Miscellaneous Essays - Thomas de Quincey
2.
I looked to the weather side, and the summer had departed. The sea was
rocking, and shaken with gathering wrath. Upon its surface sate mighty
mists, which grouped themselves into arches and long cathedral aisles. Down
one of these, with the fiery pace of a quarrel from a cross-bow, ran a
frigate right athwart our course. "Are they mad?" some voice exclaimed from
our deck. "Are they blind? Do they woo their ruin?" But in a moment, as she
was close upon us, some impulse of a heady current or sudden vortex gave a
wheeling bias to her course, and off 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 catch her. But far away she was borne
into desert spaces of the sea: whilst still by sight I followed her, as she
ran before the howling gale, chased by angry sea-birds and by maddening
billows; still I saw her, as at the moment when she ran past us, amongst
the shrouds, with her white draperies streaming before the wind. There
she stood with hair dishevelled, one hand clutched amongst the
tackling--rising, sinking, fluttering, trembling, praying--there for
leagues I saw 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 for ever in driving showers; and afterwards, but when I know
not, and how I know not.
3.
Sweet funeral bells from some incalculable distance, 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 revelations 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 with extremity of haste. Her running was the running of
panic; and often she looked back as to 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 she ran; round a
promontory of rocks 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 roses around it were still visible to the pitying heavens; and, last
of all, was visible one 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 and her treacherous grave, tossing, faultering,
rising, clutching as at some false deceiving hand stretched out from the
clouds--saw this marble arm uttering her dying hope, and then her dying
despair. The head, the diadem, the arm,--these all had sunk; at last over
these also the cruel quicksand had closed; and no memorial 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.
I sate, and wept in secret the tears that men have ever given to the memory
of those that died before the dawn, and by the treachery of earth, our
mother. But the tears and funeral bells were hushed suddenly by a shout
as of many nations, and by a roar as from some great king's artillery
advancing rapidly along the valleys, and heard afar by its echoes among
the mountains. "Hush!" I said, as I bent my ear earthwards to
listen--"hush!--this either is the very anarchy of strife, or else"--and
then I listened more profoundly, and said as I raised my head--"or else, oh
heavens! it is _victory_ that swallows up all strife."
4.
Immediately, in trance, I was carried over land 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 mighty crowds that were weaving restlessly about our carriage
as a centre--we heard them, but we saw them not. Tidings had arrived,
within an hour, of a grandeur that measured itself against centuries; too
full of pathos they were, too full of joy that acknowledged no fountain
but God, to utter themselves by other language than by tears, by restles
anthems, by reverberations rising from every choir, of the _Gloria in
excelsis_. These tidings we that sate upon the laurelled car had it for our
privilege to publish amongst all nations. And already, by signs audible
through the darkness, by snortings and tramplings, our angry horses, that
knew no fear of fleshly weariness, upbraided us with delay. Wherefore _was_
it that we delayed? We waited for a secret word, that should bear witness
to the hope of nations, as now accomplished for ever. At midnight the
secret word arrived; which word was--Waterloo and Recovered Christendom!
The dreadful word shone by its own light; before us 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 secret word, threw open its
gates to receive us. The rivers were silent as we crossed. All the infinite
forests, as we ran along their margins, shivered in homage to the secret
word. And the darkness comprehended it.
Two hours after midnight we reached a mighty minster. Its gates, which rose
to the 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 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
past. Forty leagues we might have run in the cathedral, and as yet no
strength of morning light had reached us, when we saw before us the aerial
galleries of the organ and the choir. Every pinnacle of the fretwork, every
station of advantage amongst 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--
"Chaunt the deliverer's praise in every tongue,"
and receiving answers from afar,
--"such as once in heaven and earth were sung."
And of their chaunting was no end; of our headlong pace was neither pause
nor remission.
