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Autobiographic Sketches

T >> Thomas de Quincey >> Autobiographic Sketches




This pleasure, as always on similar occasions, I had at present; but
naturally in a degree corresponding to the circumstances of _royal_
splendor through which the scene revolved; and, if I have spent rather
more words than should reasonably have been requisite in describing
any obvious state of emotion, it is not because, in itself, it is
either vague or doubtful, but because it is difficult, without calling
upon a reader for a little reflection, to convince him that there is
not something paradoxical in the assertion, that joy and festal
pleasure, of the highest kind, are liable to a _natural_ combination
with solemnity, or even with melancholy the most profound. Yet, to
speak in the mere simplicity of truth, so mysterious is human nature,
and so little to be read by him who runs, that almost every weighty
aspect of truth upon that theme will be found at first sight to be
startling, or sometimes paradoxical. And so little need is there for
chasing or courting paradox, that, on the contrary, he who is faithful
to his own experiences will find all his efforts little enough to keep
down the paradoxical air besieging much of what he _knows_ to be the
truth. No man needs to _search_ for paradox in this world of ours. Let
him simply confine himself to the truth, and he will find paradox
growing every where under his hands as rank as weeds. For new truths
of importance are rarely agreeable to any preconceived theories; that
is, cannot be explained by these theories; which are insufficient,
therefore, even where they are true. And universally, it must be borne
in mind, that not that is paradox which, seeming to be true, is upon
examination false, but that which, seeming to be false, may upon
examination be found true. [9]

The pleasure of which I have been speaking belongs to all such scenes;
but on this particular occasion there was also something more. To see
persons in "the body" of whom you have been reading in newspapers from
the very earliest of your reading days,--those, who have hitherto been
great _ideas_ in your childish thoughts, to see and to hear moving and
talking as carnal existences amongst other human beings,--had, for the
first half hour or so, a singular and strange effect. But this naturally
waned rapidly after it had once begun to wane. And when these first
startling impressions of novelty had worn off, it must be confessed
that the peculiar circumstances attaching to a royal ball were not
favorable to its joyousness or genial spirit of enjoyment. I am not
going to repay her majesty's condescension so ill, or so much to abuse
the privileges of a guest, as to draw upon my recollections of what
passed for the materials of a cynical critique. Every thing was done,
I doubt not, which court etiquette permitted, to thaw those ungenial
restraints which gave to the whole too much of a ceremonial and
official character, and to each actor in the scene gave too much of
the air belonging to one who is discharging a duty, and to the youngest
even among the principal personages concerned gave an apparent anxiety
and jealousy of manner--jealousy, I mean, not of others, but a
prudential jealousy of his own possible oversights or trespasses. In
fact, a great personage bearing a state character cannot be regarded,
nor regard himself, with the perfect freedom which belongs to social
intercourse; no, nor ought to be. It is not rank alone which is here
concerned; that, as being his own, he might lay aside for an hour or
two; but he bears a representative character also. He has not his own
rank only, but the rank of others, to protect; he (supposing him the
sovereign or a prince near to the succession) embodies and impersonates
the majesty of a great people; and this character, were you ever so
much encouraged to do so, you, the _idiotaes_, the _lay_ spectator or
"assister," neither could nor ought to dismiss from your thoughts.
Besides all which, it must be acknowledged, that to see brothers dancing
with sisters--as too often occurred in those dances to which the
princesses were parties--disturbed the appropriate interest of the scene,
being irreconcilable with the allusive meaning of dancing in general, and
laid a weight upon its gayety which no condescensions from the highest
quarter could remove. This infelicitous arrangement forced the thoughts
of all present upon the exalted rank of the parties which could dictate
and exact so unusual an assortment. And that rank, again, it presented to
us under one of its least happy aspects; as insulating a blooming young
woman amidst the choir of her coevals, and surrounding her with dreadful
solitude amidst a vast crowd of the young, the brave, the beautiful, and
the accomplished.

