conditions of childhood, fortunate or unfortunate, determine

the main temper and disposition of our lives. For it is underneath the

multitude of fleeting proposals and conscious efforts, born of reason,

and which, to one looking upon life from any superficial stand-point,

seem to have all to do with its conduct, that there runs the

undercurrent of disposition, which is born of Nature, which is cradled

and nurtured with us in our infancy, which is itself a general choice,

branching out into our specific choices of certain directions and aims

among all opposite directions and aims, and which, although we rarely

recognize its important functions, is in all cases the arbiter of our

destiny. And in the very word _disposition_ is indicated the finality of

its arbitraments as contrasted with all _proposition_.

Now, with respect to this disposition: Nature furnishes its basis; but

it is the external structure of circumstance, built up or building about

childhood,--to shelter or imprison,--which, more than all else, gives it

its determinate character; and though this outward structure may in

after-life be thoroughly obliterated, or replaced by its

opposite,--porcelain by clay, or clay by porcelain,--yet will the

tendencies originally developed remain and hold a sway almost

uninterrupted over life. And, generally, the happy influences that

preside over the child may be reduced under three heads: first, a genial

temperament,--one that naturally, and of its own motion, inclines toward

a centre of peace and rest rather than toward the opposite centre of

strife; secondly, profound domestic affections; and, thirdly, affluence,

which, although of all three it is the most negative, the most material

condition, is yet practically the most important, because of the degree

in which it is necessary to the full and unlimited prosperity of the

other two. For how frequent are the cases in which the happiest of

temperaments are perverted by the necessities of toil, so burdensome to

tender years, or in which corroding anxieties, weighing upon parents'

hearts, check the free play of domestic love!--and in all cases where

such limitations are present, even in the gentlest form, there must be a

cramping up of the human organization and individuality somewhere; and

everywhere, and under all circumstances, there must be sensibly felt the

absence of that leisure which crowns and glorifies the affections of

home, making them seem the most like summer sunshine, or rather like a

sunshine which knows no season, which is an eternal presence in the

soul.

As regards all these three elements, De Quincey's childhood was

prosperous; afterwards, vicissitudes came,--mighty changes capable of

affecting all other transmutations, but thoroughly impotent to annul the

inwrought grace of a pre-established beauty. On the other hand, Byron's

childhood was, in all these elements, unfortunate. The sting left in his

mother's heart by the faithless desertion of her husband, after the

desolation of her fortunes, was forever inflicted upon him, and

intensified by her fitful temper; and notwithstanding the change in his

outward prospects which occurred afterwards, he was never able to lift

himself out of the Trophonian cave into which his infancy had been

thrust, any more than Vulcan could have cured that crooked gait of his,

which dated from some vague infantile remembrances of having been

rudely kicked out of heaven over its brazen battlements, one summer's

day,--for that it was a summer's day we are certain from a line of

"Paradise Lost," commemorating the tragic circumstance:--

"From morn till noon he fell, from noon till dewy eve--

_A summer's day_."

And this allusion to Vulcan reminds us that Byron, in addition to all

his other early mishaps, had also the identical clubfoot of the Lemnian

god. Among the guardians over Byron's childhood was a demon, that,

receiving an ample place in his victim's heart, stood demoniacally his

ground through life, transmuting love to hate, and what might have been

benefits to fatal snares. Over De Quincey's childhood, on the contrary,

a strong angel guarded to withstand and thwart all threatened ruin,

teaching him the gentle whisperings of faith and love in the darkest

hours of life: an angel that built happy palaces, the beautiful images

of which, and their echoed festivals, far outlasted the splendor of

their material substance.

"We,--the children of the house,--" says De Quincey, in his

"Autobiographic Sketches," "stood, in fact, upon the very happiest tier

in the social scaffolding for all good influences. The prayer of

Agur--'Give me neither poverty nor riches'--was realized for us. That

blessing we had, being neither too high nor too low. High enough we were

to see models of good manners, of self-respect, and of simple dignity;

obscure enough to be left in the sweetest of solitudes. Amply furnished

with all the nobler benefits of wealth, with _extra_ means of health, of

intellectual culture, and of elegant enjoyment, on the other hand we

knew nothing of its social distinctions. Not depressed by the

consciousness of privations too sordid, nor tempted into restlessness by

privileges too aspiring, we had no motives for shame, we had none for

pride. Grateful, also, to this hour I am, that, amidst luxuries in all

things else, we were trained to a Spartan, simplicity of diet,--that we

fared, in fact, very much less sumptuously than the servants. And if

(after the manner of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius) I should return thanks

to Providence for all the separate blessings of my early situation,

these four I would single out as worthy of special commemoration: that I

lived in a rural solitude; that this solitude was in England; that my

infant feelings were moulded by the gentlest of sisters, and not by

horrid pugilistic brothers; finally, that I and they were dutiful and

loving members of a pure, holy, and magnificent church."

Let the reader suppose a different case from that here presented. Let

him suppose, for instance, that De Quincey, now arrived at the age of

seven, and having now at least one "pugilistic brother" to torment his

peace, could annul his own infancy, and in its place substitute that of

one of the factory-boys of Manchester, of the same age, (and many such

could be found,) among those with whom daily the military

predispositions of this brother brought him into a disagreeable

conflict. Instead of the pure air of outside Lancashire, let there be

substituted the cotton-dust of the Lancashire mills. The contrast, even

in thought, is painful. It is true that thus the irrepressible fires of

human genius could not be quenched. Nay, through just these

instrumentalities, oftentimes, is genius fostered. We need not the

instance of Romulus and Remus, or of the Persian Cyrus, to prove that

men have sometimes been nourished by bears or by she-wolves.

Nevertheless, this is essentially a Roman nurture. The Greeks, on the

contrary, laid their infant heroes on beds of violets,--if we may

believe the Pindaric odes,--set over them a divine watch, and fed them

with angels' food. And this Grecian nurture De Quincey had.

And not the least important element of this nurture is that of perfect

_leisure_. Through this it is that we pass from the outward to the

subjective relations of De Quincey's childhood; for only in connection

with these has the element just introduced any value, since leisure,

which is the atmosphere, the breathing-place of genius, is also cap and

bells for the fool. In relation to power, it is, like solitude, the open

heaven through which the grandeurs of eternity flow into the penetralian

recesses of the human heart, after that once the faculties of thought,

or the sensibilities, have been powerfully awakened. Sensibility _had_

been thus awakened in De Quincey, through grief occasioned by the loss

of a sister, his favorite and familiar playmate,--a grief so profound,

that he, somewhere, in speaking of it, anticipates the certainty of its

presence in the hour of death; and thought, also, had been prematurely

awakened, both under the influence of this overmastering pathos of

sorrow, and because of his strong predisposition to meditation. Both the

pathos and the meditative tendencies were increased by the halcyon peace

of his childhood. In a memorial of the poet Schiller, he speaks of that

childhood as the happiest, "of which the happiness has survived and

expressed itself, not in distinct records, but in deep affection, in

abiding love, and the hauntings of meditative power." His, at least, was

the felicity of this echoless peace.

