The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey Volume I Part 18

In the account which De Quincey gives of the highwayman's skeleton, which figured in the museum of the distinguished surgeon, Mr. White, in his chapter in the 'Autobiographic Sketches' headed 'The Manchester Grammar School,' he was evidently restrained from inserting one pa.s.sage, which we have found among his papers, from considerations of delicacy towards persons who might then still be living. But as he has there plainly given the names of the leading persons concerned--the famous Surgeon Cruikshank,[41] there can at this time of day be little risk of offending or hurting anyone by presenting the pa.s.sage, which the curious student of the Autobiography can insert at the proper point, and may feel that its presence adds to the completeness of the impression, half-humorous, half-_eerie_, which De Quincey was fain to produce by that somewhat grim episode. Here is the pa.s.sage:

It was a regular and respectable branch of public industry which was carried on by the highwaymen of England, and all the parties to it moved upon decent motives and by considerate methods. In particular, the robbers themselves, as the leading parties, could not be other than first-rate men, as regarded courage, animal vigour, and perfect horsemanship. Starting from any lower standard than this, not only had they no chance of continued success--their failure was certain as regarded the contest with the traveller, but also their failure was equally certain as regarded the compet.i.tion within their own body. The candidates for a lucrative section of the road were sure to become troublesome in proportion as all administration of the business upon that part of the line was feebly or indiscreetly worked. Hence it arose that individually the chief highwaymen were sure to command a deep professional interest amongst the surgeons of the land. Sometimes it happened that a first-rate robber was arrested and brought to trial, but from defective evidence escaped. Meanwhile his fine person had been locally advertised and brought under the notice of the medical body.

This had occurred in a more eminent degree than was usual to the robber who had owned when living the matchless skeleton possessed by Mr. White.

He had been most extensively surveyed with anatomical eyes by the whole body of the medical profession in London: their deliberate judgment upon him was that a more absolutely magnificent figure of a man did not exist in England than this highwayman, and naturally therefore very high sums were offered to him as soon as his condemnation was certain. The robber, whose name I entirely forget, finally closed with the offer of Cruikshank, who was at that time the most eminent surgeon in London.

Those days, as is well known, were days of great irregularity in all that concerned the management of prisons and the administration of criminal justice. Consequently there is no reason for surprise or for doubt in the statement made by Mr. White, that Cruikshank, whose pupil Mr. White then was, received some special indulgences from one of the under-sheriffs beyond what the law would strictly have warranted. The robber was cut down considerably within the appointed time, was instantly placed in a chaise-and-four, and was thus brought so prematurely into the private rooms of Cruikshank, that life was not as yet entirely extinct. This I heard Mr. White repeatedly a.s.sert. He was himself at that time amongst the pupils of Cruikshank, and three or four of the most favoured amongst these were present, and to one of them Cruikshank observed quietly: 'I think the subject is not quite dead; pray put your knife in (Mr. X. Y.) at this point.' That was done; a solemn _finis_ was placed to the labours of the robber, and perhaps a solemn inauguration to the labours of the student. A cast was taken from the superb figure of the highwayman; he was then dissected, his skeleton became the property of Cruikshank, and subsequently of Mr. White. We were all called upon to admire the fine proportions of the man, and of course in that hollow and unmeaning way which such unlearned expressors of judgment usually a.s.sume, we all obsequiously met the demand levied upon our admiration. But, for my part, though readily confiding in the professional judgment of anatomists, I could not but feel that through my own una.s.sisted judgment I never could have arrived at such a conclusion. The unlearned eye has gathered no rudimental points to begin with. Not having what are the normal outlines to which the finest proportions tend, an eye so untutored cannot of course judge in what degree the given subject approaches to these.

7.--THE RANSOM FOR WATERLOO.

The following gives a variation on a famous pa.s.sage in the 'Dream Fugue,' and it may be interesting to the reader to compare it with that which the author printed. From these variations it will be seen that De Quincey often wrote and re-wrote his finest pa.s.sages, and sometimes, no doubt, found it hard to choose between the readings:

Thus as we ran like torrents; thus as with bridal rapture our flying equipage swept over the _campo santo_ of the graves; thus as our burning wheels carried warrior instincts, kindled earthly pa.s.sions amongst the trembling dust below us, suddenly we became aware of a vast necropolis to which from afar we were hurrying. In a moment our maddening wheels were nearing it.