Thus, as we ran like torrents--thus, as we swept with bridal rapture over
the Campo Santo[1] of the cathedral graves--suddenly we became aware of
a vast necropolis rising upon the far-off horizon--a city of sepulchres,
built within the saintly cathedral for the warrior dead that rested from
their feuds on earth. Of purple granite was the necropolis; yet, in the
first 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 towers of wondrous altitude, so mighty was the
pace. In the third minute already, with our dreadful gallop, we were
entering its suburbs. Vast sarcophagi rose on every side, having towers and
turrets that, upon the limits of the central aisle, strode forward with
haughty intrusion, that ran back with mighty shadows into answering
recesses. Every sarcophagus showed many bas-reliefs--bas-reliefs of
battles--bas-reliefs of battle-fields; of battles from forgotten ages--of
battles from yesterday--of battle-fields that, long since, nature had
healed and reconciled to herself with the sweet oblivion of flowers--of
battle-fields that were yet angry and crimson with carnage. Where the
terraces ran, there did _we_ run; where the towers curved, there did _we_
curve. With the flight of swallows our horses swept round every angle. Like
rivers in flood, wheeling round headlands; like hurricanes that side
into the secrets of forests; faster than ever light unwove the mazes of
darkness, our flying 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 Creci to Trafalgar. And now had we
reached the last sarcophagus, now were we abreast of the last bas-relief,
already had we recovered the arrow-like flight of the illimitable central
aisle, when coming up this aisle to meet us we beheld a female infant that
rode in a 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 mighty cathedral, and in the cherubim
that looked down upon her from the topmast 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 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 the bas-relief--a dying trumpeter.
Solemnly 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! must have spoken from the battlements of death. Immediately deep
shadows fell between us, and aboriginal silence. The choir had ceased to
sing. The hoofs of our horses, the rattling of our harness, alarmed the
graves no more. By horror the bas-relief had been unlocked into life. By
horror we, that were so full of life, we men and our horses, with their
fiery fore-legs rising in mid air to their everlasting 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, tore into their
channels again; again the choir burst forth in sunny grandeur, as from
the muffling of storms and darkness; again the thunderings of our horses
carried temptation into the graves. One cry burst from our lips as the
clouds, drawing off from the aisle, showed it empty before 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, at height insuperable to man, rose an altar of purest
alabaster. On its eastern face was trembling a crimson glory. Whence came
_that_? Was it from the reddening dawn that now streamed _through_ the
windows? Was it from the crimson robes of the martyrs that were painted
_on_ the windows? Was it from the bloody bas-reliefs of earth? Whencesoever
it were--there, within that crimson radiance, suddenly appeared a female
head, and then a female figure. It was the child--now grown up to woman's
height. Clinging to the horns of the altar, there she stood--sinking,
rising, trembling, fainting--raving, despairing; and behind the volume of
incense that, night and day, streamed upwards from the altar, was seen the
fiery font, and dimly was descried the outline of the dreadful being that
should baptize her with the baptism of death. But by her side was kneeling
her better angel, that hid his face with wings; that wept and pleaded for
_her_; that prayed when _she_ could _not_; that fought with heaven by tears
for _her_ deliverance; which also, as he raised his immortal countenance
from his wings, I saw, by the glory in his eye, that he had won at last.
[Footnote 1: _Campo Santo_.--It is probable that most of my readers will be
acquainted with the history of the Campo Santo at Pisa--composed of earth
brought from Jerusalem for a bed of sanctity, as the highest prize which
the noble piety of crusaders could ask or imagine. There is another Campo
Santo at Naples, formed, however, (I presume,) on the example given by
Pisa. Possibly the idea may have been more extensively copied. To readers
who are unacquainted with England, or who (being English) are yet
unacquainted with the cathedral cities of England, it may be right to
mention that the graves within-side the cathedrals often form a flat
pavement over which carriages and horses might roll; and perhaps a boyish
remembrance of one particular cathedral, across which I had seen passengers
walk and burdens carried, may have assisted my dream.]
5.