In no memorial is it so absolutely requisite that a marked prominence

should be given to its first section as in De Quincey's. This is a

striking peculiarity in his life. If it were not so, I should have

seriously transgressed in keeping the reader's attention so long upon a

point which, aside from such peculiarity, would yield no sufficient, at

least no proportionate value. But, in the treatment of any life, that

cannot seem disproportionate which enters into it as an element only and

just in that ratio of prominence with which it enters into the life

itself, No stream can rise above the level of its source. No life, which

lacks a prominent interest as to its beginnings, can ever, in its entire

course, develop any distinguishing features of interest. This is true of

any life; but it is true of De Quincey's above all others on record,

that, through all its successive arches, ascending and descending, it

repeats the original arch of childhood. Repeats,--but with what

marvellous transformations! For hardly is its earliest section passed,

when, for all its future course, it is masked by a mighty trouble. No

longer does it flow along its natural path, and beneath the open sky,

but, like the sacred Alpheus, runs

"Through caverns measureless to man,

Down to the sunless sea."

Yet, amid the "briny tides" of that sea, amid turmoil and perplexity and

the saddest of mysteries, it preserves its earliest gentleness, and its

inward, noiseless peace, till once more it gushes up toward the sweet

heaven through the Arethusan font of death. Easily, then, is it to be

seen why De Quincey himself continually reverted, both in his conscious

reminiscences and through the subconscious relapses of dreams, from a

life clouded and disguised in its maturer years, to the unmasked purity

of its earliest heaven. And what from the vast desert, what from the

fatal wreck of life, was he to look back upon, for even an imaginary

solace, if not upon the rich argosies that spread their happier sails

above a calmer sea? We are forcibly reminded of the dream which

Milton[A] gives to his Christ in the desert, hungry and tired:--

"There he slept,

And dreamed, as appetite is wont to dream,

Of meats and drinks, Nature's refreshment sweet.

Him thought he by the brook of Cherith stood,

And saw the ravens with their horny beaks

Food to Elijah bringing even and morn,

Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought:

He saw the prophet also, how he fled

Into the desert, and how there he slept

Under a juniper, then how, awaked,

He found his supper on the coals prepared,

And by the angel was bid rise and eat,

And eat the second time after repose,

The strength whereof sufficed him forty days;

Sometimes that with Elijah he partook,

Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse."

[Footnote A: _Paradise Regained_, Book II.]

If the splendors of divinity could be so disguised by the severe

necessities of the wilderness and of brutal hunger as to be thus

solicited and baffled even in dreams,--if, by the lowest of mortal

appetites, they could be so humiliated and eclipsed as to revel in the

shadowy visions of merely human plenty,--then by how much more must the

human heart, eclipsed at noon, revert, under the mask of sorrow and of

dreams, to the virgin beauties of the dawn! with how much more violent

revulsion must the weary, foot-sore traveller, lost in a waste of sands,

be carried back through the gate of ivory or of horn to the dewy,

flower-strewn fields of some far happier place and time!

The transition from De Quincey's childhood to his opium-experiences is

as natural, therefore, as from strophe to antistrophe in choral

antiphonies. Henceforth, as the reader already understands, we are not

permitted to look upon a simple, undisguised life, unless we draw aside

a veil as impenetrable as that which covers the face of Isis or the

poppy-sceptred Demeter. Under this _papaverian_ mask it is likely to be

best known to the reader; for it is under the title of "Opium-Eater"

that he is most generally recognized. It was through his

Opium-Confessions, popular both as to matter and style, that he first

conciliated and charmed the reading public,--and to such a degree that

great expectations were awakened as to anything which afterwards he

might write. This expectation heightens appreciation; and in this case

it helped many a metaphysical dose down the voracious throat of the

public, without its being aware of the nauseating potion, or

experiencing any uncomfortable consequences. The flood of popularity

produced by the Opium-Confessions among that large intellectual class of

readers who, notwithstanding their mental capacity, yet insist upon the

graces of composition and upon a subject of immediate and moving

interest, was sufficient to float into a popular haven many a ship of

heavier freightage, which might else have fallen short of port.

The general interest which is manifested in De Quincey _personally_ is

also very much due to the fact that he was an opium-eater, and an

opium-eater willing to breathe into the public ear the peculiarities of

his situation and its hidden mysteries, or "_suspiria de profundis_."

This interest is partly of that vulgar sort which connects itself with

all mysterious or abnormal phenomena in Nature or in the human mind,

with a "What is it?" or a spiritual medium, and which is satisfied with

a palpable exhibition of the novelty; and partly it is of a

philosophical order, inquiring into the causes and modes of the abnormal

development. It is rarely the case that human vision is especially or

deliberately directed to the sun or the moon, except at the marvellous

season of eclipse, when interest is awakened by the novelty of the

appearance among the vulgar, and among philosophers by the unusual

nature of the phenomenon, demanding explanation. Then it is that the

people inhabiting this globe are excited by something which calls off

their attention from terrestrial trifles to that which connects them

with unknown worlds. If we had been born Hindoos, we should, at such

times, exhibit our skittish tendencies, "shying" at the sun-eating

monster with nervous apprehension, and should doubtless do our best,

through horrid yells and tintinnabulations, towards getting up a

tremendous counter-irritation upon the earth that should tell mightily

on the nerves of this umbratilous tiger in the heavens. But since we are

neither Hindoos nor Egyptians, nor skittish heathen of any sort, we take

defiant attitudes and look through smoked glasses. At any rate, it is

only at such times that we pay particular attentions, by way of

courtesy, to foreign worlds. And of all the creatures of God which come

within the circle of human knowledge or notice, which is it that may be

said to enjoy the most continuous round of attentions, and to live in

excitement the most nearly approaching to perpetual? It is the comet,

which no sooner gets out of reach of _our_ flying compliments than she

becomes the pet of Jupiter's magnificent citizens, or calls forth

deprecating murmurs from our shy sister Venus, and Mercury, our milder

brother, who, from all such mischiefs, creeps as nearly as possible

under the paternal wings of the Sun. No one of these erratic visitors

can remember the time when she was not making a stir somewhere in the

universe, or when a cloudy night, intercepting her from vision, would

not have been as surely execrated as are the colds which afflict _prima

donnas_.

