4533. iiii Kgiiigllsl} (&\mm ! SELECTIONS MOODY Class Book Copyright N^. COP«?IGHT DEPOSm Under the editorial supervision'of LINDSAY TODD DAMON, A. B., Professor of Rhetoric in Browa University. ADDISON— The Sir Roger De Coverley Papers— Abbott 30c BUNYAN— The Pllerim's Progress— Latham 30c BURKE— Speech on Conciliation with America— Denney 2Sc CARLYLE— Essay on Burns- Aiton 25c CHAUCER— Selections— (4REENLAW 40c COOPER— Last ol the Mohicans— Lewis 40c COLERIDGE— The Ancient Mariner, ) i vol — Moot^y 25c LOWELL-Vision of Sir Launfal, / ' ^®*- ^^^ODT *oc DE OUINCEY— Joan of Arc and Selections— Moodt 2Sc DE QUINCEY— The Flight of a Tartar Tribe— French 25c DICKENS— A Tale of Two Cities— Baldwin 40c DICKENS— A Christmas Carol, etc.,— Broadus 30c DRYDEN— Palamon and Arcite— OooK 25c EMERSON— Essays and Addresses— He ydbick 35c FRANKLIN— Autobiography— Griffin 30c GEORGE ElIOT— Silas Marner— Han COCK 30c GOLDSMITH— The Vicar ol Wakefield— Morton 30c HAWTHORNE— The House of the Seven Gables— Herrick 35c HAWTHORNE— Twice-Told Tales— Herrick and Bruere 40c IRVING— Life o* Goldsmith— Krapp 40c IRVINQ—The Sketch Book— Krapp 40c IRVING— Tales of a Traveller— and parts of The Sketch Book— Krapp 40c LONGFELLOW— Narrative Poems— Po well.... 40c LOWELL— Vision of Sir Launfal— See Coleridge MACAULAY— Essays on Addison and Johnson— Newcomer 30c MACAULAY— Essays on Milton and AdJilson- Ne wcomer 30c MILTON— L' Allegro, II Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas— Neilson 25c MILTON— Paradise Lost, Books I and II— Farley 25c PALGRAVE— Golden Treasury— Newcomer 40c POE— Poems and Tales, Selected— Newcomer 30c POPE-Homer's Iliad, Books I, VI, XXII, XXIV— Cress y and Moody 25c RUSKIN— Sesame and Lilies— Linn 25c SCOTT— Lay of the Last Minstrel— MoODY and Willard 25c SCOTT -Lady of the Lake— Moody 30c SCOTT— Marmion— Moody and Willard, 40c SCOTT— Ivanhoe— Simon DS 45c SHAKSPERE-The Neilson Edition— Edited with Introductions, Notes, and Word Indexes by W. A. Neilson, Ph. D. As You Like It, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Twelfth Night each 25c SHAKSPERE— Merchant of Venice— Lovett. 25c STEVENSON— Treasure Island— Bro adits 25c THACKERAY— Henry Esmond— Phelps 50c TENNYSON— Gareth and Lynette, Lancelot and Elaine, The Passing of Arthur, and other Poems— Reynolds 3Sc TENNYSON-The Princess— OoPEliAND 25c SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY Publishers 378-388 Wabash Avenue, CHICAGO KBITKD BY LINDSAY TODD DAMON, A. B. Pr9/48€0r of Rhetoric in Brown Uhiv&raity ^be Xake EngUsb Classics SELECTIONS DE QUI^^CEY INCLUDING JOAN OF ARC, THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH, LEVANA AND OUR LADIES OF SORROW, AND SAVANNAH LA MAR EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE BY WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY SOMETIME ASSISTANT PROF.'JSSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE UNI^^:RSITY OF CHICAGO CHICAGO SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY r "R^^ Copjnight, 1909 By SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two CoDies Received Copyrijrnt Entry i.ASS Ck. K\C Ho, CONTENTS Prefatory Note 3 Introduction i. life of de quincey 7 ii. joan of arc 22 iii. the english mail coach 24 iv. de quincey 's peculiar distinction as a WRITER . 29 Suggestions for READix(i o-") Text joan of arc 38 the english mail coach 79 LEVANA and our LADIES OF SORROW 161 SAVANNAH-LA-MAR '. 172 Notes 17 PREFATORY NOTE. The text here given is that of Professor Mas- son's Edinburgh edition. De Quincey's notes have been omitted, as too discursive and remote for the purpose of a school text, but their substance, wherever it is relevant, has been preserved in con- densed form. De Quincey's excessive use of italics has been modified in accordance with modern lit- erary usage, but wherever the italicized forms are needful to the sense, they have been retained. In order to give the student a comprehensive view of the type of writing for which De Quincey is es- pecially famous, two examples of his lyrical prose have been added to the volume; these are "Savan- nah-la-Mar" and "Levana and Our Ladies of Sor- row." 1 I. Life of De Quincey. The biography of Thomas de Quincey is known to us chiefly from what he has himself told us in his writings. His mature life was secluded and mysterious in a singular degree, but while leading this shadowy existence he wrote concerning his earlier years a series of papers so intimate and vivid that they have taken rank among the clas- sics of personal confessions. This, together with the fact that his highly sensitive nature developed very early, gives to his childhood and youth an exceptional interest. De Quincey was born in Manchester, in 1785, the fifth in a family of eight children. His mother was a woman of austere intellect and cold char- acter, a strict dissenter in religion, and a dealer- out of Roman justice to her awe-stricken depend- ants. His father, a prosperous merchant in the foreign trade, was a victim of consumption, and was compelled to reside abroad, at Lisbon, Ma- deira, and in the West Indies. Soon after the birth of Thomas, the family removed to a property near Manchester known as The Farm, and after- 7 8 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCEY. wards to a more pretentious villa named Greenhay, both now absorbed into the "brick and uproars" of the great manufacturing city. It was at Green- hay that De Quincey's father came home to die, and the boy never forgot the sight of the pale unfamiliar face against the white cushions, as the invalid drove slowly up the driveway to the house on a lovely summer evening. At Greenhay also, in his seventh year, De Quincey suffered the loss of his sister Elizabeth, a beautiful child of nine, to whom he was passionately attached. In a cele- brated chapter of his autobiography he has de- scribed his sister's death and its effect upon his own imagination, startled by grief into abnormal activity. Stealing unobserved to the room in which the body of the dead girl had been laid, he closed the door softly behind him, and turned to look for the last time upon the beloved face. "But the bed had been moved," he says, "and the back was now turned toward myself. Nothing met my eyes but one large window, wide open, through which the sun of midsummer at midday w^as showering down torrents of splendor." Through his mind passed memories of Bible stories heard in his dead sister's company, the sun-steeped landscape of Palestine, cornfields where the apos- tles plucked the corn, and the tossing palms of Christ's entry into Jerusalem, He turned to look upon his sister's face, and as he gazed at it a "sol- emn wind began to blow ... a wind that might have swept the fields of mortality for a thousand INTEODUCTION. ^ centuries ... a trance fell upon me. A vault seemed to open in the zenith of the far blue sky, a shaft which ran up forever. I, in spirit, rose as if on billows that also ran up the shaft forever, and the billows seemed to pursue the throne of God; but tJiat also ran before us and fled away contin- ually. The flight and the pursuit seemed to go on forever and ever. ... I slept — for how long I can- not say; slowly I recovered my self-possession and, when I woke, found myself standing, as before, close to my sister's bed." This experience, even though it may have been heightened in the recital, shows how early De Quincey had developed the dreaming faculty which was to furnish him the matter of his most remarkable writings. The next chapter dealing with his childhood De Quincey has entitled "Introduction to the World of Strife.'' It describes, with a delightful humor which the somewhat heavy title would not lead us to expect, his martyrdom at the hands of his elder brother, William, a very demon of mischief, the complete antitype of the shy, frail, studious boy whom he made the victim of his fantastic pranks. One feature of their life consisted in daily battles with the Manchester factory lads, in which Will- iam, as commander-in-chief, spurred on the quak- ing Thomas to acts of tremulous daring. After each battle he published a bulletin loading Thomas with official disgrace, or, after an unusual exhibition of fortitude, conferring upon him an officer's com- 10 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. mission and the Order of the Bath, onl}^, on the following day, to degrade him summarily to the ranks or to imprison him on a charge of treason. Not content with this external warfare, William created himself ruler of an imaginary "kingdom of Tigrosylvania" and assigned to Thomas the rival "kingdom of Gombroon,'' which its ruler hastened to locate at an insuperable distance from his brother's realm. To his dismay, however, the ruler of Tigrosylvania announced that, although the center and capital of his kingdom was indeed as far removed as the enemy had supposed, yet there existed "great horns and promontories'' run- ning down toward Gombroon, and rendering that unfortunate country liable to invasion at any time. The king of Gombroon defended his subjects with frantic ingenuity, imtil the humiliating secret was revealed that the Gombroonians were in so low a state of civilization as actually to possess tails, and the entire population was compelled by the Tigro- sylvanian conquerors to maintain a sitting posture for six hours a day, in order gradually to remove these members. The whole chapter, the second of the Autobiographic Sketches, should be read by all who wish to appreciate De Quincey's humor at its best. In his twelfth year De Quincey entered the Grammar School at Bath, whither his family had removed after the death of the father. He was already a prodigy of scholarship, and he won with his Latin verses a huge reputation in the school. INTRODUCTION. H His generosity in supplying verses for others, and his courage in refusing to yield to the threats of an older boy whose performance was eclipsed by the brilliant little new-comer, gave De Quincey his first taste of approval and power, for hitherto he had concurred implicitly in his elder brother's view of him as an object worthy only of con- temptuous pity. His career at the school was cut short by an accidental blow on the head which led to a serious illness. He has given us a partial list of the books read to him during his conva- lescence. The titles make a portentous array; they show on what strong meat the young intel- lects of that day were fed. Paradise Lost and the Orlando Furioso are among the lightest of the books mentioned. A journey to Eton and thence to the West of Ireland, in the company of a young Irish noble- man, Lord Westport, whose acquaintance he had made at Bath, formed De Quincey's introduction to the larger world. From this time on, he says, his mind expanded so rapidly that whereas hith- erto his growth in understanding might have been likened to the creeping hour-hand of a watch, now it was like the racing second-hand. This swift unfolding of his powers was hastened by a visit which he paid to a friend of his mother's, one Lady Carbery, a young woman of parts, who flattered him by becoming his pupil in Greek and who nicknamed him her "Admirable Crichton." 12 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCEY. II. At the age of sixteen De Quincey was entered for a three years' term at the Manchester Gram- mar School. This proved to be the beginning of troubles which came near to wrecking his life. He had protested to his mother and his guardians against being sent to the school, on the ground that he had outgrown the kind of routine instruc- tion there offered; but his objections had been overruled because of an "exhibition" or scholarship of fifty pounds a year, offered to graduates of the school on going up to Oxford. Not only did the school-tasks offer no stimulus to his eager mind, but a system of incessant roll calls deprived him of all opportunity for exercise and relaxation. His constitutional tendency to melancholy, aggravated by his bad health, at last drove him to despair. He determined to run away. After borrowing a few pounds by mail from his old friend. Lady Car- bery, he slipped away from the school one sum- mer morning, with a volume of "some English poet" in one pocket and a copy of Euripides in tlie other. He walked the forty miles to Chester, where his mother then resided. Her horror at his rebellion was mitigated by the indulgent view of the matter taken by her brother, a soldier just returned with a large fortune from service in Bengal. To his energetic nature the boy's truancy appealed as highly natural, not to say praise- worthy; and upon his intercession De Quincey INTRODUCTION. 13 was allowed to spend the summer tramping among the Welsh mountains, on an allowance of a guinea a week. This did very well so long as the good weather lasted, for he could recoup his expenses at the inns by sleeping at times under the stars and living upon the coarse fare of peasant cot- tages. But as winter came on, his straitened purse and his craving for intellectual society, together with that incurable restlessness which pursued him through life, determined him to make his way to London, with the hope of raising sufficient funds from the money-lenders to last until he came of age and entered into his inheritance. His plan, however, miscarried. The Jew to whom he applied put him off from month to month, meanwhile draining from him, for the purchase of imaginary stamps and legal papers, the few pounds which he possessed. His condition became more and more forlorn, until he was glad to be allowed to sleep in an empty house in Greek Street, Soho, by courtesy of the money-lender's attorney, who carried on his master's mysterious business by day in one room of the gloomy tene- ment. De Quincey's only friends were a female waif of ten, who acted as care-taker of the de- serted house, and "poor Ann," a girl of the pave- ments, with whom he trod day after day and night after night the crowded desert of Oxford Street. At length De Quincey went to Eton to try to get assistance in raising the desired loan; when he re- 14 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. turned, Ann had disappeared. The memory of the unfortunate, warm-hearted creature pursued him always, shaping many of those dreadful dreams which visited him in the years of his slavery to opium. At last, after suffering terrible privation and sowing the seeds of the disease which later drove him to seek respite from pain in narcotics, he was discovered by his relatives, and was sent to Oxford. At Oxford De Quincey led the life of a bookish recluse, scarcely sharing at all in the emulous activities of the place. His only close friend was a German named Schwartzburg, who taught him Hebrew and aroused in him a lifelong interest in German literature and philosophy. He passed a brilliant written examination, but was seized with panic on the day of his oral test, and left Oxford without a degree. During his Oxford course, upon a visit to Lon- don, De Quincey, to relieve the pangs of neuralgia, took his first dose of opium. It was on a rainy Sunday afternoon that he stepped across the fatal threshold of the little druggist shop. The imme- diate effect of the drug was magical. The druggist ^*^looked dull and stupid, just as any mortal drug- gist might be expected to look on a rainy London Sunday, . . . and, furthermore, out of my shil- ling returned to me wliat seemed to be real copper halfpence, taken out of a real wooden drawer. . . . Nevertheless, he has ever since figured in my INTRODUCTION. 15 mind as a beatific vision of an immortal druggist, sent down to earth on a special mission to myself.'' In this strain of half-jesting hyperbole he con- tinues to describe the experience, betraying the curious levity which alternated with funereal earn- est in all his writings about the opium habit. A little further on, the sliadow darkens over the page : ^^But, if I talk in this wa}^, the reader will think I eiUi laughing, and I can assure him that noljody will laugh long who deals much with opium.'' III. As early as his school days De Quincey had dis- covered the poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge, wdiose work was at that time either quite unknown or the subject of contemptuous ridicule. Upon the boy's sensitive appreciation the new - poetry to which England was deaf fell with magic power. For years he looked to the Lake country as a sacred Mecca, longed-for but unapproachable. During his college career he had made the acquaintance of Coleridge, and had entered into correspondence with Wordsworth, who graciously welcomed him as a disciple. A year or two after leaving college De Quincey saw one of his dearest dreams fulfilled, in the opportunity which came to him of settling at Grasmere in the very cottage where Words- worth had lived. Here, surrounded by his books, De Quincey lived from his twenty-fourth to his 1(3 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y. thirty-sixth year (1809-1821), reading prodigious- ly and consuming incredible quantities of opium. The vast and splendid dreams which the drug in- duced were paid for by periods of awful depression, when the sufferer lay in a complete prostration of body and w^ll, a prey to all the powers of darkness. When under the influence of the narcotic, the for- gotten impressions of a lifetime would revive, take on unearthly shapes and colors, and drift through wild phantasmagoric changes. The dreamer ^'moved, or hung, or sank, in measureless chasms, unshored astronomical abysses, or depths without a star; minutes shot out into years, or centuries shriveled into minutes." Under the spell of his tormenting visions he "fled from the wrath of Brama through all the forests of Asia." He "ran into pagodas, and was fixed for centuries at the summit, or in secret rooms." He was buried alive "in stone coffins, with mummies and sphinxes, in narrow chambers at the heart of eternal pyra- mids." x\t times the dream-scenery would change into "multitudinous and lamp-lit London, with its mazes and labyrinths," through which he must renew for the thousandth time his hopeless search for the lost Ann of Oxford Street. In 1816, in his thirty-first year, he shook him- self free for a time from his slavery to opium, and married a daughter of one of the dalesmen of the neighborhood. Children were born to them, and in a few years pecuniary difficulties compelled INTKODUCTION. 17 De Qiiincey to rouse himself, and to turn to litera- ture for a livelihood. He was now thirty-five years old, and had as yet written nothing ; but his mind was richly stored. His reputation was made at one stroke by the paper entitled Confessions of an Opium-Eater, being an Extract from the Life of a Scliolar. This appeared in the London Mag- azine in 18? 1. It was afterward much amplified, and a sequel entitled Suspiria de Profundis (Sighs from the Depths) was added. The auda- cious frankness of these autobiographic papers, their extraordinary eloquence and vividness, the mystery surrounding the person of the author, all worked together to give them instant fame. For some time De Quincey wrote under the pseudonym of "The Opium-Eater," and articles from his pen were eagerly welcomed by the publishers both in London and in Edinburgh. From 1821 to 18'?5 he spent most of his time in London, where he en- J03Td the friendship of Charles Lamb and Thomas Hood. Hood has left us a picture of the shy recluse in his lodgings, surrounded by "a German Ocean'' of books and manuscripts, on many of which a tell- tale purple stain showed where the glass of opium had rested; for De Quincey continued to use the drug, though in diminished quantities, to the end of his life. By reason of some peculiarity of his physical constitution, the effects were less baneful in his case than they usually are ; but to the weak- ening of will and the inability to sustain prolonged IS SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. effort which are inevitable results of opium-taking, is probably due the fact that he left no monu- mental work behind him and remained to the end a writer of magazine articles. Of these he poured out a constant stream, upon a great variety of topics. The most signal productions of his long career, besides the autobiographic writing already mentioned, are perhaps Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts, The Caesars, The Revolt of a Tartar Tribe, The Spanish Military Nun, Joan of Arc, and The English Mail Coach with its ap- pended Dream-Fugue. IV. A connection with Blackwood's Magazine drew De Quincey to Edinburgh, and in 1830 he r'^moved permanently thither, his wife and children follow- ing him from Grasmere. In 1837 his wife died, and he was left at the age of fifty-two a helpless widower wdth six children, the eldest a girl not yet out of her teens. This girl had fortunately inherited the brave character of her mother, the Cumberland dalesman's daughter. It was by her exertions that the family was settled, in 1840, in a neat cottage in the village of Lasswade, a few miles from Edin- burgh. Here De Quincey resided for the remain- der of his life, though with frequent restless ex- cursions, and mysterious movings from lodging to lodging in Edinburgh, as one room after another, rented as a place of study and retreat, became INTRODUCTION. 19 "snowed up" with books and papers, and the strange little man, in despair of bringing order out of chaos, locked the door upon the welter and sought another place where the process of confused accumulation might begin anew. The stories of De Quincey's eccentricity in ap- pearance and conduct during his Edinburgh years bring before us with great vividness his strange personality, which seems to have gone through life in a kind of insulating medium, beholding the world, commenting upon it, often with searching truth and great brilliancy, but never quite touching it. There w^as in his nature an element of the elfin, the elusive, a suggestion of something not quite human and not quite sane. He was much given to nocturnal walks in the country surrounding Edinburgh, and would sometimes in summer make his couch under the stars, as in the days of his boyish rambles in Wales. On these walks he car- ried with him a lantern, which, with his diminu- tive figure, his costume careless to the point of grotesqueness, his anxious, delicate, thought-worn face, and his habit of glancing over his shoulder as if in fear of pursuit, must have made a spectacle sufficiently disconcerting to anyone who encoun- tered him. His helplessness in money matters was that of a child. His fear of cabmen was so great that he passed by their waiting places in Princes Street as by a den of wild beasts, with quickened step and eyes steadfastly averted in the dread lest 20 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. one of them might horribly imagine himself to have been signaled. He addressed his landlady and his washerwoman with old-world courtesy, and often with a stately rhetoric which left them in a trance of admiration but without the slightest comprehension of his meaning. His wonderful gifts of conversation made him much sought after in Edinburgh drawing-rooms, but such was his secretiveness with regard to his temporary lodg- ings and his distrust of crowds, that nothing save a lucky combination of strategy and force could secure his presence in any social gathering. Once there, however, especially after the night had worn on toward morning, he would fascinate all hearers with his suggestive, picturesque talk, which, unlike the monologues of Coleridge and other famous talkers, was genuine conversation, delicately re- sponsive to the promptings of others. His affec- tion and gentleness in his own family circle were, we are told by many witnesses, beautiful to see, although his incurable absentmindedness, to say nothing of his strange habits, made him at times a household trial. "He was not," says his daugh- ter, **^a reassuring man for nervous people to live with, as those nights were exceptions on which he did not set something on fire, the commonest inci- dent being for some one to look up from book or w^ork to say casually, Papa, your hair is on fire; of which a calm Is it, my love f and a hand rubbing out the blaze was all the notice taken." Perhaps INTEODUCTION. 21 the most striking glimpse of De Quincey which we have is that given by Carlyle. He tells us how, entering a room one evening, he saw De Quincey, small, delicate, and fair, "sitting like a child under the candles/' As he came nearer, and beheld the face, which a moment before seemed so young, crossed and recrossed by an infinitude of tiny wrinkles, he started back with the mute ejac- ulation, "Eccovi,"^ this child has been in hell V As has been the case with so many British writ- ers, De Quincey found in America his first full appreciation. The earliest complete edition of his works appeared in Boston. This brought forth a proposal from an Edinburgh publisher that De Quincey should himself undertake a collected edi- tion, with such changes and additions as he saw fit to make. The last ten years of his life were devoted to this labor. He died in 1859, at the age of seventy-four. The last words upon his lips were "Sister, sister !"^addressed as if in an ecstacy of recognition to the beloved playmate who had died nearly seventy years before. He was buried in the West Churchyard of Edinburgh, where a tablet upon the crumbling wall, close under the Castle Eock, now marks his resting-place. ♦ An Italian exclamation, equivalent to "Lo !" or "Be- hold !" 22 SELECTIONS FKOM DE QUINCEY. II. Joan of Arc. The essay upon Joan of Arc was written in 1847. It was called forth by that portion of Michelet's History of France which deals with the life and death of the Maid of Orleans. The death of Joan was the work of Englishmen, accomplished, it is true, through the help of a French Bishop whom they had corrupted. The blame which rested upon the English nation for the shameful deed had been pressed home by Michelet;^ and De Quincey. took up his pen in a mood of retaliation, burning to mitigate the charge under which England lay. His purpose was two-fold: first, to invalidate Michelet's account of the matter wherever this account was open to attack; second, to lift the French national heroine to a higher pedestal of glory than the great historian of her own nation had given her, and thus to show the superior mag- nanimity of the English mind in the discussion of an episode in which Englishmen had played so unmagnanimous a role. The essay has therefore a double aspect. In part it is a diatribe against the French in general and Michelet in particular; in part it is a brief summary of the history of Joan, used as the basis for a glorification of her charac- ter and her career. IXTKODUCTION. 23 These two parts are of very unequal value. The first is tinged with prejudice, is uttered in an acri- monious and fault-finding tone, and is discursive to the point of exasperation. The second portion of the essay is, on the contrary, lofty in tone, full of exalted enthusiasm for the subject, and couched for the most part in language of solemn beauty. Unfortunately, these two discordant portions are not held apart, but are inextricably woven together. As a result, it is impossible to read the essay with sustained satisfaction. It must be read for its splendid moments, when the author forgets his partisanship, when he puts quarreling aside and loses himself in contemplation of one of the most exalted of human stories. Even in those parts of the essay which are not controversial, the reader will be met by one of De Quincey's unhappy eccentricities, namely, his proneness to indulge, at the most inopportune mo- ments, in what one of his critics has called "rig- marole." This seems a harsh word to apply to any portion of the work of a great writer, but whoever reads De Quincey's "Joan," and in the midst of moving eloquence finds himself suddenly plunged into tasteless jesting about Joan's father, his pig- sty and the darning of his socks, or into the vapid banter which De Quincey bestows upon the peasant girl Haumette, will hardly feel inclined to use a milder word. De Quincey's apologists have at- tempted to defend this aspect of his writing by 24 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. giving it various euphemistic names; but in reality it cannot be defended. It can only be explained as an attempt on the part of a complex and subtle writer to seek a momentary relief from the strain of thought, or else as a deliberate effort to give to his writing a popular tone. When it has been in some such manner accounted for, it should be for- gotten as soon as possible, in order that the mind may be free to receive the really noble impressions which, in its highest moments, the essay is fitted to convey. These will be found especially in the account of Domremy and its surroundings, of La Pucelle's trial and death, and in the peroration contrasting the deathbed visions of the martyred girl with those of the evil-hearted bishop who pro- nounced her doom. III. The English Mail Coach. Tlie English Mail Coach (1849) is one of the most interesting and varied of De Quincey's writ- ings. It is written from the j^ersonal standpoint, and personal reminiscences nearly always called forth his happiest powers. It has, moreover, unlike ordi- nary autobiographic WTiting, a "broad background of national interest. The English mail-coach system is here depicted not only at the moment of its greatest picturesqueness, but at an epoch wIkmi {he INTRODUCTION. 25 struggle of England against Napoleon made the royal mail the focus for an immense national en- thusiasm. As has already been said, De Quincey was an ardent patriot; his imagination was kin- dled and his heart stirred by the scenes in which he participated; so that the passages of descrip- tion which deal with the mail-coach in its character of herald, spreading throughout the anxious king- dom news of England's fortunes in battle, are among the most impressive to be found in his works. In the series of dreams which conclude the essay, suggested by the incident of a fatal collision between the stage-coach and a light vehi- cle encountered in a narrow road at night, De Quincey displays the power which marked him out most distinctly from the other prose writers of his generation — the power of conyeying, in prose, emo- tions of mystery and grandeur usually reserved for poetry. When we add that portions of the paper are meditative in character, that other pas- sages are humorous or fantastic, that odd learning is scattered everywhere, it is evident that in this single essay we may find exemplified almost all the elements of De Quincey's genius as a writer. The paper is divided into three sections, and the first section again into two parts, entitled respec- tively ^'The Glory of ]\rotion" and "Going Down with Victory." The first of these sub-sections is very light in tone, as befits the reminiscences with which it deals — reminiscences of coaching trips to 0(j SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCE Y. and from Oxford during the author's college days, when every incident of the road furnished matter for light-hearted jest. The story of the Chinese Emperor's ride in the mail coach presented to him by the English Ambassador, the little idyll of *^Sweet Fanny of the Bath Road," the grotesque account of her grandfather, the old coachman, un- der the similitude of an alligator, the race with the Birmingham Tally-ho, and De Quincey's bantering of the thick-headed Welshman upon the topic — all this is given in the irresponsible mood of youth, which picks up amusement wherever it can be found. It may be noticed in passing that only a few lines are devoted to the theme announced in the title. The next sub-section, entitled "Going Down with Victory," is pitched in a loftier key. Through it breathes the exultant gladness of a great nation,' brought together in bonds of brotherhood by the consciousness of martial glory. A great battle has been fought in Spain, the battle of Talavera. The news has reached London, and thence is to be radiated over the whole kingdom by means of the royal mail. The nmstering of the coaches before the General Postoffice, the start, the scattering of the news along the highway, the midnight celebra- tion in the post town where the mail halts to change horses, make a recital at which every heart must thrill. With beautiful art De Quincey has shown us the dark threads of personal grief and INTRODUCTION. 