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Autobiographic Sketches

T >> Thomas de Quincey >> Autobiographic Sketches




"Of the sweeping whirlpool's sway,
That, hushed in grim repose, looked for his evening prey."

_That_ came but too surely. Yes, evening never forgot to come; this
odious necessity of fighting never missed its road back, or fell asleep,
or loitered by the way, more than a bill of exchange or a tertian
fever. Five times a week (Saturday sometimes, and Sunday always, were
days of rest) the same scene rehearsed itself in pretty nearly the
same succession of circumstances. Between four and five o'clock we had
crossed the bridge to the safe, or Greenhay side; then we paused, and
waited for the enemy. Sooner or later a bell rang, and from the smoky
hive issued the hornets that night and day stung incurably my peace
of mind. The order and procession of the incidents after this were
odiously monotonous. My brother occupied the main high road, precisely
at the point where a very gentle rise of the ground attained its summit;
for the bridge lay in a slight valley, and the main military position
was fifty or eighty yards above the bridge: then--but having first
examined my pockets, in order to be sure that my stock of ammunition,
stones, fragments of slate, with a reasonable proportion of brickbats,
was all correct and ready for action--he detached me about forty yards
to the right, my orders being invariable, and liable to no doubts or
"quibbling." Detestable in _my_ ears was that word "_quibbling_," by
which, for a thousand years, if the war had happened to last so long,
he would have fastened upon me the imputation of meaning, or wishing,
at least, to do what he called "pettifogulizing"--that is, to plead
some distinction, or verbal demur, in bar of my orders, under some
colorable pretence that, according to their literal construction, they
really did not admit of being fulfilled, or perhaps that they admitted
it too much as being capable of fulfilment in two senses, either of
them a practicable sense. True it was that my eye was preternaturally
keen for flaws of language, not from pedantic exaction of superfluous
accuracy, but, on the contrary, from too conscientious a wish to escape
the mistakes which language not rigorous is apt to occasion. So far
from seeking to "pettifogulize"--_i.e._, to find evasions for any
purpose in a trickster's minute tortuosities of construction--exactly
in the opposite direction, from mere excess of sincerity, most
unwillingly I found, in almost every body's words, an unintentional
opening left for double interpretations. Undesigned equivocation
prevails every where; [10] and it is not the cavilling hair splitter,
but, on the contrary, the single-eyed servant of truth, that is most
likely to insist upon the limitation of expressions too wide or too
vague, and upon the decisive election between meanings potentially
double. Not in order to resist or evade my brother's directions, but for
the very opposite purpose--viz., that I might fulfil them to the letter;
thus and no otherwise it happened that I showed so much scrupulosity
about the exact value and position of his words, as finally to draw upon
myself the vexatious reproach of being habitually a "pettifogulizer."

Meantime, our campaigning continued to rage. Overtures of pacification
were never mentioned on either side. And I, for _my_ part, with the
passions only of peace at my heart, did the works of war faithfully
and with distinction. I presume so, at least, from the results. It is
true, I was continually falling into treason, without exactly knowing
how I got into it, or how I got out of it. My brother also, it is true,
sometimes assured me that he could, according to the rigor of martial
justice, have me hanged on the first tree we passed; to which my prosaic
answer had been, that of trees there _were_ none in Oxford
Street--[which, in imitation of Von Troil's famous chapter on the
snakes of Lapland, the reader may accept, if he pleases, as a complete
course of lectures on the "dendrology" of Oxford Street.] But,
notwithstanding such little stumblings in my career, I continued to
ascend in the service; and, I am sure, it will gratify my friendly
readers to hear, that, before my eighth birthday, I was promoted to
the rank of major general. Over this sunshine, however, soon swept a
train of clouds. Three times I was taken prisoner, and with different
results. The first time I was carried to the rear, and not molested
in any way. Finding myself thus ignominiously neglected, I watched my
opportunity; and, by making a wide circuit, easily effected my escape.
In the next case, a brief council was held over me; but I was not
allowed to hear the deliberations; the result only being communicated
to me--which result consisted in a message not very complimentary to
my brother, and a small present of kicks to myself. This present was
paid down without any discount, by means of a general subscription
amongst the party surrounding me--that party, luckily, not being very
numerous; besides which, I must, in honesty, acknowledge myself,
generally speaking, indebted to their forbearance. They were not
disposed to be too hard upon me. But, at the same time, they clearly
did not think it right that I should escape altogether from tasting
the calamities of war. And this translated the estimate of my guilt
from the public jurisdiction to that of the individual, sometimes
capricious and harsh, and carrying out the public award by means of
legs that ranged through all gradations of weight and agility. One
kick differed exceedingly from another kick in dynamic value; and, in
some cases, this difference was so distressingly conspicuous as to
imply special malice, unworthy, I conceive, of all generous soldiership.