Meantime, as respected myself individually, I had reason to be grateful:
every kindness and attention were shown to me. My invitation I was
sensible that I owed entirely to my noble friend. But, _having_ been
invited, I felt assured, from what passed, that it was meant and
provided that I should not, by any possibility, be suffered to think
myself overlooked. Lord Westport and I communicated our thoughts
occasionally by means of a language which we, in those days, found
useful enough at times, and which bore the name of _Ziph_. The language
and the name were both derived (that is, were _immediately_ so derived,
for _remotely_ the Ziph language may ascend to Nineveh) from Winchester.
Dr. Mapleton, a physician in Bath, who attended me in concert with Mr.
Grant, an eminent surgeon, during the nondescript malady of the head,
happened to have had three sons at Winchester; and his reason for
removing them is worth mentioning, as it illustrates the well-known
system of _fagging_. One or more of them showed to the quick medical
eye of Dr. Mapleton symptoms of declining health; and, upon cross
questioning, he found that, being (as juniors) _fags_ (that is, bondsmen
by old prescription) to appointed seniors, they were under the necessity
of going out nightly into the town for the purpose of executing
commissions; but this was not easy, as all the regular outlets were
closed at an early hour. In such a dilemma, any route, that was barely
practicable at whatever risk, must be traversed by the loyal fag; and
it so happened that none of any kind remained open or accessible,
except one; and this one communication happened to have escaped
suspicion, simply because it lay through a succession of temples and
sewers sacred to the goddesses Cloacina and Scavengerina. That of
itself was not so extraordinary a fact: the wonder lay in the number,
viz., seventeen. Such were the actual amount of sacred edifices which,
through all their dust, and garbage, and mephitic morasses, these
miserable vassals had to thread all _but_ every night of the week. Dr.
Mapleton, when he had made this discovery, ceased to wonder at the
medical symptoms; and, as _faggery_ was an abuse too venerable and
sacred to be touched by profane hands, he lodged no idle complaints,
but simply removed his sons to a school where the Serbonian bogs of
the subterraneous goddess might not intersect the nocturnal line of
march so _very_ often. One day, during the worst of my illness, when
the kind-hearted doctor was attempting to amuse me with this anecdote,
and asking me whether I thought Hannibal would have attempted his march
over the Little St. Bernard,--supposing that he and the elephant which
he rode had been summoned to explore a route through seventeen similar
nuisances,--he went on to mention the one sole accomplishment which
his sons had imported from Winchester. This was the _Ziph_ language,
communicated at Winchester to any aspirant for a fixed fee of one half
guinea, but which the doctor then communicated to me--as I do now to
the reader--_gratis_. I make a present of this language without fee,
or price, or entrance money, to my honored reader; and let him
understand that it is undoubtedly a bequest of elder times. Perhaps
it may be coeval with the pyramids. For in the famous "Essay on a
Philosophical Character," (I forget whether _that_ is the exact title,)
a large folio written by the ingenious Dr. Wilkins, Bishop of Chester,
[10] and published early in the reign of Charles II., a folio which I, in
youthful days, not only read but studied, this language is recorded and
accurately described amongst many other modes of cryptical communication,
oral and visual, spoken, written, or symbolic. And, as the bishop does
not speak of it as at all a _recent_ invention, it may probably at that
time have been regarded as an antique device for conducting a
conversation in secrecy amongst bystanders; and this advantage it has,
that it is applicable to all languages alike; nor can it possibly be
penetrated by one not initiated in the mystery. The secret is this--(and
the grandeur of simplicity at any rate it has)--repeat the vowel or
diphthong of every syllable, prefixing to the vowel so repeated the
letter G. Thus, for example: Shall we go away in an hour? Three hours we
have already staid. This in Ziph becomes: _Shagall wege gogo agawagay
igin agan hougour? Threegee hougours wege hagave agalreageadygy stagaid._
[11] It must not be supposed that Ziph proceeds slowly. A very little
practice gives the greatest fluency; so that even now, though certainly I
cannot have practised it for fifty years, my power of speaking the Ziph
remains unimpaired. I forget whether in the Bishop of Chester's account
of this cryptical language the consonant intercalated be G or not.
Evidently any consonant will answer the purpose. F or L would be softer,
and so far better.