27 bereavement weaving themselves with the bright strands of public rejoicing. Not a false touch mars the large simplicity of the recital. This sec- tion of The English Mail Coach deserves to stand as a perfect example of narrative art. The second main section of the essay, entitled "The Vision of Sudden Death," is marred by a certain sense of unreality and of straining for eifect. De Quincey confesses to having taken opium before starting on the journey, and what follows has many of the characteristics of his opium dreams; 3'et the narrative is given as a bit of fact. The result is that De Quincey does not succeed in enlisting our entire belief in the tragedy which he narrates. Various questions inevitably suggest themselves as we read. Why, when he saw the frail vehicle so far ahead, did he not wake the driver of the coach? Hovr could the young lady have received a mortal injury, when her comrade escaped unhurt and the car- riage in which they both sat remained unshat- tered by the collision? These natural queries De Quincey makes no show of answering, and in con- sequence the reader remains with a residuum of incredulity in his mind. Moreover, the prelim- inary discussion of the term "sudden death" is pedantic, and the account of the accident itself too long drawn out. De Quincey's chief fault as a writer, diffuseness, worked against him here, to the injury of the effect at which he too consciously 28 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. aimed. Nevertheless, the section contains elements of great beauty, and in spite of its shortcomings leaves a strong impression upon the memory. The concluding section of the paper bears the striking title "Dream-Fugue." As the title im- plies, De Quincey seeks here, by the presentation of .a series of dreams suggested by the preceding trag- edy, to induce in the reader a succession of emo- tional states like those to which concerted music gives rise. He drifts before our inner vision, one after another, a series of shadowy and dissolving pictures — pictures bearing some analogy to the .actual event, but changed by the dream-spell into unearthly shapes and colors. At the same time he suggests by his style the changes and rhythm of a musical composition. The use of the word "fugue" in this connection is peculiarly happy. The fugue (Latin fug a, flight) is a species of polyphonic composition in which the various voices or parts enter in turn with their respective melo- dies or "themes," one as it were pursuing and an- other fleeing through the mazes of contrapuntal development, until all are brought together in a resonant finale. De Quincey uses as his "themes" a series of visionary pictures which suggest emo- tions of beauty, pathos, terror, splendor, and awe; and these visions pursue each other, weave them- selves together, dissolve and reunite, in accordance with some wild yet harmonious law of mental asso- ciation analogous to the laws of music. As the INTRODUCTIOX. 29 dream progresses, it becomes more and more com- plex; and the finale draws together a multitude of suggestions in a grandiose climax. Throughout the composition, too, there reigns a sense of flight and pursuit, each spectral vision hurrying on, as if eager to escape from its predecessor and to merge itself into the vision about to arise, which in its turn propagates itself onward with aerial change and phantom speed. IV. De Quincey's Peculiar Distinction as a Writer. It is upon a few pieces like the "Dream-Fugue," of richly colored lyric prose, drawn from the mat- ter of his dreams, and dreamlike in their shadowy outlines and unearthly transformations, that De Quincey based his chief claim as an original and creative writer; and the claim has, upon the whole, been allowed by posterity. He calls this species of writing a "mode of impassioned prose." "Lyrical prose" would perhaps better define its quality, for it is essentially an attempt to lift prose style into the realm of poetry, to win for it the powers and graces traditionally belonging to verse composition. The innovation was perhaps hardly so great as De Quincey wished the world to be- lieve, for certain seventeenth-century writers, Sir 30 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCEY. Thomas Browne^ Jeremy Taylor, and Milton, had already made splendid experiments in the same general direction. It is moreover certain that De Quincey was stimulated by the then recent example of a German writer, Jean Paul Eichter, specimens of whose "lyrical prose phantasy" he had, early in his own literary career, presented to the English public in translation. But when all deductions are made, De Quincey's service to English prose, in pushing out its boundaries and discovering for it new possibilities of beauty, remains undeniable, and his influence upon the prose literature of the later nineteenth century has been very great, be- traying itself in such widely different writers as Bulwer and Ruskin. Besides the "Dream-Fugue" and certain famous passages of his "Confessions" dealing with his opium-visions, De Quincey's ventures in this mode of imaginative writing include "The Daughter of Lebanon," "Savannah-la-Mar," "Memorial Sus- piria," and "Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow." Of these, the last is of most importance. "Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow" presents, under a mythologic guise, the main types of grief and misery which afflict the human mind. The figure of Levana is borrowed by De Quincey from Roman myth; she is the goddess of Edu- cation, who "lifts up" the new-born infant in sign that it shall live, and who governs the influ- ences conspiring to mould its character. The three INTRODUCTION. 31 Ladies of Sorrow are vast and shadowy personifi- cations, associated by De Quincey w4th the god- dess as arbiters of the tragic life of man : Mater Lachrymarum, Our Lady of Tears, represents the sorrow of death and bereavement; Mater Sus- plriorum, Our Lady of Sighs, represents the sor- row of grey misery, felt by the outcast, the slave, the imprisoned criminal, the person suffering under irremediable disgrace; Mater Tenehrar'um, Our Lady of Darkness, represents the sorrow of wild and suicidal despair. Of this piece, perhaps the most perfect example which De Quincey has left us of his peculiar gift. Professor Masson says : "This is prose-poetry ; but it is more. It is a per- manent addition to the mythology of the human race. As the Graces are three, as the Fates are three, as the Furies are three, as the Muses were originally three, so may the varieties and de- grees of misery that there are in the w^orld, and the proportions of their distribution among man- kind, be represented to the human imagination forever by De Quincey's Three Ladies of Sorrow and his sketch of their figures and kingdoms." 32 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. Suggestions for Reading. The most extended biography of De Quincey is by H. A. Page, Thomas de Quincey: His Life and Writings. With Unpublished Correspondence. This has been virtually superseded, however, by the life of De Quincey in the English Men of Letters series, by Professor David Masson. Of fundamental importance, in all study of De Quincey's life, are his Autobiographic Sketches, and his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, with its sequel, Suspiria de Profundis. It is impos- sible to know where, in these remarkable confes- sions, the author is recording his actual experience, and where he is giving the reins to his fancy. But this is of little importance, for both elements in the recital help to paint for us the picture of the author's mind. Excellent critical essays on De Quincey occur in George Saintsbury's Essays in English lAierature, 1780-1860, Masson's Essays Biographical and Critical, and Leslie Stephen's Hours in a Library, Vol. 1. An elaborate analysis of De Quincey's style will be found in Professor Minto's Manual of English Prose Literature. The standard edition of his works is Masson's Edin- burgh edition in 14 volumes. On the classification of the heterogeneous mass of articles that make up the bulk of De Quincey's work, consult Masson's Life, pp. 159ff. THOMAS DE QUINCEY. JOAN OF ARC. What is to be thought of her? What is to be thought of the poor shepherd girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that — like the Hebrew shepherd boy from the hills and forests of Judea 5 — rose suddenly out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the religious inspiration, rooted in deep pastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies, and to the more perilous station at the right hand of kings? The Hebrew boy inaugu- 10 rated his patriotic mission by an act, by a victori- ous act, such as no man could deny. But so did the girl of Lorraine, if we read her story as it was read by those w^ho saw her nearest. Adverse ar- mies bore witness to the boy as no pretender; but 15 so they did to the gentle girl. Judged by the voices of all who saw them from a station of good will, both w^ere found true and loyal to any prom- ises involved in their first acts. Enemies it was that made the difference between their subsequent 33 A 34 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. fortunes. The boy rose to a splendor and a noon- day prosperity, both personal and public, that rang through the records of his people, and be- came a byword among his posterity for a thousand years, until the scepter was departing from Judah. 5 The poor forsaken girl, on the contrary, drank not herself from that cup of rest which she had se- cured for France. She never sang together with the songs that rose in her native Domremy as echoes to the departing steps of invaders. She lo mingled not in the festal dances at Vaucouleurs which celebrated in rapture the redemption of France. No ! for her voice was then silent ; no ! for her feet were dust. Pure, innocent, noble- hearted girl ! whom, from earliest youth, ever I 15 believed in as full of truth and self-sacrifice, this was among the strongest pledges for thy truth, that never once — no, not for a moment of weak- ness — didst thou revel in the vision of coronets and honor from man. Coronets for thee ! Oh, 20 no ! Honors, if they come w^hen all is over, are . for those that share thy blood. Daughter of Domremy, when the gratitude of thy king shall awaken, thou wilt be sleeping the sleep of the dead. Call her, king of France, but she will not 25 hear thee. Cite her by the apparitors to come and receive a robe of honor, but she will be found en contumace. When the thunders of universal France, as even yet may happen, shall proclaim the grandeur of the poor shepherd girl that gave 30 JOAN OF ARC. 35 up all for her country, thy ear, young shepherd girl, will have been deaf for five centuries. To suffer and to do, that was thy portion in this life, ' that was thy destiny; and not for a moment was 5 it hidden from thyself. Life, thou saidst, is short ; and the sleep which is in the grave is long ; let me use that life, so transitory^ for the glory of those heavenly dreams destined to comfort the sleep which is so long ! This pure creature — 10 pure from every suspicion of even a visionary self- interest, even as she was pure in senses more ob- vious — never once did this holy child, as regarded herself, relax from her belief in the darkness that was traveling to meet her. She might not pre- 15 figure the very manner of her death ; she saw not in vision, perhaps, the aerial altitude of the fiery scaffold, the spectators without end, on every road, pouring into Eouen as to a coronation, the surg- ing smoke, the volleying flames, the hostile faces 20 all around, the pitying eye that lurked but here and there, until nature and imperishable truth broke loose from artificial restraints; — these might not be apparent through the mists of the hurrying future. But the voice that called her to death, 25 that she heard forever. Great was the throne of France even in those days, and great was he that sat upon it ; but well Joanna knew that not the throne, nor he that sat upon it, was for her; but, on the contrary, that 30 she was for them; not she by them, but they by 36 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. her, should rise from the dust Gorgeous were the lilies of France, and for centuries had the privilege to spread their beauty over land and sea, until, in another century, the wrath of God and man combined to wither them; but well Joanna 5 knew, early at Domremy she had read that bitter truth, that the lilies of France would decorate no garland for her. Flower nor bud, bell nor blos- som, would ever bloom for her! But stay. What reason is there for taking up lo this subject of Joanna precisely in the spring of 1847 ? Might it not have been left till the spring of 1947, or, perhaps, left till called for? Yes, but it is called for, and clamorously. You are aware, reader, that amongst the many original 15 thinkers whom modern France has produced, one of the reputed leaders is M. Michelet. All these writers are of a revolutionary cast; not in a po- litical sense merely, but in all senses; mad, often- times, as March hares; crazy with the laughing 20 gas of recovered liberty; drunk with the wine-cup of their mighty Eevolution, snorting, whinnying, throwing up their heels, like wild horse? in the boundless Pampas, and running races of defiance with snipes, or with thef* winds, or with their own 25 shadows, if they can find nothing else to chal- lenge. Some time or other, I, that have leisure to read, may introduce you that have not, to two or three dozen of these writers ; of whom I can assure JOAN OF ARC. 37 you beforehand that they are often profound, and at intervals are even as impassioned as if they were come of our best English blood. But now, confining our attention to M. Michelet, we in 5 England — who know him best by his worst book, the book against priests, etc. — know him disad- vantageously. That book is a rhapsody of inco- herence. But his "History of France" is quite another thing. A man, in whatsoever craft he 10 sails, cannot stretch away out of sight when he is linked to the windings of the shore by towing ropes of History. Facts, and the consequences of facts, draw the writer back to the falconer's lure from the giddiest heights of speculation. 15 Here, therefore — in his "France" — if not always free from flightiness, if now and then off like a rocket for an airy wheel in the elouds, M. Michelet, with natural politeness, never forgets that he has left a large audience waiting for him on earth, 20 and gazing upwards in anxiety for his return ; re- turn, therefore, he does. But History, though clear of certain temptations in one direction, has separate dangers of its own. It is impossible so to write a history of France, or of England — 25 works becoming every hour more indispensable to the inevitably political man of this day — without perilous openings for error. If I, for instance, on the part of England, should happen to turn my labors into that channel, and (on the model of 30 Lord Percy going to Chevy Chase) 38 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. A vow to God should make My pleasure in the Michelet woods Three summer days to take, probabl}', from simple delirium, I might hunt M. Michelet into delirinni tremens. Two strong 5 angels stand by the side of Histor}^ whether French history or English, as heraldic supporters : the angel of research on the left hand, that must read millions of dusty parchments, and of pages blotted with lies ; the angel of meditation on the 10 right hand, that must cleanse these lying records with fire, even as of old the draperies of asbestos were cleansed, and must quicken them into re- generated life. Willingly I acknowledge that no man will ever avoid innumerable errors of detail ; 15 with so vast a compass of ground to traverse, this is impossible; but such errors (though I have a bushel on hand, at M. Michelet's service) are not the game I chase ; it is the bitter and unfair spirit in which M. Michelet writes against England. 20 Even that, after all, is but my secondary object; the real one is Joanna, the Pucelle d'Orleans for herself. I am not going to write the history of La Pu- celle : to do this, or even circumstantially to re- 25 port the history of her persecution and bitter death, of her struggle with false witnesses and with ensnaring judges, it would be necessary to have before us all the documents, and therefore the collection only now forthcoming in Paris. But 30 JOAX OF ARC. 39 my purpose is narrower. There have been great thinkers, disdaining the careless judgments of contemporaries, who have thrown themselves bold- ly on the judgment of a far posterit}^ that should 5 have had time to review, to ponder, to compare. There have been great actors on the stage of tragic humanity that might, with the same depth of confidence, have appealed from the levity of compatriot friends — too heartless for the sublime 10 interest of their story, and too impatient for the labor of sifting its perplexities — to the magnanim- ity and justice of enemies. To this class belongs the Maid of Arc. The ancient Eomans were too faithful to the ideal of grandeur in themselves 15 not to relent, after a generation or two, before the grandeur of Hannibal. Mithridates, a more doubtful person, yet, merely for the magic per- severance of his indomitable malice, won from the same Eomans the only real honor that ever 20 he received on earth. And we English have ever shown the same homage to stubborn enmity. To work unflinchingly for the ruin of England; to say through life, by word and by deed, Delenda est Anglia Yictrix! — that one purpose of malice, 25 faithfully pursued, has quartered some people upon our national funds of homage as by a per- petual annuity. Better than an inheritance of service rendered to England herself has sometimes proved the most insane hatred to England. Hyder 30 Ali, even his son Tippoo, though so far inferior, 40 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y. and Xapoleon, have all benefited by this disposi- tion amongst ourselves to exaggerate the merit of diabolic enmity. Xot one of these men was ever capable, in a solitary instance, of praising an enemy (what do you say to that, reader?) ; and 5 yet, in their behalf, we consent to forget, not their crimes only, but (which is worse) their hideous bigotry and anti-magnanimous egotism — for na- tionality it was not. Suffren, and some half dozen of other French nautical heroes, because rightly ^ they did us all the mischief they could (which was really great), are names justly reverenced in England. On the same principle. La Pucelle d'Orleans, the victorious enemy of England, has been destined to receive her deepest commemora- 15 tion from the magnanimous justice of English- men. Joanna, as we in England should call her, but according to her own statement, Jeanne (or, as M. Michelet asserts, Jean) D'Arc, was born at 20 Domremy, a village on the marshes of Lorraine and Champagne, and dependent upon the town of Yaucouleurs. I have called her a Lorrainer, not simply because the word is prettier, but iDCcause Champagne too odiously reminds us English of 25 what are for us imaginary wines — which, un- doubtedly. La Pucelle tasted as rarely as we Eng- lish: we English, because the champagne of Lon- don is chiefly grown in Devonshire; La Pucelle, because the champagne of Champagne never, by so JOAN OF ABC. 41 any chance, flowed into the fountain of Domremy, from which only she drank. M. Michelet will have her to be a Champenoise, and for no better reason than that she "took after her father/' who 5 happened to be a Champcnois. These disputes, however, turn on refinements too nice. Domremy stood upon the frontiers, and like other frontiers, produced a mixed race, repre- senting the cis and the ti-ans. A river (it is true) 10 formed the boundary line at this point — the river Meuse ; and that, in old days, might have divided the populations, but m these days it did not; there were bridges, there were ferries, and wed- dings crossed from the right bank to the left. 15 Here lay two great roads, not so much for travel- ers that were few, as for armies that were too many by half. These two roads, one of which was the great highroad between France and Germany, decussated at this very point; which is a learned 20 way of saying that they formed a St. Andrew's Cross, or letter X- I hope the compositor will choose a good large X ; in which case the point of intersection, the locus of conflux and intersec- tion for these four diverging arms, will finish the 25 reader's geographical education, by showing him to a hair's-breadth where it was that Domremy stood. These roads, so grandly situated, as great trunk arteries between two mighty realms, and haunted forever by wars or rumors of wars, de- ■30 cussated (for anything I know to the contrary) 42 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. absolutely under Joanna's bedroom window ; one rolling away to the right, past M. D'Arc's old barn, and the other unaccountably preferring to sweep round that odious man's pig-sty to the left. ' 5 On whichever side of the border chance had thrown Joanna, the same love to France would have been nurtured. For it is a strange fact, noticed by M. Michelet and others, that the Dukes of Bar and Lorraine had for generations pursued lo the policy of eternal warfare with France on their own account, yet also of eternal amity and league with France in case anybody else presumed to at- tack her. Let peace settle upon France, and be- fore long you might rely upon seeing the little is vixen Lorraine flying at the throat of France. Let France be assailed by a formidable enemy, and instantly you saw a Duke of Lorraine insist- ing on having his own throat cut in support of France; which favor accordingly was cheerfully 20 granted to him in three great successive battles : twice by the English, viz., at Crecy and Agincourt, once by the Sultan at Nicopolis. This sympathy with France during great eclipses, in those that during ordinary seasons 25 were always teasing her with brawls and guerilla inroads, strengthened the natural piety to France of those that were confessedly the children of her own house. The outposts of France, as one may call the great frontier provinces, were of all lo- 30 JOAN OF ARC. 43 calities the most devoted to the Fleurs de Lvs. To witness, at any great crisis, the generous devotion to these lilies of the little fierv cousin that in gentler weather was forever tilting at the breast 5 of France, could not but fan the zeal of France's legitimate daughters; whilst to occupy a post of honor on the frontiers against an old hereditary enemy of France would naturally stimulate this zeal by a sentiment of martial pride, by a sense of 10 danger always threatening, and of hatred always smoldering. That great four-headed road was a perpetual memento to patriotic ardor. To say ''This way lies the road to Paris, and that other way to Aix-la-Chapelle ; this to Prague, that to 15 Vienna,^' nourished the warfare of the heart by daily ministrations of sense. The eye that watched for the gleams of lance or helmet from the hostile frontier, the ear that listened for the groaning of wheels, made the highroad itself, with its relations 20 to centers so remote, into a manual of patriotic duty. \ The situation, therefore, locally, of Joanna was full of profound suggestions to a heart that lis- tened for the stealthy steps of change and fear 25 that too surely were in motion. But, if the place were grand, the time, the burden of the time, was far more so. The air overhead in its upper chambers was hurtling with the obscure sound; was dark with sullen fermenting of storms that had been 30 gathering for a hundred and thirty years. The 4-4 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. battle of Agincourt in Joanna's childhood had reopened the wounds of France. Crecy and Poic- tiers, those withering overthrows for the chivalry of France, had, before Agincourt occurred, been tranquilized by more than half a century; but 5 this resurrection of their trumpet wails made the whole series of battles and endless skirmishes take their stations as parts in one drama. The graves that had closed sixty years ago seemed to fly open in sympathy with a sorrow that echoed lo their own. The monarchy of France labored in extremity, rocked and reeled like a ship fighting with the darkness of monsoons. The madness of the poor king (Charles VI.) falling in at such a crisis, like the case of women laboring in child- 15 birth during the storming of a city, trebled the awfulness of the time. Even the wild story of the incident which had immediately occasioned the explosion of this madness — the case of a man unknown, gloomy, and perhaps maniacal himself, lo coming out of a forest at noonday, laying his hand upon the bridle of the king's horse, checking him for a moment to say, "Oh, king, thou art be- trayed," and then vanishing, no man knew whither, as he had appeared for no man knew 25 what — fell in with the universal prostration of mind that laid France on her knees, as before the slow unweaving of some ancient prophetic doom. The famines, the extraordinary diseases, the in- surrections of the peasantry up and down Europe 30 JOAN OF ARC. 45 — these were chords struck from the same mys- terious harp; but these were transitory chords. There had been others of deeper and more omi- nous sound. The termination of the Crusades, the 5 destruction of the Templars, the Papal interdicts, the tragedies caused or suffered by the house of Anjou, and by the Emperor — these were full of a more permanent significance. But, since then, the colossal figure of feudalism was seen stand- 10 ing, as it were, on tiptoe, at Crecy, for flight from earth: that was a revolution unparalleled; yet tliat was a trifle by comparison with the more fearful revolutions that were mining below the Church. By her own internal schisms, by the abominable 15 spectacle of a double Pope — so that no man, ex- cept through political bias, could even guess which was Heaven's vicegerent, and which the creature of Hell — the Church was rehearsing, as in still earlier forms she had already rehearsed, those vast 20 rents in her foundations which no man should ever heal. These were the loftiest peaks of the cloudland in the skies that to the scientific gazer first caught the colors of the new morning in advance. But 25 the whole vast range alike of sweeping glooms overhead dwelt upon all meditative minds, even upon those that could not distinguish the tenden- cies nor decipher the forms. It was, therefore, not her own age alone, as affected by its imme- 30 diate calamities, that lay with such weight upon 46 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. Joanna's mind, but her own age as one section in a vast mysterious drama, unweaving through a century back, and drawing nearer continually to some dreadful crisis. Cataracts and rapids were heard roaring ahead; and signs were seen far 5 back, by help of old men's memories, which an- swered secretly to signs now coming forward on the eye, even as locks answer to keys. It was not wonderful that in such a haunted solitude, with such a haunted heart, Joanna should see angelic lo visions, and hear angelic voices. These voices whispered to her forever the duty, self-imposed, of delivering France. Five years she listened to these monitory voices with internal struggles. At lengtli she could resist no longer. Doubt gave way; and 15 she left her home forever in order to present her- self at the dauphin's court. The education of this poor girl w^as mean ac- cording to the present standard : was ineffably grand, according to a purer philosophic standard : 20 and only not good for our age because for us it would be unattainable. She read nothing, for she could not read; but she had heard others read parts of the Roman martyrology. She wept in sympathy with the sad "Misereres" of the Eomish 25 Church; she rose to heaven with the glad trium- phant "Te Deums" of Eome; she drew her com- fort and her vital strength from the rites of the same Church. But, next after these spiritual ad- vantages, she owed most to the advantages of her 30 JOAN OF ARC. 47 situation. The fountain of Domremy was on the brink of a boundless forest ; and it was haunted to that degree by fairies that the parish priest (cure) was obliged to read mass there once 5 a year, in order to keep them in any decent bounds. Fairies are important, even in a statisti- cal view : certain weeds mark poverty in the soil ; fairies mark its solitude. As surely as the wolf retires before cities does the fairy sequester her- 10 self from the haunts of the licensed victualer. A village is too much for her nervous delicacy; at most, she can tolerate a distant view of a hamlet. We may judge, therefore, by the uneasiness and extra trouble which they gave to the parson, in 15 what strength the fairies mustered at Domremy, and, by a satisfactory consequence, how thinly sown with men and women must have been that region even in its inhabited spots. But the forests of Domremy — those were the glories of the land: 20 for in them abode mysterious powers and ancient secrets that towered into tragic strength. ''Ab- beys there were, and abbey windows" — ''like Moorish temples of the Hindoos" — that exercised even princely power both in Lorraine and in the 25 German Diets. These had their sweet bells that pierced the forests for many a league at matins or vespers, and each its own dreamy legend. Few enough, and scattered enough, were these abbeys, so as in no degree to disturb the deep solitude of 30 the region ; yet many enough to spread a network 48 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. or awning of Christian sanctity over what else might have seemed a heathen wilderness. This sort of religious talisman being secured^ a man the most afraid of ghosts (like myself, suppose, or the reader) becomes armed into courage to wan- 5 der for days in their sylvan recesses. The moun- tains of the Yosges, on the eastern frontier of France, have never attracted much notice from Europe, except in 1813-14 for a few brief months, when they fell within Xapoleon's line of defense lo against the Allies. But the}' are interesting for this amongst other features, that they do not, like some loftier ranges, repel woods; the forests and the hills are on sociable terms. "Live and let live" is their motto. For this reason, in part, 15 these tracts in Lorraine were a favorite hunting- ground with tlie Carlovingian princes. About six hundred years before Joanna's childhood, Charle- magne was known to have hunted there. That, of itself, was a grand incident in the traditions of 20 a forest or a chase. In these vast forests, also, were to be found (if anywhere to be found) those mysterious fawns tliat tempted solitary hunters into visionary and perilous pursuits. Here was seen (if anywhere seen) that ancient stag who 25 was already nine hundred years old, but possibly a hundred or two more, when met by Charle- magne ; and the thing was put beyond doubt by the inscription upon his golden collar. I believe Charlemagne knighted the stag ; and, if ever he is 30 JOAN OF AEG. 49 met again by a king, he ought to be made an earl, or, being upon the marches of France, a marquis. Observe, I don't absolutely vouch for all these things : my own opinion varies. On a fine breezy 5 forenoon I am audaciously skeptical ; but as twi- light sets in my credulity grows steadily, till it becomes equal to anything that could be desired. And I have heard candid sportsmen declare that, outside of these very forests, they laughed loudly 10 it all the dim tales connected with their haunted solitudes, but, on reaching a spot notoriously eighteen miles deep within them, they agreed with Sir Roger de Coverley that a good deal might be said on both sides. 15 Such traditions, or any others that (like the stag) connect distant generations with each other, are, for that cause, sublime; and the sense of the shadowy, connected with such appearances that reveal themselves or not according to circum- 20 stances, leaves a coloring of sanctity over ancient forests, even in those minds that utterly reject the legend as a fact. But, apart from all distinct stories of that order, in any solitary frontier between two great 25 empires — as here, for instance, or in the desert between Syria and the Euphrates — there is an in- evitable tendency, in minds of any deep sensibil- ity, to people the solitudes with phantom images of powers that were of old so vast. Joanna, there- 30 fore, in her quiet occupation of a shepherdess. 50 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. would be led continually to brood over the politi- cal condition of h(?r country by the traditions of the past no less than by the mementoes of the Jocal present. ^I. Michelet, indeed, says that La Pucelle was 5 not a shepherdess. I beg his pardon; she was. What he rests upon I guess pretty well : it is the evidence of a woman called Haumette, the most confidential friend of Joanna. Now, she is a good witness, and a good girl, and I like her ; for she lo makes a natural and affectionate report of Joanna's ordinary life. But still, however good she may be as a witness, Joanna is better; and she, when speaking to the dauphin, calls herself in the Latin report Bergereta. Even Haumette con- is fesses that Joanna tended sheep in her girlhood. And I believe that, if Miss Haumette were taking coffee alone with me this very evening (February 12, 1847) — in which there would be no subject for scandal or for maiden blushes, because I am 20 an intense philosopher, and Miss H. would bo hard upon 450 years old — she would admit the following comment upon her evidence to be right. A Frenchman, about forty years ago — M. Simond, in his "Travels" — mentions accidentally the fol- 25 lowing hideous scene as one steadily observed and watched by himself in chivalrous France not very long before the French Eevolution : A peasant was plowing; and the team that drew his plow was a donkey and a woman. Both were regularly bar- 30 JOAN OF AEC. 51 ncssed ; both pulled alike. This is bad enough ; but tlie Frenchman adds that, in distributing his lashes, the peasant was obviously desirous of being impartial; or, if either of the yokefellows had a 5 right to complain, certainly it was not the donkey. Now, in any country where such degradation of females could be tolerated by the state of manners, a woman of delicacy would shrink from acknowl- edging, either for herself or her friend, that she 10 had ever been addicted to any mode of labor not strictly domestic; because, if once owning herself a prandial servant, she would be sensible that this confession extended by probability in the hearer's thoughts to the having incurred indignities of this 15 horril)le kind. Haumette clearly thinks it more dignified for Joanna to have been darning the etockings of her horny-hoofed father, M. D'Arc, than keeping sheep, lest she might then be sus- pected of having ever done something worse. But, 20 luckily, there was no danger of that: Joanna never was in service; and my opinion is that her father should have mended his own stockings, Bince probably he was the party to make the holes in them, as many a better man than D'Arc does — ■ 25 meaning by that not myself, because, though probably a better man than D'Arc, I protest against doing anything of the kind. If I lived even with Friday in Juan Fernandez, either Fri- day must do all the darning, or else it must go SO undone. The better men that I meant were the 52 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCEY. sailors in the British navy, every man of whom mends his own stockings. Who else is to do it ? Do you suppose, reader, that the junior lords of the admiralty are under articles to darn for the navy ? 