diction than he applied to the bank-note,
might he inform you, that, with the gentleman opposite, to whom he had
hitherto been entirely a stranger, but who happened to be the nearest to
him at the time when the exigency occurred to him, he had just succeeded
in negotiating a loan of two-pence."

These pictures, though true to certain phases of De Quincey's outward
life, are yet far from personally representing him, even to the eye.
They satisfy curiosity, and that is about all. As to the real character
of the man, they are negative and unessential; they represent, indeed,
his utter carelessness as to all that, like dress, may at pleasure be
put on or off, but "the human child incarnate" is not thus brought
before us. For, could we but once look upon his face in rest, then
should we forget these inferior attributes; just as, looking upon the
Memnonian statues, one forgets the horrid nicknames of "Shandy" and
"Andy" which they have received from casual travellers, observing merely
their grotesque features. Features of this latter sort "dislimn" and
yield, as the writing on palimpsests, to the regal majesty of the divine
countenance, which none can look upon and smile. Let me paint De
Quincey's face as at this moment I seem to see it. It is wrinkled as
with an Homeric antiquity; arid it is, and sallow, as parchment. Through
a certain Bedouin-like conformation,--which, however, is idealized by
the lofty, massive forehead, and by the prevailing subtilty of the
general expression,--it seems fitted to desert solitudes; and in this
respect it is truly Memnonian. In another respect, also, is it
Memnonian,--that, whenever should rest upon its features the morning
sunlight, we should surely await its responsive requiem or its trembling
_jubilate_. By a sort of instinctive palmistry (applied, not to the
hands, but to the face) we interpret symbols of ineffable sorrow and of
ineffable peace. These, too, are Memnonian,--as is also that infinite
distance which seems to interpose between its subtile meanings and the
very possibility of interpretation. This air of remoteness, baffling the
impertinent crowd not less effectually than the dust which has gathered
for centuries about the heads of Sphinxes, is due partly to the deeply
sunken eyes beneath the wrinkled, overarching forehead; partly it arises
from that childlike simplicity and sweetness which lurk in gentle
undulations of the features,--undulations as of happy wavelets set in
m