Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey (smart books to read .TXT) 📖

fifteen my command of that language was so great that I not only composed Greek verses in lyric metres, but could converse in Greek fluently and without embarrassment—an accomplishment which I have not since met with in any scholar of my times, and which in my case was owing to the practice of daily reading off the newspapers into the best Greek I could furnish extempore; for the necessity of ransacking my memory and invention for all sorts and combinations of periphrastic expressions as equivalents for modern ideas, images, relations of things, &c., gave me a compass of diction which would never have been called out by a dull translation of moral essays, &c.  “That boy,” said one of my masters, pointing the attention of a stranger to me, “that boy could harangue an Athenian mob better than you and I could address an English one.”  He who honoured me with this eulogy was a scholar, “and a ripe and a good one,” and of all my tutors was the only one whom I loved or reverenced.  Unfortunately for me (and, as I afterwards learned, to this worthy man’s great indignation), I was transferred to the care, first of a blockhead, who was in a perpetual panic lest I should expose his ignorance; and finally to that of a respectable scholar at the head of a great school on an ancient foundation.  This man had been appointed to his situation by --- College, Oxford, and was a sound, well-built scholar, but (like most men whom I have known from that college) coarse, clumsy, and inelegant.  A miserable contrast he presented, in my eyes, to the Etonian brilliancy of my favourite master; and beside, he could not disguise from my hourly notice the poverty and meagreness of his understanding.  It is a bad thing for a boy to be and to know himself far beyond his tutors, whether in knowledge or in power of mind.  This was the case, so far as regarded knowledge at least, not with myself only, for the two boys, who jointly with myself composed the first form, were better Grecians than the head-master, though not more elegant scholars, nor at all more accustomed to sacrifice to the Graces.  When I first entered I remember that we read Sophocles; and it was a constant matter of triumph to us, the learned triumvirate of the first form, to see our “Archididascalus” (as he loved to be called) conning our lessons before we went up, and laying a regular train, with lexicon and grammar, for blowing up and blasting (as it were) any difficulties he found in the choruses; whilst we never condescended to open our books until the moment of going up, and were generally employed in writing epigrams upon his wig or some such important matter.  My two class-fellows were poor, and dependent for their future prospects at the university on the recommendation of the head-master; but I, who had a small patrimonial property, the income of which was sufficient to support me at college, wished to be sent thither immediately.  I made earnest representations on the subject to my guardians, but all to no purpose.  One, who was more reasonable and had more knowledge of the world than the rest, lived at a distance; two of the other three resigned all their authority into the hands of the fourth; and this fourth, with whom I had to negotiate, was a worthy man in his way, but haughty, obstinate, and intolerant of all opposition to his will.  After a certain number of letters and personal interviews, I found that I had nothing to hope for, not even a compromise of the matter, from my guardian.  Unconditional submission was what he demanded, and I prepared myself, therefore, for other measures.  Summer was now coming on with hasty steps, and my seventeenth birthday was fast approaching, after which day I had sworn within myself that I would no longer be numbered amongst schoolboys.  Money being what I chiefly wanted, I wrote to a woman of high rank, who, though young herself, had known me from a child, and had latterly treated me with great distinction, requesting that she would “lend” me five guineas.  For upwards of a week no answer came, and I was beginning to despond, when at length a servant put into my hands a double letter with a coronet on the seal.  The letter was kind and obliging.  The fair writer was on the sea-coast, and in that way the delay had arisen; she enclosed double of what I had asked, and good-naturedly hinted that if I should never repay her, it would not absolutely ruin her.  Now, then, I was prepared for my scheme.  Ten guineas, added to about two which I had remaining from my pocket-money, seemed to me sufficient for an indefinite length of time; and at that happy age, if no definite boundary can be assigned to one’s power, the spirit of hope and pleasure makes it virtually infinite.

It is a just remark of Dr. Johnson’s (and, what cannot often be said of his remarks, it is a very feeling one), that we never do anything consciously for the last time (of things, that is, which we have long been in the habit of doing) without sadness of heart.  This truth I felt deeply when I came to leave ---, a place which I did not love, and where I had not been happy.  On the evening before I left --- for ever, I grieved when the ancient and lofty schoolroom resounded with the evening service, performed for the last time in my hearing; and at night, when the muster-roll of names was called over, and mine (as usual) was called first, I stepped forward, and passing the head-master, who was standing by, I bowed to him, and looked earnestly in his face, thinking to myself, “He is old and infirm, and in this world I shall not see him again.”  I was right; I never did see him again, nor ever shall.  He looked at me complacently, smiled good-naturedly, returned my salutation (or rather my valediction), and we parted (though he knew it not) for ever.  I could not reverence him intellectually, but he had been uniformly kind to me, and had allowed me many indulgences; and I grieved at the thought of the mortification I should inflict upon him.