5 The reason, meantime, for my systematic hatred of D'Arc is this: There was a story current in France before the Revolution, framed to ridicule the pauper aristocracy, who happened to have long pedigrees and short rent rolls : viz., that a head lo of such a house, dating from the Crusades, was overheard saying to his son, a Chevalier of St. Louis, ''Chevalier, as-tu donne an cochon a man- ger?'' Now, it is clearly made out by the sur- viving evidence that D'Arc would much have 15 preferred continuing to say, ^'Ma fille, as-tu don?i6 au cochon a manger f to saying, "Pucelle d' Or- leans, as-tu sauve les fleurs-de-lysf" There is an old English copy of verses which argues thus : If the man that turnips cries 20 Cry not when his father dies, Then 'tis plain the man had rather Have a turnip than his father. I cannot say that the logic of these verses was ever entirely to my satisfaction. I do not see my 35 way through it as clearly as could be wished. But I see my way most clearly through D'Arc; and the result is — that he would greatly have pre- ferred not merely a turnip to his father, but the JOAN OF AEC. 53 saving a pound or so of bacon to saving the Oriflamme of France. It is probable (as M. Michelet suggests) that the title of Virgin or Pucelle had in itself, and 5 apart from the miraculous stories about her, a secret power over the rude soldiery and partisan chiefs of that period; for in such a person they saw a representative manifestation of the Virgin Mary, who, in a course of centuries, had grown la steadily upon the popular heart. As to Joanna's supernatural detection of the dauphin (Charles VII.) amongst three hundred lords and knights, I am surprised at the credulity which could ever lend itself to that theatrical jug- 15 gle. Who admires more than myself the sublime enthusiasm, the rapturous faith in herself, of this pure creature ? But I am far from admiring stage artifices which not La Pucelle, but the court, must have arranged; nor can surrender myself to the 20 conjurer's legerdemain, such as may be seen every day for a shilling. Southey's "Joan of Arc'' was published in 1796. Twenty years after, talking with Southey, I was surprised to find him still owning a secret bias in favor of Joan, founded on 25 her detection of the dauphin. The story, for the benefit of the reader new to the case, was this : La Pucelle was first made known to the dauphin, and presented to his court, at Chinon; and here came her first trial. By way of testing her supernatural 30 pretensions, she was to find out the royal person- «% 54 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. age among the whole ark of clean and unclean creatures. Failing in this coup d'essai, she would not simply disappoint many a beating heart in the glittering crowd that on different motives yearned for her success, but she would ruin her- 5 self, and, as the oracle within had told her, would, by ruining herself, ruin France. Our own Sov- ereign Lady Victoria rehearses annually a trial not so severe in degree, but the same in kind. She ^'pricks" for sheriffs. Joanna pricked for a king, lo But observe the difference : our own Lady pricks for two men out of three ; Joanna for one man out of three hundred. Happy Lady of the Islands and the Orient ! — she can go astray in her choice only by one-half : to the extent of one-half she 15 must have the satisfaction of being right. And yet, even with these tight limits to the misery of a boundless discretion, permit me, Liege Lady, with all loyalty, to submit that now and then you prick with your pin the wrong man. But the poor 20 child from Domremy, shrinking under the gaze of a dazzling court — not because dazzling (for in visions she had seen those that were more so), but because some of them wore a scofhng smile on their features — how should she throw her line into 25 so deep a river to angle for a king, where many a gay creature was sporting that masqueraded as kings in dress ! Nay, even more than any true king would have done : for, in Southey's version JOAN OF AEC. 55 of the story, the dauphin says, by way of trying the virgin's magnetic sympathy with royalty, On the throne, I the while mingling with the menial throng, 5 Some courtier shall be seated. This usurper is even crowned : "the jeweled crown shines on a meniaFs head." But, really, that is ''un pen fort"; and the mob of spectators might raise a scruple whether our friend the jackdaw 10 upon the throne, and the dauphin himself, were not grazing the shins of treason. For the dau- phin could not lend more than belonged to him. According to the popular notion, he had no crown for himself; consequently none to lend, on any 15 pretense whatever, until the consecrated Maid should take him to Rheims. This was the popular notion in France. But certainly it was the dauj^hin's interest to support the popular notion, as he meant to use the services of Joanna. For if 20 he were king already, what was it that she could do for him beyond Orleans ? That is to say, what more than a merely mUUarij service could she ren- der him? And, above all, if he were king without a coronation, and without the oil from the sacred 25 ampulla, what advantage was yet open to him by celerity above his competitor, the English boy? Now was to be a race for a coronation : he that should win that race carried the superstition of France along with him : he that should first be 56 SELECTIONS FKOM DE QUINCEY. drawn from the ovens of Eheims was under that superstition baked into a king. La Pucelle, before she could be allowed to prac- tice as a warrior, was put through her manual and platoon exercise, as a pupil in divinity, at the bar 5 of six eminent men in Avigs. According to Southey (v. 393, bk. iii., in the original edition of his "Joan of Arc/') she "appalled the doctors." It's not easy to do that : but they had some reason to feel bothered, as that surgeon would assuredly feel lo bothered who, upon proceeding to dissect a sub- ject, should find the subject retaliating as a dis- sector upon himself, especially if Joanna ever made the speech to them which occupies v. 354- 391, bk. iii. It is a double impossibility: 1st, be- 15 cause a piracy from TindaFs "Christianity as old as the Creation" — a piracy a parte ante, and by three centuries; 2d, it is quite contrary to the evidence on Joanna's trial. Southey's "Joan" of A. D. 1796 (Cottle, Bristol) tells the doctors, 20 amongst other secrets, that she never in her life attended — 1st, Mass; nor 2d, the Sacramental Table; nor 3d, Confession. In the meantime, all this deistical confession of Joanna's, besides being suicidal for the interest of her cause, is opposed to 25 the depositions upon both trials. The very best witness called from first to last deposes that Joanna attended these rites of her Church even too often ; was taxed with doing so ; and, by blush- ing, owned the charge as a fact, though certainly 30 JOAN OF AKC. 57 not as a fault. Joanna was a girl of natural piety, that saw God in forests and hills and fountains, but did not the less seek him in chapels and con- secrated oratories. 5 This peasant girl was self-educated through her own natural meditativeness. If the reader turns to that divine passage in 'Taradise Eegained" which ^lilton has put into the mouth of our Sa- viour when first entering the wilderness, and mus- 10 ing upon the tendency of those great impulses growing within himself — Oh, what a multitude of thoughts at once Awakened in me swarm, while I consider What from within I feel myself, and hear 15 What from without comes often to my ears, 111 sorting with my present state compared! When I was yet a child, no childish play To me was pleasing; all my mind was set Serious to learn and know, and thence to do, 20 What might be public good; myself I thought Born to that end he will have some notion of the vast reveries which brooded over the heart of Joanna in early girl- hood, when the wings were budding that should 25 carry her from Orleans to Eheims ; when the ' golden chariot was dimly revealing itself that should carry her from the kingdom of France De- livered to the Eternal Kingdom. It is not requisite for the honor of Joanna, nor 30 is there in this place room to pursue her brief 58 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCE Y. career of action. That, though wonderful, forms the earthly part of her story; the spiritual part is the saintly passion of her imprisonment, trial, and execution. It is unfortunate, therefore, for Southey's "Joan of Arc" (which, however, should 5 always be regarded as a juvenile effort), that pre- cisely when her real glory begins the poem ends. But this limitation of the interest grew, no doubt, from the constraint inseparably attached to the law of epic unity. Joanna's history bisects into lo two opposite hemispheres, and both could not have been presented to the eye in one poem, unless, by sacrificing all unity of theme, or else by in- volving the earlier half, as a narrative episode, in the latter ; which, however, might have been done, 15 for it might have been communicated to a fellow- prisoner, or a confessor, by Joanna herself. It is sufficient, as concerns this section of Joanna's life, to say that she fulfilled, to the height of her promises, the restoration of the prostrate throne. 20 France had become a province of England, and for the ruin of both, if such a yoke could be main- tained. Dreadful pecuniary exhaustion caused the English energy to droop; and that critical opening La Pucelle used with a corresponding fe- 25 licity of audacity and suddenness (that were in themselves portentous) for introducing the wedge of French native resources, for rekindling the na- tional pride, and for planting the dauphin once more upon his feet. When Joanna appeared, he 30 JOAN OF ARC. 59 had been on the point of giving up the struggle with the Enghsh, distressed as they were, and of flying to the south of France. She taught him to blush for such abject counsels. She liberated Or- 5 leans, that great city, so decisive by its fate for the issue of the war, and then beleaguered by the English with an elaborate application of engineer- ing skill unprecedented in Europe. Entering the city after sunset on the 29th of April, she sang 10 mass on Sunday, May 8, for the entire disap- pearance of the besieging force. On the 29th of June she fought and gained over the English the decisive battle of Patay; on the 9th of July she took Troves by a coup-de-main from a mixed gar- 15 rison of English and Burgundians; on the loth of that month she carried the dauphin into Rheims; on Sunday the 17th she crowned him; and there she rested from her labor of triumph. All that was to be done she had now accomplished; what 20 remained was — to sutfer. All this forward movement was her own ; ex- cepting one man, the whole council was against her. Her enemies were all that drew power from earth. Her supporters were her own strong en- 25 thusiasm, and the headlong contagion by which she carried this sublime frenzy into the hearts of women, of soldiers, and of all who lived by labor. Henceforward she was thwarted; and the worst error that she committed was to lend the sanction 30 of her presence to counsels which she had ceased CO SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. to approve. But she had now accomplished the capital objects which her own visions had dictated. These involved all the rest. Errors were now less important; and doubtless it had now become more difficult for herself to pronounce authentically 5 what were errors. The noble girl had achieved, as by a rapture of motion, the capital end of clearing out a free space around her sovereign, giving him the power to move his arms with ef- fect, and, secondly, the inappreciable end of win- lo ning for that sovereign what seemed to all France the heavenly ratification of his rights, by crown- mg him with the ancient solemnities. She had made it impossible for the English now to step be- fore her. They were caught in an irretrievable 15 blunder, owing partly to discord amongst the uncles of Henry VI., partly to a want of funds, but partly to the very impossibility which they be- lieved to press with tenfold force upon any French attempt to forestall theirs. They laughed at such 20 a thought; and, whilst they laughed, she did it. Henceforth the single redress for the English of this capital oversight, but which never could have redressed it effectually, was to vitiate and taint the coronation of Charles YII. as the work of a 25 witch. That policy, and not malice (as M. Mich- elet is so happy to believe), was the moving prin- ciple in the subsequent prosecution of Joanna. Unless they unhinged the force of the first corona- tion in the popular mind by associating it with 30 JOAN OF ARC. 61 power given from hell, they felt that the scepter of the invader was broken. But she, the child that at nineteen had wrought wonders so great for France, was she not elated ? 5 Did she not lose, as men so often have lost, all sobriety of mind when standing upon the pinnacle of success so giddy? Let her enemies declare. During the progress of her movement, and in the center of ferocious struggles, she had manifested 10 the temper of her feelings by the pity which she had everywhere expressed for the suffering enemy. She forwarded to the English leaders a touching invitation to unite with the French, as brothers, in a common crusade against infidels— thus open- is ing the road for a soldierly retreat. She inter- posed to protect the captive or the wounded; she mourned over the excesses of her countrymen; she thew herself off her horse to kneel by the dying English soldier, and to comfort him with 20 such ministrations, physical or spiritual, as his situation allowed. "Xolebat," says the evidence, "uti ense suo, aut quemquam interficere.'' She sheltered the English that invoked her aid in her own quarters. She wept as she beheld, stretched 25 on the field of battle, so many brave enemies that had died without confession. And, as regarded herself, her elation expressed itself thus: on the day when she had finished her work, she wept ; for she knew that, when her triumphal task was done, 30 her end must be approaching. Her aspirations 62 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCEY. pointed only to a place which seemed to her more than usually full of natural piety, as one in which it would give her pleasure to die. And she ut- tered, between smiles and tears, as a wish that in- expressibly fascinated her heart, and yet was half 5 fantastic, a broken prayer that God would return her to the solitudes from which he had drawn her, and suffer her to become a shepherdess once more. It was a natural prayer, because nature has laid a necessity upon every human heart to seek for lo rest and to shrink from torment. Yet, again, it was a half fantastic prayer, because, from child- hood upward, visions that she had no power to mistrust, and the voices which sounded in her ear forever, had long since persuaded her mind that 15 for her no such prayer could be granted. Too well she felt that her mission must be worked out to the end, and that the end was now at hand. All went wrong from this time. She herself had cre- ated the funds out of which the French restora- 2a tion should grow; but she was not suffered to witness their development or their prosperous ap- plication. More than one military plan was en- tered upon which she did not approve. But she still continued to expose her person as before. 25 Severe wounds had not taught her caution. And at length, in a sortie from Compiegne (whether through treacherous collusion on the part of her own friends is doubtful to this day), she was JOAN OF AEG. (33 made prisoner by the Burgundians, and finally surrendered to the English. Now came her trial. This trial, moving of course under English influence, was conducted in 5 chief by the Bishop of Beauvais. He was a Frenchman, sold to English interests, and hoping, by favor of the English leaders, to reach the high- est preferment. -'Bishop that art. Archbishop that Shalt be. Cardinal that mayest be,'' were the 1(J words that sounded continually in his ear; and doubtless a whisper of visions still higher, of a triple crown, and feet upon the necks of kings, sometimes stole into his heart. M. Michelet is anxious to keep us in mind that this bishop was li but an agent of the English. True. But it does not better the case for his countryman that, being an accomplice in the crime, making himself the leader in the persecution against the helpless girl, he was willing to be all this in the spirit, and 20 with the conscious vileness of a cat's-paw. Never from the foundations of the earth was there such a trial as this, if it were laid open in all its beauty of defense and all its hellishness of attack. Oh, child of France! shepherdess, peasant girl! trod- 25 den underfoot by all around thee, how I honor thy flashing intellect, quick as God's lightning, and true as God's lightning to its mark, that ran before France and laggard Europe by many a century, confounding the malice of the ensnarer, 30 and making dumb the oracles of falsehood ! Is it C4 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCEY. not scandalous, is it not humiliating to civiliza- tion, that, even at this day, France exhibits the horrid spectacle of judges examining the prisoner against himself; seducing him, by fraud, into treacherous conclusions against his own head; 5 using the terrors of their power for extorting con- fessions from the frailty of hope; nay (which is worse), using the blandishments of condescension and snaky kindness for thawing into compliances of gratitude those whom they had failed to freeze i*^ into terror ? Wicked judges ! barbarian jurispru- dence ! — that, sitting in your own conceit on the summits of social wisdom, have yet failed to learn the first principles of criminal justice — sit ye humbly and with docility at the feet of this girl i5 from Domremy, that tore your webs of cruelty into shreds and dust. "Would you examine me as a witness against myself?" was the question by which many times she defied their arts. Contin- ually she showed that their interrogations were 20 irrelevant to any business before the court, or that entered into the ridiculous charges against her. General questions were proposed to her on points of casuistical divinity; two-edged questions, which not one of themselves could have answered, with- 25 out, on the one side, landing himself in heresy (as then interpreted), or, on the other, in some pre- sumptuous expression of self-esteem. Next came a wretched Dominican, that pressed her with an objection, which, if applied to the Bible, would 30 JOAN OF AKC. (55 tax every one of its miracles with imsoundness. The monk had the excuse of never having read the Bible. M. Michelet has no such excuse; and it makes one blush for him, as a philosopher, to 5 find him describing such an argument as "weighty," whereas it is but a varied expression of rude Mohammedan metaphysics. Her answer to this, if there were room to place the whole in a clear light, was as shattering as it was rapid. 10 Another thought to entrap her by asking what language the angelic visitors of her solitude had talked — as though heavenly counsels could want polyglot interpreters for every word, or that God needed language at all in whispering thoughts to 15 a human heart. Then came a worse devil, who asked her whether the Archangel Michael had ap- peared naked. Xot comprehending the vile in- sinuation, Joanna, whose poverty suggested to her simplicity that it might be the costliness of suit- 20 able robes Avhich caused the demur, asked them if they fancied God, who clothed the flowers of the valleys, unable to find raiment for his servants. The answer of Joanna moves a smile of tender- ness, but the disappointment of her judges makes 25 one laugh exultingh\ Others succeeded by troops, who upbraided her with leaving her father ; as if that greater Father, whom she believed her- self to have been serving, did not retain the power of dispensing with his own rules, or had not said CG SELECTIONS FKOM DE QUINCEY. that for a less cause than martyrdom man and woman should leave both father and mother. On Easter Sunday, when the trial had been long proceeding, the poor girl fell so ill as to cause a belief that she had been poisoned. It was 5 not poison. Nobody had any interest in hasten- ing a death so certain. M. Michelet, whose sym- pathies with all feelings are so quick that one would gladly see them always as justly directed, reads the case most truly. Joanna had a twofold lo malady. She was visited by a paroxysm of the complaint called homesicl'ness. The cruel nature of her imprisonment, and its length, could not but point her solitary thoughts, in darkness and in chains (for chained she was), to Domremy. 15 And the season, which was the most heavenly pe- riod of the spring, added stings to this yearning. That was one of her maladies — nostalgia, as medi- icine calls it; the other was weariness and ex- haustion from daily combats with malice. Sho 20 saw that everybody hated her and thirsted for her blood; nay, many kind-hearted creatures that would have pitied her profoundly, as regarded all political charges, had their natural feelings warped by the belief that she had dealings with 25 fiendish powers. She knew she was to die; that was not the misery ! the misery was that this con- summation could not be reached without so much intermediate strife, as if she were contending for some chance (where chance was none) of happi- 30 JOAN OF ARC. 67 ness. or were dreaming for a moment of escaping the inevitable. Why, then, did she contend? Knowing that she would reap nothing from an- swering her persecutors, why did she not retire by 5 silence from the superfluous contest ? It was be- cause her quick and eager loyalty to truth would not suffer her to see it darkened by frauds which she could expose, but others, even of candid lis- teners, perhaps, could not; it was through that 10 imperishable grandeur of soul which taught her to submit meekly and without a struggle to her punishment, but taught her not to submit — no, not for a moment — to calumny as to facts, or to misconstruction as to motives. Besides, there were 15 secretaries all around the court taking down her words. That was meant for no good to her. But the end does not always correspond to the mean- ing. And Joanna might say to herself, ^'These words that will be used against me to-morrow and 20 the next day, perhaps, in some nobler generation, may rise again for my justification." Yes, Joanna, they are rising even now in Paris, and for more than justification! "Woman, sister, there are some things which you 25 do not execute as well as your brother, man ; no, nor ever will. Pardon me if I doubt whether you will ever produce a great poet from your choirs, or a Mozart, or a Phidias, or a Michael Angelo, or a great philosopher, or a great scholar. 30 Bv which last is meant — not one who depends 6S SELECTIONS FEOM DE QIJINCEY. simply on an infinite memory, but also on an in- finite and electrical power of combination; bring- ing together from the four winds, like the angel of the resurrection, what else were dust from dead men's bones, into the unity of breathing life. If 5 you can create yourselves into any of these great creators, why have you not? Yet, sister woman, though I cannot consent to find a Mozart or a Michael Angelo in your sex, cheerfully, and with the love that burns in depth? lo of admiration, I acknowledge that you can do one thing as well as the best of us men — a greater thing than even Milton is known to have done, or Michael Angelo; you can die grandly, and as god- desses would die, were goddesses mortal. If any 15 distant worlds (which 7nay be the case) are so far ahead of us Tellurians in optical resources as to see distinctly through their telescopes all that we do on earth, what is the grandest sight to which we ever treat them? St. Peter's at Eome, do you 20 fancy, on Easter Sunday, or Luxor, or perhaps the Himalayas? Oh, no! my friend; suggest something better; these are baubles to them; they see in other worlds, in their own, far better toys of the same kind. These, take my word for it, are 25 nothing. Do you give it up? The finest thing, then, we have to show them is a scaffold on the morning of execution. I assure you there is a strong muster in those far telescopic worlds, on any such morning, of those who happen to find so JOAN OF ARC. 69 themselves occupying the right hemisphere for a peep at us. How, then, if it be announced in some such telescopic world by those who make a livelihood of catching glimpses at our newspapers, 5 whose language they have long since deciphered, that the poor victim in the morning's sacrifice is a woman? How, if it be published in that dis- tant world that the sufferer wears upon her head, in the e3'es of many, the garlands of martyrdom ? 10 How, if it should be some Marie Antoinette, the widowed queen, coming forward on the scaffold, and presenting to the morning air her head, turned gray by sorrow — daughter of Ciesars kneeling down humbly to kiss the guillotine, as 15 one that worships death? How, if it were the noble Charlotte Corday, that in the bloom of youth, that with the loveliest of persons, that with homage waiting upon her smiles wherever she turned her face to scatter them — homage that fol- 20 lowed those smiles as surely as the carols of birds, after showers in spring, follow the reappearing sun and the racing of sunbeams over the hills — yet thought all these things cheaper than the dust upon her sandals, in comparison of deliverance 25 from hell for her dear suffering France ! Ah ! these were spectacles indeed for those sympathizing people in distant worlds ; and some, perhaps, would suffer a sort of martyrdom themselves, because they could not testify their wrath, could not bear 30 witness to the strength of love and to the fury of 70 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. hatred that burned within them at such scenes, could not gather into golden urns some of that glorious dust which rested in the catacombs of earth. On the Wednesday after Trinity Sunday in 5 1431, being then about nineteen years of age, the Maid of Arc underwent her martyrdom. She was conducted before midday, guarded by eight hun- dred spearmen, to a platform of prodigious height, constructed of wooden billets supported by occa- lo sional walls of lath and plaster, and traversed by hollow spaces in every direction for the creation of air currents. The pile "struck terror," says M. Michelet, "by its height"; and, as usual, the Eng- lish purpose in this is viewed as one of pure 15 malignity. But there are two ways of explaining all that. It is probable that the purpose was mer- ciful. On the circumstances of the execution I shall not linger. Yet, to mark the almost fatal felicity of M. Michelet in finding out whatever 20 may injure the English name, at a moment when every reader will be interested in Joanna's personal appearance, it is really edifying to notice the in- genuity by which he draws into light from a dark corner a very unjust account of it, and neglects, 25 though lying upon the highroad, a very pleasing one. Both are from English pens. Grafton, a chronicler, but little read, being a stiffnecked John Bull, thought fit to say that no wonder Joanna should be a virgin, since her "foule face" was a 30 JOAN OF ARC. 71 satisfactory solution of that particular merit. Holinshead, on the other hand, a chronicler some^ what later, every way more important, and at one time universally read, has given a very pleasing 5 testimony to the interesting character of Joanna's person and engaging manners. Neither of these men lived till the following century, so that per- sonally this evidence is none at all. Grafton sul- lenly and carelessly believed as he wished to be- lolieve; Holinshead took pains to inquire, and re- ports undoubtedly the general impression of France. But I cite the case as illustrating M. Michelet's candor. The circumstantial incidents of the execution, fa unless with more space than I can now command, I should be unwilling to relate. I should fear to injure by imperfect report, a martyrdom which to myself appears so unspeakably grand. Yet, for a purpose, pointing not at Joanna, but at M. 20 ^lichelet — viz., to convince him that an English- man is capable of thinking more highly of La Pucelle than even her admiring countrymen — I shall, in parting, allude to one or two traits in Joanna's demeanor on the scaffold, and to one or 25 two in that of the bystanders, which authorize me in questioning an opinion of his upon this martyr's firmness. The reader ought to be re- minded that Joanna D'Arc was subjected to an un- usually unfair trial of opinion. Any of the elder 30 Christian martyrs had not much to fear of per- 72 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. sonal rancor. The martjT was chiefly regarded as the enemy of Ceesar; at times, also, where any knowledge of the Christian faith and morals ex- isted, with the enmity that arises spontaneously in the worldly against the spiritual. But the 5 martyr, though disloyal, was not supposed to be therefore anti-national; and still less was indi- vidually hateful. What was hated (if anything) belonged to his class, not to himself separately. Xow, Joanna, if hated at all, was hated person- lo ally, and in Eouen on national grounds. Hence there would be a certainty of calumny arising against her such as would not affect martyrs in general. That being the case, it would follow of necessity that some people would impute to her a 15 willingness to recant. Xo innocence could escape that. Xow, had she really testified this willing- ness on the scaffold, it would have argued noth- ing at all but the weakness of a genial nature shrinking from the instant approach of torment. 20 And those will often pity that weakness most Avho, in their own persons, would yield to it least. Meantime, there never was a calumny uttered that drew less support from the recorded circum- stances. It rests upon no positive testimony, and 25 it has a weiglit of contradicting testimony to stem. And yet, strange to say, M. Michelet, who at times seems to admire the Maid of Arc as much as I do, is the one sole writer amongst her friends who lends pome countenance to this odious slander. 30 JOAN OF AEG. 73 His words are that, if she did not utter this word recant with her lips, she uttered it in her heart, "Whether she said the word is uncertain; but 1 affirm that she tli ought it/' 5 Now, I affirm that she did not ; not in any sense of the word ''thought" applicable to the case. Here is France caluminating La Pucelle; here is Eng- land defending her. M. ]\Iichelet can only mean that, on a priori principles, every woman must be 10 presumed liable to such a weakness ; that Joanna was a woman; ergo, that she was liable to such a weakness. That is, he only supposes her to have uttered the word by an argument which presumes it impossible for anybody to have done otherwise. 