Strikingly similar to our interest in these heavenly bodies is that

which we manifest in mortal men. Here, too, it is the darkened orb or

the eccentric comet that bespeaks especial notice. Judged by this

interest, considered in its vulgar aspects, De Quincey would suffer

gross injustice. Externally, and at one period of his life, I am certain

that he had all the requisite qualifications for collecting a mob about

him, and that, had he appeared in the streets of London after one of his

long sojourns amongst the mountains, no unearthly wight of whatever

description, no tattered lunatic or Botany-Bay convict, would have been

able to vie with him in the picturesque _déshabillé_ of the whole

"turnout." Picture to yourself the scene. This "king of shreds and

patches"--for, to the outward sense, he seems that now--has been "at

large" for days, perhaps for two or three weeks; he has been

unkennelled, and, among the lawless mountains, has felt no restraint

upon his own lawlessness, however Cyclopean. Doubtless he has met with

panthers and wolves, each one of whom will to its dying day retain

impressive recollections of the wee monster, from which they fled as a

trifle too uncanny even for them. As to his subsistence during these

rambles, it would be very difficult to say how he managed that affair,

at these, or indeed at any other times; and it may be that the prophetic

limitation of a fast to forty days is now the urgent occasion of his

return from vagabondism. One thing we may be sure of,--that he has made

plentiful use of a certain magical drug hid away in his

waistcoat-pocket. Like Wordsworth's brook, he has been wandering

purposely and at his own sweet will, or rather where his feet have taken

him; and he has laid him down to sleep wherever sleep may have chanced

to find him.

The result we have here, in this uncouth specimen of humanity, in the

matted hair, the soiled garments, and the straggling gait; and what

gives the finishing touch to this grotesque picture is his utter

unconsciousness of the ludicrous features of his situation, as they

appear to other eyes. Soon, it is true, he will go through an Æson-like

rejuvenation; for, in a certain cottage, there are hearts that anxiously

await his return, and hands ready to fulfil their oft-repeated duties in

the way of refitting him out for another tramp. But, before this

transformation is effected, let us suppose the case of his being set

down in the streets of London, somewhere in the vicinity of Cheapside.

What an eddying of stragglers about this new-found focus of attraction!

what amazement, and curiosity to find him out, if, indeed, he be

find-out-able, and not, as the unmistakable papaverian odor suggests,

some Stygian bird, hailing from the farther side of Lethe. But, Stygian

or not, neither Hermes nor Pan (nor Panic, his namesake) could muster

such a rabble at his heels, supposing _him_ to appear on Cheapside!

In his innermost sensibilities he would have shrunk from this vulgar

notice as from pollution itself. It would be monstrous to conceive of

him in such situations, except for the purpose of showing that he had

very much in his outward habit that would readily attract such a notice.

In the same light we are to regard some illustrations which J. Hill

Burton has given in "The Book-Hunter" of similar features in his

character, and which I take the liberty of introducing here; for,

although they have appeared in "Blackwood," and more lately in a

book-form, they are still unpublished to many of my readers.

Thus, we have him pictured to us as he appeared at a dinner, "whereto he

was seduced by the false pretence that he would there meet with one who

entertained novel and anarchical views regarding the 'Golden Ass' of

Apuleius. The festivities of the afternoon are far on, when a commotion

is heard in the hall, as if some dog or other stray animal had forced

its way in. The instinct of a friendly guest tells him of the arrival;

he opens the door, and fetches in the little stranger. What can it be? A

street-boy of some sort? His costume, in fact, is a boy's duffle

great-coat, very threadbare, with a hole in it, and buttoned tight to

the chin, where it meets the fragments of a party-colored belcher

handkerchief; on his feet are list shoes, covered with snow, for it is a

stormy winter night; and the trousers,--some one suggests that they are

inner linen garments blackened with writing-ink, but that Papaverius

never would have been at the trouble so to disguise them." De Quincey,

led on by the current of his own thoughts,--though he was always too

courteous to absorb the entire conversation,--talks on "till it is far

into the night, and slight hints and suggestions are propagated about

separation and home-going. The topic starts new ideas on the progress of

civilization, the effect of habit on men in all ages, and the power of

the domestic affections. Descending from generals to the specials, he

could testify to the inconvenience of late hours: for was it not the

other night, that, coming to what was, or what he believed to be, his

own door, he knocked and knocked, but the old woman within either

couldn't or wouldn't hear him, so he scrambled over a wall, and, having

taken his repose in a furrow, was able to testify to the extreme

unpleasantness of such a couch?"

"Shall I try another sketch of him, when, travel-stained and foot-sore,

he glided in on us one night like a shadow, the child by the fire gazing

on him with round eyes of astonishment, and suggesting that he should

get a penny and go home,--a proposal which he subjected to some

philosophical criticism very far wide of its practical tenor. How far he

had wandered since he had last refreshed himself, or even whether he had

eaten food that day, were matters on which there was no getting

articulate utterance from him. How that wearied, worn little body was to

be refreshed was a difficult problem: soft food disagreed with him; the

hard he could not eat. Suggestions pointed at length to the solution of

that vegetable unguent to which he had given a sort of lustre, and it

might be supposed that there were some fifty cases of acute toothache to

be treated in the house that night. How many drops? Drops! nonsense! If

the wineglasses of the establishment were not beyond the ordinary normal

size, there was no risk,--and so the weary is at rest for a time.

"At early morn, a triumphant cry of '_Eureka!_' calls me to his place of

rest. With his unfailing instinct he has got at the books, and lugged a

considerable heap of them around him. That one which specially claims

his attention--my best-bound quarto--is spread upon a piece of

bedroom-furniture readily at hand, and of sufficient height to let him

pore over it as he lies recumbent on the floor, with only one article of

attire to separate him from the condition in which Archimedes, according

to the popular story, shouted the same triumphant cry. He had discovered

a very remarkable anachronism in the commonly received histories of a

very important period. As he expounded it, turning up his unearthly face

from the book with an almost painful expression of grave eagerness, it

occurred to me that I had seen something like the scene in Dutch

paintings of the Temptation of St. Anthony."