'Of purple granite in ma.s.sive piles was this city of the dead, and yet for one moment it lay like a visionary purple stain on the horizon, so mighty was the distance. In the second moment this purple city trembled through many changes, and grew as by fiery pulsations, so mighty was the pace. In the third moment already with our dreadful gallop we were entering its suburbs. Systems of sarcophagi rose with crests aerial of terraces and turrets into the upper glooms, strode forward with haughty encroachment upon the central aisle, ran back with mighty shadows into answering recesses. When the sarcophagi wheeled, then did our horses wheel. Like rivers in horned floods wheeling in pomp of unfathomable waters round headlands; like hurricanes that ride into the secrets of forests, faster than ever light travels through the wilderness of darkness, we shot the angles, we fled round the curves of the labyrinthine city. With the storm of our horses' feet, and of our burning wheels, did we carry earthly pa.s.sions, kindle warrior instincts amongst the silent dust around us, dust of our n.o.ble fathers that had slept in G.o.d since Creci. Every sarcophagus showed many bas-reliefs, bas-reliefs of battles, bas-reliefs of battlefields, battles from forgotten ages, battles from yesterday; battlefields that long since Nature had healed and reconciled to herself with the sweet oblivion of flowers; battlefields that were yet angry and crimson with carnage.

And now had we reached the last sarcophagus, already we were abreast of the last bas-relief; already we were recovering the arrow-like flight of the central aisle, when coming up it in counterview to ourselves we beheld the frailest of cars, built as might seem from floral wreaths, and from the sh.e.l.ls of Indian seas. Half concealed were the fawns that drew it by the floating mists that went before it in pomp. But the mists hid not the lovely countenance of the infant girl that sate wistful upon the ear, and hid not the birds of tropic plumage with which she played.

Face to face she rode forward to meet us, and baby laughter in her eyes saluted the ruin that approached. 'Oh, baby,' I said in anguish, 'must we that carry tidings of great joy to every people be G.o.d's 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 in the bas-relief--a dying trumpeter. Solemnly from the field of Waterloo 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 to _thy_ ears, oh baby, must have spoken from the battlements of death.

Immediately deep shadows fell between us, and shuddering silence. The choir had ceased to sing; the uproar of our laurelled equipage 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 forelegs rising in mid-air to their everlasting gallop--were petrified to a bas-relief. Oh, glacial pageantry of death, that from end to end of the gorgeous cathedral for a moment froze every eye by contagion of panic. Then for the third time the trumpet sounded.

Back with the shattering burst came the infinite rushing of life. The seals of frost were raised from our stifling hearts.

8.--DESIDERIUM.

Here is another variation on a famous pa.s.sage in the 'Autobiographic Sketches,' which will give the reader some further opportunity for comparison:

At six years of age, or thereabouts (I write without any memorial notes), the glory of this earth for me was extinguished. _It is finished_--not those words but that sentiment--was the misgiving of my prophetic heart; thought it was that gnawed like a worm, that did not and that could not die. 'How, child,' a cynic would have said, if he had deciphered the secret reading of my sighs--'at six years of age, will you pretend that life has already exhausted its promises? Have you communicated with the grandeurs of earth? Have you read Milton? Have you seen Rome? Have you heard Mozart?' No, I had _not_, nor could in those years have appreciated any one of them if I had; and, therefore, undoubtedly the crown jewels of our little planet were still waiting for me in the rear. Milton and Rome and 'Don Giovanni' were yet to come. But it mattered not what remained when set over against what had been taken away. _That_ it was which I sought for ever in my blindness. The love which had existed between myself and my departed sister, _that_, as even a child could feel, was not a light that could be rekindled. No voice on earth could say, 'Come again!' to a flower of Paradise like that. Love, such as that is given but once to any. Exquisite are the perceptions of childhood, not less so than those of maturest wisdom, in what touches the capital interests of the heart. And no arguments, nor any consolations, could have soothed me into a moment's belief, that a wound so ghastly as mine admitted of healing or palliation.

Consequently, as I stood more alone in the very midst of a domestic circle than ever Christian traveller in an African Bilidulgerid amidst the tents of infidels, or the howls of lions, day and night--in the darkness and at noon-day--I sate, I stood, I lay, moping like an idiot, craving for what was impossible, and seeking, groping, s.n.a.t.c.hing, at that which was irretrievable for ever.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] [Born 1746, died 1800.--ED.]

THE END.