15 I, on the contrary, throw the onus of the argu- ment not on presumable tendencies of nature, but on the known facts of that morning's execution, as recorded by multitudes. What else, I demand, than mere weight of metal, absolute nobility of 20 deportment, broke the vast line of battle then ar- rayed against her? What else but her meek, saintly demeanor won, from the enemies that till now had believed her a witch, tears of rapturous admiration? "Ten thousand men," says M. 25 iMichelet himself — "ten thousand men wept" ; and of these ten thousand the majority were political enemies knitted together by cords of superstition. What else was it but her constancy, united with her angelic gentleness, that drove the fanatic 30 Endish soldier — who had sworn to throw a faE^o-ot 74 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCEY. on her scaffold as his tribute of abhorrence, that did so, that fulfilled his vow — suddenly to turn away a penitent for life, saying everywhere that he had seen a dove rising upon wings to heaven from the ashes where she had stood? What else 5 drove the executioner to kneel at every shrine for pardon to his share in the tragedy? And, if all this were insufficient, then I cite the closing act of her life as valid on her behalf, were all other testi- monies against her. The executioner had been lo directed to apply his torch from below. He did so. The fiery smoke rose upwards in billowing volumes. A Dominican monk was then standing almost at her side. Wrapped up in his sublime office, he saw not the danger, but still persisted 15 in his prayers. Even then, when the last enemy was racing up the fiery stairs to seize her, even at that moment did this noblest of girls think only for him, the one friend that would not forsake her, and not for herself ; bidding him with her 20 last breath to care for his own preservation, but to leave her to God. That girl, whose latest breath ascended in this sublime expression of self- oblivion, did not utter the v/ord recant either with her lips or in her heart. No ; she did not, though 25 one should rise from the dead to swear it. Bishop of Beauvais ! thy victim died in fire upon a scaffold — thou upon a down bed. But, for the departing minutes of life, both are oftentimes JOAN OF AEC. 75 alike. At the farewell crisis, when the gates of death are opening, and flesh is resting from its struggles, oftentimes the tortured and the torturer have the same truce from carnal torment; both 5 sink together into sleep ; together both sometimes kindle into dreams. When the mortal mists were gathering fast upon you two, bishop and shepherd girl — when the pavilions of life were closing up their shadowy curtains about you — let us try, u through the gigantic glooms, to decipher the fly- ing features of your separate visions. The shepherd girl that had delivered France — she, from her dungeon, she, from her baiting at the stake, she, from her duel with fire, as she en- 15 tered her last dream — saw Domremy, saw the fountain of Domremy, saw the pomp of forests in which her childhood had wandered. That Easter festival which man had denied to her languishing heart — that resurrection of springtime, which the 20 darkness of dungeons had intercepted from her, hungering after the glorious liberty of forests — were by God given back into her hands as jewels that had been stolen from her by robbers. With those, perhaps (for the minutes of dreams can 25 stretch into ages), was given back to her by God the bliss of childhood. By special privilege for her might be created, in this farewell dream, a second childhood, innocent as the first; but not, like that, sad with the gloom of a fearful mission 30 in the rear. This mission had now been fulfilled. 76 SELECTIONS FKOM DE QUINCEY. The storm was weathered; the skirts even of that mighty storm were draAving of?. The blood that she was to reckon for had been exacted; the tears that she was to shed in secret had been paid to the last. The hatred to herself in all e_yes had been 5 faced steadily, had been suffered, had been sur- vived. And in her last fight upon the scaffold she had triumphed gloriously; victoriously she had tasted the stings of death. For all, except this comfort from her farewell dream, she had died — lo died amid the tears of ten thousand enemies — died amid the drums and trumpets of armies — died amid peals redoubling upon peals, volleys upon volleys, from the saluting clarions of martyrs. 15 Bishop of Beauvais ! because the guilt-burdened man is in dreams haunted and waylaid by the inost frightful of his crimes, and because upon that fluctuating mirror — rising (like the mocking mirrors of mirage in Arabian deserts) from the 20 fens of death — most of all are reflected the sweet countenances which the man has laid in ruins; therefore I know, bishop, that you also, entering your final dream, saw Domremy. That fountain, of which the witnesses spoke so much, showed it- 25 self to your e3^es in pure morning dews; but neither dews, nor the holy dawn, could cleanse away the bright spots of innocent blood upon its surface. By the fountain, bishop, you saw a woman seated, that hid her face. But, as you 30 JOAN OF AEG. 77 draw near, the woman raises her wasted features. Would Domremy know them again for the features of her child? Ah, but you know them, bishop, well ! Oh, mercy ! what a groan was that 5 which the servants, waiting outside the bishop's dream at his bedside, heard from his laboring heart, as at this moment he turned away from the fountain and the woman, seeking rest in the forests afar off. Yet not so to escape the woman, 10 whom once again he must behold before he dies. In the forests to which he prays for pit}^ will he find a respite? What a tumult, what a gathering of feet is there ! In glades where only wild deer should run armies and nations are assembling; 15 towering in the fluctuating crowd are phantoms that belong to departed hours. There is the great English Prince, Eegent of France. There is my Lord of Winchester, the princely cardinal, that died and made no sign. There is the Bishop of 20 Beauvais, clinging to the shelter of thickets. What building is that which hands so rapid are raising? Is it a martyr's scaffold? Will they burn the child of Domremy a second time? Xo; it is a tribunal that rises to the clouds; and two nations 25 stand around it, waiting for a trial. Shall my Lord of Beauvais sit again upon the judgment- seat, and again number the hours for the inno- cent ? Ah, no ! he is the prisoner at the bar. Already all is waiting: the mighty audience is 30 gathered, the Court is hurrying to their seats, the 78 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. witnesses are arrayed, the trumpets are sounding, the judge is taking his place. Oh, but this is sud- den ! My lord, have you no counsel ? "Counsel I have none ; in heaven above, or on earth beneath, counselor there is none now that would take a 5 brief from me : all are silent." Is it, indeed, come to this? Alas! the time is short, the tumult is wondrous, the crowd stretches away into infinity; but yet I will search in it for somebody to take your brief ; I know of somebody that will be your lo counsel. Who is this that cometh from Domreijiy ? Who is she in bloody coronation robes from Rheims? Who is she that cometh with blackened flesh from walking the furnaces of Eouen? This is she, the shepherd girl, counselor that had none 15 for herself, Whom I choose, bishop, for yours. She it is, I engage, that shall take my lord's brief. She it is, bishop, that would plead for you ; yes, bishop, she — when heaven and earth are silent. THE EXGLISH MAIL COACH. Section I— The Glory of Motiox. Some twenty or more years before I matricu- lated at Oxford, Mr. Palmer, at that time M. P. for Bath, had accomplished two things, very hard to do on our little planet, the earth, however cheap 5 they may be held by eccentric people in comets ; he had invented mail coaches, and he had married the daughter of a duke. He was, therefore, just twice as great a man as Galileo, who did certainly invent (or, which is the same thing, discover) the 10 satellites of Jupiter, those very next things extant to mail coaches in the two capital pretensions of speed and keeping time, but, on the other hand, who did not marry the daughter of a duke. These mail coaches, as organized by Mr. Palmer, i5 are entitled to a circumstantial notice from my- self, having had so large a share in developing the anarchies of my subsequent dreams; an agency which they accomplished, 1st, through velocity at that time unprecedented— for they first revealed 79 80 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. the glory of motion; 2d, through grand effects for the eye between lamplight and the darkness upon solitary roads; 3d, through animal beauty and power so often displayed in the class of horses selected for this mail service; 4th, through the 5 conscious presence of a central intellect, that, in the midst of vast distances — of storms, of dark- ness, of danger — overruled all obstacles into one steady co-operation to a national result. For my own feeling, this post-office service spoke as by lo some mighty orchestra, where a thousand instru- ments, all disregarding each other, and so far in danger of discord, yet all obedient as slaves to the supreme baton of some great leader, terminate in a perfection of harmony like that of heart, 15 brain, and lungs in a healthy animal organization. But, finally, that particular element in this whole combination which m.ost impressed myself, and througli which it is that to this hour Mr. Palmer's mail-coach system tyrannizes over my dreams by 20 terror and terrific beauty, lay in the awful poUti- cal mission which at that time it fulfilled. The mail coach it was that distributed over the face of the land, like the opening of apocalyptic vials, the heart-shaking news of Trafalgar, of Sala- 25 manca, of Vittoria, of Waterloo. These were the harvests that, in the grandeur of their reaping, redeemed the tears and blood in which they had been sown. Neither was the meanest peasant so much below the grandeur and the sorrow of the so THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 81 times as to confound battles such as these, which were gradually molding the destinies of Christen- dom, with the vulgar conflicts of ordinary war- fare, so often no more than gladiatorial trials of 5 national prowess. The victories of England in this stupendous contest rose of themselves as nat- ural "Te Deums" to heaven; and it was felt by the thoughtful that such victories, at such a crisis of general prostration, were not more beneficial to 10 ourselves than finally to France, our enemy, and to the nations of all western or central Europe, through whose pusillanimity it was that the French domination had prospered. The mail coach, as the national organ for pub- is lishing these mighty events, thus diffusively in- fluential, became itself a spiritualized and glori- fied object to an impassioned heart ; and naturally, in the Oxford of that day, all hearts were impas- sioned, as being all (or nearly all) in early man- 20 hood. In most universities there is one single college; in Oxford there w^re five-and-twenty, all of which were peopled by young men, the elite of their own generation ; not boys, but men ; none under eighteen. In some of these many colleges 25 the custom permitted the student to keep what are called "short terms"; that is, the four terms of Michaelmas, Lent, Easter, and Act, were kept by a residence, in the aggregate, of ninety-one days, or thirteen weeks. Under this interrupted 30 residence, it was possible that a student might go SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. have a reason for going down to his home four times in the year. This made eight journeys to and fro. But, as these homes lay dispersed through all the shires of the island, and most of us disdained all coaches except his majesty's mail, 5 no city out of London could pretend to so exten- sive a connection with Mr. Palmer's establishment as Oxford. Three mails, at the least, I remember as passing every day through Oxford, and benefit- ing by my personal patronage — viz., the Worces- lo ter, the Gloucester, and the Holyhead mail. Nat- urally, therefore, it became a point of some in- terest with us, whose journeys revolved every six weeks on an average, to look a little into the executive details of the system. With some of 15 these Mr. Palmer had no concern; they rested upon by-laws enacted by posting houses for their own benefit, and upon other by-laws, equally stern, enacted by the inside passengers for the illustra- tion of their own haughty exclusiveness. These 20 last were of a nature to rouse our scorn; from which the transition was not very long to system- atic mutiny. Up to this time, say 1804, or 1805 (the year of Trafalgar), it had been the fixed as- sumption of the four inside people (as an old tra- 25 dition of all public carriages derived from the reign of Charles II.) that they, the illustrious quaternion, constituted a porcelain variety of the human race, whose dignity would have been com- promised by exchanging one word of civility with 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 83 the three miserable delf-ware outside. Even to have kicked an outsider might have been held to attaint the foot concerned in that operation, so that, perhaps, it would have required an Act of 5 Parliament to restore its purity of blood. "What words, then, could express the horror, and the sense of treason, in that case which had happened, where all three outsides (the trinity of Pariahs) made a vain attempt to sit down at the same 10 breakfast table or dinner table with the conse- crated four? I myself witnessed such an attempt; and on that occasion a benevolent old gentleman endeavored to soothe his three holy associates by suggesting that, if the outsides were indicted for 15 this criminal attempt at the next assizes, the court would regard it as a case of lunacy or delirium tremens rather than of treason. England owes much of her grandeur to the depth of the aristo- cratic element in her social composition, when 20 pulling against her strong democracy. I am not the man to laugh at it. But sometimes, undoubt- edly, it expressed itself in comic shapes. The course taken with the infatuated outsiders, in the particular attempt which I have noticed, was that 25 the waiter, beckoning them away from the priv- ileged salJe a manger, sang out, "This way, my good men," and then enticed these good men away to the kitchen. But that plan had not always answered. Sometimes, though rarely, cases oc- 30 curred where the intruders, being stronger than 84 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCEY. usual, or more vicious than usual, resolutely re- fused to budge, and so far carried their point as to have a separate table arranged for themselves in a corner of the general room. Yet, if an Indian screen could be found ample enough to plant them 5 out from the very eyes of the high table, or dais, it then became possible to assume as a fiction of law that the three delf fellows, after all, were not present. They could be ignored by the porcelain men, under the maxim that objects not appearing lo and objects not existing are governed by the same logical construction. Such bemg at that time the usage of mail coaches, what was to be done by us of young Ox- ford ? We, the most aristocratic of people, who 15 were addicted to the practice of looking down superciliously even upon the insides themselves as often very questionable characters — were we, by voluntarily going outside, to court indignities? If our dress and bearing sheltered us generally from 20 the suspicion of being "raff" (the name at that period for '^snobs"), we really were such con- structively by the place we assumed. If we did not submit to the deep shadow of eclipse, we en- tered at least the skirts of its penumbra. And the 25 analogy of theaters was valid against us — where no man can complain of the annoyances incident to the pit or gallery, having his instant remedy in paying the higher price of the boxes. But the soundness of this analogy we disputed. In the 30 THE ENGLISIf MAIL COACH. §5 case of the theater, it cannot be pretended that the inferior situations have any separate attractions, unless the pit may be supposed to have an ad- vantage for the purposes of the critic or the 5 dramatic reporter. But the critic or reporter is a rarity. For most people, the sole benefit is in the price. Now, on the contrar}^ the outside of the mail had its own incommunicable advantages. These we could not forego. The higher price we 10 would willingly have paid, but not the price con- nected with the condition of riding inside; which condition we pronounced insufferable. The air, the freedom of prospect, the proximity to the horses, the elevation of seat ; these were what we 15 required; but, above all, the certain anticipation of purchasing occasional opportunities of driving. Such was the difficulty which pressed us; and under the coercion of this difficulty we instituted a searching inquiry into the true quality and 20 valuation of the different apartments about the mail. We conducted this inquiry on metaphysical principles; and it was ascertained satisfactorily that the roof of the coach, which by some weak men had been called the attics, and by some the 25 garrets, was in reality the drawing room ; in whicli drawing room the box was the chief ottoman or sofa ; whilst it appeared that the inside, which had been traditionally regarded as the only room tenantable by gentlemen, was, in fact, the coal 30 cellar in disguise. ,80 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. Great wits jump. The very same idea had not long before struck the celestial intellect of China. Amongst the presents carried out by our first em- bassy to that country was a state coach. It had been specially selected as a personal gift by 5 George III.; but the exact mode of using it was an intense mystery to Pekin. The ambassador, indeed (Lord Macartney), had made some im- perfect explanations upon this point; but, as His Excellency communicated these in a diplomatic lo whisper at the very moment of his departure, the celestial intellect was very feebly illuminated, and it became necessary to call a cabinet council on the grand state question, "Where was the Emperor to sit ?" The hammer cloth happened to be an- 15 usually gorgeous; and, partly on that considera- tion, but partly also because the box offered the most elevated seat, was nearest to the moon, and undeniably went foremost, it was resolved by ac- clamation that the box was the imperial throne, 20 and, for the scoundrel who drove — ^he might sit where he could find a perch. The horses, there- fore, being harnessed, solemnly his imperial majesty ascended his new English throne under a flourish of trumpets, having the first lord of the 25 treasury on his right hand, and the chief jester on his left. Pekin gloried in the spectacle; and in the whole flowery people, constructively present by representation, there was but one discontented person, and that was the coachman. This 30 THE ENGLLSPI MAIL COACH. S7 mutinous individual audaciously shouted, "Where am / to sit?'' But the privy council, incensed by his disloyalty, unanimously opened the door and kicked him into the inside. He had all the inside 5 places to himself ; but such is the rapacity of ambi- tion that he was still dissatisfied. "I say," he cried out in an extempore petition addressed to the emperor through the window — "I say, how am I to catch hold of the reins?" — "Anyhow," 10 was the imperial answer; "don't trouble me, man, in my glory. How catch the reins ? Why, through the windows, through the keyholes — anyhow.'^ Finally this contumacious coachman lengthened the check-strings into a sort of jury-reins com- 15 municating with the horses ; with these he drove as steadily as Pekin had any right to expect. The Emperor returned after the briefest of circuits ; he descended in great pomp from his throne, with the severest resolution never to remount it. A 20 public thanksgiving was ordered for his majesty's happy escape from the disease of broken neck ; and the state coach was dedicated thenceforward as a votive offering to the god Fo Fo — whom the learned more accurately called Fi Fi. 25 A revolution of this same Chinese character did young Oxford of that era effect in the constitution of mail-coach society. It was a perfect French Revolution ; and we had good reason to say, Qa ira. In fact, it soon became too popular. The "public" 30 — a well-known character, particularly disagreea- 88 SELECTIONS FKOM DE QUINCEY. ble, though slightly respectable, and notorious for affecting the chief seats in synagogues — had at first loudly opposed this revolution; but, when the opposition showed itself to be ineffectual, our disagreeable friend went into it with headlong 5 zeal. At first it was a sort of race between us; and, as the public is usually from thirty to fifty years old, naturally we of young Oxford, that averaged about twenty, had the advantage. Then the public took to bribing, giving fees to horse- lo keepers, etc., who hired out their persons as warm- ing pans on the box seat. That, you know, was shocking to" all moral sensibilities. Come to bribery, said we, and there is an end to all morality — Aristotle^s, Zeno's, Cicero's, or anybody's. And, 15 besides, of what use was it? For we bribed also. And, as our bribes, to those of the public, were as five shillings to sixpence, here again young Ox- ford had the advantage. But the contest was ruin- ous to the principles of the stables connected with 20 the mails. This whole corporation was constantly bribed, rebribed, and often sur-rebribed ; a mail- coach yard was like the hustings in a contested election ; and a horsekeeper, ostler, or helper, was held by the philosophical at that time to be the 25 most corrupt character in the nation. There was an impression upon the public mind, natural enough from the continually augmenting velocity of the mail, but quite erroneous, that an outside seat on this class of carriages was a post of 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 89 danger. On the contrary, I maintained that, if a man had become nervous from some gypsy predic- tion in his childliood, allocating to a particular moon, now approaching, some unknown danger, 5 and he should inquire earnest!}^, "Whither can I fly for shelter? Is a prison the safest retreat? or a lunatic hospital? or the British Museum?" I should have replied, "Oh, no ; I'll tell you what to do. Take lodgings for the next forty days on the 10 l;ox of his majesty's mail. Nobody can touch you there. If it is by bills at ninety days after date that you are made unhappy — if noters and pro- testers are the sort of wretches whose astrological shadows darken the house of life — then note you 15 what I vehemently protest, viz., that no matter though the sheriff and under-sheriff in every county should be running after you with his posse, touch a hair of your head he cannot while you keep house and have your legal domicile on the box 20 of the mail. It is felony to stop the mail ; even the sheriff cannot do that. And an extra touch of the whip to the leaders (no great matter if it grazes the sheriff) at any time guarantees your safety." In fact, a bedroom in a quiet house 25 seems a safe enough retreat ; yet it is liable to its own notorious nuisances — to robbers by night, to rats, to fire. But the mail laughs at these ter- rors. To robbers, the answer is packed up and ready for delivery in the barrel of the guard's 30 blunderbuss. Rats, again ! there are none about OQ SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. mail-coaches, any more than snakes in Von TroiPs Iceland; except, indeed, now and then a parlia- mentary rat, who always hides his shame in what I have shown to be the "coal cellar." And, as to fire, I never knew but one in a mail coach ; which 5 was in the Exeter mail, and caused by an obstinate sailor bound to Devonport. Jack, making light of the law and the lawgiver that had set their faces against his offense, insisted on taking up a forbid- den seat in the rear of the roof, from which he lo could exchange his own yarns with those of the guard. No greater offense was then known to mail coaches ; it was treason, it was Icesa majestas, it was by tendency arson; and the ashes of Jack's pipe, falling among the straw of the hinder boot, 15 containing the mailbags, raised a flame which (aided by the wind of our motion) threatened a revolution in the republic of letters. Yet even this left the sanctity of the box unviolated. In dignified repose, the coachman and myself sat on, 20 resting with benign composure upon our knowl- edge that the fire would have to burn its way through four inside passengers before it could reach ourselves. I remarked to the coachman, with a quotation from Virgil's ^Eneid really too 25 hackneyed : Jam proxinius ardet Ucalegon. But, recollecting that the Virgilian part of the coachman's education might have been neglected, 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 91 I interpreted so far as to say that perhaps at that moment the flames were catching hold of our worthy brother and inside passenger, Ucalegon. The coachman made no answer — which is my own 5 way when a stranger addresses me either in Syriac or in Coptic; but by his faint skeptical smile he seemed to insinuate that he knew better — for that Ucalegon, as it happened, was not in the way-bill, and therefore could not have been booked. 10 No dignity is perfect which does not at some point ally itself with the mysterious. The connec- tion of the mail with the state and the executive government — a connection obvious, but yet not strictly defined — gave to the whole mail establish- 15 ment an official grandeur which did us service on the roads, and invested us with seasonable terrors. Not the less impressive were those terrors l^eeause their legal limits were imperfectly ascertained. Look at those turnpike gates; with what deferen- 20 tial hurry, with what an obedient start, they fly open at our approach ! Look at that long line of carts and carters ahead, audaciously usurping the very crest of the road. Ah, traitors ! they do not hear us as yet; but, as soon as the dreadful blast 25 of our horn reaches them with proclamation of our approach, see with what frenzy of trepidation they fly to their horses' heads, and deprecate our wrath by the precipitation of their crane-neck quarterings. Treason they feel to be their crime; 30 each individual carter feels himself under the ban 92 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. of confiscation and attainder ; his blood is attainted through six generations; and nothing is wanting but the headsman and his axe, the block and the sawdust, to close up the vista of his horrors. What ! shall it be within benefit of clergy to delay 5 the king's message on the highroad — to interrupt the great respirations, ebb and flood, systole and diastole, of the national intercourse ? — to endanger the safety of tidings running day and night be- tween all nations and languages ? Or can it be lo fancied, among the weakest of men, that the bodies of the criminals will be given up to their widows for Christian burial? Now, the doubts which were raised as to our powers did more to wrap them in terror, by wrapping them in uncertainty, 15 than could have been effected by the sharpest defi- nitions of the law from the quarter sessions. We, on our parts (we, the collective mail, I mean), did our utmost to exalt the idea of our privileges by the insolence with which we wielded them. 20 AVhether this insolence rested upon law that gave it a sanction, or upon conscious power that haughtily dispensed with that sanction, equally it spoke from a potential station; and the agent, in each particular insolence of the moment, was 25 viewed reverentially, as one having authority. Sometimes after breakfast his majesty's mail would become frisky; and, in its difficult wheel- ings among the intricacies of early markets, it would upset an apple cart, a cart loaded with eggs, 30 THE ENiiLLSil MAJL COACH. 93 etc. Huge was the affliction and dismay, awful was the smash. I, as far as possible, endeavored in such a case to represent the conscience and moral sensibilities of the mail; and, when wilder- 5 nesses of eggs were lying poached under our horses' hoofs, then would I stretch forth my hands in sorrow, saying (in words too celebrated at that time, from the false echoes of Marengo), "Ah! wherefore have we not time to weep over you ?" — 10 which was evidently impossible, since, in fact, we had not time to laugh over them. Tied to post- office allowance, in some cases of fifty minutes for eleven miles, could the royal mail pretend to undertake the offices of sympathy and condolence ? 15 Could it be expected to provide tears for the acci- dents of the road? If even it seemed to trample on humanity, it did so, I felt, in discharge of its own more peremptory duties. Upholding the morality of the mail, a fortiori I 20 upheld its rights ; as a matter of duty, I stretched to the uttermost its privilege of imperial prece- dency, and astonished weak minds by the feudal powers which I hinted to be lurking constructively in the charters of this proud establishment. Once 25 I remember being on the box of the Holyhead mail, between Shrewsbury and Osw^estr}^, when a tawdry thing from Birmingham, some Tallyho or Highflyer, all flaunting with green and gold, came up alongside of us. What a contrast to our royal 30 simplicity of form and color in this plebeian 94 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. wretch ! The single ornament on our dark ground of chocolate color was the mighty shield of the imperial arms, but emblazoned in proportions as modest as a signet ring bears to a seal of office. Even this was displayed only on a single panel, 5 whispering, rather than proclaiming, our relations to the mighty state ; whilst the beast from Birming- ham, our green-and-gold friend from false, fleet- ing, perjured Brummagem, had as much writing and painting on its sprawling flanks as would have lO puzzled a decipherer from the tombs of Luxor. For some time this Birmingham machine ran along by our side — a piece of familiarity that al- ready of itself seemed to me sufficiently Jacobini- cal. But all at once a movement of the horses an- 15 nounced a desperate intention of leaving us be- hind. "Do you see that f I said to the coachman. "I see," was his short answer. He was wide awake — yet he waited longer than seemed prudent; for the horses of our audacious opponent had a dis- 20 agreeable air of freshness and power. But his motive was loyal ; his wish was that the Birming- ham conceit should be full-blown before he froze it. When that seemed right, he unloosed, or, to speak by a stronger word, he si^rang his known 25 resources: he slipped our royal horses like cheetahs, or hunting leopards, after the affrighted game. How they could retain such a reserve of fiery power after the work they had accomplished seemed hard to explain. But on our side, besides so THE ENGLIS-H MAIL COACH. 95 the physical superiority, was a tower of moral strength, namely the king's name, "which they upon the adverse faction wanted." Passing them without an effort, as it seemed, we threw them 5 into the rear with so lengthening an interval be- tween us as proved in itself the bitterest mockery of their presumption ; whilst our guard blew back a shattering blast of triumph that was really too painfully full of derision. 