On returning to our own frontiers, I had an opportunity of displaying
my exemplary greenness. That message to my brother, with all its
_virus_ of insolence I repeated as faithfully for the spirit as, and
as literally for the expressions, as my memory allowed me to do; and
in that troublesome effort, simpleton that I was, fancied myself
exhibiting a soldier's loyalty to his commanding officer. My brother
thought otherwise: he was more angry with me than with the enemy. I
ought, he said, to have refused all participation in such _sans
cullotes_ insolence; to carry it was to acknowledge it as fit to be
carried. One, grows wiser every day; and on this particular day I made
a resolution that, if again made prisoner, I would bring no more "jaw"
(so my brother called it) from the Philistines. If these people _would_
send "jaw," I settled that, henceforwards, it must go through the post
office.

In my former captures, there had been nothing special or worthy of
commemoration in the circumstances. Neither was there in the third,
excepting that, by accident, in the second stage of the case, I was
delivered over to the custody of young women and girls; whereas the
ordinary course would have thrown me upon the vigilant attentions
(relieved from monotony by the experimental kicks) of boys. So far,
the change was very much for the better. I had a feeling myself, on
first being presented to my new young mistresses, of a distressing
sort. Having always, up to the completion of my sixth year, been a
privileged pet, and almost, I might say, ranking amongst the sanctities
of the household, with all its female sections, whether young or old,
(an advantage which I owed originally to a long illness, an ague,
stretching over two entire years of my infancy,) naturally I had learned
to appreciate the indulgent tenderness of women; and my heart thrilled
with love and gratitude, as often as they took me up into their arms
and kissed me. Here it would have been as every where else; but,
unfortunately, my introduction to these young women was in the very
worst of characters. I had been taken in arms--in arms against their
own brothers, cousins, sweethearts, and on pretexts too frivolous to
mention. If asked the question, it would be found that I should not
myself deny the fact of being at war with their whole order. What was
the meaning of _that_? What was it to which war pledged a man? It
pledged him, in case of opportunity, to burn, ravage, and depopulate
the houses and lands of the enemy; which enemy was these fair girls.
The warrior stood committed to universal destruction. Neither sex nor
age, neither the smiles of unoffending infancy nor the gray hairs of
the venerable patriarch, neither the sanctity of the matron nor the
loveliness of the youthful bride, would confer any privilege with the
warrior, consequently not with me.

Many other hideous features in the military character will be found
in books innumerable--levelled at those who make war, and therefore
at myself. And it appears finally by these books, that, as one of my
ordinary practices, I make a wilderness, and call it a pacification;
that I hold it a duty to put people to the sword; which done, to plough
up the foundations of their hearths and altars, and then to sow the
ground with salt.

All this passing through my brain, when suddenly one young woman
snatched me up in her arms, and kissed me: from _her_, I was passed
round to others of the party, who all in turn caressed me, with no
allusion to that warlike mission against them and theirs, which only
had procured me the honor of an introduction to themselves in the
character of captive. The too palpable fact that I was not the person
meant by nature to exterminate their families, or to make wildernesses,
and call them pacifications, had withdrawn from their minds the
counterfact--that whatever had been my performances, my intentions had
been hostile, and that in such a character only I could have become
their prisoner. Not only did these young people kiss me, but I (seeing
no military reason against it) kissed _them_. Really, if young women
will insist on kissing major generals, they must expect that the
generals will retaliate. One only of the crowd adverted to the character
in which I came before them: to be a lawful prisoner, it struck her
too logical mind that I must have been caught in some aggressive
practices. "Think," she said, "of this little dog fighting, and fighting
our Jack." "But," said another in a propitiatory tone, "perhaps he'll
not do so any more." I was touched by the kindness of her suggestion,
and the sweet, merciful sound of that same "_Not do so any more_" which
really was prompted, I fear, much more by that charity in her which
hopeth all things than by any signs of amendment in myself. Well was
it for me that no time was allowed for an investigation into my morals
by point-blank questions as to my future intentions. In which case it
would have appeared too undeniably, that the same sad necessity which
had planted me hitherto in a position of hostility to their estimable
families would continue to persecute me; and that, on the very next
day, duty to my brother, howsoever it might struggle with gratitude
to themselves, would range me in martial attitude, with a pocketful
of stones, meant, alas! for the exclusive use of their respectable
kinsmen. Whilst I was preparing myself, however, for this painful
exposition, my female friends observed issuing from the factory a crowd
of boys not likely at all to improve my prospects. Instantly setting
me down on my feet, they formed a sort of _cordon sanitaire_ behind
me, by stretching out their petticoats or aprons, as in dancing, so
as to touch; and then crying out, "Now, little dog, run for thy life,"
prepared themselves (I doubt not) for rescuing me, should my recapture
be effected.