I cannot refrain from quoting from Mr. Burton one more example,

illustrative of the fact that De Quincey, in money-matters, considered

merely the immediate and pressing exigencies of the present. "He arrives

very late at a friend's door, and on gaining admission,--a process in

which he often endured impediments,--he represents, with his usual

silver voice and measured rhetoric, the absolute necessity of his being

then and there invested with a sum of money in the current coin of the

realm,--the amount limited, from the nature of his necessities, which he

very freely states, to seven shillings and sixpence. Discovering, or

fancying he discovers, that his eloquence is likely to prove

unproductive, he is fortunately reminded, that, should there be any

difficulty in connection with security for the repayment of the loan, he

is at that moment in possession of a document which he is prepared to

deposit with the lender,--a document calculated, he cannot doubt, to

remove any feeling of anxiety which the moat prudent person could

experience in the circumstances. After a rummage in his pockets, which

develops miscellaneous and varied, but as yet by no means valuable,

possessions, he at last comes to the object of his search, a crumpled

bit of paper, and spread it out,--a fifty-pound bank-note! All sums of

money were measured by him through the common standard of immediate use;

and, with more solemn pomp of diction than he applied to the bank-note,

might he inform you, that, with the gentleman opposite, to whom he had

hitherto been entirely a stranger, but who happened to be the nearest to

him at the time when the exigency occurred to him, he had just succeeded

in negotiating a loan of two-pence."

These pictures, though true to certain phases of De Quincey's outward

life, are yet far from personally representing him, even to the eye.

They satisfy curiosity, and that is about all. As to the real character

of the man, they are negative and unessential; they represent, indeed,

his utter carelessness as to all that, like dress, may at pleasure be

put on or off, but "the human child incarnate" is not thus brought

before us. For, could we but once look upon his face in rest, then

should we forget these inferior attributes; just as, looking upon the

Memnonian statues, one forgets the horrid nicknames of "Shandy" and

"Andy" which they have received from casual travellers, observing merely

their grotesque features. Features of this latter sort "dislimn" and

yield, as the writing on palimpsests, to the regal majesty of the divine

countenance, which none can look upon and smile. Let me paint De

Quincey's face as at this moment I seem to see it. It is wrinkled as

with an Homeric antiquity; arid it is, and sallow, as parchment. Through

a certain Bedouin-like conformation,--which, however, is idealized by

the lofty, massive forehead, and by the prevailing subtilty of the

general expression,--it seems fitted to desert solitudes; and in this

respect it is truly Memnonian. In another respect, also, is it

Memnonian,--that, whenever should rest upon its features the morning

sunlight, we should surely await its responsive requiem or its trembling

_jubilate_. By a sort of instinctive palmistry (applied, not to the

hands, but to the face) we interpret symbols of ineffable sorrow and of

ineffable peace. These, too, are Memnonian,--as is also that infinite

distance which seems to interpose between its subtile meanings and the

very possibility of interpretation. This air of remoteness, baffling the

impertinent crowd not less effectually than the dust which has gathered

for centuries about the heads of Sphinxes, is due partly to the deeply

sunken eyes beneath the wrinkled, overarching forehead; partly it arises

from that childlike simplicity and sweetness which lurk in gentle

undulations of the features,--undulations as of happy wavelets set in

motion ages since, and that cannot cease forever; but chiefly it is born

of a dream-like, brooding eternity of speculation, which we can trace

neither to the eye alone, nor to the mouth, but rather to the effect

which both together produce in the countenance.

This is the face which for more than half a century opium veiled to

mortal eyes, and which refuses to reveal itself save through hints the

most fugitive and impalpable. Here are draperies and involutions of

mystery from which mere curiosity stands aloof. This is the head which

we have loved, and which in our eyes wears a triple wreath of glory: the

laurel for his Apollo-like art, the lotos-leaf for his impassioned

dreams, and roses for his most gentle and loving nature.

How much of that which glorified De Quincey was due to opium? Very

little as to quality, but very much as to the degree and the peculiar

manner in which original qualities and dispositions are developed, for

here it is that the only field of influence open to abnormal agencies

lies. Coleridge, as an opium-eater, is the only individual worthy of

notice in the same connection. Had _he_ also confessed, it is uncertain

what new revelations might have been made. It is certain that opium

exercised a very potent effect upon him; for it was generally after his

dose that his remarkable intellectual displays occurred. These displays

were mostly confined to his conversations, which were usually

long-winded metaphysical epics, evolving a continued series of

abstractions and analyses, and, for their movement, depending upon a

sort of poetic construction. A pity it is that we must content ourselves

with empty descriptions of this nature. Here, doubtless, if anywhere,

opium was an auxiliary to Coleridge. For a laudanum negus, whatever

there may be about it that is pernicious, will, to a mind that is

metaphysically predisposed, open up thoroughfares of thought which are

raised above the level of the gross material, and which lead into the

region of the shadowy. Show us the man who habitually carries pills of

_any_ sort in his waistcoat-pocket, be they opium or whatever else, and

we can assure you that that man is an _aërobat_,--that somehow, in one

sense or another, he walks in the air above other men's heads. Whatever

disturbs the healthful isolation of the nervous system is prosperous to

metaphysics, because it attracts the mental attention to the organism

through which thought is carried on. Numerous are the instances of men

who would never have been heard of as thinkers or as reflective poets,

if they had had sufficient muscular ballast to pull against their

teeming brains. The consequence of the disproportion has been that the

superfluous brain has exhaled, as a mere necessity.[A] If Tacitus had

fared in any sort like his brother,--if there had been anything like an

equitable division between them of muscle and brain, it is more than

probable that we should have lost the illustrious historian.

[Footnote A: It has been adduced as an important proof of the soul's

immortality, that frequently, as physical power declines, the mind

exhibits unusual activity. But the argument moves in the opposite

direction. For of what sort is this unusual activity? That which results

from unbalanced nerves; and the indications are that not only are the

physical harmonies disturbed, but that the same disturbing cause has

impaired the delicate adjustments of thought itself. Sometimes there is

manifested, towards the near approach of death, an almost insane

brilliancy; as, for instance, in the case of a noted theologian, who

occupied the last minutes of his ebbing life with a very subtile

mathematical discourse concerning the exceeding, the excruciating

smallness of nothing divided into infinitesimal parts. And strange as it

may seem, I once heard this identical instance cited as a triumphant

vindication of the most sublime article of either Pagan or Christian

faith. Nay, from the lips of a theological professor, the fragmentary

glimmerings of a maniac's mind have been adduced for precisely the same

purpose.]

Coleridge was indolent from temperament, a disposition which was

increased by opium. Hence De Quincey was of the opinion that it injured

Coleridge's poetic faculties; which probably was the case, since in

genuine poetry the mind is prominently realistic, its motions are all

outward, and therefore excessive indolence must of necessity be fatal.