10 I mention this little incident for its connection with what followed. A Welsh rustic, sitting be- hind me, asked if I had not felt my heart burn within me during the progress of the race? I said, with philosophic calmness. No; because we 15 were not racing with a mail, so that no glory could be gained. In fact, it was sufficiently mortifying that such a Birmingham thing should dare to challenge us. The Welshman replied that he didn't see that; for that a cat might look at a 20 king, and a Brummagem coach might lawfully race the Holyhead mail. "Race us, if you like,'^ I replied, "though even that has an air of sedi- tion; but not leat us. This would have been treason; and for its own sake I am glad that the 25 Tallyho was disappointed." So dissatisfied did the Welshman seem with this opinion that at last I was obliged to tell him a very fine story from one of our elder dramatists: viz., that once, in some far Oriental kingdom when the sultan of all 30 the land, with his princes, ladies, and chief 96 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCEY. omrahs were flying their falcons, a hawk suddenly flew at a majestic eagle, and, in defiance of the eagle's natural advantages, in contempt also of the eagle's traditional royalty, and before the whole assembled field of astonished spectators 5 from Agra and Lahore, killed the eagle on the spot. Amazement seized the sultan at the unequal contest, and burning admiration for its unparal- leled result. He commanded that the hawk should be brought before him ; he caressed the bird with lo enthusiasm; and he ordered that, for the com- memoration of his matchless courage, a diadem of gold and rubies should be solemnly placed on the hawk's head, but then that, immediately after this solemn coronation, the bird should be led off to 15 execution, as the most valiant indeed of traitors, but not the less a traitor, as having dared to rise rebelliously against his liege lord and anointed sovereign, the eagle. "Now," said I to the Welsh- man, ''to you and me, as men of refined sensibili- 20 ties, how painful it would have been that this poor Brummagem brute, the Tallyho, in the impossible case of a victory over us, should have been crowned with Birmingham tinsel, with paste diamonds, and Roman pearls, and then led oif to instant execu- 25 tion." The Welshman doubted if that could be warranted by law. And, when I hinted at the Gth of Edward Longshanks, chap. 18, for regulat- ing the precedency of coaches, as being probably the statute relied on for the capital punishment of 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 97 such offenses, he replied dryly that, if the attempt to pass a mail really were treasonable, it was a pity that the Tallyho appeared to have so imper- fect an acquaintance with law. 5 The modern modes of traveling cannot compare with the old mail-coach system in grandeur and power. They boast of more velocity — not, how- ever, as a consciousness, but as a fact of our life- less knowledge, resting upon alien evidence : as, 10 for instance, because somebody says that we have gone fifty miles in the hour, though we are far from feeling it as a personal experience; or upon the evidence of a result, as that actually we find ourselves in York four hours after leaving Lon- 15 don. Apart from such an assertion, or such a re- sult, I myself am little aware of the pace. But, seated on the old mail coach, we needed no evi- dence out of ourselves to indicate the velocity. On this system the word was not magna loquimur, as 20 upon railw^ays, but vivimus. Yes, "magna vivi- mus" ; we do not make verbal ostentation of our grandeurs, we realize our grandeurs in act, and in the very experience of life. The vital experience of the glad animal sensibilities made doubts im- 25 possible on the question of our speed; we heard our speed, we saw it, we felt it as a thrilling ; and this speed was not the product of blind insensate agencies, that had no sympathy to give, but was incarnated in the fiery eyeballs of the noblest 30 among brutes, in his dilated nostril, spasmodic 98 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. muscles, and thunder-beating hoofs. The sensi- bility of the horse, uttering itself in the maniac light of his eye, might be the last vibration of such a movement; the glory of Salamanca might be the first. But the intervening links that con- 5 nccted them, that spread the earthquake of battle into the eyeball of the horse, were the heart of man and its electric thrillings — kindling in the rapture of the fiery strife, and then propagating its own tumults by contagious shouts and gestures lo to the heart of his servant the horse. But now, on the new system of traveling, iron tubes and boilers have disconnected man's heart from the ministers of his locomotion. Nile nor Trafalgar has power to raise an extra bubble in a steam kettle. The 15 galvanic cycle is broken up forever; man's im- perial nature no longer sends itself forward through the electric sensibility of the horse; the inter-agencies are gone in the mode of communi- cation between the horse and his master, out of 20 which grew so many aspects of sublimity under accidents of mists that hid, or sudden blazes that revealed, of mobs that agitated, or midnight solitudes that awed. Tidings fitted to convulse all nations must henceforward travel by culinary 25 process; and the trumpet that once announced from afar the laureled mail, heart-shaking when heard screaming on the wind and proclaiming it- self through the darkness to every village or soli- tary house on its route, has now given way for- 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 99 ever to the pot-wallopings of the boiler. Thus have perished multiform openings for public ex- pressions of interest, scenical yet natural, in great national tidings — for revelations of faces and 5 groups that could not offer themselves amongst the fluctuating mobs of a railway station. The gath- erings of gazers about a laureled mail had one cen- ter, and acknowledged one sole interest. But the crowds attending at a railway station have as lit- 10 tie unity as running water, and own as many cen- ters as there are separate carriages in the train. How else, for example, than as a constant watcher for the dawn, and for the London mail that in summer months entered about daybreak 15 amongst the lawny thickets of Marlborough forest, couldst thou, sweet Fanny of the Bath road, have become the glorified inmate of my dreams? Yet Fanny, as the loveliest young woman for face and person that perhaps in my whole life I have be- 20 held, merited the station which even now, from a distance of forty years, she holds in my dreams; yes, though by links of natural association she brings along with her a troop of dreadful creatures, fabulous and not fabulous, that are 25 more abominable to the heart than Fanny and the dawn are delightful. Miss Fanny of the Bath road, strictly speaking, lived at a mile's distance from that road, but came so continually to meet the mail that I on my fre- 30 quent transits rarely missed her, and naturally 100 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. connected her image with the great thoroughfare where only I had ever seen her. Why she came 60 punctually I do not exactly know ; but I believe with some burden of commissions, to be executed in Bath, which had gathered to her own residence 5 as a central rendezvous for converging them. The mail-coachman who drove the Bath mail and wore the royal livery happened to be Fanny's grand- father. A good man he was, that loved his beauti- ful granddaughter, and, loving her wisely, was 10 vigilant over her deportment in any case where young Oxford might happen to be concerned. Did my vanity then suggest that I myself, individual- ly, could fall within the line of his terrors? Cer- tainly not, as regarded any physical pretensions 15 that I could plead; for Fanny (as a chance pas- senger from her own neighborhood once told me) counted in her train a hundred and ninety-nine professed admirers, if not open aspirants to her favor ; and probably not one of the whole brigade 20 but excelled myself in personal advantages. Ulysses even, with the unfair advantage of his ac- cursed bow, could hardly have undertaken that amount of suitors. So the danger might have seemed slight — only that woman is universally 25 aristocratic; it is among her nobilities of heart that she is so. Now, the aristocratic distinctions in my favor might easily with Miss Fanny have compensated my physical deficiencies. Did I then make love to Fanny ? Why, yes ; about as much so THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 101 love as One could make while the mail was chang- ing horses — a process which, ten years later, did not occupy above eighty seconds; but then — viz., about Waterloo — it occupied five times eighty. 5 Now, four hundred seconds offer a field quite ample enough for whispering into a young woman's ear a great deal of truth, and (by way of parenthesis) some trifle of falsehood. Grandpapa did right, therefore, to watch me. And yet, as 10 happens too often to the grandpapas of earth in a contest with the admirers of granddaughters, how vainly would he have watched me had I meditated any evil whispers to Fanny ! She, it is my belief, would have protected herself against any man's 15 evil suggestions. But he, as the result showed, could not have intercepted the opportunities for such suggestions. Yet, why not? Was he not active ? Was he not blooming ? Blooming he was as Fanny herself 20 Say, all our praises why should lords Stop, that's not the line. Say, all our roses why should girls engross? The coachman showed rosy blossoms on his face deeper even than his granddaughter's — his being 25 drawn from the ale cask, Fanny's from the fount- ains of the dawn. But, in spite of his blooming face, some infirmities he had ; and one particularly in which he too much resembled a crocodile. This 102 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. lay in a monstrous inaptitude for turning round. The crocodile, I presume, owes that inaptitude to the absurd length of his back ; but in our grand- papa it arose rather from the absurd hreadtli of his back, combined, possibly, with some growing 5 stiffness in his legs. Now, upon this crocodile in- firmity of his I planted a human advantage for tendering my homage to Miss Fanny. In defiance of all his honorable vigilance, no sooner had he presented to us his mighty Jovian back (what a lo field for displaying to mankind his royal scarlet I), while inspecting professionally the buckles, the straps, and the silvery turrets of his harness, than I raised Miss Fanny's hand to my lips, and, by the mixed tenderness and respectfulness of my man- 15 ner, caused her easily to understand how happy it would make me to rank upon her list as No. 10 or 12: in which case a few casualties among her lovers (and, observe, they hanged liberally in those days) might have promoted me speedily to 20 the top of the tree; as, on the other hand, with how much loyalty of submission I acquiesced by anticipation in her award, supposing that she should plant me in the very rearward of her favor, as No. 199+1. Most truly I loved this beautiful 25 and ingenuous girl; and, had it not been for the Bath mail, timing all courtships by post-office al- lowance, Heaven only knows what might have come of it. People talk of being over head and ^ears in love ; now, the mail was the cause that I 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 103 sank only over ears in love — which, you know, still left a trifle of brain to overlook the whole conduct of the affair. Ah, reader ! when I look back upon those days, 5 it seems to me that all things change — all things perish. ^'Perish the roses and the palms of kings;" perish even the crowns and trophies of AVaterloo; thunder and lightning are not the thunder and lightning which I remember. Eoses 10 are degenerating. The Fannies of our island — though this I say with reluctance — are not visibly improving; and the Bath road is notoriously superannuated. Crocodiles, you will say, are sta- tionary. Mr. Waterton tells me that the crocodile 15 does not change — that a cayman, in fact, or an alligator, is just as good for riding upon as he was in the time of the Pharaohs. That may be; but the reason is that the crocodile does not live fast — he is a slow coach. I believe it is generally un- 20 derstood among naturalists that the crocodile is a blockhead. It is my own impression that the Pharaohs were also blockheads. Xow, as the Pharaohs and the crocodile domineered over Egyptian society, this accounts for a singular 25 mistake that prevailed through innumerable gen- erations on the Nile. The crocodile made the ridiculous blunder of supposing man to be meant chiefly for his own eating. Man, taking a differ- ent view of the subject, naturally met that mis- 30 take by another ; he viewed the crocodile as a 104 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. thing sometimes to worship, but always to run away from. And this continued till Mr. Water- ton changed the relations between the animals. The mode of escaping from the reptile he showed to be not by running away, but by leaping on its 5 back booted and spurred. The two animals had misunderstood each other. The use of the croco- dile has now been cleared up — viz., to be ridden; and the final cause of man is that he may Improve the health of the crocodile by riding him a-fox- lo hunting before breakfast. And it is pretty cer- tain that any crocodile who has been regularly hunted through the season, and is master of the weight he carries, will take a six-barred gate now as well as ever he would have done in the infancy 15 of the Pyramids. If, therefore, the crocodile does not change, all things else undeniably do: even the shadow of the Pyramids grows less. And often the restoration in vision of Fanny and the Bath road makes me too 20 pathetically sensible of that truth. Out of the darkness, if I happen to call back the image of Fanny, up rises suddenly from a gulf of forty years a rose in June; or if I think for an instant of the rose in June, up rises the lieavenly face of 25 Fanny. One after the other, like the antiphonies in the choral service, rise Fanny and the rose in June, then back again the rose in June and Fanny. Then come both together, as in a chorus — roses and Fannies, Fannies and roses, without end, so THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 105 thick as blossoms in Paradise. Then comes a venerable crocodile, in a royal livery of scarlet and gold, with sixteen capes; and the crocodile is driv- ing four-in-hand from the box of the Bath mail. 5 And suddenly we upon the mail are pulled up by a mighty dial, sculptured with the hours, that mingle with the heavens and the heavenly host. Then all at once we are arrived at Marlborough forest, amongst the lovely households of the roe 10 deer; the deer and their fawns retire into the dewy thickets ; the thickets are rich with roses ; once again the roses call up the sweet countenance of Fanny ; and she, being the granddaughter of a crocodile, awakens a dreadful host of semi- 15 legendary animals — griffins, dragons, basilisks, sphinxes — till at length the wdiole vision of fight- ing images crowds into one towering armorial shield, a vast emblazonry of human charities and human loveliness that have perished, but quartered 20 heraldically with unutterable and demoniac na- tures, while over all rises, as a surmounting crest, one fair female hand, with the forefinger pointing, in sweet, sorrowful admonition, upward to heaven, where is sculptured the eternal writing which pro- 25 claims the frailty of earth and her children. GOING DOWX WITH VICTORY. But the grandest chapter of our experience within the whole mail-coach service w^as on those occasions when we went down from London with 106 SELECTIONS FKOM DE QUINCEY. the news of victory. A period of about ten years stretched from Trafalgar to Waterloo; the second and third years of which period (1806 and 1807) were comparatively sterile; but the other nine (from 1805 to 1815 inclusively) furnished a long 5 succession of victories, the least of which, in such a contest of Titans, had an inappreciable value of position: partly for its absolute interference with the plans of our enemy, but still more from its keeping alive through central Europe the sense of lo a deep-seated vulnerability in France. Even to tease the coasts of our enemy, to mortify them by continual blockades, to insult them by capturing if it were but a baubling schooner under the eyes of their arrogant armies, repeated from time to 15 time a sullen proclamation of power lodged in one quarter to which the hopes of Christendom turned in secret. How much more loudly must this proclamation have spoken in the audacity of having bearded the elite of their troops, and hav- 20 ing beaten them in pitched battles ! Five years' of life it was worth paying down for the privilege of an outside place on a mail coach, when carrying down the first tidings of any such event. And it is to be noted that, from our insular situation, and 2? the multitude of our frigates disposable for the rapid transmission of intelligence, rarely did any unauthorized rumor steal away a prelibation from the first aroma of the regular dispatches. The government news was generally the earliest news, so THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 107 From 8 p. m. to fifteen or twenty minutes later imagine tlie mails assembled on parade in Lom- bard Street; where, at that time, and not in St. Martin's-le-Grand, was seated the General Post- 5 Office. In what exact strength we mustered 1 do not remember; but, from the length of each sepa- rate attelage, we filled the street, though a long one, and though we were drawn up in double file. On any night the spectacle was beautiful. The 10 absolute perfection of all the appointments about the carriages and the harness, their strength, their brilliant cleanliness, their beautiful simplicity — but, more than all, the royal magnificence of the horses — were what might first have fixed the at- 15 tention. Every carriage on every morning in the year was taken down to an official inspector for examination : wheels, axles, linchpins, pole, glasses, lamps, were all critically probed and tested. Every part of every carriage had been cleaned, every 20 horse had been groomed, with as much rigor as if they belonged to a private gentleman; and that part of tlie spectacle offered itself always. But the night before us is a night of victory ; and, be- hold ! to the ordinary display what a heart-shaking 25 addition ! — horses, men, carriages, all are dressed in laurels and flowers, oak-leaves and ribbons. The guards, as being officially his majesty's servants^ and of the coachmen such as are within the privilege of the Post-Office, wear the royal liveries 30 of course; and, as it is summer (for all the land 108 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. victories were naturally won in summer), they wear, on this fine evening, these liveries exposed to view, without any covering of upper coats. Such a costume, and the elaborate arrangement of the laurels in their hats, dilate their hearts, by giving 5 to them openly a personal connection with the great news in which already they have the general interest of patriotism. That great national senti- ment surmounts and quells all sense of ordinary distinctions. Those passengers who happen to be lo gentlemen are now hardly to be distinguished as such except by dress ; for the usual reserve of their manner in speaking to the attendants has on this night melted away. One heart, one pride, one glory, connects every man by the transcendent 15 bond of his national blood. The spectators, who are numerous beyond precedent, express their sympathy with these fervent feelings by continual hurrahs. Every moment are shouted aloud by the post-office servants, and summoned to draw up, 20 the great ancestral names of cities known to his- tory through a thousand years — Lincoln, Win- chester, Portsmouth, Gloucester, Oxford, Bristol, Manchester, York, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glas- gow, Perth, Stirling, Aberdeen — expressing the 25 grandeur of the empire by the antiquity of its towns, and the grandeur of the mail establishment by the diffusive radiation of its separate missions. Every moment you hear the thunder of lids locked down upon the mailbags. That sound to each in- 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 109 dividual mail is the signal for drawing off; which process is the finest part of the entire spectacle. Then come the horses into play. Horses ! can these be horses that bound off with the action and 5 gestures of leopards ? What stir ! what sea-like ferment ! what a thundering of wheels ! what a trampling of hoofs ! what a sounding of trumpets ! what farewell cheers ! what redoubling peals of brotherly congratulation, connecting the name of 10 the particular mail — "Liverpool forever !" with the name of the particular victory — "Badajoz for- ever \" or "Salamanca forever !" The half -si um- bering consciousness that all night long, and all the next day — perhaps for even a longer period — 15 many of these mails, like fire racing along a train of gunpowder, will be kindling at every instant new successions of burning joy, has an obscure effect of multiplying the victory itself, by multi- plying to the imagination into infinity the stages 20 of its progressive diffusion. A fiery arrow seems to be let loose, which from that moment is des- tined to travel, without intermission, westward for three hundred miles — northward for six hun- dred; and the sympathy of our Lombard Street 25 friends at parting is exalted a hundredfold by a sort of visionary sympathy with the yet slumber- ing sympathies which in so vast a succession we are going to awake. Liberated from the embarrassments of the city, 30 and issuing into the broad uncrowded avenues of no SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y. the northern suburbs, we soon begin to enter upon our natural pace of ten miles an hour. In the broad light of the summer evening, the sun, per- haps, only just at the point of setting, we are seen from every story of every house. Heads of every 5 age crowd to the windows; young and old under- stand the language of our victorious symbols ; and rolling volleys of sympathizing cheers run along us, behind us, and before us. The beggar, rearing himself against the wall, forgets his lameness, — 10 real or assumed, — thinks not of his whining trade, but stands erect, with bold exulting smiles, as we pass him. The victory has healed him, and says. Be thou whole ! Women and children, from gar- rets alike and cellars, through infinite London, 15 look down or look up with loving eyes upon our gay ribbons and our martial laurels; sometimes kiss their hands; sometimes hang out, as signals of affection, pocket handkerchiefs, aprons, dusters, anything that, by catching the summer breeze?, 20 will express an aerial jubilation. On the London side of Barnet, to which we draw near within a few minutes after nine, observe that private car- riage which is approaching us. The weather being 60 warm, the glasses are all down ; and one may 25 read, as on the stage of a theater, everything that goes on within. It contains three ladies — one likely to be "mamma," and two of seventeen or eighteen, who are probably her daughters. What lovely animation, what beautiful unpremeditated 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. m pantomime, explaining to us every syllable that passes, in these ingenuous girls ! By the sudden start and raising of the hands on first discovering our laureled equipage, by the sudden movement 5 and appeal to the elder lady from both of them, and by the heightened color on their animated countenances, we can almost hear them saying, ^"'See, see ! Look at their laurels ! Oh, mamma ! there has been a great battle in Spain ; and it has 10 been a great victory/^ In a moment we are on the point of passing them. "We passengers — I on the box, and the two on the roof behind me — raise our hats to the ladies; the coachman makes his pro- fessional salute with the whip; the guard even, 15 though punctilious on the matter of his dignity as an officer under the crown, touches his hat. The ladies move to us, in return, with a winning graciousness of gesture; all smile on each side in a way that nobody could misunderstand, and that 20 nothing short of a grand national sympathy could so instantaneously prompt. Will these ladies say that we are nothing to them? Oh, no; they will not say that ! They cannot deny — they do not deny— that for this night they are our sisters; 25 gentle or simple, scholar or illiterate servant, for twelve hours to come, w^e on the outside have the honor to be their brothers. Those poor women, again, who stop to gaze upon us with delight at the entrance of Barnet, and seem, by their air of 30 weariness, to be returning from labor — do you 112 SELECTIONS FEQM DE QUINCE Y. mean to say that they are washerwomen and char- women? Oh, my poor friend, you are quite mis- taken. I assure you they stand in a far higher rank; for this one night they feel themselves by birthright to be daughters of England, and answer 5 to no humbler title. Every joy, however, even rapturous joy, — such is the sad law of earth, — may carry with it grief, or fear of grief, to some. Three miles beyond Barnet, we see approaching us another private car- lo riage, nearly repeating the circumstances of the former case. Here, also, the glasses are all down ; here, also, is an elderly lady seated ; but the two daughters are missing; for the single young per- son sitting by the lady's side seems to be an at- 15 tendant — so I judge from her dress, and her air of respectful reserve. The lady is in mourning; and her countenance expresses sorrow. At first she does not look up; so that I believe she is not aware of our approach, until she hears the meas- 20 ured beating of our horses' hoofs. Then she raises her eyes to settle them painfully on our triumphal equipage. Our decorations explain the case to her at once; but she beholds them with apparent anxiety, or even with terror. Some 25 time before this, I, finding it difficult to hit a flying mark when embarrassed by the coachman's person and reins intervening, had given to the guard a Courier evening paper, containing the gazette, for the next carriage that might pass. 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. II3 Accordingly he tossed it in, so folded that the huge capitals expressing some such legend as glorious victory might catch the eye at once. To see the paper, however, at all, interpreted as it 5 was by our ensigns of triumph, explained every- thing; and, if the guard were right in thinking the lady to have received it with a gesture of hor- ror, it could not be doubtful that she had suffered some deep personal affliction in connection with 10 this Spanish war. Here, now, was the case of one wdio, having for- merly suffered, might, erroneously perhaps, be distressing herself with anticipations of another similar suffering. That same night, and hardly 15 three hours later, occurred the reverse case. A poor woman, w^ho too probably w^ould find herself, in a day or two, to have suffered the heaviest of afflictions by the battle, blindly allowed herself to express an exultation so unmeasured in the news 20 and its details as gave to her the appearance which among Celtic Highlanders is called feij. This was at some little tow^n where we changed horses an hour or two after midnight. Some fair or wake had kept the people up out of their beds, and had 25 occasioned a partial illumination of the stalls and booths, presenting an unusual but very impres- sive effect. We saw many lights moving about as we drew near; and perhaps the most striking scene on the whole route was our reception at 30 this place. The flashing of torches and the beau- 114 SELECTIONS FHOM DE QUINCEY. tiful radiance of blue lights (technically, Bengal lights) upon the heads of our horses; the fine ef- fect of such a showery and ghostly illumination falling upon our flowers and glittering laurels; whilst all around ourselves, that formed a center 5 of light, the darkness gathered on the rear and flanks in massy blackness; these optical splendors, together with the prodigious enthusiasm of the people, composed a pictvire at once scenical and affecting, theatrical and holy. As we stayed for ^o three or four minutes, I alighted ; and imme- diately from a dismantled stall in the street, where no doubt she had been presiding through the earlier part of the night, advanced eagerly a middle-aged woman. The sight of my newspaper 15 it was that had drawn her attention upon myself. The victory which we were carrying down to the provinces on this occasion was the imperfect one of Talavera — imperfect for its results, such was the virtual treachery of the Spanish general, 20 Cuesta, but not imperfect in its ever memorable heroism. I told her the main outline of the bat- tle. The agitation of her enthusiasm had been so conspicuous when listening, and when first ap- plying for information, that I could not but ask 25 her if she had not some relative in the Peninsular army. Oh, yes ; her only son was there. In what regiment? He was a trooper in the Twenty-third Dragoons. My heart sank within me as she made that answer. This sublime regiment, which an 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 115 Englishman should never mention without raising his hat to their memory, had made the most mem- orable and effective charge recorded in military- annals. They leaped their horses — over a trench 5 where they could; into it, and with the result of death or mutilation, when they could 7iot. What proportion cleared the trench is nowhere stated. Those who did closed up and w^ent down upon the enemy with such divinity of fervor (I use 10 the word divinity by design; the inspiration of God must have prompted this movement to those whom even then lie was calling to his presence) that two results followed. As regarded the enemy, this Twenty-third Dragoons, not, I be- 15 lieve, originally three hundred and fifty strong, paralyzed a French column six thousand strong, then ascended the hill, and fixed the gaze of the whole French army. As regarded themselves, the Twenty-third were supposed at first to have been 20 barely not annihilated ; but eventually, I believe, about one in four survived. And this, then, was the regiment — a regiment already for some hours glorified and hallowed to the ear of all London, as lying stretched, by a large majority, upon one 25 bloody aceldama — in which the young trooper served whose mother was now talking in a spirit of such joyous enthusiasm. Did I tell her the truth ? Had I the heart to break up her dreams ? No. To-morrow, said I to myself — to-morrow, 80 or the next day, will publish the worst. For one 116 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. night more wherefore should she not sleep in peace? After to-morrow the chances are too many that peace will forsake her pillow. This brief respite, then, let her owe to my gift and my forbearance. But, if I told her not of the bloody 5 price that had been paid, not therefore was I silent on the contributions from her son's regiment to that day's service and glory. I showed her not the funeral banners under which the noble regi- ment was sleeping. I lifted not the overshadow- lo ing laurels from the bloody trench in which horse and rider lay mangled together. But I told her how these dear children of England, officers and privates, had leaped their horses over all obstacles as gayly as hunters to the morning's chase. I 15 told her how they rode their horses into the mists of death — saying to myself, but not saying to her, *^and laid down their young lives for thee, Mother England ! as willingly — poured out their noble blood as cheerfully — as ever, after a long 20 day's sport, when infants^ they had rested their wearied heads upon their mother's knees, or had sunk to sleep in her arms." Strange it is, yet true, that she seemed to have no fears for her eon's safety, even after this knowledge that the 25 Twenty-third Dragoons had been memorably en- gaged ; but so much was she enraptured by the knowledge that his regiment, and therefore that he, had rendered conspicuous service in the dread- ful conflict — a service which had actually made 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 117 them, within the last twelve hours, the foremost topic of conversation in London — so absolutely was fear swallowed up in joy — that in the mere simplicity of her fervent nature, the poor woman 5 threw her arms round my neck, as she thought of her son, and gave to me the kiss which secretly was meant for him. Sectiox II. — The Visiox of Sudden Death. What is to be taken as the predominant opinion of man, reflective and philosophic, upon sudden 10 death ? It is remarkable that, in different con- ditions of society, sudden death has been variously regarded as the consummation of an earthly career most fervently to be desired, or again, as that con- summation which is with most horror to be dep- 15 recated. Caesar the Dictator, at his last dinner party (ccena), on the very evening before his as- sassination, when the minutes of his earthly career were numbered, being asked what death in his judgment, might be pronounced the most eligible, 20 replied, "That which .should be most sudden." On the other hand, the divine Litany of our Eng- lish Church, when breathing forth supplications,, as if in some representative character, for the whole human race prostrate before God, places 25 such a death in the very van of horrors : "From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence,, and famine ; from battle and murder and from 118 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y. sudden death — Good Lord, deliver us." Sudden death is here made to crown the climax in a grand ascent of calamities; it is ranked among the last of curses; and yet hy the nohlest of Eomans it was ranked as the first of blessings. In that dif- 5 ference most readers will see little more than the essential difference between Christianity and Paganism. But this, on consideration, I doubt. The Christian Church may be right in its estimate of sudden death ; and it is a natural feeling, lo though after all it may also be an infirm one, to wish for a quiet dismissal from life, as that which seems most reconcilable with meditation, with penitential retrospects, and with the humilities of farewell prayer. There does not, however, oc- 15 cur to me any direct scriptural warrant for this earnest petition of the English Litany, unless under a special construction of the word "sudden." It seems a petition indulged rather and conceded to human infirmity than exacted from human 20 piety. It is not so much a doctrine built upon the eternities of the Christian system as a plaus- ible opinion built upon special varieties of physi- cal temperament. Let that, however, be as it may, two remarks suggest themselves as prudent 25 restraints upon a doctrine which else may wan- der, and has wandered, into an uncharitable superstition. The first is this: that many people are likely to exaggerate the horror of a sudden death from the disposition to lay a false stress so THE ENGL1811 MAIL COACH. 