ted; but in the case of Thomas there seems to have been no
complaint of real ill-usage. It was simply one of the wilful freaks of a
precocious and fantastic boy. He wandered in Wales for a few weeks,
until his money was nearly spent, and then contrived to get to London,
where he suffered the cruellest pangs of poverty, although he was a
young gentleman of independent fortune. It is difficult for a
matter-of-fact and well-balanced mind to conceive of an experience just
like that of De Quincey. Why he should have allowed himself to starve
rather than communicate with his friends, we are not told,--it could
scarcely have been pride, for he accepted help even from strangers when
it was offered,--and why he did not seek some of the friends of his
family in the city we are not informed, but such was the fact.

He tells the story thus:--

"And now began the later and fiercer stage of my long sufferings;
without using a disproportionate expression, I might say of my
agony. For I now suffered for upwards of sixteen weeks the physical
anguish of hunger in various degrees of intensity, but as bitter,
perhaps, as ever any human being can have suffered who has survived
it. I would not needlessly harass my readers' feelings by a detail
of all that I endured; for extremities such as these, under any
circumstances of heaviest misconduct or guilt, cannot be
contemplated, even in description, without a rueful pity that is
painful to the natural goodness of the human heart. Let it suffice
to say that a few fragments of bread from the breakfast table of
one individual, and these at uncertain intervals, constituted my
whole support. . . . I was houseless, and seldom slept under a
roof."

After a time, however, he slept in an unoccupied house, or unoccupied
save by a child of ten years,--as forlorn as himself. She slept here,
and was much tormented by the fear of ghosts. She hailed his advent with
great pleasure as a protection from supernatural visitants; and when the
weather became cold, he used to hold her in his arms that she might
gain the additional comfort of a little warmth. He says they lay upon
the floor "with a bundle of cursed law papers for a pillow, and no
covering save an old cloak." He slept only from exhaustion, and could
hear himself moaning in his sleep; but his little companion, relieved of
fear, and perhaps a little better fed than he, slept soundly