De Quincey's physical system, on the contrary, seemed preconformed to

opium: it demanded it, and would be satisfied with nothing else. No

temptation so strong _could_ have been presented to Coleridge. De

Quincey really craved the drug. His stomach was deranged, and was still

suffering from the sad results of his youthful wanderings in London. It

seems almost as if fate had compelled the unfortunate course into which

he finally drifted. The craving first appeared in the shape of a horrid

gnawing at the stomach; afterwards this indefinite yearning gave place

to a specific one, which was unmistakable in its demands. Daily, like

the daughters of the horse-leech, it cried, "Give, give!" Toward the

last, this craving became, in De Quincey's solemn belief, an animal

incarnate, and the opium-eater reasoned after the following fashion:--It

is not I that eat, it is not I that am responsible either for the fact

of eating or the amount; am I the keeper of this horrid monster's

conscience? He even carried the conceit so far as to consider a portion

of each meal as especially devoted to this insane stomachic reveller,

just as a voracious Greek or Roman would have attributed no small part

of his outrageous appetite to the gods, as eating by proxy through the

mouths of mortals. This is almost as bad as the case reported of

Stonewall Jackson, who, it is said, religiously believed that whatever

he ate was, by some mysterious physiological economy, conveyed into his

left leg.

No less was De Quincey _psychologically_ preconformed to opium. The

prodigious mental activity so early awakened in him counteracted the

narcotic despotism of the drug, and made it a sort of ally. The reader

sees from this how much depends upon predispositions as to the effect of

opium. De Quincey himself says that the man whose daily talk is of oxen

will pursue his bovine speculations into dreams. Opium originates

nothing; but, given activity of a certain type and moving in a certain

direction, and there will be perhaps through opium a multiplication of

energies and velocities. What was De Quincey _without_ opium? is,

therefore, the question preliminary to any proper estimate as to what in

him was due to opium. This question has already been answered in the

remarks made concerning his childhood. His meditative tendencies were

especially noticed as most characteristic. There was besides this a

natural leaning toward the mysterious,--the mysterious, I mean, as

depending, not upon the terrible or ghostly, or upon anything which

excites gloom or fear, but upon operations that are simply inscrutable

as moving in darkness. Take, for example, the idea of a grand

combination of human energies mustered together in secret, and operating

through invisible agencies for the downfall of Christianity,--an idea

which was conveyed to De Quincey in his childhood through the Abbé

Baruel's book exposing such a general conspiracy was existing throughout

Europe: this was the sort of mystery which arrested and engrossed his

thoughts. Similar elements invested all secret societies with an awful

grandeur in his conception. So, too, the complicated operations of great

cities such as London, which he call the "Nation of London," where even

Nature is mimicked, both in her strict regularity of results, and in the

seeming unconsciousness of all her outward phases, hiding all meaning

under the enigmas that defy solution. In order to this effect it was

absolutely necessary that there should be not simply one mystery

standing alone by itself, and striking in its portentous significance;

there must have been more than this,--namely, a network of occult

influences, a vast organization, wheeling in and out upon itself,

gyrating in mystic cycles and epicycles, repeating over and again its

dark omens, and displaying its insignia in a never-ending variety of

shapes. To him intricacy the most perplexing was also the most inviting.

It was this which lent an overwhelming interest to certain problems of

history that presented the most labyrinthian mazes to be disinvolved:

for the demon that was in him sought after hieroglyphics that by all

others had been pronounced undecipherable; and not unfrequently it was

to his eye that for the first time there seemed to be an unknown element

that must be supplied. Such a problem was presented by the religious

sect among the Hebrews entitled the _Essenes_. Admitting the character

and functions of this sect to have been those generally ascribed to it

no special importance. But the idea once having occurred to De Quincey

that the general assumption was the farthest removed from the

truth,--than there was an unknown _x_ in the problem, which could be

satisfied by no such meagre hypothesis,--that, to meet the urgent

demands of the case, there must be substituted for this Jewish sect an

organization of no less importance than the Christian Church

itself,--that this organization, thus suddenly brought to light, was

one, moreover, that, from the most imperative necessity, veiled itself

from all eyes, uttering its sublime articles of faith, and even its very

name, to itself only in secret recesses of silence:--from the moment

that all this was revealed to De Quincey, there was thenceforth no limit

to his profound interest. Two separate essays he wrote on this

subject,[A] of which he seemed never to tire.

[Footnote A: Yet, marvellous as it may seem, he wrote the second without

being distinctly conscious of having written a previous one. It was no

uncommon thing for him to forget his own writings. In one case it is

known that for a long time he persisted in disowning his production. His

American editor--a fact which is little known--selected, from among the

mass of periodical writings in the various magazines for which De

Quincey wrote, those which, having no other clue to guide him than,

their peculiar style, he judged to have proceeded from De Quincey's pen.

In one instance,--as to the "Traditions of the Rabbins,"--after

considerable examination, he still hesitated, and finally wrote to De

Quincey, to set himself right. The latter disowned the essay: he had

forgotten it. Mr. F., however, after another examination, concluded,

that, notwithstanding De Quincey's denial of the fact, he _must_ have

written it; accordingly, at his own risk, he published it. Afterwards De

Quincey owned up, and ever after that referred all disputed cases of

this nature to his Boston publishers.]

"Klosterheim" is from beginning to end only the development, through

regular stages, of an intricately involved mystery of this subtile

nature. Oftentimes De Quincey deals with the horrid tragedy of murder;

but the mere fact of a murder, however shocking, was not sufficient to

arrest him. With the celebrated Williams murders, on the contrary, he

was entirely taken up, since these proceeded in accordance with designs

not traceable to the cursory glance, but which tasked the skill of a

decipherer to interpret and reduce to harmony. Here were murders that

revolved musically, that modulated themselves to master-principles, and

that at every stage of progress sought alliance with the hidden

mysteries of universal human nature. I know of no writer but De Quincey

who invests mysteries of this tragic order with their appropriate

drapery, so that they shall, to our imaginations, unfold the full

measure of their capacities for striking awe into our hearts.