119 upon worrls or acts simply l)ecause by an accident they have become fmal words or acts. If a man dies, for instance, by some sudden death when he happens to be intoxicated, such a death is falsely 5 regarded with peculiar horror ; as though the in- toxication were suddenly exalted into a blasphemy. But that is unphilosophic. The man was, or he was not, habitually a drunkard. If not, if his intoxication were a solitary accident, there can be 10 no reason for allowing special emphasis to this act simply because through misfortune it became his final act. Nor, on the other hand, if it were no accident, but one of his habitual transgres- sions, will it be the more habitual or the more a 15 transgression because some sudden calamity, sur- prising him, has caused this habitual transgres- sion to be also a final one. Could the man have had any reason even dimly to foresee his own sudden death, there would have been a new feat- 20 ure in his act of intemperance — a feature of pre- sumption and irreverence, as one that, having known himself drawing near to the presence of God, should have suited his demeanor to an ex- pectation so awful. But this is no part of the 25 case supposed. And the only new element in the man's act is not any element of special immorality, but simply of special misfortune. The other remark has reference to the meaning ' of the word sudden. Very possibly Caesar and 30 the Christian Church do not differ in the way sup- 120 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCEY. posed — that is do not differ by any difference of doctrine as between Pagan and Christian views of the moral temper appropriate to death; but perhaps they are contemplating different cases. Both contemplate a violent death, a ^BuiOavaros 5 — death that is Btaios, or in other words, death that is brought about, not by internal and spon- taneous change, but by active force having its origin from without. In this meaning the two authorities agree. Thus far they are in harmony. lO But the difference is that the Roman by the word ^^sudden" means unlingering, whereas the Chris- tian Litany by "sudden death" means a death ivitliout ivaniing, consequently without any avail- able summons to religious preparation. The poor 15 mutineer who kneels down to gather into his heart the bullets from twelve firelocks of his pity- ing comrades dies by a most sudden death, in Caesar's sense; one shock, one mighty spasm, one (possibly not one) groan, and all is over. But, 20 in the sense of the Litany, the mutineer's death is far from sudden; his offense originally, his im- prisonment, his trial, the interval between his sentence and its execution, having all furnished him with separate warnings of his fate — having all sum- 25 moned him to meet it with solemn preparation. Here at once, in this sharp verbal distinction, we comprehend the faithful earnestness with which a holy Christian Church pleads on behalf of her poor departing children that God would 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 121 vouchsafe to them the last great privilege and distinction possible on a deathbed, viz., the oppor- tunity of untroubled preparation for facing this mighty trial. Sudden death, as a mere variety 5 in the modes of dying where death in some shape is inevitable, proposes a question of choice which, equally in the Eoman and the Christian sense, will be variously answered according to each man's variety of temperament. Meantime, one aspect 10 of sudden death there is, one modification, upon which no doubt can arise, that of all martyrdoms it is the most agitating — viz., where it surprises a man under circumstances which offer (or which seem to offer) some hurrying, flying, inapprecia- 15 bly minute chance of evading it. Sudden as the danger which it affronts must l)e any effort by which such an evasion can be accomplished. Even that, even the sickening necessity for hurrying in extremity where all hurry seems destined to 2.1 be vain — even that anguish is liable to a hideous exasperation in one particular case, viz., where the appeal is made not exclusively to the instinct of self-preservation, but to the conscience, on be- half of some other life besides your own, acci- 25 dentally thrown upon your protection. To fail, to collapse in a service merely your own, might seem comparatively venial; though, in fact, it is far from venial. But to fail in a case where Providence has suddenly thrown into your hands 30 the final interests of another — a fellow-creature 122 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. shuddering between the gates of life and death; this, to a man of apprehensive conscience, would mingle the misery of an atrocious criminality with the misery of a bloody calamity. You are called upon, by the case supposed, possibly to die, 5 but to die at the very moment when, by any even partial failure or eft'eminate collapse of your ener- gies, you will be self-denounced as a murderer. You had but the twinkling of an eye for your ef- fort, and that effort might have been unavailing ; lo but to have risen to the level of such an effort would have rescued you, though not from dying, yet from dying as a traitor to your final and fare- well duty. The situation here contemplated exposes a 15 dreadful ulcer, lurking far down in the depths of human nature. It is not that men generally are summoned to face such awful trials. But po- tentially, and in shadowy outline, such a trial is moving subterraneously in perhaps all men's na- 20 tures. Upon the secret mirror of our dreams such a trial is darkly projected, perhaps, to every one of us. That dream, so familiar to childhood, of meeting a lion, and, through languishing pros- tration in hope and the energies of hope, that 25 constant sequel of lying down before the lion, pub- lishes the secret frailty of human nature — reveals its deep-seated falsehood to itself — records its abysmal treachery. Perhaps not one of us es- capes that dream ; perhaps, as by some sorrowful 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 123 doom of man, that dream repeats for every one of us, through every generation, the original temptation in Eden. Every one of us, in this dream, has a bait offered to the infirm phices of 5 his own individual will; once again a snare is presented for tempting him into captivity to a luxury of ruin ; once again, as in aboriginal Para- dise, the man falls by his own choice; again, by infinite iteration, the ancient earth groans to 10 heaven, through her secret caves, over the weak- ness of her child. "Nature, from her seat, sigh- ing through all her works," again "gives signs of woe that all is lost" ; and again the counter-sigh is repeated to the sorrowing heavens for the end- is less rebellion against God. It is not without probability that in the world of dreams every one of us ratifies for himself the original trans- gression. In dreams, perhaps under some secret conflict of the midnight sleeper, lighted up to 20 the consciousness at the time, but darkened to the memory as soon as all is finished, each several child of our mysterious race completes for himself the treason of the aboriginal fall. The incident, so memorable in itself by its feat- 25 ures of horror, and so scenical by its grouping for the eye, which furnished the text for this reverie upon Sudden Death, occurred to myself in the dead of night, as a solitary spectator, when seated on the box of the IManchester and Glasgow mail, 30 in the second or third summer after Waterloo. I 124 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY, find it necessary to relate the circumstances, be- cause they are such as could not have occurred unless under a singular combination of accidents. In those days, the oblique and lateral communi- cations with many rural post offices were so ar- 5 ranged, either through necessity or through defect of system, as to make it requisite for the main northwestern mail (/'. e., the doicn mail) on reaching Manchester to halt for a number of hours ; how many, I do not remember ; six or lo seven, I think; but the result was that, in the ordinary course, the mail recommenced its jour- ney northward aljout midnight. "Wearied witli the long detention at a gloomy hotel, I walked out about eleven o'clock at night for the sake of 15 fresh air; meaning to fall in with the mail and resume my seat at the post office. The night, however, being yet dark, as the moon had scarcely risen, and the streets being at that hour empty, so as to offer no opportunities for asking the road, 20 I lost my way, and did not reach the post office until it was considerably past midnight; but, to my great relief (as it was important for me to be in Westmoreland by the morning) I saw in the huge saucer eyes of the mail, blazing through the 25 gloom, an evidence that my chance was not yet lost. Past the time it was; but, by some rare accident, the mail was not even yet ready to start. I ascended to my seat on the box, where my cloak was still lying as it had lain at the 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 125 Bridgewater Arms. I had left it there in imita- tion of a nautical discoverer, who leaves a bit of bunting on the shore of his discovery, by way of warning off the ground the whole human race, 5 and notifying to the Christian and the heathen worlds, with his best compliments, that he has hoisted his pocket handkerchief once and forever upon that virgin soil ; thenceforward claiming the jus dominii to the top of the atmosphere above it, 10 and also the right of driving shafts to the cen- ter of the earth below it ; so that all people found after this warning either aloft in upper chambers of the atmosphere, or groping in subterranean shafts, or squatting audaciously on the surface of 15 the soil, will be treated as trespassers — kicked, that is to say, or decapitated, as circumstances may suggest, by their very faithful servant, the owner of the said pocket handkerchief. In the present case it is probable that my cloak might 20 not have been respected, and the jus gentium might have been cruelly violated in my person — for, in the dark, people commit deeds of darkness, gas being a great ally of morality; but it so hap- pened that on this night there was no other out- 25 side passenger ; and thus the crime, which else was but too probable, missed fire for want of a criminal. Having mounted the box, I took a small quan- tity of laudanum, having already traveled two 30 hundred and fifty miles — viz., from a point sev- 126 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. enty miles beyond London. In the taking of lau- dannm there was nothing extraordinary. But by accident it drew upon me the special attention of my assessor on the box, the coachman. And in that also there was nothing extraordinary. But 5 by accident, and with great delight, it drew my own attention to the fact that this coachman was a monster in point of bulk, and that he had but one eye. In fact, he had been foretold by Ver- gil as 10 Monstrum horrendum, infornie, ingens, cui lumen ademptum. He answered to the conditions in every one of the items : 1, a monster he was ; 2, dreadful ; 3, shape- less ; 4, huge ; 5, who had lost an eye. But why 15 should that delight me? Had he been one of the Calenders in the "Arabian Nights," and had paid down his eye as the price of his criminal curiosity, what right had I to exult in his misfortune? I did not exult ; I delighted in no man's punish- 20 ment, though it were even merited. But these personal distinctions (Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) identified in an instant an old friend of mine whom I had known in the south for some years as the most masterly of mail-coachmen. He was the man in 25 all Europe that could (if any could) have driven six-in-hand full gallop over Al Sirat — that dread- ful bridge of Mohammed, with no side battle- ments, and of extra room not enough for a razor's THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 1^7 edge — leading right aeross the bottomless gulf. Under this eminent man, whom in Greek I cog- nominated Cyclops Dipli relates (Cyclops the Charioteer), I, and others known to me, studied 5 the diphrelatic art. Excuse, reader, a word too elegant to be pedantic. As a pupil, though I paid extra fees, it is to be lamented that I did not stand high in his esteem. It showed his dogged honesty (though, observe, not his discernment) that he 10 could not see my merits. Let us excuse his ab- surdity in this particular by remembering his want of an eye. Doubtless that made him blind to my merits. In the art of conversation, how- ever, he admitted that I had the whip-hand of 15 him. On this present occasion great joy was at our meeting. But what was Cyclops doing here? Had the medical men recommended northern air, or how? I collected, from such explanations as he volunteered, that he had an interest at stake 20 in some suit at law now pending at Lancaster ; so that probably he had got himself transferred to this station for the purpose of connecting with his professional pursuits an instant readiness for the calls of his lawsuit. 25 Meantime, what are we stopping for? Surely we have now waited long enough. Oh, this pro- crastinating mail, and this procrastinating post office! Can't they take a lesson upon that sub- ject from me? Some people have called me pro- 30 crastinating. Yet you are witness, reader, that 123 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y. I was here kept waiting for the post office. Will the post office lay its hand on its heart, in its mo- ments of sobriety, and assert that ever it waited for me? What are they about? The guard tells me that there is a large extra accumulation of for- 5 eign mails this night, owing to irregularities caused by war, by wind, by weather, in the packet service, which as yet does not benefit at ail by steam. For an extra hour, it seems, the post office has been engaged in threshing out the pure wheat- lo en correspondence of Glasgow, and winnowing it from the chaff of all baser intermediate towns. But at last all is finished. Sound your horn, guard ! Manchester, good-by ! w^e've lost an hour by your criminal conduct at the post office; which, K however, though I do not mean to part with a serviceable ground of complaint, and one which really is such for the horses, to me secretly is an advantage, since it compels us to look sharply for this lost hour amongst the next eight or nine, 20 and to recover it (if we can) at the rate of one mile extra per hour. Off we are at last, and at eleven miles an hour; and for the moment I de- tect no changes in the energy or in the skill of Cyclops. 25 From Manchester to Kendal, which virtually (though not in law) is the capital of Westmore- land, there were at this time seven stages of eleven miles each. The first five of these, count- ing^ from Manchester, terminate in Lancaster ; ro THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 129 which is therefore fifty-five miles north of i\Ian- chester, and the same distance exactly from Liver- pool. The first three stages terminate in Preston (called by way of distinction from other towns of 5 that name, Proud Preston) ; at which place it is that the separate roads from Liverpool and from Manchester to the north become confluent. With- in these first three stages lay the foundation, the progress, and termination of our night's adven- 10 ture. During the first stage I found out that Cy- clops was mortal; he was liable to the shocking affection of sleep — a thing w^hich previously I had never suspected. If a man indulges in the vicious habit of sleeping, all the skill in aurigation of 15 Apollo himself, with the horses of Aurora to exe- cute his notions, avails him nothing. "0 Cy- clops!'' I exclaimed, "thou art mortal. My friend, thou snorest." Through the first eleven miles, however, this infirmity — which I grieve to 20 say that he shared with the whole Pagan Pan- theon — betrayed itself only by brief snatches. On waking up, he made an apology for himself which, instead of mending matters, laid open a gloomy vista of coming disasters. The summer assizes, 25 he reminded me, were now going on at Lancaster ; in consequence of Avhich, for three nights and three days he had not lain down in a bed. Dur- ing the day he was waiting for his own summons as a witness on the trial in which he w^as inter- 30 ested, or else, lest he should be missing at the 130 SELECTIONS FKOM DE QUINCEY. critical moment, was drinking with the other wit- nesses under the pastoral surveillance of the at- torneys. During the night, or that part of it which at sea would form the middle watch, he was driving. This explanation certainly account- ed for his drowsiness, but in a way which made it much more alarming; since now, after several days' resistance to this infirmity, at length he was steadily giving way. Throughout the second stage he grew more and more drowsy. In the i) second mile of the third stage he surrendered him- self finally, and without a struggle, to his peril- ous temptation. All his past resistance had but deepened the weight of this final oppression. Seven atmospheres of sleep rested upon him ; and, 15 to consummate the case, our worthy guard, after singing "Love amongst the Eoses" for perhaps thirty times, without invitation and without ap- plause, had in revenge moodily resigned himself to slumber — not so deep, doubtless, as the coach- 20 man's, but deep enough for mischief. And thus at last, about ten miles from Preston, it came about that I found myself left in charge of his majesty's London and Glasgow mail, then running at the least twelve miles an hour. 25 What made this negligence less criminal than else it must have been thought was the condition of the roads at night during the assizes. At that time, all the law business of populous Liverpool, and also of populous Manchester, with its vast 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 131 cincture of populous rural districts, was called up by ancient usage to the tribunal of Lillipu- tian Lancaster. To break up this old traditional usage required, 1, a conflict with powerful estab- 5 lished interests, 2, a large system of new ar- rangements, and 3, a new parliamentary statute. But as yet this change was merely in contem- plation. As things were at present, twice in the year so vast a body of business rolled northward 10. from the southern quarter of the county that, for a fortnight at least, it occupied the severe exer- tions of two judges in its dispatch. The conse- quence of this was that every horse available for such a service, along the whole line of road, was 15 exhausted in carrying down the multitudes of people who were parties to the different suits. By sunset, therefore, it usually happened that, through utter exhaustion amongst men and horses, the road sank into profound silence. Except the 20 exliaustion in the vast adjacent county of York from a contested election, no such silence succeed- ing to no such fiery uproar was ever witnessed in England. On this occasion the usual silence and solitude 25 prevailed along the road. Xot a hoof nor a wheel was to be heard. And, to strengthen this false luxurious confidence in the no'.seiess roads, it hap- pened also that the night was one of peculiar solemnity and peace. For my own part, though 80 slightly alive to the possibilities of peril, I had so 132 [SELECTIONS FKOM DE QUINCE Y. far yielded to the influence of the mighty calm as to sink into a profound reverie. The month was August; in the middle of which lay my own birthday — a festival to every thoughtful man sug- gesting solemn and often sigh-born thoughts. 5 The county was my own native county — upon which, in its southern section, more than upon any equal area known to man past or present, had descended the original curse of labor in its heav- iest form, not mastering the bodies only of men, lo as of slaves, or criminals in mines, but working through the fiery will. Upon no equal space of earth was, or ever had been, the same energy of human power put forth daily. At this particular season also of the assizes, that dreadful hurricane 15 of flight and pursuit, as it might have seemed to a stranger, which swept to and from Lancaster all day long, hunting the county up and down, and regularly subsiding back into silence about sunset, could not fail (when united with this 20 permanent distinction of Lancashire as the very metropolis and citadel of labor) to point the thoughts pathetically upon that countervision of rest, of saintly repose from strife and sorrow, towards which, as to their secret haven, the pro- 25 founder aspirations of man's heart are in solitude continually traveling. 01)liquely upon our left we were nearing the sea; which also must, under the present circumstances, be repeating the general state of halcyon repose. The sea, the atmosphere, 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 133 the light, bore each an orchestral part in this universal lull. Moonlight and the first timid tremblings of the dawn were by this time blend- ing; and the blendings were brought into a still 5 more exquisite state of unity by a slight silvery mist, motionless and dreamy, that covered the woods and fields, but with a veil of equable trans- parency. Except the feet of our own horses — which, running on a sandy margin of the road, 10 made but little disturbance — there was no sound abroad. In the clouds and on the earth prevailed the same majestic peace; and, in spite of all that the villain of a schoolmaster has done for the ruin of our sublimer thoughts, which are the thoughts 15 of our infancy, we still believe in no such non- sense as a limited atmosphere. Whatever we may swear with our false feigning lips, in our faithful hearts we still believe, and must forever believe, in fields of air traversing the total gulf 20 between earth and the central heavens. Still, in the confidence of children that tread without fear every chamber in their father's house, and to whom no door is closed, we, in that Sabbatic vis- ion which sometimes is revealed for an hour. upon 25 nights like this, ascend with easy steps from the sorrow-stricken fields of earth upward to the san- dals of God. Suddenly, from thoughts like these I was awak- ened to a sullen sound, as of some motion on the 30 distant road. It stole upon the air for a mo- 134 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCEY. ment; I listened in awe; but then it died away. Once roused, however, I could not but observe with alarm the quickened motion of our horses. Ten years' experience had made my eye learned in the valuing of motion; and I saw that we were 5 now running thirteen miles an hour. I pretend to no presence of mind. On the contrary, my fear is that I am miserably and shamefully defi- cient in that quality as regards action. The palsy of doubt and distraction hangs like some guilty lo weight of dark unfathomed remembrances upon my energies when the signal is flying for action. But, on the other hand, this accursed gift I have, as regards thought, that in the first step toward the possibility of a misfortune I see its total evo- is lution; in the radix of the series I see too cer- tainly and too instantly its entire expansion; in the first syllable of the dreadful sentence I read already the last. It was not that I feared for ourselves. Us our bulk and impetus charmed 20 against peril in any collision. And I had ridden through too many hundreds of perils that were frightful to approach, that were matter of laugh- ter to look back upon ; the first face of which was horror, the parting face a jest — for any anxiety 25 to rest upon our interests. The mail was not built, I felt assured, nor bespoke, that could be- tray me who trusted to its protection. But any carriage that we could meet would be frail and light in comparison of ourselves. And I re- 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 135 marked this ominous accident of our situation — we were on the wrong side of the road. But then, it may be said, the other party, if other there was, might also be on the wrong side; and two 5 wrongs might make a right. That was not likely. The same motive which had drawn us to the right- hand side of the road — viz., the luxury of the soft beaten sand as contrasted with the paved center — would prove attractive to others. The two ad- 10 verse carriages would, therefore, to a certainty, be traveling on the same side ; and from this side, as not being ours in law, the crossing over to the other would, of course, be looked for from us. Our lamps, still lighted, would give the impres- 15 sion of vigilance on our part. And every crea- ture that met us would rely upon us for quarter- ing. All this, and if the separate links of the anticipation had been a thousand times more, I saw, not discursively, or by effort, or by succes- 20 sion, but by one flash of horrid simultaneous in- tuition. Under this steady though rapid anticipation of the evil which might be gathering ahead, ah ! what a sullen mystery of fear, what a sigh of woe, 25 was that which stole upon the air, as again the far- off sound of a wheel was heard ! A whisper it was — a whisper from, perhaps, four miles off — secretly announcing a ruin that, being foreseen, was not the less inevitable; that, being known, 30 was not therefore healed. What could be done — 136 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCEY. who was it that could do it — to check the storm- flight of these maniacal horses ? Could I not seize the reins from the grasp of the slumbering coach- man? You, reader, think that it would have been in your power to do so. And I quarrel not 5 with your estimate of yourself. But, from the way in which the coachman's hand was vised be- tween his upper and lower thigh, this was im- possible. Easy, was it? See, then, that bronze equestrian statue. The cruel rider has kept the lo bit in his horse's mouth for two centuries. Un- bridle him for a minute, if you please, and wash his mouth with water. Easy, was it? Unhorse me, then, that imperial rider; knock me those marble feet from those marble stirrups of Charle- 15 magne. The sounds ahead strengthened, and were now too clearly the sounds of wheels. Who and what could it be? Was it industry in a taxed cart? Was it youthful gayety in a gig ? Was it sor- 20 row that loitered, or joy that raced? For as yet the snatches of sound were too intermitting, from distance, to decipher the character of the motion. Whoever were the travelers, something must be done to warn them. Upon the other party rests 25 the active responsibility, but upon us — and, woe is me ! that us was reduced to my frail opium- shattered self — rests the responsibility of warning. Yet, how should this be accomplished? Might I not sound the guard's horn ? Already, on the 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 13; first thought, I was making my way over the roof to the guard's seat. But this, from tiie accident which I have mentioned, of the foreign mails being piled upon the roof, was a difficult and even 5 dangerous attempt to one cramped by nearly three hundred miles of outside traveling. And, fortu- nately, before I had lost much time in the at- tempt, our frantic horses swept round an angle of the road which opened upon us that final stage 10 where the collision must be accomplished and the catastrophe sealed. All was apparently finished. The court was sitting; the case was heard; the judge had finished; and only the verdict was yet in arrear. 15 Before us lay an avenue straight as an arrow, six hundred yards, perhaps, in length; and the umbrageous trees, which rose in a regular line from either side, meeting high overhead, gave to it the character of a cathedral aisle. These 20 trees lent a deeper solemnity to the early light; but there was still light enough to perceive, at the further end of this Gothic aisle, a frail reedy gig, in which were seated a young man, and by his side a young lady. Ah, young sir ! what 25 are you about? If it is requisite that you should whisper your communications to this young lady, ■ — though really I see nobod}', at an hour and on a road so solitary, likely to overhear you, — is it therefore requisite that you should carry your lips 30 forward to hers? The little carriage is creeping 138 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCEY. on at one mile an hour; and the parties within it, being thus tenderly engaged, are naturally bend- ing down their heads. Between them and eter- nity, to all human calculation, there is but a min- ute and a half. Oh, Heavens ! what is it that I & shall do? Speaking or acting, what help can I offer? Strange it is, and to a mere auditor of the tale might seem laughable, that I should need a suggestion from the Iliad to prompt the sole resource that remained. Yet so it was. Sud- i^ denly I remembered the shout of Achilles, and its effect. But could I pretend to shout like the son of Peleus, aided by Pallas? No; but then I needed not the shout that should alarm all Asia militant ; such a shout would suffice as might 15 carry terror into the hearts of two thoughtless young people and one gig horse. I shouted — and the young man heard m.e not. A second time I shouted — and now he heard me, for now he raised his head. 20 Here, then, all had been done that, by me, could be done; more on my part was not possible. Mine had been the first step; the second was for the young man; the third was for God. If, said I, this stranger is a brave man, and if indeed he 25 loves the young girl at his side — or, loving her not, if he feels the obligation, pressing upon every man worthy to be called a man, of doing his ut- most for a woman confided to his protection — he wiU at least make some effort to save her. If that 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 139 fails, he will not perish the more, or by a death more cruel, for having made it ; and he will die as a brave man should, with his face to the danger, and with his arm about the woman that he 5 sought in vain to save. But if he makes no ef- fort — shrinking without a struggle from his duty — he himself will not the less certainly perish for this baseness of poltroonery. He will die no less ; and why not? Wherefore should we grieve that 10 there is one craven less in the world ? No ; let him perish, without a pitying thought of ours wasted upon him; and, in that case, all our grief will be reserved for the fate .of the helpless girl who now, upon the least shadow of failure in him, 15 must by the fiercest of translations — must with- out time for a prayer — must within seventy sec- onds — stand before the judgment-seat of God. But craven he was not ; sudden had been the call upon him, and sudden was his answer to the call. 20 He saw, he heard, he comprehended, the ruin that was coming down; already its gloomy shadow darkened above him ; and already he was meas- uring his strength to deal with it. Ah ! what a vulgar thing does courage seem when we see na- 25 tions buying it and selling it for a shilling a day. Ah ! what a sublime thing does courage seem when some fearful summons on the great deeps of life carries a man, as if running before a hurricane, up to the giddy crest of some tumultuous crisis 30 from which lie two courses, and a voice says to 140 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. him audibly, "One way lies hope; take the other, and mourn forever !'^ How grand a triumph if, even then, amidst the raving of all around him, and the frenzy of the danger, the man is able to confront his situation — is able to retire for a mo- 5 ment into solitude with God, and to seek his coun- sel from him! For seven seconds, it might be, of his seventy, the stranger settled his countenance, steadfastly upon us, as if to search and value every element lo in the conflict before him. For five seconds more of his seventy he sat immovably, like one that mused on some gr^at purpose. For five more, perhaps, he sat with eyes upraised, like one that prayed in sorrow, under some extremity of doubt, 15 for light that should guide him to the better choice. Then suddenly he rose; stood upright; and, by a powerful strain upon the reins, raising his horse's fore feet from the ground, he slewed him round on the pivot of his hind legs, so as to 20 plant the little equipage in a position nearly at right angles to ours. Thus far his condition was not improved, except as a first step had been taken towards the possibility of a second. If no more were done, nothing was done; for the little car-25 riage still occupied the very center of our path, tliough in an altered direction. Yet even now it may not be too late; fifteen of the seventy sec- onds may still be unexhausted ; and one almighty bound may avail to clear the ground. Hurry, 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 141 then, hurry ! for the flying moments — they hurry. Oh, hurry, hurry, my brave young man ! for the cruel hoofs of our horses — they also hurry ! Fast are the flying moments, faster are the hoofs of 5 our horses. But fear not for him, if human energy can suffice; faithful was he that drove to his terrific duty; faithful was the horse to his command. One blow, one impulse given with voice and hand, by the stranger, one rush from 10 the horse, one bound as if in the act of rising to a fence, landed the docile creature's fore feet upon the crown or arching center of the road. The larger half of the little equipage had then cleared our overtowering shadow; that was evident even 15 to my own agitated sight. But it mattered little that one wreck should float off in safety, if upon the Avreck that perished were embarked the human freightage. The rear part of the carriage — was tJiat certainly beyond the line of absolute ruin? 20 What power could answer the question? Glance of eye, thought of man, wing of angel, which of these had speed enough to sweep between the question and the answer, and divide the one from the other? Light does not tread upon the steps 25 of light more indivisibly than did our all-con- quering arrival upon the escaping efforts of the gig. That must the young man have felt too plainly. His back was now turned to us; not by sight could he any longer communicate with the 30 peril ; but, by the dreadful rattle of our harness. 142 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. too truly had his ear been instructed that all was finished as regarded any effort of his. Already in resignation he had rested from his struggle; and perhaps in his heart he was whispering. 