kindness, and I missed his crossness, and wished him to be alive again, to be quarrelling with him (for we quarrelled sometimes), rather than not have him again, and was as uneasy without him, as he, their poor uncle, must have been when the doctor took off his limb. Here the children fell a crying, and asked if their little mourning which they had on was not for uncle John, and they looked up, and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, but to tell them some stories about their pretty dead mother. Then I told how for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, yet persisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W-n; and, as much as children could understand, I explained to them what coyness, and difficulty, and denial meant in maidens-when suddenly, turning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such a reality of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech; "We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice call Bartrum father. We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name”—and immediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor armchair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget unchanged by my side—but John L. (or James Elia) was gone for

ever.

THOMAS DE QUINCEY

Sydney Smith is remembered for his jests, Southey for his friendships and an unread epic or two, De Quincey for the Opium-Eater and a few prose poems. All were celebrated magazine writers, skilled in the somewhat formal manner of writing approved by the chief periodicals of their time. But magazine articles are usually ephemeral. The quality of timeliness which gives them vogue, the semi-popular presentation of material, the policy or prejudices of the editor (which may not be disregarded) all conspire to make the liveliest and soundest article uninteresting a hundred years hence.

A

De Quincey wrote, of necessity, for a living. learned man and a scholarly writer in various fields, he read Kant and, as he said, thought he understood him. His speculations in political economy excited the commendation of Ricardo. He was at home in the German, Latin, and Greek literatures. Altogether his intellectual range and talents were remarkable and have their place in the anecdotal history of literature. Yet it is only the Opium-Eater and two or three short pieces which are much read today. These only, in De Quincey's phrase, are of the literature not of knowledge but of power. They are emotional, not informative.

There was in De Quincey a vein of feeling which, if narrow, was delicate and fine. The story of Ann in the Opium-Eater is told with power and beauty, and episodes of his childhood as he recalls them have a wistful charm. These are true incidents, and De Quincey is most compelling as a narrative writer when he relates

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what he has himself experienced. The opium dreams are as strange as the exotic creations of fancy; yet they are intensely true and personal, and their power lies very considerably in the sympathy which they excite for the human soul which experienced them. De Quincey is the pathetic and heroic center of his story. We remember Carlyle's immortal description of him as "the beautifullest little child," but, too, of whom Carlyle said: "this child has been in hell."

As a stylist De Quincey is too often rhetorical; the form and manner of his writing distract from the thing said. Yet his best things, despite a virtuosity which cannot be ignored and which must, indeed, be admired even as one reads, are more than skilful exercises. It is possible, when listening to a great singer, both to marvel at the execution and to be carried away by the passion of the song. The listener experiences a twofold pleasure, in which admiration of technic enhances the intensity of the emotional effect. Some such operatic triumph is De Quincey's in his great moments. Thus in the passage in the Opium-Eater beginning "I dreamt that it was Easter Sunday and very early in the morning," the biblical cadence of the style with its coordinated sentences, almost wholly simple-compound in form, is calculated obviously to an emotional effect which culminates with the apparition of Ann. The shift from De Quincey's characteristic periodic style with its complex sentences is dramatic, like the sudden rallentando or pianissimo in the whirl-wind finale of a symphony. Yet despite its calculated artistry, the passage seems to me wholly moving even when many times read.

De Quincey is very much the musician, too, in his massing of words to complex and sonorous harmonies, as in the fugue-like passages depicting the pains of opium. Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow is a tone

poem, orchestral in its effects, contrapuntal in its architectonics. It is emotionally compelling, nevertheless, and despite its elaborateness, simple in its effect, evoking pity for all who sorrow. More profoundly than other emotions De Quincey knew grief and compassion. These are the theme of his finest prose, wherein all his resources as a stylist move at the command of his sincerest feeling.

The extracts from the Opium-Eater which follow are based upon the first form of it which appeared in the London Magazine. Later De Quincey very considerably expanded it after his characteristic fashion. Yet he doubted whether the first and simpler form was not preferable. The modern reader has no hesitation in concurring.

SELECTIONS FROM

CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER

I have often been asked how I came to be a regular opium-eater; and have suffered, very unjustly, in the opinion of my acquaintance, from being reputed to have brought upon myself all the sufferings which I shall have to record, by a long course of indulgence in this practice purely for the sake of creating an artificial state of pleasurable excitement. This, however, is a misrepresentation of my case. True it is, that for nearly ten years I did occasionally take opium for the sake of the exquisite pleasure it gave me: but, so long as I took it with this view, I was effectually protected from all material bad consequences by the necessity of interposing long intervals between the several acts of indulgence, in order to renew the pleasurable sensations. It was not for the purpose of creating pleasure, but of mitigating pain in the severest degree, that I first began to use opium as an

article of daily diet. In the twenty-eighth year of my age, a most painful affection of the stomach, which I had first experienced about ten years before, attacked me in great strength. This affection had originally been caused by extremities of hunger suffered in my boyish days. During the season of hope and redundant happiness which succeeded (that is, from eighteen to twenty-four) it had slumbered: for the three following years it had revived at intervals: and now, under unfavourable circumstances, from depression of spirits, it attacked me with a violence that yielded to no remedies but opium. As the youthful sufferings which first produced this derangement of the stomach, were interesting in themselves, and in the circumstances that attended them, I shall briefly retrace them.

My father died when I was about seven years old, and left me to the care of four guardians. I was sent to various schools, great and small; and was very early distinguished for my classical attainments, especially for my knowledge of Greek. At thirteen, I wrote Greek with ease; and at fifteen my command of that language was so great that I not only composed Greek verses in lyric metres, but could converse in Greek fluently, and without embarrassment—an accomplishment which I have not since met with in any scholar of my times, and which, in my case, was owing to the practice of daily reading off the newspapers into the best Greek I could furnish extempore: for the necessity of ransacking my memory and invention for all sorts and combinations of periphrastic expressions, as equivalents for modern ideas, images, relations of things, etc., gave me a compass of diction which would never have been called out by a dull translation of moral essays, etc. "That boy," said one of my masters, pointing the attention of a stranger