This sort of mystery is always connected with dreams. They owe their

very existence to darkness, which withdraws them from the material

limitations of every-day life; they are shifted to an ideal

_proscenium_; their _dramatis personæ_, however familiar nominally, and

however much derived from material suggestions, are yet in all their

motions obedient to an alien centre as opposite as is possible to the

ordinary centre about which the mere mechanism of life revolves. We

should therefore expect beforehand in De Quincey an overruling tendency

towards this remote architecture of dreams. The careful reader of his

"Autobiographic Sketches" will remember, that, at the early age of

seven, and before he knew of even the existence of opium, the least

material hint which bordered on the shadowy was sufficient to lift him

up into aërial structures, and to lead his infant footsteps amongst the

clouds. Such hints, after his little sister's death, were furnished by

certain expressions of the Litany, by pictures in the stained windows of

the church, and by the tumult of the organ. Nor were the dreams thus

introduced mere fantasies, irregular and inconsistent. Throughout, they

were self-sustained and majestic.

The natural effects of opium were concurrent with preëxisting tendencies

of De Quincey's mind. If, instead of having his restless intellect, he

had been indolent,--if, instead of loving the mysterious, because it

invited a Titanic energy to reduce its anarchy to order, he had loved it

as simply dark or obscure,--if his natural subtilty of reflection had

been less, or if he had been endowed with inferior powers in the sublime

architecture of impassioned expression,--then might he as well have

smoked a meerschaum, taken snuff or grog or any other stimulant, as to

have gone out of his way for the more refined pleasures of opium.

The reader will indulge us in a single philosophical distinction, at

this point, by which we mean to classify the effects of opium under two

heads: first, the _external_, and, secondly, the _internal_. Properly

speaking, all the _positive_ effects of opium must be internal; for all

its movements are inward in their direction, being refluent upon the

focal centres of life. Thus, one of the most noticeable phenomena

connected with opium-eating is the burden of life resting back upon the

heart, which deliberately pulsates the moments of existence, as if the

most momentous issues depended upon each separate throb. But this very

reflux of sensibility will produce great effects at the surface, which

are purely negative. This latter class of effects Homer has indicated

with considerable accuracy, in the ninth Odyssey, (82-105,) where he

notices specifically an air of carelessness regarding external

things,--carelessness as to the mutual interchange of conversation by

question and answer, and as to the ordinary pursuits of life as

disturbing an inward peace. The same characteristics are more fully

developed in Tennyson's "Lotos-Eaters":--

"Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,

Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave

To each; but whoso did receive of them,

And taste, to him the gushing of the wave,

Far, far away, did seem to mourn and rave

On alien shores; and if his fellows spake,

His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;

And deaf-asleep he seemed, yet all awake,

And music in his ears his beating heart did make."

By causing the life to flow inward upon a more ideal centre, opium

deepens the consciousness, and compels it to give testimony to processes

and connections that in ordinary moments escape unrecorded. It is as if

new materials were found for a history of the individual

life,--materials which, like freshly discovered records, sound the

deepest meanings of the present and measure the abysses of the past.

Thus it is that the fugitive imagery of sense is interpreted as a scroll

which hides infinite truths under the most fleeting of symbols,--symbols

which are not sufficiently enduring to call them words, or even

syllables of words, since the most trivial hint or whisper of them has

hardly reached us ere they have perished. Thus it is that even the still

more intangible record of memory, where are preserved only images and

echoes of that which undeniably has perished, is revivified and

enlarged.

There is, then, in the opium-eater a most marked, a polar antithesis

between his every-day life and the central manifestations of his genius.

In the latter, there is beautiful order, as in a symphony of

Beethoven's; but in the former, looked upon from without, all seems

confusion. There is the same antithesis in every meditative mind; but

here opium has heightened each part of the contrast. The more we admire

the _en_centric harmonies of inwrapt power, the more do we find to draw

forth laughter in the eccentricities of outward habit. The very same

agencies which undisguised and unveiled the deep, divine heaven, masked

the earth with desert sands; and De Quincey's outward life was thus

masked and rendered abnormal, that the blue heaven in which he revelled

might be infinitely exalted.

Thus is it possible for the seemingly ludicrous to harmonize with

transcendent sublimity. We smile at De Quincey's giving in "copy" on the

generous margins of a splendid "Somnium Scipionis"; but the precious

words, that might perhaps have found some more fit vehicle to the

composer's eye, could have found no deeper place in our hearts. We look

at the hatless sleeper among the mountains: his face seems utterly blank

and meaningless, and to all intents and purposes he seems as good as

dead; but let us ascend with him in his dreams, and we shall soon forget

that under God's heavens there exists mortality or the commonplace uses

of mortality.

As we ascend from grotesque features to such as are more intellectual,

that peculiarity of his character which most strikes us is his

inimitable courtesy. Mr. F.,--to whom I am indebted for the most novel

and interesting portions of this memorial,--from his own personal

interviews with the man, among many other things, retains this chiefly

in remembrance,--that De Quincey was the perfectest gentleman he had

ever seen.

I take the liberty here of particularizing somewhat in regard to one

visit which this friend of De Quincey's paid him, particularly as it

introduces us to the man towards the last of his life (1851). Mr. F.,

curious as it may seem, found but one person in Edinburgh who could

inform him definitely as to De Quincey's whereabouts. In return to a

note, giving De Quincey information of his arrival, etc., the latter

replies in a letter which is very characteristic, and which may well be

highly prized, so rarely was it that any friend was able to obtain from

him such a memento. The style, perhaps, is as familiar as it was ever

his habit to indulge in; and it shows how impossible it was for him,

even on the most temporary summons, to dispense with his usual

regularity of expression or with any logical nicety of method. The

letter runs thus:--

_Thursday evening, August 26, 1851_.

"My dear Sir,--The acccompanying billet from my daughter, short at

any rate under the pressure of instant engagements, has been cut

shorter by a sudden and very distressing headache; I, therefore,

who (from a peculiar nervousness connected with the act of writing)

so rarely attempt to discharge my own debts in the letter-writing

department of life, find myself unaccountably, I might say

mysteriously, engaged in the knight-errantry of undertaking for

other people's. Wretched bankrupt that I am, with an absolute

refusal on the part of the Commissioner to grant me a certificate

of the lowest class, suddenly, and by a necessity not to be evaded,

I am affecting the large bounties of supererogation. I appear to be

vaporing in a spirit of vainglory; and yet it is under the mere

coercion of '_salva necessitas_' that I am surprised into this

unparalleled instance of activity. Do you walk? That is, do you

like walking for four hours '_on end_'--(which is our archaic

expression for _continuously_)? If I knew _that_, I would arrange

accordingly for meeting you. The case as to distance is this. The

Dalkeith railway, from the Waverley station, brings you to Esk

Bank. That is its nearest approach,--its _perihelion_, in relation

to ourselves; and it is precisely two and three-quarters miles

distant from _Mavis Bush_,--the name of our cottage. Close to us,

and the most noticeable object for guiding your inquiries, is _Mr.