'Tather, which art in heaven, do thou finish 5 above what I on earth have attempted." Faster than ever mill-race we ran past them in our inex- orable flight. Oh, raving of hurricanes that must have sounded in their young ears at the moment of our transit ! Even in that moment the thunder of lo collision spoke aloud. Either with the swingle- bar, or with the haunch of our near leader, we had struck the off-wheel of the little gig; which stood rather obliquely, and not quite so far advanced as to be accurately parallel with the near wheel. The 15 blow from the fury of our passage resounded ter- rifically. I rose in horror, to gaze upon the ruins we might have caused. From my elevated sta- tion I looked down, and looked back upon the scene ; which in a moment told its own tale, and 20 wrote all its records on my heart forever. Here was the map of the passion that now had finished. The horse was planted immovably, with his fore feet upon the paved crest of the central road. He of the whole party might be supposed 25 untouched by the passion of death. The little cany carriage — partly, perhaps, from the violent torsion of the wheels in its recent movement, partly from the thundering blow we had given to it — as if it sympathized with human horror, was so THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 143 all alive with tremblings and shiverings. The young man trembled not, nor shivered. He sat like a rock. But his was the steadiness of agi- tation frozen into rest by horror. As yet he dared 5 not to look round ; for he knew that, if anything remained to do, by him it could no longer be done. And as yet he knew not for certain if their safety were accomplished. But the lady But the lady Oh, Heavens ! will that spec- ie tacle ever depart from my dreams, as she rose and sank upon her seat, sank and rose, threw up her arms w^ildly to heaven, clutched at some visionary object in the air, fainting, praying, raving, des- pairing? Figure to yourself, reader, the ele- 15 ments of the case ; suffer me to recall before your mind the circumstances of that unparalleled situ- ation. From the silence and deep peace of this saintly summer night — from the pathetic blending of this sweet moonlight, dawnlight, dreamlight — 20 from the manly tenderness of this flattering, whis- pering, murmuring love — suddenly as from the woods and fields — suddenly as from the chambers of the air opening in revelation — suddenly as from the ground yawning at her feet, leaped upon her, 25 with the flashing of cataracts, Death the crowned phantom, with all the equipage of his terrors, and the tiger roar of his voice. The moments were numbered; the strife was finished; the vision was closed. In the twinkling 30 of an eye, our flying horses had carried us to the 144 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. termination of the umbrageous aisle; at the right angles we wheeled into our former direction ; the turn of the road carried the scene out of my eyes in an instant, and swept it into my dreams for- ever. 5 Section III. — Dream-Fugue : FOUNDED ON THE PRECEDING THEME OF SUDDEN ^EATH. Whence the sound Of instruments, that made melodious chime, lo Was heard, of harp and organ; and who moved Their stops and chords was seen; his volant touch Instinct through all proportions, low and high. Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue. Par. Lost, bk. xi. 15 Tumultuosissimamente. Passion of sudden death ! that once in youth I read and interpreted by the shadows of thy avert- ed signs rapture of panic taking the shape (which among tombs in churches I have seen) of woman 20 bursting her sepulchral bonds — of woman's Ionic form bending forward from the ruins of her grave with arching foot, with eyes upraised, with clasped adoring hands — waiting, watching, trem- bling, praying for the trumpet's call to rise from 25 dust forever ! Ah, vision too fearful of shuddering humanity on the brink of almighty abysses ! vision that didst start back, that didst reel away, like a shriveling scroll from before the wrath of fire THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 145 racing on the wings of the wind ! Epilepsy so brief of horror, wherefore is it that thou canst not die? Passing so suddenly into darkness, wherefore is it that still thou sheddest thy sad 5 funeral blights upon the gorgeous mosaics of dreams? Fragment of music too passionate, heard once, and heard no more, what aileth thee, that thy deep rolling chords come up at intervals through all the worlds of sleep, and, after forty 10 years, have lost no element of horror ? Lo, it is summer — almighty summer ! The everlasting gates of life and summer are thrown open wide; and on the ocean, tranquil and ver- dant as a savanna, the unknown lady from the 15 dreadful vision and I myself are floating — she upon a fairy pinnace, and I upon an English three-decker. Both of us are wooing gales of festal happiness within the domain of our com- mon countr}^, within that ancient watery park, 20 within the pathless chase of ocean, where Eng- land takes her pleasure as a huntress through win- ter and summer, from the rising to the setting sun. Ah, what a wilderness of floral beauty was hidden, or was suddenly revealed, upon the tropic 25 islands through which the pinnace moved ! And upon her deck what a bevy of human flowers; young women how lovely, young men how noble, that were dancing together, and slowly drifting to- 146 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y. ward us amidst music and incense, amidst blossoms from forests and gorgeous corymbi from vintages, amidst natural caroling and the echoes of sweet girlish laughter Slowly the pinnace nears us, gayly she hails us, and silently she disappears be- 5 neath the shadow of our mighty bows. But then, as at some signal from heaven, the music, and the carols, and the sweet echoing of girlish laughter — all are hushed. What evil has smitten the pinnace, meeting or overtaking her ? Did ruin to our lo friends couch within our own dreadful shadow? Was our shadow the shadow of death? I looked over the bow for an answer, and behold ! the pin- nace was dismantled; the revel and the revelers were found no more ; the glory of the vintage was 15 dust, and the forests with their beauty were left without a witness upon the seas. "But where" — and I turned to our crew — "where are the lovely women that danced beneath the awning of flow- ers and clustering corymbi ? Whither have fled 20 the noble young men that danced with them?" Answer there was none. But suddenly the man at the masthead, whose countenance darkened with alarm, cried out, "Sail on the weather beam ! Down she comes upon us ; in seventy seconds she 25 also will founder." II. I looked to the weather side, and the summer had departed. The sea was rocking, and shaken THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 147 with gathering wrath. Upon its surface sat mighty mists, which grouped themselves into arches and long cathedral aisles. Down one of these, with the fiery pace of a quarrel from a 5 crossbow, ran a frigate right athwart our course. ^"Are they mad?" some voice exclaimed from our deck. '*Do they woo their ruin?" But in a mo- ment, as she was close upon us, some impulse of a heady current or local vortex gave a wheeling bias 10 to her course, and oif she forged without a shock. As she ran past us, high aloft amongst the shrouds stood the lady of the pinnace. The deeps opened ahead in malice to receive her, towering surges of foam ran after her, the billows were fierce to 15 catch her. But far away she was borne into desert spaces of the sea ; whilst still by sight I fol- lowed her, as she ran before the howling gale, chased by angry seabirds and by maddening bil- lows; still I saw her, as at the moment when she 20 ran past us, standing amongst the shrouds, with her white draperies streaming before the wind. There she stood, with hair disheveled, one hand clutched among the tackling — rising, sinking, flut- tering, trembling, praying ; there for leagues I saw 25 her as she stood, raising at intervals one hand to heaven, amidst the fiery crests of the pursuing waves and the raving of the storm; until at last, upon a sound from afar of malicious laughter and mockery, all was hidden forever in driving show- 30 ers ; and afterward, but when I know not, nor how — - — 148 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCEY. III. Sweet funeral bells from some incalculable dis- tance, wailing over the dead that die before the dawn, awakened me as I slept in a boat moored to some familiar shore. The morning twilight even then was breaking and, by the dusky reve- 5 lations which it spread, I saw a girl, adorned with a garland of white roses about her head for some great festival, running along the solitary strand in extremity of haste. Her running was the run- ning of panic ; and often she looked back as to lo some dreadful enemy in the rear. But when I leaped ashore, and followed on her steps to warn her of a peril in front, alas ! from me she fled as from another peril, and vainly I shouted to her of quicksands that lay ahead. Faster and faster 15 she ran; round a promontory of rock she wheeled out of sight; in an instant I also wheeled round it, but only to see the treacherous sands gathering above her head. Already her person was buried ; only the fair young head and the diadem of white 20 roses around it were still visible to the pitying heavens; and, last of all, was visible one white marble arm. I saw by the early twilight this fair young head, as it was sinking down to darkness — saw this marble arm, as it rose above her head 25 and her treacherous grave, tossing, faltering, ris- ing, clutching, as at some false deceiving hand stretched out from the clouds — saw this marble THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 149> arm uttering her dying hope, and then uttering her dying despair. The head, the diadem, the arm — these all had sunk; at last over these alsa the cruel quicksand had closed; and no memorial 5 of the fair young girl remained on earth, except my own solitary tears, and the funeral bells from the desert seas, that, rising again more softly^ sang a requiem over the grave of the buried child ^ and over her blighted dawn. 10 I sat, and wept in secret the tears that men have ever given to the memory of those that died before the dawn, and by treachery of earth, our mother. But suddenly the tears and funeral bells were hushed by a shout as of many nations, and 15 by a roar as from some great king's artillery, ad- vancing rapidly along the valleys, and heard afar by echoes from the mountains. ''Hush !" I said, as I bent my ear earthward to listen — "hush ! This either is the very anarchy of strife, or else'^ 20 — and then I listened more profoundly, and whis- pered as I raised my head — "or else, oh Heavens I it is victory that is final, victory that swallows up all strife." IV. Immediately, in trance, I was carried over land 25 and sea to some distant kingdom, and placed upon a triumphal car, amongst companions crowned with laurel. The darkness of gathering midnight, brooding over all the land, hid from us the 150 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. mighty crowds that were weaving restlessly about ourselves as a center; we heard them, but saw them not. Tidings had arrived, within an hour, of a grandeur that measured itself against cen- turies; too full of pathos they were, too full of 5 joy, to utter themselves by other language than by tears, by restless anthems, and Te Deums re- verberated from the choirs and orchestras of €arth. These tidings we that sat upon the lau- reled car had it for our privilege to publish lo amongst all nations. And already, by signs audible through the darkness, by snortings and tramp- lings, our angry horses, that knew no fear of fleshly weariness, upbraided us with delay. Where- fore was it that we delayed ? We waited for a 15 secret word, that should bear witness to the hope of nations as now accomplished forever. At mid- night the secret word arrived; which word was — Waterloo and Recovered Christendom! The dreadful word shone by its own light ; before us 20 it went ; high above our leaders' heads it rode, and spread a golden light over the paths which we traversed. Every city, at the presence of the se- cret word, threw open its gates. The rivers were conscious as we crossed. All the forests, as we 25 ran along their margins, shivered in homage to the secret word. And the darkness comprehended it. Two hours after midnight we approached a mighty Minster. Its gates, which rose to the 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 151 clouds, were closed. But, when the dreadful word that rode before us reached them with its golden light, silently they moved back upon their hinges; and at a flying gallop our equipage entered the 5 grand aisle of the cathedral. Headlong was our pace ; and at every altar, in the little chapels and oratories to the right hand and left of our course, the lamps, dying or sickening, kindled anew in sympathy with the secret word that was flying 10 past. Forty leagues we might have run in the cathedral, and as yet no strength of morning light had reached us, when before us we saw the aerial galleries of organ and choir. Every pinnacle of the fretwork, every station of advantage among 15 the traceries, was crested by white-robed choristers that sang deliverance ; that wept no more tears, as once their fathers had wept; but at intervals that sang together to the generations, saying. Chant the deliverer's praise in every tongue, 20 and receiving answers from afar. Such as once in heaven and earth were sung. And of their chanting was no end; of our head- long pace was neither pause nor slackening. Thus, as we ran like torrents — thus, as we 25 swept with bridal rapture over the Campo Santo of the cathedral graves — suddenly we became aware of a vast necropolis rising upon the far-off horizon — a city of sepulchers, built within the saintly cathedral for the warrior dead that rested 152 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCEY. from their feuds on earth. Of purple granite was the necropolis; yet, in the tirst minute, it lay like a purple stain upon the horizon, so mighty was the distance. In the second minute it trembled through many changes, growing into terraces and 5 towers of wondrous altitude, so mighty was the pace. In the third minute already, with our dreadful gallop, w^e were entering its suburbs. Vast sarcophagi rose on every side, having towers and turrets that, upon the limits of the central lo aisle, strode forward with haughty intrusion, that ran back with mighty shadows into answering re- cesses. Every sarcophagus showed many bas-re- liefs — bas-reliefs of battles and of battlefields ; bat- tles from forgotten ages, battles from yesterday ; 15 battlefields that, long since, nature had healed and reconciled to herself with the sweet oblivion of flowers; battlefields that were yet angry and crim- son with carnage. Where the terraces ran, there did we run ; where the towers curved, there did 20 we curve. With the flight of swallows our horses swept round every angle. Like rivers in flood wheeling round headlands, like hurricanes that rde into the secrets of forests, faster than ever light unwove the mazes of darkness, our flying 25 equipage carried earthly passions, kindled warrior instincts, amongst the dust that lay around us — dust oftentimes of our noble fathers that had slept in God from Crecy to Trafalgar.* And now had we reached the last sarcophagus, now were we 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 153 abreast of the last bas-relief, already had we recov- ered the arrow-like flight of the illimitable cen- tral aisle, when coming up this aisle to meet us we beheld afar off a female child, that rode in a 5 carriage as frail as flowers. The mists which went before her hid the fawns that drew her, but could not hide the shells and tropic flowers with which she played — but could not hide the lovely smiles by which she uttered her trust in the 10 mighty cathedral, and in the cherubim that looked down upon her from the mighty shafts of its pillars. Face to face she was meeting us ; face to face she rode, as if danger there were none. "Oh, baby !" I exclaimed, "shalt thou be the ransom for 15 Waterloo? Must we, that carry tidings of great joy to every people, be messengers of ruin to thee !" In horror I rose at the thought ; but then also, in horror at the thought rose one that was sculptured on a bas-relief — a Dying Trumpeter. Solemnly 20 from the field of battle he rose to his feet ; and, unslinging his stony trumpet, carried it, in his dying anguish, to his stony lips — sounding once, and yet once again; proclamation that, in thy ears, oh, baby! spoke from the battlements of death. 25 Immediately deep shadows fell between us, and aboriginal silence. The choir had ceased to sing. The hoofs of our horses, the dreadful rattle of our harness, the groaning of our wheels, alarmed the graves no more. By horror the bas-relief had 30 been unlocked unto life. By horror we, that were 154 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. SO full of life, we men and our horses, with their fiery fore legs rising in mid air to their ever- lasting gallop, were frozen to a bas-relief. Then a third time the trumpet sounded; the seals were taken off all pulses; life, and the frenzy of life, 5 tore into their channels again; again the choir burst forth in sunny grandeur, as from the muf- fling of storms and darkness; again the thunder- ings of our horses carried temptation into the graves. One cry burst from our lips, as the clouds, lo drawing off from the aisle, showed it empty be- fore us — "Whither has the infant fled? is the young child caught up to God?" Lo! afar off, in a vast recess, rose three mighty windows to the clouds ; and on a level with their summits, a height 15 insuperable to man, rose an altar of purest ala- baster. On its eastern face was trembling a crim- son glory. A glory was it from the reddening dawji that now streamed through the windows? Was it from the crimson robes of the martyrs 20 painted on the windows? Was it from the bloody bas-reliefs of earth? There, suddenly, within that crimson radiance, rose the apparition of a woman's head, and then of a woman's figure. The child it was — grown up to woman's height. Cling- 25 ing to the horns of the altar, voiceless she stood — sinking, rising, raving, despairing ; and behind the volume of incense that, night and day streamed upward from the altar, dimly was seen the fiery font, and the shadow of that dreadful being who 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 155 should have baptized her with the baptism of death. But by her side was kneeling her better angel, that hid his face w4th wings ; that wept and pleaded for her ; that prayed when she could not ; 5 that fought with Heaven by tears for her deliver- ance; which also, as he raised his immortal countenance from his wings, I saw, by the glory in his eye, that from Heaven he had won at last. V. Then was completed the passion of the mighty 10 fugue. The golden tubes of the organ, which as yet had but muttered at intervals — gleaming amongst clouds and surges of incense — threw up, as from fountains unfathomable, columns of heart shattering music. Choir and anti-choir were fill- 15 ing fast with unknown voices. Thou also. Dying Trumpeter^ with thy love that was victorious, and thy anguish that was finishing, didst enter the tumult; trumpet and echo — farewell love, and farewell anguish — rang through the dreadful 20 Sanctus. Oh, darkness of the grave ! that from the crimson altar and from the fiery font wert visited and searched by the effulgence in the angel's eye — were these indeed thy children? Pomps of life, that, from the burials of centuries, 25 rose again to the voice of perfect joy, did ye in- deed mingle with the festivals of Death? Lo! as I looked back for seventy leagues through the mighty cathedral, I saw the quick and the dead 156 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. that sang together to God, together that sang to the generations of man. All the hosts of jubila- tion, like armies that ride in pursuit, moved with one step. Us, that, with laureled heads, were passing from the cathedral, they overtook, and, as 5 with a garment, they wrapped us round with thunders greater than our own. As brothers we moved together; to the dawn that advanced, to the stars that fled; rendering thanks to God in the highest — that, having hid his face through one lo generation behind thick clouds of War, once again was ascending, from the Campo Santo of Water- loo was ascending, in the visions of Peace ; render- ing thanks for thee, young girl ! whom having overshadowed with his ineffable passion of death, 15 suddenly did God relent, suffered thy angel to turn aside his arm, and even in thee, sister un- known ! shown to me for a moment only to be hidden forever, found an occasion to glorify his goodness. A thousand times, amongst the phan- 20 toms of sleep, have I seen thee entering the gates of the golden dawn, with the secret word riding before thee, with the armies of the grave behind thee — seen thee sinking, rising, raving, despairing ; a thousand times in the worlds of sleep have seen 25 thee followed by God's angel through storms, through desert seas, through the darkness of quicksands, through dreams and the dreadful revelations that are in dreams ; only that at the last, with one sling of his victorious arm, he might 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 157 snatch thee back from ruin, and might emblazon in thy deliverance the endless resurrections of his love ! Author's Postscript. ^'The English Mail Coach.''— This little paper, 5 according to my original intention, formed part of the ^^Suspiria de Profundis" ; from which, for a momentary purpose, I did not scruple to de- tach it, and to publish it apart, as sufficiently in- telligible even when dislocated from its place in a 10 larger whole. To my surprise, however, one or two critics, not carelessly in conversation, but de- liberately in print, professed their inability to ap- prehend the meaning of the whole, or to follow the links of the connection between its several 15 parts. I am myself as little able to understand where the difficulty lies, or to detect any lurking obscurity, as these critics found themselves to un- ravel my logic. Possibly I may not be an indif- ferent and neutral judge in such a case. I will 20 therefore sketch a brief abstract of the little paper according to my original design, and then leave the reader to judge how far this design is kept in sight through the actual execution. Thirty-seven years ago, or rather more, accident 25 made me, in' the dead of night, and of a night • memorably solemn, the solitary witness of an ap- palling scene, which threatened instant death in a shape the most terrific to two young people whom 158 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCEY. I had no means of assisting, except in so far as I was able to give them a most hurried warning of their danger; but even that not until they stood within the very shadow of the catastrophe, being divided from the most frightful of deaths by 5 scarcely more, if more at all, than seventy seconds. Such was the scene, such in its outline, from which the whole of this paper radiates as a nat- ural expansion. This scene is circumstantially narrated in Section the Second, entitled "The 10 Vision of Sudden Death." But a movement of horror, and of spontaneous recoil from this dreadful scene, naturally carried the whole of that scene, raised and idealized, into my dreams, and very soon into a rolling succession 15 of dreams. The actual scene, as looked down upon from the box of the mail, was transformed into a dream, as tumultuous and changing as a musical fugue. This troubled dream is circum- stantially reported in Section the Third, entitled 20 "Dream-Fugue on the theme of Sudden Death.'' What I had beheld from my seat upon the mail — the scenical strife of action and passion, of anguish and fear, as I had there witnessed them moving in ghostly silence — this duel between life 25 and death, narrowing itself to a point of such ex- quisite evanescence as the collision neared ; all these elements of the scene blended, under the law . of association, with the previous and permanent features of distinction investing the mail itself ; ^o THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 159 which features at that time lay — 1st, in velocity unprecedented; 2d, in the power and beauty of the horses; 3d, in the official connection with the government of a great nation, and, 4th, in the 5 function, almost a consecrated function, of pub- lishing and diffusing through the land the great political events, and especially the great battles, during a conflict of unparalleled grandeur. These honorar}^ distinctions are all described circum- 10 stantially in the First or introductory Section (''The Glory of Motion.") The three first were distinctions maintained at all times; but the fourth and grandest belonged exclusively to the war with Xapoleon; and this it was which most 15 naturally introduced Waterloo into the dream. Waterloo, I understand, was the particular feature of the "Dream-Fugue" which my censors were least able to account for. Yet surely Waterloo, which, in common with every other great battle, 20 it had been our special privilege to publish over all the land, most naturally entered the dream under the license of our privilege. If not — if there be anything amiss — let the Dream be re- sponsible. The Dream is a law to itself; and as 25 well quarrel with a rainbow for showing, or for not showing, a secondary arch. So far as I know, every element in the shifting movements of the Dream derived itself either primarily from the incidents of the actual scene, or from secondary 30 features associated with the mail. For example, 160 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCEY. the cathedral aisle derived itself from the mimic combination of features which grouped themselves together at the point of approaching collision — viz., an arrowlike section of the road, six hundred yards long, under the solemn lights described, ^ with lofty trees meeting overhead in arches. The guard's horn, again, — a humble instrument in it- self, — was yet glorified as the organ of publication for so many great national events. And the inci- dent of the Dying Trumpeter, who rises from a i^ marble bas-relief, and carries a marble trumpet to his marble lips for the purpose of warning the female infant, was doubtless secretly suggested by my own imperfect effort to seize the guard's horn and to blow a warning blast. But the Dream 15 knows best; and the Dream, I say again, is the responsible party, LEVAXA AXD OUE LADIES OF SORROW. Oftentimes at Oxford I saw Levana in my dreams. I knew her by her Roman symbols. Who is Levana? Reader, that do not pretend to have leisure for very much scholarship, you will not 5 be angry with me for telling you. Levana was the Roman goddess that performed for the new- born infant the earliest office of ennobling kind- ness, — typical, by its mode, of that grandeur which belongs to man everywhere, and of that 10 benignity in powers invisible which even in pagan worlds sometimes descends to sustain it. At the very moment of birth, just as the infant tasted for the first time the atmosphere of our troubled planet, it was laid on the ground. That might bear 15 different interpretations. But immediately, lest so grand a creature should grovel there for more than one instant, either the paternal hand, as proxy for the goddess Levana, or some near kinsman, as proxy for the father, raised it upright, bade 20 it look erect as the king of all this world, and presented its forehead to the stars, saying, per- haps, in his heart, ''Behold what is greater than yourselves!" This symbolic act represented the function of Levana. And that mysterious lady, 161 16-2 SELECTIONS FEOM BE QUINCEY. who never revealed her face (except to me in dreams), but always acted by delegation, had her name from the Latin verb (as still it is the Italian verb) levare, to raise aloft. This is the explanation of Levana, and hence it ^ has arisen that some people have understood by Levana the tutelary power that controls the edu- cation of the nursery. She, that would not suffer at his birth even a prefigurative or mimic degrada- tion for her awful ward, far less could be supposed i^ to suffer the real degradation attaching to the non-development of his powers. She therefore watches over human education. Now the word educo, with the penultimate short, was derived (by a process often exemplified in the crystallization 15 of languages) from the word educo, with the penultimate long. Whatever educes, or developes, educates. By the education of Levana, therefore, is meant, — not the poor machinery that moves by spelling-books and grammars, but by that mighty 20 system of central forces hidden in the deep bosom of human life, which by passion, by strife, by temptation, by the energies of resistance, works for ever upon children, — resting not night or day, any more than the mighty wheel of day and night 25 themselves, whose moments, like restless spokes, are glimmering for ever as they revolve. If, then, these are the ministries by which Levana works, how profoundly must she reverence the agencies of grief. But you, reader, think 30 LEVANA. 163 that children are not liable to grief such as mine. There are two senses in the word generally, — the sense of Euclid, where it means universally (or in the whole extent of the genus,) and a foolish sense 5 of this world, where it means usually, ^ow, I am far from saying that children universally are capable of grief like mine. But there are more than you ever heard of who die of grief in this island of ours. I will tell you a common case. 10 The rules of Eton require that a boy on the foundation should be there twelve years : he is superannuated at eighteen, consequently he must come at six. Children torn away from mothers and sisters at that age not unfrequently die. I 15 speak of what I know. The complaint is not en- tered by the registrar as grief; but that it is. Grief of that sort, and at that age, has killed more than ever have been counted amongst its martyrs. Therefore it is that Levana often communes 20 with the powers that shake man's heart ; there- fore it is that she dotes upon grief. "These ladies,*' said I softly to myself, on seeing the ministers with whom Levana was conversing, "these are the Sorrows; and they are three in number, as the 25 Graces are three, who dress man's life with beauty : the Parcce are three, who weave the dark arras of man's life in their mysterious loom, always with colours sad in part, sometimes angry with tragic crimson and black; the Furies are three, who visit 30 with retributions called from the other side of the 164 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCEY. grave offences that walk upon this; and once even the Muses were but three, who fit the harp, the trumpet, or the lute, to the great burdens of man's impassioned creations. These are the Sorrows, all three of whom I know." The last words I say ^ now; but in Oxford I said, "One of whom I know, and the others too surely I shall know.'* For already, in my fervent youth, I saw (dimly relieved upon the dark background of my dreams) the imperfect lineaments of the awful sisters. lO These sisters — by what name shall we call them? If I say simply, "The Sorrows," there will be a chance of mistaking the term; it might be under- stood of individual sorrow, — separate cases of sor- row, — whereas I want a term expressing the 15 mighty abstractions that incarnate themselves in all individual sufferings of man's heart; and I wish to have these abstractions presented as im- personations, that is, as clothed with human at- tributes of life, and with functions pointing to 20 flesh. Let us call them, therefore. Our Ladies of Sorrow. I know them thoroughly, and have walked in all their kingdoms. Three sisters they are, of one mysterious household ; and their paths are wide apart; but of their dominion there is no 25 end. Them I saw often conversing with Levana, and sometimes about myself. Do they talk, then? 0, no ! Mighty phantoms like these disdain the in- firmities of language. They may utter voices through the organs of man when they dwell in 30 LEVANA. 165 human hearts, but amongst themselves is no voice nor sound; eternal silence reigns in their kingdoms. They spoke not, as they talked with Levana; they whispered not; they sang not; 5 though oftentimes methought they might have sung, for I upon earth had heard their mysteries oftentimes deciphered by harp and timbrel, by dulcimer and organ. Like God, whose servants they are, they utter their pleasure, not by sounds 10 that perish, or by words that go astray, but by signs in heaven, by changes on earth, by pulses in secret rivers, heraldries painted on darkness, and hieroglyphics written on the tablets of the brain. They wheeled in mazes ; I spelled the steps. They 15 telegraphed from afar ; I read the signals. They conspired together; and on the mirrors of dark- ness my eye traced the plots. Theirs were the symbols; mine are the words. What is it the Sisters are ? What is it that they 20 do ? Let me describe their form, and their pres- ence : if form it were that still fluctuated in its outline, or presence it were that forever advanced to the front, or forever receded amongst shades. The eldest of the three is named Mater Lachry- 25 marum, Our Lady of Tears. She it is that night and day raves and moans, calling for vanished faces. She stood in Rama, where a voice was heard of lamentation, — Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted. She it 30 was that stood in Bethlehem on the night when 166 SELECTIONS FKOM DE QUINCEY. Herod's sword swept its nurseries of Innocents, and the little feet were stiffened forever, which, heard at times as they trotted along floors over- head, woke pulses of love in household hearts that were not unmarked in heaven. 