In this learned tongue it was that my friend and I communicated our
feelings; and, having staid nearly four hours, a time quite sufficient
to express a proper sense of the honor, we departed; and, on emerging
into the open high road, we threw up our hats and huzzaed, meaning
no sort of disrespect, but from uncontrollable pleasure in recovered
liberty.

Soon after this we left Eton for Ireland. Our first destination being
Dublin, of course we went by Holyhead. The route at that time, from
Southern England to Dublin, did not (as in elder and in later days)
go round by Chester. A few miles after leaving Shrewsbury, somewhere
about Oswestry, it entered North Wales; a stage farther brought us to
the celebrated vale of Llangollen; and, on reaching the approach to
this about sunset on a beautiful evening of June, I first found myself
amongst the mountains--a feature in natural scenery for which, from
my earliest days, it was not extravagant to say that I had hungered
and thirsted. In no one expectation of my life have I been less
disappointed; and I may add, that no one enjoyment has less decayed
or palled upon my continued experience. A mountainous region, with a
slender population, and _that_ of a simple pastoral character; behold
my chief conditions of a pleasant permanent dwelling-place! But, thus
far I have altered, that _now_ I should greatly prefer forest scenery--
such as the New Forest, or the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. The
mountains of Wales range at about the same elevation as those of Northern
England; three thousand and four to six hundred feet being the extreme
limit which they reach. Generally speaking, their forms are less
picturesque individually, and they are less happily grouped than their
English brethren. I have since also been made sensible by Wordsworth of
one grievous defect in the structure of the Welsh valleys; too generally
they take the _basin_ shape--the level area at their foot does not detach
itself with sufficient precision from the declivities that surround them.
Of this, however, I was not aware at the time of first seeing Wales;
although the striking effect from the _opposite_ form of the Cumberland
and Westmoreland valleys, which almost universally present a flat area at
the base of the surrounding hills, level, to use Wordsworth's expression,
"_as the floor of a temple,"_ would, at any rate, have arrested my eye,
as a circumstance of impressive beauty, even though the want of such a
feature might not, in any case, have affected me as a fault. As
something that had a positive value, this characteristic of the Cambrian
valleys had fixed my attention, but not as any telling point of contrast
against the Cambrian valleys. No faults, however, at that early age
disturbed my pleasure, except that, after one whole day's travelling,
(for so long it cost us between Llangollen and Holyhead,) the want of
water struck me upon review as painfully remarkable. From Conway to
Bangor (seventeen miles) we were often in sight of the sea; but fresh
water we had seen hardly any; no lake, no stream much beyond a brook.
This is certainly a conspicuous defect in North Wales, considered as
a region of fine scenery. The few lakes I have since become acquainted
with, as that near Bala, near Beddkelert, and beyond Machynleth, are
not attractive either in their forms or in their accompaniments; the
Bala Lake being meagre and insipid, the others as it were unfinished,
and unaccompanied with their furniture of wood.

At the _Head_ (to call it by its common colloquial name) we were
detained a few days in those unsteaming times by foul winds. Our time,
however, thanks to the hospitality of a certain Captain Skinner on
that station, did not hang heavy on our hands, though we were
imprisoned, as it were, on a dull rock; for Holyhead itself is a little
island of rock, an insulated dependency of Anglesea; which, again, is
a little insulated dependency of North Wales. The packets on this
station were at that time lucrative commands; and they were given
(perhaps _are_ [12] given?) to post captains in the navy. Captain Skinner
was celebrated for his convivial talents; he did the honors of the place
in a hospitable style; daily asked us to dine with him, and seemed as
inexhaustible in his wit as in his hospitality.