Annandale's Paper-Mills_.

"Now, then, accordingly as you direct my motions, I will--rain

being supposed absent--join you at your hotel in Edinburgh any time

after 11 A.M. and walk out the whole distance, (seven miles from

the Scott monument,) or else I will meet you at Esk Bank; or, if

you prefer coming out in a carriage, I will await your coming here

in that state of motionless repose which best befits a philosopher.

Excuse my levity; and believe that with sincere pleasure we shall

receive your obliging visit.

"Ever your faithful servant,

"THOMAS DE QUINCEY."

In order to appreciate the physical powers of him who proposed a walk of

the distance indicated in the letter, we must remember that he was then

just sixty-six years _plus_ ten days old. He was now living with his

daughters, in the utmost simplicity. On his arrival, Mr. F. found De

Quincey awaiting him at the door of his cottage,--a short man, with

small head, and eyes that were absolutely indescribable as human

features, with a certain boyish awkwardness of manner, but with the most

urban-like courtesy and affability. From noon till dark, the time is

spent in conversation, continued, various, and eloquent. What a presence

is there in this humble, unpretending cottage! And as the stream of

Olympian sweetness moves on, now in laughing ripples, and again in a

solemn majestic flood, what a past do we bring before ourselves! what a

present! For this is he that talked with Coleridge, that was the friend

of Wilson,--and--what furnishes a more sublime suggestion--this is he

that knows by heart the mountain-fells and the mysterious recesses of

hidden valleys for miles around; and we think, if he could convey us

from the haunts of this Lasswade of his old age to those which glorified

the Grasmere of his youth, what new chords he might touch,--of human

love, for there it was that the sweetness of his wedded life had been

buried and embalmed in a thousand outward memorials of happy hours long

gone by,--and of human sadness, for there it was that he had experienced

the reversal of every outward fortune, and the alienations of

friendships which he most highly valued. But the remembrances of

Grasmere and of youth seem now to have been removed as into some other

life: the man of a past generation walks alone, and amid other scenes.

And yonder is the study in which he spends hours that are most

holy,--hours consecrated to what specific employments is known to none,

since across its threshold no feet save his have passed for years. Now

and then some grand intellectual effort proceeds forth from its sacred

precincts; but that only happens when pecuniary necessities compel the

exertion. How is it that the time not thus occupied is spent?--in what

remembrances, in what hidden thoughts, what passing dreams?

As it grows dark, De Quincey's guest, having spent most precious moments

which he feels ought never to cease, signifies the necessity of his

taking his departure. To take leave of this strange man, however, is not

so easy a matter as one might rashly suppose. There is a genius of

procrastination about him. Was he ever known to make his appearance at

any dinner in season, or indeed at any entertainment? Yes, he did

_once_, at the recital of a Greek tragedy on the Edinburgh stage; but

that happened through a trick played on him by an acquaintance, who, to

secure some remote chance of his seeing the performance, told him that

the doors opened at half-past six, whereas, in fact, they opened at

seven. How preposterous, then, to suppose that he would let an

opportunity pass for procrastinating other people, and putting all

manner of snares about their feet! It is dangerous with such a man to

hint of late hours; for just that lateness is to him the very jewel of

the thing. In mentioning the circumstance, you only suggest to him the

infinite pleasure connected with the circumstance. Perhaps he will

deliberately set to work to prove that candle-light is the one

absolutely indispensable condition to genial intercourse,--which would

doubtless suggest a great contrast, in that respect, between the ancient

and modern economy,--and where, then, _is_ there to be an end? All

attempts to extricate yourself by unravelling the net which is being

woven about you are hopelessly vain; you cannot keep pace with _him_.

The thought of delay enchants him, and he dallies with it, as a child

with a pet delicacy. Thus, he is at the house of a friend; it storms,

and a reasonable excuse is furnished for his favorite experiment. The

consequence is, that, once started in this direction, the delay is

continued for a year. Late hours were particularly potent to "draw out"

De Quincey; and, understanding this, Professor Wilson used to protract

his dinners almost into the morning, a tribute which De Quincey

doubtless appreciated.

So that it is better to be on the sly about saying "Good bye" to this

host of yours. When, however, it was absolutely necessary to be gone, De

Quincey forthwith insisted on accompanying his guest. What, then, was to

be done? Ominously the sky looked down upon them, momently threatening a

storm. No resource was there but to give the man his way, and accept his

offer of companionship for a short distance, painfully conscious though

you are of the fact that every step taken forwards must, during this

same August night, be retraced by the weary-looking old man at your

side, who now lacks barely four years of life's average allotment. Thus

you move on: and the heavens move on their hurricanes by nearer

approaches, warnings of which propagate themselves all around you in

every sound of the wind and every rustle of the forest-leaves.

Meanwhile, there is no rest to the silvery vocal utterances of your

companion: every object by the way furnishes a ready topic for

conversation. Just now you are passing an antiquated old mansion, and

your guide stops to tell you that in this house may have been committed

most strange and horrible murders, that, in spite of the tempestuous

mutterings heard on every side, ought now and here to be specially and

solemnly memorialized by human relation. A woman passes by, a perfect

stranger, but De Quincey steps entirely out of the road to one side,

takes off his hat, and in the most reverent attitude awaits her

passage,--and you, poor astonished mortal that you are, lest you should

yourself seem scandalously uncourteous, are compelled to do likewise. In

this incident we see what infinite majesty invested the very semblance

of humanity in De Quincey's thoughts: and something of the same

remarkable courtesy was manifested by Rufus Choate, who uniformly

addressed the lowest of women in the witness-box as if they were every

one of them worthy of the most queenly consideration.

Onward you proceed,--one,--two,--three miles, and you can endure no

longer the thought that your friend shall go on farther, increasing thus

at every step the burden of his journey back. You have, reached the Esk

bank and the bridge which spans the stream; the storm so long threatened

begins now to let loose its rage against all unsheltered mortals. Here

De Quincey consents to bid you good-bye,--to you his last good-bye; and

as here you leave him, so is he forever enshrined in your thoughts,

together with the primal mysteries of night and of storm, of human

tragedies and of the most pathetic human tenderness.

But this paper, already sufficiently prolonged, should draw to a close.

