"Through caverns measureless to man,Down to the sunless sea."
"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 Milton8gives 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 beaksFood to Elijah bringing even and morn,Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought:He saw the prophet also, how he fledInto the desert, and how there he sleptUnder 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."
"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."
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,[pg 362]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 thispapaverianmask 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 Quinceypersonallyis 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 ofourflying 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[pg 363]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 afflictprima 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 picturesquedéshabilléof 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, supposinghimto 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[pg 364]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[pg 365]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 tremblingjubilate. 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[pg 366]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. Hadhealso 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 ofanysort in his waistcoat-pocket, be they opium or whatever else, and we can assure you that that man is anaërobat,—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.9If 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.
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 strongcouldhave 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[pg 367]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 Quinceypsychologicallypreconformed 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 Quinceywithoutopium? 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 theEssenes. 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 unknownxin 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[pg 368]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,10of which he seemed never to tire.
"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 idealproscenium; theirdramatis 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[pg 369]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, theexternal, and, secondly, theinternal. Properly speaking, all thepositiveeffects 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 gaveTo each; but whoso did receive of them,And taste, to him the gushing of the wave,Far, far away, did seem to mourn and raveOn 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."
"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 theencentric 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[pg 370]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 forcontinuously)? If I knewthat, 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,—itsperihelion, in relation to ourselves; and it is precisely two and three-quarters miles distant fromMavis Bush,—the name of our cottage. Close to us, and the most noticeable object for guiding your inquiries, isMr. 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."
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 forcontinuously)? If I knewthat, 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,—itsperihelion, in relation to ourselves; and it is precisely two and three-quarters miles distant fromMavis Bush,—the name of our cottage. Close to us, and the most noticeable object for guiding your inquiries, isMr. 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 yearsplusten 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[pg 371]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 didonce, 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,isthere 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 withhim. 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[pg 372]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 thingshecould about his friends. If there was anything in a man's face or shape particularly uncouth, you might trust De Quincey for noticingthat. 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[pg 373]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,11who 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 mydearlittle 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[pg 374]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."
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.'
"'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.