This answered one purpose, at least, of special convenience to our
party at that moment: it kept us from all necessity of meeting each
other during the day, except under circumstances where we escaped the
necessity of any familiar communication. Why that should have become
desirable, arose upon the following mysterious change of relations
between ourselves and the Rev. Mr. Gr----, Lord Westport's tutor. On
the last day of our journey, Mr. G., who had accompanied us thus far,
but now at Holyhead was to leave us, suddenly took offence (or, at
least, then first _showed_ his offence) at something we had said, done,
or omitted, and never spoke one syllable to either of us again. Being
both of us amiably disposed, and incapable of having seriously meditated
either word or deed likely to wound any person's feelings, we were
much hurt at the time, and often retraced the little incidents upon
the road, to discover, if possible, what it was that had laid us open
to misconstruction. But it remained to both of us a lasting mystery.
This tutor was an Irishman, of Trinity College, Dublin, and, I believe,
of considerable pretensions as a scholar; but, being reserved and
haughty, or else presuming in us a knowledge of our offence, which we
really had not, he gave us no opening for any explanation. To the last
moment, however, he manifested a punctilious regard to the duties of
his charge. He accompanied us in our boat, on a dark and gusty night,
to the packet, which lay a little out at sea. He saw us on board;
and then, standing up for one moment, he said, "Is all right on deck?"
"All right, sir," sang out the ship's steward. "Have you, Lord Westport,
got your boat cloak with you?" "Yes, sir." "Then, pull away, boatmen."
We listened for a time to the measured beat of his retreating oars,
marvelling more and more at the atrocious nature of our crime which
could thus avail to intercept even his last adieus. I, for my part,
never saw him again; nor, as I have reason to think, did Lord Westport.
Neither did we ever unravel the mystery.

As if to irritate our curiosity still more, Lord Westport showed me
a torn fragment of paper in his tutor's hand--writing, which, together
with others, had been thrown (as he believed) purposely in his way.
If he was right in that belief, it appeared that he had missed the
particular fragment which was designed to raise the veil upon our
guilt; for the one he produced contained exactly these words: "With
respect to your ladyship's anxiety to know how far the acquaintance
with Mr. De Q. is likely to be of service to your son, I think I may
now venture to say that"--There the sibylline fragment ended; nor
could we torture it into any further revelation. However, both of us
saw the propriety of not ourselves practising any mystery, nor giving
any advantage to Mr. G. by imperfect communications; and accordingly,
on the day after we reached Dublin, we addressed a circumstantial
account of our journey and our little mystery to Lady Altamont in
England; for to her it was clear that the tutor had confided his
mysterious wrongs. Her ladyship answered with kindness; but did not
throw any light on the problem which exercised at once our memories,
our skill in conjectural interpretation, and our sincere regrets. Lord
Westport and I regretted much that there had not been a wider margin
attached to the fragment of Mr. G.'s letter to Lady Altamont; in which
case, as I could readily have mimicked his style of writing, it would
have been easy for me to fill up thus: "With respect to your ladyship's
anxiety, &c., I think I may now venture to say that, if the solar system
were searched, there could not be found a companion more serviceable to
your son than Mr. De Q. He speaks the Ziph most beautifully. He writes
it, I am told, classically. And if there were a Ziph nation as well as a
Ziph language, I am satisfied that he would very soon be at the head of
it; as he already is, beyond all competition, at the head of the Ziph
literature." Lady Altamont, on receiving this, would infallibly have
supposed him mad; she would have written so to all her Irish friends, and
would have commended the poor gentleman to the care of his nearest
kinsmen; and thus we should have had some little indemnification for the
annoyance he had caused us. I mention this trifle, simply because, trifle
as it is, it involved a mystery, and furnishes an occasion for glancing
at that topic. Mysteries as deep, with results a little more important
and foundations a little sounder, have many times crossed me in life;
one, for instance, I recollect at this moment, known pretty extensively
to the neighborhood in which it occurred. It was in the county of S----.
A lady married, and married well, as was thought. About twelve months
afterwards, she returned alone in a post chaise to her father's house;
paid, and herself dismissed, the postilion at the gate; entered the
house; ascended to the room in which she had passed her youth, and known
in the family by her name; took possession of it again; intimated by
signs, and by one short letter at her first arrival, what she would
require; lived for nearly twenty years in this state of _La Trappe_
seclusion and silence; nor ever, to the hour of her death, explained what
circumstances had dissolved the supposed happy connection she had formed,
or what had become of her husband. Her looks and gestures were of a
nature to repress all questions in the spirit of mere curiosity; and the
spirit of affection naturally respected a secret which was guarded so
severely. This might be supposed a Spanish tale; yet it happened in
England, and in a pretty populous neighborhood. The romances which occur
in real life are too often connected with circumstances of criminality in
some one among the parties concerned; on that account, more than any
other, they are often suppressed; else, judging by the number which have
fallen within my own knowledge, they must be of more frequent occurrence
than is usually supposed. Among such romances, those cases, perhaps, form
an unusual proportion in which young, innocent, and high-minded persons
have made a sudden discovery of some great profligacy or deep
unworthiness in the person to whom they had surrendered their entire
affections. That shock, more than any other, is capable of blighting, in
one hour, the whole after existence, and sometimes of at once
overthrowing the balance of life or of reason. Instances I have known of
both; and such afflictions are the less open to any alleviation, that
sometimes they are of a nature so delicate as to preclude all
confidential communication of them to another; and sometimes it would be
even dangerous, in a legal sense, to communicate them.