It is a source of great mortification to me that I cannot find some very

disagreeable thing to say of De Quincey, merely as a matter of poetic

justice; for assuredly he was in the habit of saying all the malicious

things _he_ could about his friends. If there was anything in a man's

face or shape particularly uncouth, you might trust De Quincey for

noticing _that_. Even Wordsworth he could not let off without a Parthian

shot at his awkward legs and round shoulders; Dr. Parr he rated soundly

on his mean proportions; and one of the most unfortunate things which

ever happened to the Russian Emperor Alexander was to have been seen in

London by De Quincey, who, even amid the festivities of national and

international congratulation on the fall of Napoleon, could not forget

that this imperial ally was a very commonplace-looking fellow, after

all. But, in regard to physical superiority, De Quincey lived in a glass

house too fragile to admit of his throwing many stones at his neighbors.

The very fact that he valued personal appearance at so low an estimate

takes away the sting from his remarks on the deformities of other

people: he could not have meant any detraction, but simply wished to

present a perfect picture to the eye, preserving the ugly features with

the faultless, just as we all insist on doing in regard to those we

love. De Quincey and myself, therefore, are likely to part good friends.

Surely, if there was anything which vexed the tender heart of this man,

it was "the little love and the infinite hate" which went to make up the

sum of life. If morbid in any direction, it was not in that of spite,

but of love; and as an instance of almost unnatural intensity of

affection, witness his insane grief over little Kate Wordsworth's

grave,--a grief which satisfied itself only by reasonless prostrations,

for whole nights, over the dark mould which covered her from his sight.

It only remains for us to look in upon De Quincey's last hours. We are

enabled to take almost the position of those who were permitted really

to watch at his bedside, through a slight unpublished sketch, from the

hand of his daughter, in a letter to an American friend. I tremble

almost to use materials that personally are so sacred; but sympathy, and

the tender interest which is awakened in our hearts by such a life, are

also sacred, and in privilege stand nearest to grief.

During the few last, days of his life De Quincey wandered much, mixing

up "real and imaginary, or apparently imaginary things." He complained,

one night, that his feet were hot and tired. His daughter arranged the

blankets around them, saying, "Is that better, papa?" when he answered,

"Yes, my love, I think it is; you know, my dear girl, these are the feet

that Christ washed."

Everything seemed to connect itself in his mind with little children. He

aroused one day, and said suddenly,--"You must know, my dear, the

Edinburgh cabmen are the most brutal set of fellows under the sun. I

must tell you that I and the little children were all invited to supper

with Jesus Christ. So, as you see, it was a great honor. I thought I

must buy new dresses for the little ones; and--would you believe it

possible?--when I went out with the children, these wretches laughed at

their new dresses."

"Of my brothers he often spoke, both those that are dead and those that

are alive, as if they were his own brothers. One night he said, when I

entered the room,--

"'Is that you, Horace?'

"'No, papa.'

"'Oh, I see! I thought you were Horace; for he was talking to me just

now, and I suppose has just left the room.'"

Speaking of his father, one day, suddenly and without introduction, he

exclaimed,--"There is one thing I deeply regret, that I did not know my

dear father better; for I am sure a better, kinder, or juster man could

never have existed."

When death seemed approaching, the physician recommended that a telegram

should be sent to the eldest daughter,[A] who resided in Ireland, but he

forbade any mention of this fact to the patient. De Quincey seemed to

have a prophetic feeling that she was on her way to him, saying, "Has M.

got to that town yet, that we stopped at when we went to Ireland? How

many hours will it be before she can be here? Let me see,--there are

eight hours before I can see her, and three added to that!" His daughter

came sooner than the family expected; but the time tallied very nearly

with the computation he had made. On the morning his daughter arrived

occurred the first intimation his family had seen that the hand of death

was laid upon him. He had passed a quiet, but rather sleepless night,

appearing "much the same, yet more than ordinarily loving." After

greeting his child, he said, "And how does mamma's little girl like her

leaving her?" "Oh, they were very glad for me to come to grandpapa, and

they sent you this kiss,--which they did of their own accord." He seemed

much pleased. It was evident that M. presented herself to him as the

mother of children, the constant theme of his wanderings. Once when his

daughter quitted the room, he said, "They are all leaving me but my

_dear_ little children." "I heard him call, one day, distinctly,

'Florence! Florence! Florence!'--again, 'My dear, dear mother!'--and to

the last he called us 'my love,' and it sounded like no other sound

ever uttered. I never heard such pathos as there was in it, and in every

tone of his voice. It gave me an idea of a love that passeth all

understanding."

[Footnote A: De Quincey, at his death, had two sons and three daughters.

The, eldest of the daughters became the wife of Robert Craig of Ireland.

It was this one, and the youngest, who were present during his last

hours. The second daughter, Florence, was with her husband (a colonel of

the British army) in India. The two sons were both absent: one in India,

a captain in the army; the other, a physician, in Brazil.]

During the next night he was thought dying, "but he lingered on and on

till half past nine the next morning. He told me something about

'to-morrow morning,' and something about sunshine; but the thought that

he was talking about what he would never see drove the exact idea out of

my head, though I am sure it was morning in another world he was talking

of."

"There was an extraordinary appearance of youth about him, both for some

time before and after death. He looked more like a boy of fourteen, and

very beautiful. We did not like to let in the morning light, and the

candle was burning at nine o'clock, when the post brought the following

letter, which my sister and myself glanced over by the candle-light,

just as we were listening to his decreasing breath. At the moment it did

not strike me with the astonishment, at such an extraordinary

coincidence, that when we came to read it afterwards it did.

"'_Brighton, Dec. 7th, 1859_.

"'My Dear De Quincey,--Before I quit this world, I most ardently

desire to see your handwriting. In early life, that is, more than

sixty years ago, we were school-fellows together and mutually

attached; nay, I remember a boyish paper ("The Observer") in which

we were engaged. Yours has been a brilliant literary career, mine

far from brilliant, but I hope not unuseful as a theological

student. It seems a pity we should not once more recognize one

another before quitting the stage. I have often read your works,

and never without remembering the promise of your talents at

Winkfield. My life has been almost a domestic tragedy. I have four

children in lunatic-asylums. Thank God, it is now drawing to a

close; but it would cheer the evening of my days to receive a line

from you, for I am, with much sincerity,

"'Your old and attached friend,

"'E.H.G.'

"I do not remember the name of G., but the name of Edward constantly

recurred in his wanderings.

"Half an hour after the reading of that letter we heard those last

pathetic sighs, so terrible from their very softness, and saw the poor,

worn-out garment laid aside." Just before he died, he looked around the

room, and said very tenderly to the nurse, the physician, and his

daughters, who were present, "Thank you,--thank you all!" Sensible thus

to the very last of kindness, he breathed out his life in simple thanks,

swayed even in death by the spirit of profound courtesy that had ruled

his life.