Then rose the agitation, spreading through the infinite cathedral, to its
agony; then was completed the passion of the mighty fugue. The golden
tubes of the organ, which as yet had but sobbed and 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 filling 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 _sanctus_. We, that spread
flight before us, heard the tumult, as of flight, mustering behind us. In
fear we looked round for the unknown steps that, in flight or in pursuit,
were gathering upon our own. Who were these that followed? The faces, which
no man could count--whence were _they_? "Oh, darkness of the grave!" I
exclaimed, "that from the crimson altar and from the fiery font wert
visited with secret light--that wert searched by the effulgence in the
angel's eye--were these indeed thy children? Pomps of life, that, from the
burials of centuries, rose again to the voice of perfect joy, could it be
_ye_ that had wrapped me in the reflux of panic?" What ailed me, that I
should fear when the triumphs of earth were advancing? Ah! Pariah heart
within me, that couldst never hear the sound of joy without sullen whispers
of treachery in ambush; that, from six years old, didst never hear the
promise of perfect love, without seeing aloft amongst the stars fingers
as of a man's hand, writing the secret legend--"_Ashes to ashes, dust to
dust_!"--wherefore shouldst _thou_ not fear, though all men should rejoice?
Lo! as I looked back for seventy leagues through the mighty cathedral, and
saw the quick and the dead that sang together to God, together that sang
to the generations of man--ah! raving, as of torrents that opened on every
side: trepidation, as of female and infant steps that fled--ah! rushing,
as of wings that chase! But I heard a voice from heaven, which said--"Let
there be no reflux of panic--let there be no more fear, and no more sudden
death! Cover them with joy as the tides cover the shore!" _That_ heard the
children of the choir, _that_ heard the children of the grave. All the
hosts of jubilation made ready to move. Like armies that ride in pursuit,
they moved with one step. Us, that, with laurelled heads, were passing from
the cathedral through its eastern gates, they overtook, and, as with a
garment, they wrapped us round with thunders that overpowered our own.
As brothers we moved together; to the skies we rose--to the dawn that
advanced--to the stars that fled; rendering thanks to God in the
highest--that, having hid his face through one generation behind thick
clouds of War, once again was ascending--was ascending from Waterloo--in
the visions of Peace; rendering thanks for thee, young girl! whom having
overshadowed with his ineffable passion of death--suddenly did God relent;
suffered thy angel to turn aside his arm; and even in thee, sister unknown!
shown to me for a moment only to be hidden for ever, found an occasion to
glorify his goodness. A thousand times, amongst the phantoms of sleep, has
he shown thee to me, standing before the golden dawn, and ready to enter
its gates--with the dreadful word going before thee--with the armies of the
grave behind thee; shown thee to me, sinking, rising, fluttering, fainting,
but then suddenly reconciled, adoring: a thousand times has he followed
thee in the worlds of sleep--through storms; through desert seas; through
the darkness of quicksands; through fugues and the persecution of fugues;
through dreams, and the dreadful resurrections that are in dreams--only
that at the last, with one motion of his victorious arm, he might record
and emblazon the endless resurrections of his love!
DINNER, REAL AND REPUTED.
Great misconceptions have always prevailed about the Roman _dinner_.
Dinner [_coena_] was the only meal which the Romans as a nation took. It
was no accident, but arose out of their whole social economy. This we shall
show by running through the history of a Roman day. _Ridentem dicere, verum
quid vetat_? And the course of this review will expose one or two important
truths in ancient political economy, which have been wholly overlooked.
With the lark it was that the Roman rose. Not that the earliest lark rises
so early in Latium as the earliest lark in England; that is, during summer:
but then, on the other hand, neither does it ever rise so late. The Roman
citizen was stirring with the dawn--which, allowing for the shorter
longest-day and longer shortest-day of Rome, you may call about four in
summer--about seven in winter. Why did he do this? Because he went to bed
at a very early hour. But why did he do that? By backing in this way, we
shall surely back into the very well of truth: always, if it is possible,
let us have the _pourquoi_ of the _pourquoi_. The Roman went to bed early
for two special reasons. 1st, Because in Rome, which had been built for a
martial destiny, every habit of life had reference to the usages of war.