A sort of adventure occurred, and not of a kind pleasant to recall,
even on this short voyage. The passage to Dublin from the Head is about
sixty miles, I believe; yet, from baffling winds, it cost us upwards
of thirty hours. On the second day, going upon deck, we found that our
only fellow-passenger of note was a woman of rank, celebrated for her
beauty; and not undeservedly, for a lovely creature she was. The body
of her travelling coach had been, as usual, unslung from the "carriage,"
(by which is technically meant the wheels and the perch,) and placed
upon deck. This she used as a place of retreat from the sun during the
day, and as a resting-place at night. For want of more interesting
companions, she invited us, during the day, into her coach; and we
taxed our abilities to make ourselves as entertaining as we could, for
we were greatly fascinated by the lady's beauty. The second night
proved very sultry; and Lord Westport and myself, suffering from the
oppression of the cabin, left our berths, and lay, wrapped up in cloaks,
upon deck. Having talked for some hours, we were both on the point of
falling asleep, when a stealthy tread near our heads awoke us. It was
starlight; and we traced between ourselves and the sky the outline of
a man's figure. Lying upon a mass of tarpaulings, we were ourselves
undistinguishable, and the figure moved in the direction of the coach.
Our first thought was to raise an alarm, scarcely doubting that the
purpose of the man was to rob the unprotected lady of her watch or
purse. But, to our astonishment, we saw the coach door silently swing
open under a touch from _within_. All was as silent as a dream; the
figure entered, the door closed, and we were left to interpret the
case as we might. Strange it was that this lady could permit herself
to calculate upon absolute concealment in such circumstances. We
recollected afterwards to have heard some indistinct rumor buzzed about
the packet on the day preceding, that a gentleman, and some even spoke
of him by name as a Colonel ----, for some unknown purpose, was
concealed in the steerage of the packet. And other appearances indicated
that the affair was not entirely a secret even amongst the lady's
servants. To both of _us_ the story proclaimed a moral already
sufficiently current, viz., that women of the highest and the very
lowest rank are alike thrown too much into situations of danger and
temptation. [13] I might mention some additional circumstances of
criminal aggravation in this lady's case; but, as they would tend to
point out the real person to those acquainted with her history, I shall
forbear. She has since made a noise in the world, and has maintained, I
believe, a tolerably fair reputation. Soon after sunrise the next
morning, a heavenly morning of June, we dropped our anchor in the
famous Bay of Dublin. There was a dead calm; the sea was like a lake;
and, as we were some miles from the Pigeon House, a boat was manned
to put us on shore. The lovely lady, unaware that we were parties to her
guilty secret, went with us, accompanied by her numerous attendants,
and looking as beautiful, and hardly less innocent, than an angel. Long
afterwards, Lord Westport and I met her, hanging upon the arm of her
husband, a manly and good-natured man, of polished manners, to whom
she introduced us; for she voluntarily challenged us as her fellow-
voyagers, and, I suppose, had no suspicion which pointed in our
direction. She even joined her husband in cordially pressing us to
visit them at their magnificent _chateau_. Upon us, meantime, whatever
might be _her_ levity, the secret of which accident had put us in
possession pressed with a weight of awe; we shuddered at our own
discovery; and we both agreed to drop no hint of it in any direction.
[14]

Landing about three miles from Dublin, (according to my present
remembrance at Dunleary,) we were not long in reaching Sackville Street.


