Chapter I

Although a passion for the Earth is a prevalent note in the character of the literary Vagabond, yet while harking to the call of the country, he is by no means deaf to the call of the town. With the exception of Thoreau, who seemed to have been insensible to any magic save that of the road and woodland, our literary Vagabonds have all felt and confessed to the spell of the city. It was not, as in the case of Lamb and Dickens, the one compelling influence, but it was an influence of no small potency.

The first important event in De Quincey's life was the roaming life on the hillside of North Wales; the second, the wanderings in "stony-hearted Oxford Street." Later on the spell of London faded away, and a longing for the country possessed him once more. But the spell of London was important in shaping his literary life, and must not be under-estimated. Mention has been made of Lamb and Dickens, to whom the life of the town meant so much, and whose inspiration they could not forgo without a pang. But these men were not attracted in the same way as De Quincey. What drew De Quincey to London was its mystery; whereas it was the stir and colour of the crowded streets that stirred the imagination of the two Charles's. We scarcely realize as we read of those harsh experiences, those bitter struggles with poverty and loneliness, that the man is writing of his life in London, is speaking of some well-known thoroughfares. It is like viewing a familiar scene in the moonlight, when all looks strange and weird. A faint but palpable veil of phantasy seemed to shut off De Quincey from the outside world. In his most poignant passages the voice has a ghostly ring; in his most realistic descriptions there is a dreamlike unreality. A tender and sensitive soul in his dealings with others, there are no tears in his writings. One has only to compare the early recorded struggles of Dickens with those of De Quincey to feel the difference between the two temperaments. The one passionately concrete, the other dispassionately abstract. De Quincey will take some heartfelt episode and deck it out in so elaborate a panoply of rhetoric that the human element seems to have vanished. Beautiful as are many of the passages describing the pathetic outcast Ann, the reader is too conscious of the stylist and the full-dress stylist.

That he feels what he is writing of, one does not doubt; but he does not suit his manner to his matter. For expressing subtle emotions, half shades of thought, no writer is more wonderfully adept than De Quincey. But when the episode demands simple and direct treatment his elaborate cadences feel out of place.

When he pauses in his description to apostrophize, then the disparity affects one far less; as, for instance, in this apostrophe to "noble-minded" Ann after recalling how on one occasion she had saved his life.

[Picture: Thomas de Quincey]

"O youthful benefactress! how often in succeeding years, standing in
solitary places, and thinking of thee with grief of heart and perfect
love--how often have I wished that, as in ancient times the curse of
a father was believed to have a supernatural power, and to pursue its
object with a fatal necessity of self-fulfilment, even so the
benediction of a heart oppressed with gratitude might have a like
prerogative; might have power given it from above to chase, to haunt,
to waylay, to pursue thee into the central darkness of a London
brothel, or (if it were possible) even into the darkness of the
grave, there to awaken thee with an authentic message of peace and
forgiveness, and of final reconciliation!"

Perhaps the passage describing how he befriended the small servant girl in the half-deserted house in Greek Street is among the happiest, despite a note of artificiality towards the close:--

"Towards nightfall I went down to Greek Street, and found, on taking
possession of my new quarters, that the house already contained one
single inmate--a poor, friendless child, apparently ten years old;
but she seemed hunger-bitten; and sufferings of that sort often make
children look older than they are. From this forlorn child I learned
that she had slept and lived there alone for some time before I came;
and great joy the poor creature expressed when she found that I was
in future to be her companion through the hours of darkness. The
house could hardly be called large--that is, it was not large on each
separate storey; but, having four storeys in all, it was large enough
to impress vividly the sense of its echoing loneliness; and, from the
want of furniture, the noise of the rats made a prodigious uproar on
the staircase and hall; so that, amidst the real fleshly ills of cold
and hunger, the forsaken child had found leisure to suffer still more
from the self-created one of ghosts. Against these enemies I could
promise her protection; human companionship was in itself protection;
but of other and more needful aid I had, alas! little to offer. We
lay upon the floor, with a bundle of law papers for a pillow, but
with no other covering than a large horseman's cloak; afterwards,
however, we discovered in a garret an old sofa-cover, a small piece
of rug, and some fragments of other articles, which added a little to
our comfort. The poor child crept close to me for warmth, and for
security against her ghostly enemies. . . . Apart from her
situation, she was not what would be called an interesting child.
She was neither pretty, nor quick in understanding, nor remarkably
pleasing in manners. But, thank God! even in those years I needed
not the embellishments of elegant accessories to conciliate my
affections. Plain human nature, in its humblest and most homely
apparel, was enough for me; and I loved the child because she was my
partner in wretchedness."