Every citizen, if he were not a mere proletarian animal kept at the public
cost, held himself a sort of soldier-elect: the more noble he was, the
more was his liability to military service: in short, all Rome, and at all
times, was consciously "in procinct."[1] Now it was a principle of ancient
warfare, that every hour of daylight had a triple worth, if valued
against hours of darkness. That was one reason--a reason suggested by the
understanding. But there was a second reason, far more remarkable; and this
was a reason dictated by a blind necessity. It is an important fact, that
this planet on which we live, this little industrious earth of ours, has
developed her wealth by slow stages of increase. She was far from being the
rich little globe in Caesar's days that she is at present. The earth in our
days is incalculably richer, as a whole, than in the time of Charlemagne:
at that time she was richer, by many a million of acres, than in the era
of Augustus. In that Augustan era we descry a clear belt of cultivation,
averaging about six hundred miles in depth, running in a ring-fence about
the Mediterranean. This belt, _and no more_, was in decent cultivation.
Beyond that belt, there was only a wild Indian cultivation. At present
what a difference! We have that very belt, but much richer, all things
considered _aequatis aequandis_, than in the Roman era. The reader must not
look to single cases, as that of Egypt or other parts of Africa, but take
the whole collectively. On that scheme of valuation, we have the old Roman
belt, the Mediterranean riband not much tarnished, and we have all the
rest of Europe to boot--or, speaking in scholar's language, as a _lucro
ponamus_. We say nothing of remoter gains. Such being the case, our mother,
the earth, being (as a whole) so incomparably poorer, could not in the
Pagan era support the expense of maintaining great empires in cold
latitudes. Her purse would not reach that cost. Wherever she undertook in
those early ages to rear man in great abundance, it must be where nature
would consent to work in partnership with herself; where _warmth_ was to
be had for nothing; where _clothes_ were not so entirely indispensable but
that a ragged fellow might still keep himself warm; where slight _shelter_
might serve; and where the _soil_, if not absolutely richer in reversionary
wealth, was more easily cultured. Nature must come forward liberally, and
take a number of shares in every new joint-stock concern before it could
move. Man, therefore, went to bed early in those ages, simply because his
worthy mother earth could not afford him candles. She, good old lady, (or
good young lady, for geologists know not[2] whether she is in that stage
of her progress which corresponds to gray hairs, or to infancy, or to "a
_certain_ age,")--she, good lady, would certainly have shuddered to hear
any of her nations asking for candles. "Candles!" She would have said, "Who
ever heard of such a thing? and with so much excellent daylight running to
waste, as I have provided _gratis_! What will the wretches want next?"
The daylight, furnished _gratis_, was certainly "neat," and "undeniable"
in its quality, and quite sufficient for all purposes that were honest.
Seneca, even in his own luxurious period, called those men "_lucifugae_,"
and by other ugly names, who lived chiefly by candle-light. None but rich
and luxurious men, nay, even amongst these, none but idlers _did_ live much
by candle-light. An immense majority of men in Rome never lighted a candle,
unless sometimes in the early dawn. And this custom of Rome was the custom
also of all nations that lived round the great pond of the Mediterranean.
In Athens, Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor, everywhere, the ancients went to
bed, like good boys, from seven to nine o'clock.[3] The Turks and other
people, who have succeeded to the stations and the habits of the ancients,
do so at this day.
The Roman, therefore, who saw no joke in sitting round a table in the dark,
went off to bed as the darkness began. Everybody did so. Old Numa Pompilius
himself, was obliged to trundle off in the dusk. Tarquinius might be a very
superb fellow; but we doubt whether he ever saw a farthing rushlight. And,
though it may be thought that plots and conspiracies would flourish in
such a city of darkness, it is to be considered, that the conspirators
themselves had no more candles than honest men: both parties were in the
dark.