FOOTNOTES

[1] "_Ancient Rome_."--Vast, however, as the London is of this day, I
incline to think that it is below the Rome of Trajan. It has long been a
settled opinion amongst scholars, that the computations of Lipsius, on
this point, were prodigiously overcharged; and formerly I shared in that
belief. But closer study of the question, and a laborious _collation_ of
the different data, (for any single record, independently considered, can
here establish nothing,) have satisfied me that Lipsius was nearer the
truth than his critics; and that the Roman population of every class--
slaves, aliens, peoples of the suburbs, included--lay between four and
six millions; in which case the London of 1833, which counts more than a
million and a half, but less than two millions, [_Note_.--Our present
London of 1853 counts two millions, plus as many thousands as there are
days in the year,] may be taken, _chata platos_ as lying between one
fourth and one third of Rome. To discuss this question thoroughly would
require a separate memoir, for which, after all, there are not sufficient
materials: meantime I will make this remark: That the ordinary
computations of a million, or a million and a quarter, derived from the
surviving accounts of the different "regions," apply to Rome _within_ the
Pomaerium, and are, therefore, no more valid for the total Rome of
Trajan's time, stretching so many miles beyond it, than the bills of
mortality for what is technically "London within the walls" can serve at
this day as a base for estimating the population of that total London
which we mean and presume in our daily conversation. _Secondly_, even for
the Rome within these limits the computations are not commensurate, by
not allowing for the prodigious _height_ of the houses in Rome, which
much transcended that of modern cities. On this last point I will
translate a remarkable sentence from the Greek rhetorician Aristides,
[_Note_.--Aelius Aristides, Greek by his birth, who flourished in the
time of the Antonines;] to some readers it will be new and interesting:
"And, as oftentimes we see that a man who greatly excels others in bulk
and strength is not content with any display, however ostentatious, of
his powers, short of that where he is exhibited surmounting himself with a
pyramid of other men, one set standing upon the shoulders of another, so
also this city, stretching forth her foundations over areas so vast, is
yet not satisfied with those superficial dimensions; _that_ contents her
not; but upon one city rearing another of corresponding proportions, and
upon that another, pile resting upon pile, houses overlaying houses, in
aerial succession: so, and by similar steps, she achieves a character of
architecture justifying, as it were, the very promise of her name; and
with reference to that name, and its Grecian meaning, we may say, that
here nothing meets our eyes in any direction but mere _Rome! Rome!_"
[Note.--This word _Romae_, (Romé,) on which the rhetorician plays, is the
common Greek term for _strength_.] "And hence," says Aristides, "I derive
the following conclusion: that if any one, decomposing this series of
strata, were disposed to unshell, as it were, this existing Rome from its
present crowded and towering coacervations, and, thus degrading these
aerial Romes, were to plant them on the ground, side by side, in orderly
succession, according to all appearance, the whole vacant area of Italy
would be filled with these dismantled stories of Rome, and we should be
presented with the spectacle of one continuous city, stretching its
labyrinthine pomp to the shores of the Adriatic." This is so far from
being meant as a piece of rhetoric, that, on the very contrary, the whole
purpose is to substitute for a vague and rhetorical expression of the
Roman grandeur one of a more definite character--viz., by presenting its
dimensions in a new form, and supposing the city to be uncrested, as it
were; its upper tiers to be what the sailors call _unshipped_; and the
dethroned stories to be all drawn up in rank and file upon the ground;
according to which assumption he implies that the city would stretch from
the _mare Superum_ to the _mare Inferum, i.e._, from the sea of Tuscany
to the Adriatic.

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