5 Her eyes are sweet and subtle, wild and sleepy, by turns; oftentimes rising to the clouds, often- times challenging the heavens. She wears a dia- dem round her head. And I knew by childish memories that she could go abroad upon the lo winds, when she heard the sobbing of litanies or the thundering of organs, and when she beheld the mustering of summer clouds. This Sister, the eld- er, it is that carries keys more than papal at her girdle, which open every cottage and every palace. 15 She, to my knowledge, sat all last summer by the bedside of the blind beggar, him that so often and so gladly I talked with, whose pious daughter, eight years old, with the sunny countenance, re- sisted the temptations of play and village mirth 20 to travel all day long on dusty roads with her afflicted father. For this did God send her a great reward. In the spring-time of the year, and whilst yet her own Spring was budding, he re- called her to himself. But her blind father 25 mourns forever over her; still he dreams at mid- night that the little guiding hand is locked within his own ; and still he wakens to a darkness that is now within a second and a deeper darkness. This Mater Lachrymarum has also been sitting all this 30 LEVANA. 167 winter of 1844-5 within the bed-chamber of the Czar, bringing before his eyes a daughter (not less pious) that vanished to God not less suddenly, and left behind her a darkness not less profound. 5 By the power of the keys it is that Our Lady of Tears glides a ghostly intruder into the chambers of sleepless men, sleepless women, sleepless chil- dren, from Ganges to the Nile, from Nile to Mississippi. And her, because she is the first- 10 born of her house, and has the widest empire, let us honour with the title of "Madonna!" The second sister is called Mater Siispiriorum — Our Lady of Sighs. She never scales the clouds, nor walks abroad upon the winds. She wears no 15 diadem. And her eyes, if they were ever seen, would be neither sweet nor subtle; no man could read their story; they would be found filled with perishing dreams, and with wrecks of forgotten delirium. But she raises not her eyes; her head, 20 on which sits a dilapidated turban, droops forever, forever fastens on the dust. She weeps not. She groans not. But she sighs inaudibly at intervals. Her sister. Madonna, is oftentimes starmy and frantic, raging in the highest against heaven, and 25 demanding back her darlings. But Our Lady of Sighs never clamours, never defies, dreams not of rebellious aspirations. She is humble to abject- ness. Here is the meekness that belongs to the hopeless. Murmur she may, but it is in her sleep. 30 Whisper she may, but it is to herself in the twi- 168 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCE Y. light. Mutter she does at times, but it is in soli- tary places that are desolate as she is desolate, in ruined cities, and when the sun has gone down to his rest. This Sister is the visitor of the Pariah, of the Jew, of the bondsman to the oar in the 5 Mediterranean galleys; of the English crimi- nal in Norfolk Island, blotted out from the books of remembrance in sweet far-off England; of the baffled penitent reverting his eyes forever upon a solitary grave, which to him seems the altar over- lo throwij of some past and bloody sacrifice, on which altar no oblations can now be availing, whether towards pardon that he might implore, or towards reparation that he might attempt. Every slave that at noonday looks up to the tropical sun with 15 timid reproach, as he points with one hand to the earth, our general mother, but for him a step- mother, — as he points with the other hand to the Bible, our general teacher, but against him sealed and sequestered; — every woman sitting in dark- 20 Jiess, without love to shelter her head, or hope to illumine her solitude, because the heaven-born in- stincts kindling in her nature germs of holy affec- tions which God implanted in her womanly bosom, having been stifled by social necessities, now burn 25 sullenly to waste, like sepulchral lamps amongst the ancients; every nun defrauded of her unre- turning May-time by wicked kinsman, whom God will judge; every captive in every dungeon; all that are betrayed and all that are rejected oiif-30 LEVANA. 169 casts by traditionary law, and children of hered- itary disgrace, — all these walk with Our Lady of Sighs. She also carries a key; but she needs it little. For her kingdom is chiefly amongst the 5 tents of Shem, and the houseless vagrant of every clime. Yet in the very highest ranks of man she finds chapels of her own; and even in glorious England there are some that, to the world, carry their heads as proudly as the reindeer, who yet 10 secretly have received her mark upon their fore- heads. But the third Sister, who is also the young- est ! Hush, whisper whilst we talk of her! Her kingdom is not large, or else no flesh should 15 live ; but within that kingdom all power is hers. Her head, turreted like that of Cybele, rises almost beyond the reach of sight. She droops not; and her eyes rising so high might be hidden by dis- tance; but, being what they are, they cannot be 20 hidden ; through the treble veil of crape which she wears, the fierce light of a blazing misery, that rests not for matins or for vespers, for noon of day or noon of night, for ebbing or for flowing tide, may be read from the very ground. She is 25 the defier of God. She also is the mother of lunacies, and the suggestress of suicides. Deep lie the roots of her power; but narrow is the nation that she rules. For she can approach only those in whom a profound nature has been upheaved by 30 central convulsions ; in whom the heart trembles, 170 SELECTIONS FEOM DE QUINCE Y. and the brain rocks under conspiracies of tempest from without and tempest from within. Madonna moves with uncertain steps, fast or slow, but still with tragic grace. Our Lady of Sighs creeps tim- idly and stealthily. But this youngest sister moves 5 with incalculable motions, bounding, and with tiger's leaps. She carries no key ; for, though com- ing rarely amongst men, she storms all doors at which she is permitted to enter at all. And her' name is Mater Tenehrarum — Our Lady of Dark- lo ness. These were the Semnai Tlieai, or Sublime God- desses, these were the Eumenides, or Gracious Ladies (so called by antiquity in shuddering propitiation), of my Oxford dreams. Madonna 15 spoke. She spoke by her mysterious hand. Touch- ing my head, she beckoned to Our Lady of Sighs ; and what she spoke, translated out of the signs w^hich (except in dreams) no man reads, was this : — 20 "Lo ! here is he, whom in childhood I dedicated to my altars. This is he that once I made my darling. Him I led astray, him I beguiled, and from heaven I stole away his young heart to mine. Through me did he become idolatrous ; and 25 through me it was, by languishing desires, that he worshipped the worm, and prayed to the wormy grave. Holy was the grave to him ; lovely was its darkness; saintly its corruption. Him, this young idolator, I have seasoned for thee, dear gentle Sis- 30 LEVANA. 171 ter of Sighs ! Do thou take him now to thy heart,. and season him for our dreadful sister. And thou/' — turning to the Mater Tenehrarum, she said, — "wicked sister, that temptest and hatest, do ^ thou take him from her. See that thy sceptre lie heavy on his head. Suffer not woman and her tenderness to sit near him in his darkness. Banisli the frailties of hope, wither the relenting of love, scorch the fountains of tears, curse him as only 10 thou canst curse. So shall he be accomplished in the furnace, so shall he see the things that ought not to be seen, sights that are abominable, and secrets that are unutterable. So shall he read elder truths, sad truths, grand truths, fearful 15 truths. So shall he rise again before he dies, and so shall our commission be gccomplished which from God we had, — to plague his heart until we had unfolded the capacities of his spirit." SAVANNAH-LA-MAR. God smote Savannah-la-mar, and in one night, by earthquake, removed her, with all her towers . standing and population sleeping, from the stead- fast foundations of the shore to the coral floors of ocean. And God said, "Pompeii did I bury 5 and conceal from men through seventeen centu- ries; this city I will bury, but not conceal. She shall be a monument to men of my mysterious anger, set in azure light through generations to come; for I will enshrine her in a crystal dome lo of my tropic seas." This city, therefore, like a mighty .galleon with all her apparel mounted, streamers flying, and tackling perfect, seems float- ing along the noiseless depths of ocean ; and often- times in glassy calms, through the translucid at- 15 mosphere of water that now stretches like an air- woven awning above the silent encampment, mari- ners from every clime look down into her courts and terraces, count her gates, and number the spires of her churches. She is one ample ceme- 20 tery, and has been for many a year; but in the mighty calms that brood for weeks over tropic latitudes she fascinates the eye with a Fata-Mor- gana revelation, as of human life still subsisting 172 SAVANNAH-LA-MAR. i;3 in submarine asylums sacred from the storms that torment our upjDer air. Thither, lured by the loveliness of cerulean depths, by the peace of human dwellings privi- 5 leged from molestation, by the gleam of marble altars sleeping in everlasting sanctity, oftentimes in dreams did I and the Dark Interpreter cleave the watery veil that divided us from her streets. "We looked into the belfries, where the pendulous 10 bells were waiting in vain for the summons which should awaken their marriage peals; together we touched the mighty organ-keys, that sang no jubi- lates for the ear of heaven, that sang no requiems for the ear of human sorrow ; together we searched 15 the silent nurseries, where the children were all asleep, and had been asleep through five genera- tions. ''They are waiting for the heavenly dawn,'' whispered the Interpreter to himself: '^and, when that comes, the bells and the organs will utter a 20 jubilate repeated by the echoes of Paradise." Then, turning to me, he said, "This is sad, this is piteous; but less would not have sufficed for the purpose of God. Look here. Put into a Eoman clepsydra one hundred drops of water; let these 25 run out as the sands in an hour-glass; every drop measuring the hundredth part of a second, so that each shall represent but the three-hundred-and- sixty-thousandth part of an hour. Now, count the drops as they race along ; and, when the fiftieth of 30 the hundred is passing, behold ! forty-nine are not, 174 SELECTIONS FROM DE QUINCE Y. because already they have perished; and fifty are not, because they are yet to come. You see, there- fore, how narrow, how incalculably narrow, is the true and actual present. Of that time which we call the present, hardly a hundredth part but be- ^ longs either to a past which has fled, or to a future which is still on the wing. It has perished, or it is not born. It was, or it is not. Yet even this approximation to the truth is infinitely false. For again subdivide that solitary drop, which only was ^^ found to represent the present, into a lower series of similar fractions, and the actual present which you arrest measures now but the thirty-sixth mil- lionth of an hour; and so by infinite declensions the true and very present, in which only we live i^ and enjoy, will vanish into a mote of a mote, dis- tinguishable only by a heavenly vision. There- fore the present, which only man possesses, offers less capacity for his footing than the slenderest film that ever spider twisted from her womb. 20 Therefore, also, even this incalculable shadow from the narrowest pencil of moonlight is more transi- tory than geometry can measure, or thought of angel can overtake. The time which is contracts into a mathematic point ; and even that point per- 25 ishes a thousand times before we can utter its birth. All is finite in the present ; and even that finite is infinite in its velocity of flight towards death. But in God there is nothing finite; but in God there is nothing transitory; but in God 33 SAVANNAH-LAM AK. 175 there can be nothing that tends to death. There- fore, it follows, that for God there can be no present. Tlie future is the present of God, and to the future it is that he sacrifices the human 5 present. Therefore it is that he works by earth- quake. Therefore it is that the works by grief. 0, deep is the ploughing of earthquake ! 0, deep" — (and his voice swelled like a sanctus rising from the choir of a cathedral) — "0, deep is the plough- 10 ing of grief ! But oftentimes less would not suf- fice for the agriculture of God. Upon a night of earthquake he builds a thousand years of pleasant habitations for man. Upon the sorrow of an in- fant he raises oftentimes from human intellects 15 glorious vintages that could not else have been. Less than, these fierce ploughshares would not have stirred the stubborn soil. The one is needed for Earth, our planet, — for Earth itself as the dwell- ing place of man ; but the other is needed yet 20 oftener for God's mightiest instrument, — yes" (and he looked solemnly at myself), "is needed for the mysterious children of the earth !" NOTES. JOAN OF ARC. Page 33, line 1. Notice the "epic abruptness" with which the piece opens. 33 : 3. Hebrew shepherd hoy: David. 34: 11- Vaucouleurs: a town near Domremy, and the starting point of .Joan's military career. 34: 22. Those that share thy bJood: a collateral relative of Joanna's was subsequently ennobled by the title of Du Lys. (DeQuincey's note.) 34: 28. Ell contumace: "in rebellion," because disobeying the royal mandate. 36 : 15 seq. De Quincey's prejudice against France, which he shared with most Englishmen of his day, appears in these lines, as elsewhere throughout the essay. The portion of Michelet's history dealing with Joan of Arc is m Vol. V, which appeared in 1841, and was translated into English Ghortly before the date of this essay. 37: 9 seq. Notice the three metaphors following in rapid succession. 38 : l-o. The lines which De Quincey parodies run as follows : "The stout Earl of Northumberland A vow to York did make, His pleasure in the Scottish woods Three summer days to take." 39 : 16. Hannibal: the famous Carthaginian enemy of Rome, b. 247 B. C, d. about 183 B. C. Mithridates: King of Pontus in Asia Minor 120-63 B. C. ; he conducted a long series of wars against Rome and when ultimately defeated was, by his own command, killed by one of his soldiers. 39 : 23. Delenda est Anglia Victrix: "Victorious England must be destroyed" ; from Cato the Elder's Delenda est Carthago, "Carthage must be destroyed," with which ho is said to have concluded every speech in the Roman senate. 39: 29. Hyder AU, Tlp^oo: Maharajas of Mysore in India in the 18th century ; both waged war against England. 178 NOTES. 40 : 25 seq. The digression upon the. word Champagne bor- ders upon "rigmarole," as does the passage below concerning the two roads through Domremy. 42 : IG. Notice the vigor and picturesqueness of the word "vixen" in this connection ; also below, "little fiery cousin . . . forever tilting at the heart of France." 42 : 22. Crccy, Agincotirt: Victories of the English over vastly superior French forces, the first in 1346, the second in 1415. See Drayton's vigorous "Ballad of Agincourt." 42 : 23. Nicopolis: a battle in which the Ottoman ruler Bajazet defeated (139G) the Emperor Sigismund and John of Burgundy. A considerable number of French nobles and knights were taken prisoner. 43 : 22. The two following paragraphs describing the state of France in Joan's youth afford a fine example of De Quincey's heightened style when moved by the imagi- native quality of his subject. 44: 2. Poictios: At Toictiers, in 1356, the Black Prince with 8,000 men defeated the French King John wath 60,000 men. 45 : 15. Double Pope: For over sixty years (1309-1377) the Popes lived at Avignon in the south of France. After the return of Gregory XI to Rome in 1377 there was a period of forty years during which two rival claimants dis- puted the papal throne, one at Rome and one at Avignon. 47 : 1 ff. Do you feel that this fine description of the forest surrounding Domremy is marred by the intrusion of any inharmonious matter? 51 : 12. Prwdial: from Latin prmlhon, farm, estate. 51 : 2S. Juan Fernandez: the island upon which the Eng- lish sailor Alexander Selkirk, was wrecked ; Selkirk's story was used by Defoe as the basis of Robinson Crusoe. 52; 13. As tu donne, etc. : "Have you fed the pig?" As tu sauve, etc.: "Have you saved the lilies of France?" 54 : 2. Coup d'essai: "First attempt." 54: 10. ''Pricks" for sheriffs: a reference to the custom by which the English sovereigns select sheriffs by plunging a bodkin at random through one of the names on a list pre- sented to them. 55 : 8. Un pen fort: "a little too strong for belief." 55: 11-13. DavpJiin . . . no crown.. The English had disputed the right of Charles VII. to the throne of France, and being in control of a large part, of northern France, they had prevented his consecration as king at Rheims. Charles's NOTES. 1T9 father, Charles VI., died in 1422 ; the coronation of Charles VII. at Rheims did not take place until 1429. 55: 20. The Enolish hoy: the English king, Henry VI., was then (1429) in his ninth year. 56: 1, 2. Is the metaphor of the oven appropriate in tone? 56 : 3, seq. Does not this discussion of the small points of Southey's poem constitute a weak digression from the real Kubject ? 56: 17. A parte ante: before the book containing the pirated passage was written. 57 : 27. France Delivered: imitated from the title of Tasso's poem, "Jerusalem Delivered." 59: 14. Coup-de-main: literally -stroke of hand," i. e., in this connection, "sudden onslaught." 61 : 21. Nolebat uti, etc. : "She would not use her sword or put anyone to death." 63 : 8. Bishop that art, etc. : De Quincey adapts the prophecy of the witches to Macbeth, Act I, Sc. 3, and Lady Macbeth's soliloquy, Act I, Sc. 5. 63: 12. Triple croa-n: the papal tiara. 63 : 23, seq. Notice the fine movement of this sentence, strongly rhythmic, but with a genuine prose rhythm, dis- tinct from that of verse. 64 : 29. Pressed her with an objection, etc. : The "objec- tion" referred to has not been traced by the commentators who have examined the original records. 67: 22. They are rising eveit now. At the time De Quin- cey wrote this essay the original records of Joan's trial were being published in Paris. 68: 17. Tellurians: Earth-dwellers, from Tellus, earth. 68: 21. Luxor: a modern village in Upper Egypt, on the site of ancient Thebes; used here as synonymous with Thebes. 69 : 13. Daughter of Ccesars: Marie Antoinette was the daughter of Francis I. of Austria. To him as head of the German Confederation officially known as the "Holy Roman Empire," was supposed to have passed the sceptre of the Ct^sars, through Charlemagne. But the word Caesar is often used broadly as synonymous with Emperor. 69 : 16. Charlotte Corday: A French noblewoman who killed Marat, the blood-thirsty Terrorist, during the Revo lution. 73:19. ^ycight of metal . . . broke the vast line of battle: make clear to yourself the metaphor involved in these lines. 180 NOTES. 74 : 27 seq. Note the strong and stately rhythms of the concluding passage, and how they magnify the effect of solemnity. 77: 17. English prince. Regent of France: John, Duke of Bedford, brother of Henry V. 77: 18, 19. Lord of Winchester . . . that died and made no sign: See 2 Henry VI., Act III, Sc. 3. 78: 12. Bloody coronation rohes: probably means Joan's armor, blood-stained from recent battles. NOTES TO THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 1. THE GLORY OF MOTION. 79: 9. Invent (or . . . discover): a play upon the Latin word inveniio, meaning discovery. 80:25. Trafalgar, Salamanca, Vittoria, Waterloo: all English victories in the Napoleonic wars between 180."5 and 1815. 83: 8. Pariahs: the lowest of the Hindoo castes; hence, in general, despised persons or outcasts. Masson notes De Quincey's curious fondness for this word. Can you think of a reason why it should have impressed itself on his imagination? 84 : 11. Same logical construction: the rule of logic re- ferred to runs, De non apparentihiis et non emistentibus eadem est lav. 84 : 22. In the labor disputes of De Quincey's time, "snob" was equivalent to the modern word "scab." "Nobs" were, as we should say, "union men." The words have undergone a curious change of meaning. 86: 1. Great ivits jump, i. e., agree, coincide. Cf. Othello, Act I, Sc. 3, 1. 5. 86: 2. Celestial intellect of China: one of the native designations of China is Tien Chan, "Heavenly Dynasty," or, as we say. Celestial Empire. 87: 14. Jury-reins: cf. jury-mast, an Improvised mast to take the place of one lost. "Jury" seems to come from Latin adjuvare, to aid. 87 : 28. Ca ira: "that will go," "that will succeed ;" the refrain of a popular song sung by the French revolutionists. 88: 15. Aristotle, Zeno, Cicero: a mere haphazard list of ancient philosophers. 83 : 7. British Museum: the great English national library and museum in London. NOTES. 181 89 : 12. Xoters: dealers in promissory notes. 89 : 14. House of life: an astrological term, used in the casting of horoscopes. But De Quincey means merely "one's lot.- 90: 1. Von TroiVs Iceland: De Quincey's footnote is: "The allusion is to a well-known chapter in Von Troil's work, entitled 'Concerning the Snakes of Iceland.' The en tire chapter consists of these six words — 'There are no snakes in Iceland.'" 90: 2. Parliamentary rat: a cant term of the day, mean- ing one who changes his party, a turn-coat. 90: 13. Lwsa majestas: an offense against majesty, a term of Roman law usually given in its French form, lest ma jest e. 90: 27. Jam proximus, etc.: .^i^neid, Book II, 311. 91 : 29. Quarterings: to "quarter" was, in the language of the day, to cross over in order to give the right of way to another vehicle. 92: 5. Benefit of clergy: originally exemption from trial by the secular courts, granted to persons who could read and who were therefore by inference ecclesiastics. So, in general, any kind of judicial privilege. 92: 7. Systole and diastole: the implied metaphor is that of the contraction (systole) and expansion (diastole) of the heart, which sends the blood through the veins. 93: 8. False echoes: the words quoted were reported (falsely, De Quincey thinks) to have been said by Napoleon at the battle of Marengo, over the body of his officer Desaix. 94:8. False, fleeting, perjured Brummagem: the adjec- tives are echoed from Shakespeare's Richard III., Act I, Sc. 4, 1. 55. "Brummagem" is a corruption of Birmingham ; it is often used as an adjective meaning tawdry, from thfe sham articles manufactured there. It is here used derisively for the real name of the town. 94 : 11. Luxor: see note to "Joan of Arc," page 68, line 21. 94 : 14. Jacobinical: revolutionary. 95 : 2. "Besides the king's name is a tower of strength Which they upon ihe adverse party want." —Richard III, Act 5, Sc. 3. 96: 1. Omrahs: ameers, court-grandees. 96: 25. Roman pearls: a kind of imitation pearl formerly manufactured in Rome. 96: 28. 6th of Edicard Longshanks, chapter 18: it is a part of the rather forced humor of this passage that the 182 NOTES. statute in question lias onlj- fifteen chapters. Stage-coaches were of course unknown in the England of Edward I. 97 : 19. Magna loquimur: "We speak great things." Magna vivimus: "We experience great things." 98: 4. Salamanca: the battle of that name, won by the English and their allies in the struggle against Napoleon. 98: 14, Nile nor Trafalgar: the battles of the Nile and of Trafalgar were Nelson's greatest victories. 98 : 27. Laureled tnail: when "going down with victory" the coach, horses, driver, and guard were adorned with laurel, as well as with flowers, oak-leaves, and ribbons. 99 : 22. She brings along with her a troop, etc. : i. e., by virtue of her connection with De Quincey's dreams. 100: 22. Ulysses, . . . his accursed how: the tale of the slaying by Ulysses of the suitors of Penelope is told in the twenty-second book of the Odyssey. 101 : 20. "But all our praises why should lords engross? Rise, honest Muse ! and sing the Man of Ross." — Pope, Epistle on the Use of Riches, 249. 102: 13. Turrets: upright rings used as guides for the reins. 103 : 14, seq. In this passage about Mr. Waterton, an Eng- lish country gentleman who had gained notoriety by harness- ing and riding a crocodile De Quincey falls into unmis- takable "rigmarole," 104: 9. Final cause: the phrase is used in a technical philosophical sense, meaning "ihe end for which man was designed." 104 : 17, seq. In this concluding paragraph of the section, Do Quincey transports us without warning into the visionary region of his dreams. 105:26. Ooing down with victory: Englishmen always speak of "going down" from London, and "going up" from the provinces. 107: 7. Attelage: a French word meaning a "team" of horses or other draft animals ; here expanded to include the four horses and the coach drawn by them, 113: 21. Fey: the Vvord is not Celtic, but from Anglo- Saxon fwge, meaning doomed, fated. 114: 4, Glittering laurels: De Quincey says in a footnote: "I must observe that the color of green suffers almost a spiritual change and exaltation under the effect of Bengal lights." 114: 19. Talavera: the battle of Titlavera was a British victory ; but the delays of the Spanish allies of the English NOTES. 183 gave the French a chance to render the results of the battle indecisive. 115: 2j. Aceldama: field of blood. The word originally applied to the potter's field near Jerusalem supposed to have been purchased with the thirty pieces of silver which Judas got by betraying Christ. 2. THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH. 120: o. ^iaOaparos: from two Greek words meaning ^•force" and "death." The compound itself is not good Greek. 123: 11. The quoted words are from Paradise Lost, Book IX, 782. 124: ?^. Doicn mail: i. e., from London. 125 : 9. Jus dominii: right of domain. 125: 20. Jus gentium: law of the gens or tribe, covering theft, etc. 126: 4. Assessor: used in the literal sense, from Latin assidere, to sit beside. 126: 11. The line quoted from Vergil describes the Cyclops Polyphemus. 126: 17. Calenders: one of the Mohammedan orders of mendicant dervishes ; in the Arabian Nights' story the three mendicants are all blind of the left eye. 126: 27. Al Sirat: the bridge to the Mohammedan Para- dise, over which all the blessed must pass ; it is narrower than the edge of a razor. 127: 5. Diphrelatic art: despite De Quincey's sober apol- ogy, the pompous word is used for humorous effect. 129: 14. Aurigation: "driving." from Latin auriga, chari- oteer. 130: 2. Pastoral: in its original sense of "shepherding," from Latin pastor, a shepherd. 130: 15. Seven atmospheres of sleep: a whimsically pseudo-scientific way of denoting the accumulated effect of three days and four nights of wakefulness. 132: 6-1."). De Quincey is here referring to the immense manufacturing industry of Manchester, in which town mod- ern machinery was first employed on a huge scale. 134: IG. Radix: root, beginning. 135: 2. Wrong side of the road: English usage prescribes the left-hand side of the road in driving. 135: 16. Quartering: see note to line 29, page 91. 136 : 19. Taxed cart: usually called "tax-cart," a two- 184 NOTES. wheeled spring-cart (similar to the present dog-cart) for- merly taxed by the government. 138: 11. Shout of AcJiiUcs: "Thrice great Achilles spake, And thrice (in heat of all the charge) the Trojans started back. Twelve men, of greatest strength in Troy, left with their lives exhaled. Tneir chariots and their darts, to death with his three sum- mons called." Iliad, XVIII, 228, Chapman's translation. 138: 13. Aided by Pallas: in the passage in the Iliad here referred to the goddess Pallas reechoes Achilles' shout. 139 : 25. A shilling a day: the pay of the common soldier. 3. DREAM-FUGUE. 144: 16. Tumultuosissimamenti: the superlative of the Italian adverb meaning tumultuously : placed here by De Quincey in imitation of the directions added by musical composers to their works, for the guidance of performers. 144: 18. Averted signs: De Quincey's footnote is : "I read the course and changes of the lady's agony in the succession of her involuntary gestures ; but it must be remembered that I read all this from the rear, never once catching the lady's full face, and even her profile imperfectly. 144: 21. Woman's Ionic form: The Ionic column was sup- posed to have been suggested by the proportions of the female form, the Doric column by those of the male. 146: 20. Corymhi: wreathed clusters. 147 : 4. Quarrel: bolt. 151 : 2.5. Campo Santo of the Cathedral graves: Campo Santo (Sacred Field) is the Italian purase for burial-ground, taken originally from the cemetery at Pisa, the soil of which was brought from .Jerusalem during the crusades. It must be remembered that the dead were frequently buried beneath the cathedral pavement, the memorial slabs forming a part of the floor. 151:27. Necropolis: from two Greek words meaning "city of the dead," 157: "Author's Postscript." This was originally printed by De Quincey as a part of the preface to that volume of his collected works which contained "The English Mail Coach." NOTES. 185 LEVANA AND OUR LADIES OF SORROW. Title: This notable piece and Savaniwh La Mar are both drawn from Suspiria de Profundls, an unflnished series which De Quincey began in 1845, and which he intended as "another Opium Confessions." From a prefatory note to the enlarged edition of the Confessions of an English Opium Eater, published in 1856, it seems clear that the projected series was to consist of "a succession of some twenty or twenty-five dreams and noonday visions, which had arisen under the latter stages of opium influence." Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow was, so De Quincey informs us, to ''rehearse or prefigure their course," a section of the dreams being assigned to each of the three "Ladies of Sorrow." The loss of the completed product is deeply to be regretted ; but the magnificently imaginative prelude is self-explanatory and in no sense fragmentary. For comment on the style. see the Introduction, pp. 30, 31. 163: 10. On the foundation: holding a scholarship. 163: 25 ff. Graces, Parcae, Furies, Muses: the passage is practically self-explanatory. The Parcae are the Fates. For further information consult Gayley's Classical Myths, or any good classical dictionary. 165 : 15. Telegraphed: Why would the world have a less prosaic suggestion in De Quincey's time than today? 165: 27. She stood in Ra)na, etc. :"A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping ; Rachel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not :" Jeremiah. XXXI, 15. Cf. also Matthew, II, 18. 166: 14. Reus more than papal: Cf. Matthew, XVI. 19, '•And I give unto thee [Peter J the keys of the kingdom of heaven." 167: 1. Within the hed-chamher of the Czar: In 1844 Alexandra, daughter of Nicholas I., died. 168: 6. Mediterranean galleys: the reference is to the obsolete custom of punishing criminals by labor at the oar in galleys. 168 : 7. Xorfolk Island: a Pacific island formerly used by England as a penal colony. 169: 5. The tents of Shem: Cf. Genesis IX, 27: "God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem." The Shemites or Semites are the Hebrew race ; but De Quincey has in mind all nomads. 169 : 16. Turretted like that of Cybele: Cybele. the wife 186 NOTES. of Saturn, and mother of the gods of Olympus, is usually represented as wearing a mural crown. De Quincey uses her as an example of a remote, mysterious, and terrible deity. 170 : 13. The Eumenides: a euphemistic name for the Furies. SAVANNAH LA MAR. Title: See introductory note to Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow: see also Introduction, p. 30. Savannah La Mar is the name of a small town in Jamaica, on which island one of De Quincey's brothers lost his life. The allegorical meaning of the dream lies on the surface. 172: 23. Fata Morgana revelation: Fata Morgana means Morgana the Fairy. She was the sister of King Arthur. To her influence is attributed the mirage seen in the Straits of Messina. 173 : 7. The Dark Interpreter: De Quincey is here, as in parts of Levana, inventing his own mythology. 173: 12. Jubilates: the one hundredth Psalm, Jubilate Deo, the canticle that in the Anglican liturgy follows the second lesson in the morning service ; the word is derived from the Latin jubilare, to shout for joy. 173: 24. Clepsydra: a device for marking the passage of time by the flow of water from a vessel through a small opening. 175: 8. Sanctus: a part of the Communion Service in the Anglican Church ; the so called "angelic hymn" in which the phrase "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts" is chanted. m 21 isri Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: March 2009 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 014 456 258 6 ^