But this was not effected, although attempted with an energy that
alarmed me, and even perplexed me with a vague thought (far too
ambitious for my years) that one or two of the pursuing party might
be possessed by some demon of jealousy, as eye witnesses to my revelling
amongst the lips of that fair girlish bevy, kissing and being kissed,
loving and being loved; in which case, from all that ever I had read
about jealousy, (and I had read a great deal--viz., "Othello," and
Collins's "Ode to the Passions,") I was satisfied that, if again
captured, I had very little chance for my life. That jealousy was a
green-eyed monster, nobody could know better than _I_ did. "O, my lord,
beware of jealousy!" Yes; and my lord couldn't possibly have more
reason for bewaring of it than myself; indeed, well it would have been
had his lordship run away from all the ministers of jealousy--Iago,
Cassio, and embroidered handkerchiefs--at the same pace of six miles
an hour which kept me ahead of my infuriated pursuers. Ah, that maniac,
white as a leper with flakes of cotton, can I ever forget him--_him_
that ran so far in advance of his party? What passion but jealousy
could have sustained him in so hot a chase? There were some lovely
girls in the fair company that had so condescendingly caressed me;
but, doubtless, upon that sweet creature his love must have settled,
who suggested, in her soft, relenting voice, a penitence in me that,
alas! had not dawned, saying, "_Yes; but perhaps he will not do so any
more._" Thinking, as I ran, of her beauty, I felt that this jealous
demoniac must fancy himself justified in committing seven times seven
murders upon me, if he should have it in his power. But, thank Heaven,
if jealousy can run six miles an hour, there are other passions--as,
for instance, panic--that can run, upon occasion, six and a half; so,
as I had the start of him, (you know, reader,) and not a very short
start,--thanks be to the expanded petticoats of my dear female
friends!--naturally it happend that the green-eyed monster came in
second best. Time, luckily, was precious with _him_; and, accordingly,
when he had chased me into the by-road leading down to Greenhay, he
turned back. For the moment, therefore, I found myself suddenly released
from danger. But this counted for nothing. The same scene would probably
revolve upon me continually; and, on the next rehearsal, Green-eyes
might have better luck. It saddened me, besides, to find myself under
the political necessity of numbering amongst the Philistines, and as
daughters of Gath, so many kind-hearted girls, whom, by personal proof,
I knew to be such. In the profoundest sense, I was unhappy; and, not
from any momentary accident of distress, but from deep glimpses which
now, and heretofore, had opened themselves, as occassions arose, into
the inevitable conflicts of life. One of the saddest among such
conflicts is the necessity, wheresoever it occurs, of adopting--though
the heart should disown--the enmities of one's own family, or country,
or religious sect. In forms how afflicting must that necessity have
sometimes occurred during the Parliamentary war! And, in after years,
amongst our beautiful old English metrical romances, I found the same
impassioned complaint uttered by a knight, Sir Ywain, as early as A.D.
1240--

"But now, where'er I stray or go,
My heart SHE has that is my foe!"

I knew--I anticipated to a certainty--that my brother would not hear
of any merit belonging to the factory population whom every day we had
to meet in battle; on the contrary, even submission on _their_ part,
and willingness to walk penitentially through the _Furcae Caudinae_,
would hardly have satisfied his sense of their criminality. Often,
indeed, as we came in view of the factory, he would shake his fist at
it, and say, in a ferocious tone of voice, "_Delenda est Carthago!_"
And certainly, I thought to myself, it must be admitted by every body,
that the factory people are inexcusable in raising a rebellion against
my brother. But still rebels were men, and sometimes were women; and
rebels, that stretch out their petticoats like fans for the sake of
screening one from the hot pursuit of enemies with fiery eyes, (green
or otherwise,) really are not the sort of people that one wishes to
hate.