The morning came which was to launch me into the world, and from which my whole succeeding life has in many important points taken its colouring.  I lodged in the head-master’s house, and had been allowed from my first entrance the indulgence of a private room, which I used both as a sleeping-room and as a study.  At half after three I rose, and gazed with deep emotion at the ancient towers of ---, “drest in earliest light,” and beginning to crimson with the radiant lustre of a cloudless July morning.  I was firm and immovable in my purpose; but yet agitated by anticipation of uncertain danger and troubles; and if I could have foreseen the hurricane and perfect hail-storm of affliction which soon fell upon me, well might I have been agitated.  To this agitation the deep peace of the morning presented an affecting contrast, and in some degree a medicine.  The silence was more profound than that of midnight; and to me the silence of a summer morning is more touching than all other silence, because, the light being broad and strong as that of noonday at other seasons of the year, it seems to differ from perfect day chiefly because man is not yet abroad; and thus the peace of nature and of the innocent creatures of God seems to be secure and deep only so long as the presence of man and his restless and unquiet spirit are not there to trouble its sanctity.  I dressed myself, took my hat and gloves, and lingered a little in the room.  For the last year and a half this room had been my “pensive citadel”: here I had read and studied through all the hours of night, and though true it was that for the latter part of this time I, who was framed for love and gentle affections, had lost my gaiety and happiness during the strife and fever of contention with my guardian, yet, on the other hand, as a boy so passionately fond of books, and dedicated to intellectual pursuits, I could not fail to have enjoyed many happy hours in the midst of general dejection.  I wept as I looked round on the chair, hearth, writing-table, and other familiar objects, knowing too certainly that I looked upon them for the last time.  Whilst I write this it is eighteen years ago, and yet at this moment I see distinctly, as if it were yesterday, the lineaments and expression of the object on which I fixed my parting gaze.  It was a picture of the lovely ---, which hung over the mantelpiece, the eyes and mouth of which were so beautiful, and the whole countenance so radiant with benignity and divine tranquillity, that I had a thousand times laid down my pen or my book to gather consolation from it, as a devotee from his patron saint.  Whilst I was yet gazing upon it the deep tones of --- clock proclaimed that it was four o’clock.  I went up to the picture, kissed it, and then gently walked out and closed the door for ever!

* * * * *

So blended and intertwisted in this life are occasions of laughter and of tears, that I cannot yet recall without smiling an incident which occurred at that time, and which had nearly put a stop to the immediate execution of my plan.  I had a trunk of immense weight, for, besides my clothes, it contained nearly all my library.  The difficulty was to get this removed to a carrier’s: my room was at an aërial elevation in the house, and (what was worse) the staircase which communicated with this angle of the building was accessible only by a gallery, which passed the head-master’s chamber door.  I was a favourite with all the servants, and knowing that any of them would screen me and act confidentially, I communicated my embarrassment to a groom of the head-master’s.  The groom swore he would do anything I wished, and when the time arrived went upstairs to bring the trunk down.  This I feared was beyond the strength of any one man; however, the groom was a man

Of Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies;

and had a back as spacious as Salisbury Plain.  Accordingly he persisted in bringing down the trunk alone, whilst I stood waiting at the foot of the last flight in anxiety for the event.  For some time I heard him descending with slow and firm steps; but unfortunately, from his trepidation, as he drew near the dangerous quarter, within a few steps of the gallery, his foot slipped, and the mighty burden falling from his shoulders, gained such increase of impetus at each step of the descent, that on reaching the bottom it trundled, or rather leaped, right across, with the noise of twenty devils, against the very bedroom door of the Archididascalus.  My first thought was that all was lost, and that my only chance for executing a retreat was to sacrifice my baggage.  However, on reflection I determined to abide the issue.  The groom was in the utmost alarm, both on his own account and on mine, but, in spite of this, so irresistibly had the sense of the ludicrous in this unhappy contretemps taken possession of his fancy, that he sang out a long, loud, and canorous peal of laughter, that might have wakened the Seven Sleepers.  At the sound of this resonant merriment, within the very ears of insulted authority, I could not myself forbear joining in it; subdued to this, not so much by the unhappy étourderie of the trunk, as by the effect it had upon the groom.  We both expected, as a matter of course, that Dr. --- would sally, out of his room, for in general, if but a mouse stirred, he sprang out like a mastiff from his kennel.  Strange to say, however, on this occasion, when the noise of laughter had ceased, no sound, or rustling even, was to be heard in the bedroom.  Dr. --- had a painful complaint, which, sometimes keeping him awake, made his sleep perhaps, when it did come, the deeper.  Gathering courage from the silence, the groom hoisted his burden again, and accomplished the remainder of his descent without accident.  I waited until I saw the trunk placed on a wheelbarrow and on its road to the carrier’s; then, “with Providence my guide,” I set off on foot, carrying a small parcel with some articles of dress under my arm; a favourite English poet in one pocket, and a small 12mo volume, containing about nine plays of