THOMAS DE QUINCEY

A Meeting with Lamb

(From London Reminiscences)

I was to come so early as to drink tea with Lamb; and the hour was seven. He lived in the Temple; and I, who was not then, as afterwards I became, a student and member of "the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple," did not know much of the localities. However, I found out his abode, 5 not greatly beyond my time: nobody had been asked to meet me, which a little surprised me, but I was glad of it: for, besides Lamb, there was present his sister, Miss Lamb, of whom, and whose talents and sweetness of disposition, I had heard. I turned the conversation, upon the 10 first opening which offered, to the subject of Coleridge; and many of my questions were answered satisfactorily, because seriously, by Miss Lamb. But Lamb took a pleasure in baffling me, or in throwing ridicule upon the subject.

Out of this grew the matter of our affray. We were speak- 15 ing of "The Ancient Mariner." Now, to explain what followed, and a little to excuse myself, I must beg the reader to understand that I was under twenty years of age, and that my admiration for Coleridge (as, in perhaps a still greater degree, for Wordsworth) was literally in no respect short of a 20 religious feeling: it had, indeed, all the sanctity of religion, and all the tenderness of a human veneration. Then, also, to imagine the strength which it would derive from circumstances that do not exist now, but did then, let the reader further suppose a case not such as he may have known 25 since that era about Sir Walter Scotts and Lord Byrons, where every man you could possibly fall foul of, early or late, night or day, summer or winter, was in perfect readiness to feel and express his sympathy with the admirer - but when no man, beyond one or two in each ten thousand, had so 30

much as heard of either Coleridge or Wordsworth, and that one, or those two, knew them only to scorn them, trample on them, spit upon them. Men so abject in public estimation, I maintain, as that Coleridge and that Wordsworth, 35 had not existed before, have not existed since, will not exist again.

We have heard in old times of donkeys insulting effete or dying lions by kicking them; but in the case of Coleridge and Wordsworth it was effete donkeys that kicked living 40 lions. They, Coleridge and Wordsworth, were the Pariahs of literature in those days: as much scorned wherever they were known; but escaping that scorn only because they were as little known as Pariahs, and even more obscure.

Well, after this bravura, by way of conveying my sense 45 of the real position then occupied by these two authors a position which thirty and odd years have altered, by a revolution more astonishing and total than ever before happened in literature or in life- let the reader figure to himself the sensitive horror with which a young person, carrying his 50 devotion about with him, of necessity, as the profoundest of secrets, like a primitive Christian amongst a nation of Pagans, or a Roman Catholic convert amongst the bloody idolaters of Japan in Oxford, above all places, hoping for no sympathy, and feeling a daily grief, almost a shame, 55 in harboring this devotion to that which, nevertheless, had done more for the expansion and sustenance of his own inner mind than all literature besides let the reader figure, I say, to himself, the shock with which such a person must recoil from hearing the very friend and associate of these 30 authors utter what seemed at that time a burning ridicule of all which belonged to them their books, their thoughts, their places, their persons. This had gone on for some time before we came upon the ground of "The Ancient Mariner"; I had been grieved, perplexed, astonished; and how else

could I have felt reasonably, knowing of Lamb's propensity 65 to mystify a stranger; he, on the other hand, knowing nothing of the depth of my feelings on these subjects, and that they were not so much mere literary preferences as something that went deeper than life or household affections?

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At length, when he had given utterance to some ferocious canon of judgment, which seemed to question the entire value of the poem, I said, perspiring (I dare say) in this detestable crisis-"But, Mr. Lamb, good heavens! how is it possible you can allow yourself in such opinions? What 75 instance could you bring from the poem that would bear you out in these insinuations?" "Instances?" said Lamb: "oh, I'll instance you, if you come to that. deed! Pray, what do you say to this

"The many men so beautiful,

And they all dead did lie'?

Instance, in

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So beautiful, indeed! Beautiful! Just think of such a gang of Wapping vagabonds, all covered with pitch, and chewing tobacco; and the old gentleman himself - what do you call him? the bright-eyed fellow?" What more might follow 85 I never heard; for, at this point, in a perfect rapture of horror, I raised my hands - both hands to both ears; and, without stopping to think or to apologize, I endeavoured to restore equanimity to my disturbed sensibilities by shutting out all further knowledge of Lamb's impieties.

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At length he seemed to have finished; so I, on my part, thought I might venture to take off the embargo and in fact he had ceased: but no sooner did he find me restored to my hearing than he said with a most sarcastic smile - which he could assume upon occasion - "If you please, sir, we'll 95 say grace before we begin." I know not whether Lamb were really piqued or not at the mode by which I had expressed

my disturbance: Miss Lamb certainly was not; her goodness led her to pardon me, and to treat me in whatever light 100 she might really view my almost involuntary rudeness — as the party who had suffered wrong; and, for the rest of the evening, she was so pointedly kind and conciliatory in her manner that I felt greatly ashamed of my boyish failure in self-command. Yet, after all, Lamb necessarily appeared 105 so much worse, in my eyes, as a traitor is worse than an open enemy.

Lamb, after this one visit not knowing at that time any particular reason for continuing to seek his acquaintance - I did not trouble with my calls for some years. At 110 length, however, about the year 1808, and for the six or seven following years, in my evening visits to Coleridge, I used to meet him again; not often, but sufficiently to correct the altogether very false impression I had received of his character and manners.

Apostrophe to Opium

(From Confessions of an English Opium-Eater)

Oh! just, subtle, and mighty opium! that to the hearts of poor and rich alike, for the wounds that will never heal, and for "the pangs that tempt the spirit to rebel," bringest an assuaging balm; eloquent opium! that with thy potent 5 rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath; and to the guilty man for one night givest back the hopes of his youth, and hands washed pure from blood; and to the proud man a brief oblivion for

"Wrongs unredress'd and insults unavenged;"

10 that summonest to the chancery of dreams, for the triumphs of suffering innocence, false witnesses; and confoundest perjury; and dost reverse the sentences of unrighteous judges thou buildest upon the bosom of darkness, out of

the fantastic imagery of the brain, cities and temples beyond the art of Phidias and Praxiteles - beyond the splendour 15 of Babylon and Hekatompylos: and "from the anarchy of dreaming sleep," callest into sunny light the faces of longburied beauties, and the blessed household countenances, cleansed from the "dishonours of the grave." Thou only givest these gifts to man; and thou hast the keys of Para-20 dise, oh, just, subtle, and mighty opium!

Incident of the Malay

(From the Confessions)

I remember, about this time, a little incident, which I mention, because, trifling as it was, the reader will soon meet it again in my dreams, which it influenced more fearfully than could be imagined. One day a Malay knocked at my door. What business a Malay could have to transact 5 amongst English mountains, I cannot conjecture: but possibly he was on his road to a seaport about forty miles distant.

The servant who opened the door to him was a young girl born and bred amongst the mountains, who had never seen an Asiatic dress of any sort: his turban, therefore, con- 10 founded her not a little; and, as it turned out that his attainments in English were exactly of the same extent as hers in the Malay, there seemed to be an impassable gulf fixed between all communication of ideas, if either party had happened to possess any. In this dilemma, the girl, recol-15 lecting the reputed learning of her master, and doubtless giving me credit for a knowledge of all the languages of the earth, besides, perhaps, a few of the lunar ones, came and gave me to understand that there was a sort of demon below, whom she clearly imagined that my art could exorcise from 20 the house. I did not immediately go down: but, when I did, the group which presented itself, arranged as it was by