Homewards, therefore, I drew in sadness, and little doubting that
_hereafter_ I might have verbal feuds with my brother on behalf of my
fair friends, but not dreaming how much displeasure I had already
incurred by my treasonable collusion with their caresses. That part
of the affair he had seen with his own eyes, from his position on the
field; and then it was that he left me indignantly to my fate, which,
by my first reception, it was easy to see would not prove very gloomy.
When I came into our own study, I found him engaged in preparing a
_bulletin_, (which word was just then travelling into universal use,)
reporting briefly the events of the day. The art of drawing, as I shall
again have occasion to mention, was amongst his foremost accomplishments;
and round the margin of the border ran a black border, ornamented with
cyprus and other funereal emblems. When finished, it was carried into the
room of Mrs. Evans. This Mrs. Evans was an important person in our
affairs. My mother, who never chose to have any direct communication with
her servants, always had a housekeeper for the regulation of all domestic
business; and the housekeeper, for some years, was this Mrs. Evans. Into
her private parlor, where she sat aloof from the under servants, my
brother and I had the _entrée_ at all times, but upon very different
terms of acceptance: he as a favorite of the first class; _I_, by
sufferance, as a sort of gloomy shadow that ran after _his_ person, and
could not well be shut out if _he_ were let in. Him she admired in the
very highest degree; myself, on the contrary, she detested, which made me
unhappy. But then, in some measure, she made amends for this, by
despising me in extremity; and for _that_ I was truly thankful--I need
not say _why_, as the reader already knows. Why she detested me, so far
as I know, arose in part out of my thoughtfulness indisposed to
garrulity, and in part out of my savage, Orson-like sincerity. I had a
great deal to say, but then I could say it only to a very few people,
amongst whom Mrs. Evans was certainly not one; and, when I _did_ say any
thing, I fear that dire ignorance prevented my laying the proper
restraints upon my too liberal candor; and _that could not prove
acceptable to one who thought nothing of working for any purpose, or for
no purpose, by petty tricks, or even falsehoods--all which I held in
stern abhorrence that I was at no pains to conceal. The _bulletin_ on
this occasion, garnished with this pageantry of woe, cypress wreaths, and
arms reversed, was read aloud to Mrs. Evans, indirectly, therefore, to
me. It communicated with Spartan brevity, the sad intelligence (but not
sad to Mrs. E.) "that the major general had forever disgraced himself, by
submitting to the ........ caresses of the enemy." I leave a blank for
the epithet affixed to "caresses," not because there _was_ any blank,
but, on the contrary, because my brother's wrath had boiled over in such
a hubble-bubble of epithets, some only half erased, some doubtfully
erased, that it was impossible, out of the various readings, to pick
out the true classical text. "Infamous," "disgusting," and "odious"
struggled for precedency; and _infamous_ they might be; but on the
other affixes I held my own private opinions. For some days my brother's
displeasure continued to roll in reverberating thunders; but at length
it growled itself to rest; and at last he descended to mild
expostulations with me, showing clearly, in a series of general orders,
what frightful consequences must ensue, if major generals (as a general
principle) should allow themselves to be kissed by the enemy.

