urtesy was manifested by Rufus Choate, who uniformly
addressed the lowest of women in the witness-box as if they were every
one of them worthy of the most queenly consideration.

Onward you proceed,--one,--two,--three miles, and you can endure no
longer the thought that your friend shall go on farther, increasing thus
at every step the burden of his journey back. You have, reached the Esk
bank and the bridge which spans the stream; the storm so long threatened
begins now to let loose its rage against all unsheltered mortals. Here
De Quincey consents to bid you good-bye,--to you his last good-bye; and
as here you leave him, so is he forever enshrined in your thoughts,
together with the primal mysteries of night and of storm, of human
tragedies and of the most pathetic human tenderness.

But this paper, already sufficiently prolonged, should draw to a close.
It is a source of great mortification to me that I cannot find some very
disagreeable thing to say of De Quincey, merely as a matter of poetic
justice; for assuredly he was in the habit of saying all the malicious
things _he_ could about his friends. If there was anything in a man's
face or shape particularly uncouth, you might trust De Quincey for
noticing _that_. Even Wordsworth he could not let off without a Parthian
shot at his awkward legs and round shoulders; Dr. Parr he rated soundly
on his mean proportions; and one of the most unfortunate things which
ever happened to the Russian Emperor Alexander was to have been seen in
London by De Quincey, who, even amid the festivities of national and
international congratulation on the fall of Napoleon, could not forget
that this imperial ally was a very commonplace-looking fellow, after
all. But, in regard to physical superiority, De Quincey lived in a glass
house too fragile to admit of his throwing many stones at his neighbors.
The very fact that he valued personal appearance at so low an estimate
takes away the sting from his remarks on the deformities of other
people: he could not have meant any detraction, but simply wished to
present a perfect picture to the eye, preserving the ugly features with
the faultless, just as we all insist on doing in regard to those we
love. De Quincey and myself, therefore, are likely to part good friends.
Surely, if there was anything which vexed the tender heart of this man,
it was "the little love and the infinite hate" which went to make up the
sum of life. If morbid in any directi