n
the staircase and hall; so that, amidst the real fleshly ills of cold
and hunger, the forsaken child had found leisure to suffer still more
from the self-created one of ghosts. Against these enemies I could
promise her protection; human companionship was in itself protection;
but of other and more needful aid I had, alas! little to offer. We
lay upon the floor, with a bundle of law papers for a pillow, but
with no other covering than a large horseman's cloak; afterwards,
however, we discovered in a garret an old sofa-cover, a small piece
of rug, and some fragments of other articles, which added a little to
our comfort. The poor child crept close to me for warmth, and for
security against her ghostly enemies. . . . Apart from her
situation, she was not what would be called an interesting child.
She was neither pretty, nor quick in understanding, nor remarkably
pleasing in manners. But, thank God! even in those years I needed
not the embellishments of elegant accessories to conciliate my
affections. Plain human nature, in its humblest and most homely
apparel, was enough for me; and I loved the child because she was my
partner in wretchedness."

II

I cannot agree with Mr. H. S. Salt when, in the course of a clever and
interesting biographical study of De Quincey, {40} he says: "It (in _re_
style) conveys precisely the sense that is intended, and attains its
effect far less by rhetorical artifice than by an almost faultless
instinct in the choice and use of words."

In the delineation of certain moods he is supremely excellent. But
surely the style is not a plastic style; and its appeal to the ear rather
than to the pictorial faculty limits its emotional effect upon the
reader. Images pass before his eyes, and he tries to depict them by
cunningly devised phrases; but the veil of phantasy through which he sees
those images has blurred their outline and dimmed their colouring. The
phrase arrests by its musical cadences, by its solemn, mournful music.
Even some of his most admirable pieces--the dream fugues, leave the
reader dissatisfied, when they touch poignant realities like sorrow.
Despite its many beauties, that dream fugue, "Our Ladies of Sorrow,"
seems too misty, too ethereal in texture for the intense actuality of the
subject. Compare some of its passages with passages from another
prose-poet, Oscar Wilde, where no veil of pha