Being up then, and stirring not long after the lark, what mischief did the
Roman go about first? Now-a-days, he would have taken a pipe or a cigar.
But, alas for the ignorance of the poor heathen creatures! they had neither
one nor the other. In this point, we must tax our mother earth with
being really _too_ stingy. In the case of the candles, we approve of her
parsimony. Much mischief is brewed by candle-light. But, it was coming it
too strong to allow no tobacco. Many a wild fellow in Rome, your Gracchi,
Syllas, Catilines, would not have played "h---- and Tommy" in the way they
did, if they could have soothed their angry stomachs with a cigar--a pipe
has intercepted many an evil scheme. But the thing is past helping now. At
Rome, you must do as "they does" at Rome. So, after shaving, (supposing the
age of the _Barbati_ to be passed), what is the first business that our
Roman will undertake? Forty to one he is a poor man, born to look upwards
to his fellow-men--and not to look down upon anybody but slaves. He goes,
therefore, to the palace of some grandee, some top-sawyer of the Senatorian
order. This great man, for all his greatness, has turned out even sooner
than himself. For he also has had no candles and no cigars; and he well
knows, that before the sun looks into his portals, all his halls will be
overflowing and buzzing with the matin susurrus of courtiers--the "mane
salutantes."[4] it is as much as his popularity is worth to absent himself,
or to keep people waiting. But surely, the reader may think, this poor man
he might keep waiting. No, he might not; for, though poor, being a citizen,
he is a gentleman. That was the consequence of keeping slaves. Wherever
there is a class of slaves, he that enjoys the _jus suffragii_ (no
matter how poor) is a gentleman. The true Latin word for a gentleman is
_ingentius_--a freeman and the son of a freeman.
Yet even here there _were_ distinctions. Under the Emperors, the courtiers
were divided into two classes: with respect to the superior class, it was
said of the sovereign--that he _saw_ them, (_videbat_;) with respect to the
other--that he _was seen_, ("_videbatur_.") Even Plutarch mentions it as
a common boast in his times, [Greek: aemas eiden ho basileus]--_Caesar is
in the habit of seeing me_; or, as a common plea for evading a suit,
[Greek: ora mallon]--_I am sorry to say he is more inclined to look upon
others_. And this usage derived itself (mark that well!) from the
_republican_ era. The aulic spirit was propagated by the Empire, but from
a republican root.
Having paid his court, you will suppose that our friend comes home to
breakfast. Not at all: no such discovery as "breakfast" had then been made:
breakfast was not invented for many centuries after that. We have always
admired, and always shall admire, as the very best of all human stories,
Charles Lamb's account of the origin of _roast pig_ in China. Ching Ping,
it seems, had suffered his father's house to be burned down; the outhouses
were burned along with the house; and in one of these the pigs, by
accident, were roasted to a turn. Memorable were the results for all future
China and future civilization. Ping, who (like all China beside) had
hitherto eaten his pig raw, now for the first time tasted it in a state
of torrefaction. Of course he made his peace with his father by a part
(tradition says a leg) of the new dish. The father was so astounded with
the discovery, that he burned his house down once a year for the sake of
coming at an annual banquet of roast pig. A curious prying sort of fellow,
one Chang Pang, got to know of this. He also burned down a house with a
pig in it, and had his eyes opened. The secret was ill kept--the discovery
spread--many great conversions were made--houses were blazing in every part
of the Celestial Empire. The insurance offices took the matter up.
One Chong Pong, detected in the very act of shutting up a pig in his
drawing-room, and then firing a train, was indicted on a charge of arson.
The chief justice of Pekin, on that occasion, requested an officer of the
court to hand him a piece of the roast pig, the _corpus delicti_, for pure
curiosity led him to taste; but within two days after it was observed that
his lordship's town-house was burned down. In short, all China apostatized
to the new faith; and it was not until some centuries had passed, that a
great genius arose, who established the second era in the history of roast
pig, by showing that it could be had without burning down a house.