About this time my brother began to issue, instead of occasional
bulletins, through which hitherto he had breathed his opinions into
the ear of the public, (viz., of Mrs. Evans,) a regular gazette, which,
in imitation of the London Gazette, was published twice a week. I
suppose that no creature ever led such a life as _I_ did in that
gazette. Run up to the giddiest heights of promotion on on day, for
merits which I could not myself discern, in a week or two I was brought
to a court martial for offenses equally obscure. I was cashiered; I
was restored "on the intercession of a distinguished lady;" (Mrs.
Evans, to wit;) I was threatened with being drummed out of the army,
to the music of the "Rogue's March;" and then, in the midst of all
this misery and degradation, upon the discovery of some supposed energy
that I had manifested, I was decorated with the Order of the Bath. My
reading had been extensive enough to give me some vague aerial sense
of the honor involved in such a decoration, whilst I was profoundly
ignorant of the channels through which it could reach an individual,
and of the sole fountain from which it could flow. But, in this enormity
of disproportion between the cause and the effect, between the agency
and the result, I saw nothing more astonishing than I had seen in many
other cases confessedly true. Thousands of vast effects, by all that
I had heard, linked themselves to causes apparently trivial. The
dreadful taint of scrofula, according to the belief of all Christendom,
fled at the simple touch of a Stuart [11] sovereign: no miracle in the
Bible, from Jordan or from Bethesda, could be more sudden or more
astoundingly victorious. By my own experience, again, I knew that a
_styan_ (as it is called) upon the eyelid could be easily reduced, though
not instantaneously, by the slight application of any golden trinket.
Warts upon the fingers of children I had myself known to vanish under the
_verbal_ charm of a gypsy woman, without any medicinal application
whatever. And I well knew, that almost all nations believed in the
dreadful mystery of the _evil eye_; some requiring, as a condition of the
evil agency, the co-presence of malice in the agent; but others, as
appeared from my father's Portuguese recollections, ascribing the same
horrid power to the eye of certain select persons, even though innocent
of all malignant purpose, and absolutely unconscious of their own fatal
gift, until awakened to it by the results. Why, therefore, should there
be any thing to shock, or even to surprise, in the power claimed by my
brother, as an attribute inalienable from primogeniture in certain select
families, of conferring knightly honors? The red ribbon of the Bath he
certainly _did_ confer upon me; and once, in a paroxysm of imprudent
liberality, he promised me at the end of certain months, supposing that I
swerved from my duty by no atrocious delinquency, the Garter itself.
This, I knew, was a far loftier distinction than the Bath. Even then it
was so; and since those days it has become much more so; because the long
roll of martial services in the great war with Napoleon compelled our
government greatly to widen the basis of the Bath. This promise was never
fulfilled; but not for any want of clamorous persecution on my part
addressed to my brother's wearied ear and somewhat callous sense of
honor. Every fortnight, or so, I took care that he should receive a
"refresher," as lawyers call it,--a new and revised brief,--memorializing
my pretensions. These it was my brother's policy to parry, by alleged
instances of recent misconduct on my part. But all such offences, I
insisted, were thoroughly washed away by subsequent services in moments
of peril, such as he himself could not always deny. In reality, I
believe his real motive for withholding the Garter was, that he had
nothing better to bestow upon himself.

"Now, look here," he would say, appealing to Mrs. Evans; "I suppose
there's a matter of half a dozen kings on the continent, that would
consent to lose three of their fingers, if by such a sacrifice they
could purchase the blue ribbon; and here is this little scamp,
conceiting himself entitled to it before he has finished two campaigns.
"But I was not the person to be beaten off in this fashion. I took my
stand upon the promise. A promise _was_ a promise, even if made to a
scamp; and then, besides--but there I hesitated; awful thoughts
interposed to check me; else I wished to suggest that, perhaps, some
two or three among that half dozen kings might also be scamps. However,
I reduced the case to this plain dilemma: These six kings had received
a promise, or they had not. If they had not, my case was better than
theirs; if they _had_, then, said I, "all seven of us"--I was going
to add, "are sailing in the same boat," or something to that effect,
though not so picturesquely expressed; but I was interrupted by his
deadly frown at my audacity in thus linking myself on as a seventh to
this _attelage_ of kings, and that such an absolute grub should dream
of ranking as one in a bright pleiad of pretenders to the Garter. I
had not particularly thought of that; but now, that such a demur was
offered to my consideration, I thought of reminding him that, in a
certain shadowy sense, I also might presume to class myself as a king,
the meaning of which was this: Both my brother and myself, for the
sake of varying our intellectual amusements, occupied ourselves at
times in governing imaginary kingdoms. I do not mention this as any
thing unusual; it is a common resource of mental activity and of
aspiring energies amongst boys. Hartley Coleridge, for example, had
a kingdom which he governed for many years; whether well or ill, is
more than I can say. Kindly, I am sure, he would govern it; but, unless
a machine had been invented for enabling him to write without effort,
(as was really done for our fourth George during the pressure of
illness,) I fear that the public service must have languished deplorably
for want of the royal signature. In sailing past his own dominions,
what dolorous outcries would have saluted him from the shore--"Hollo,
royal sir! here's the deuse to pay: a perfect lock there is, as tight
as locked jaw, upon the course of our public business; throats there
are to be cut, from the product of ten jail deliveries, and nobody
dares to cut them, for want of the proper warrant; archbishoprics there
are to be filled; and, because they are _not_ filled, the whole nation
is running helter skelter into heresy--and all in consequence of your
majesty's sacred laziness." _Our_ governments were less remissly
administered; since each of us, by continued reports of improvements
and gracious concessions to the folly or the weakness of our subjects,
stimulated the zeal of his rival. And here, at least, there seemed to
be no reason why I should come into collision with my brother. At any
rate, I took pains _not_ to do so. But all was in vain. My destiny
was, to live in one eternal element of feud.

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