The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2

Those lips within whose rosy cells
Thy spirit warbles its sweet spells,
Death's clammy kiss ere long will press together.
I know, that face so fair and full
Is but a masquerading skull;
But hail to thee, skull so fair and so fresh!
Why should I weep and whine and wail,
That what blooms now must soon grow pale,
That worms must feed on that sweet flesh?
Let me laugh but to-day and to-morrow,
And I care not for sorrow,
While thus on the waves of the dance by each other we sail!

Now thou art mine
And I am thine:
And what though pain and sorrow wait
To seize thee at the gate,
And sob and tear and groan and sigh
Stand ranged in state
On thee to fly;
Blithely let us look and cheerily
On death, that grins so drearily.
What would grief with us, or anguish?
They are foes that we know how to vanquish.
I press thine answering fingers,
Thy look upon me lingers,
Or the fringe of thy garment will waft me a kiss:
Thou rollest on in light;
I fall back into night;
Even despair is bliss.

From this delight,
From this wild laughter's surge,
Perchance there may emerge
Foul jealousy and scorn and spite.
But this our glory! and pride!
When thee I despise,
I turn but mine eyes,
And the fair one beside thee will welcome my gaze;
And she is my bride;
Oh, happy, happy days!
Or shall it be her neighbour,
Whose eyes like a sabre
Flash and pierce,
Their glance is so fierce?

Thus capering and prancing,
All together go dancing
Adown life's giddy cave;
Nor living nor loving,
But dizzily roving
Through dreams to a grave.
There below 'tis yet worse;
Its flowers and its clay
Roof a gloomier day,
Hide a still deeper curse.
Ring then, ye cymbals, enliven this dream!
Ye horns, shout a fiercer, more vulture-like scream!
And jump, caper, leap, prance, dance yourselves out of breath!
For your life is all art;
Love has given you no heart:
Therefore shout till ye plunge into bottomless death.

He had ended and was standing at the window. Then came she into the opposite chamber, lovely, as he had never yet seen her; her brown hair floated freely and played in wanton ringlets about the whitest of necks; she was but lightly clad, and it seemed as though she was about to finish some household task at this late hour of the night before going to bed; for she placed two lights in two corners of the room, set to rights the green baize on the table, and again retired. Emilius was still sunk in his sweet dreams, and gazing on the image which his beloved had left on his mind, when to his horror the fearful, the scarlet old woman walked through the chamber; the gold on her head and breast glared ghastlily as it threw back the light. She had vanished again. Was he to believe his eyes? Was it not some blinding deception of the night, some spectre that his own feverish imagination had conjured up before him? But no! she returned still more hideous than before, with a long gray-and-black mane flying wildly and ruggedly about her breast and back. The fair maiden followed her, pale, frozen up; her lovely bosom was without a covering; but the whole form was like a marble statue. Betwixt them they led the little sweet child, weeping and clinging entreatingly to the fair maiden, who looked not down upon it. The child clasped and lifted up its little beseeching hands, and stroked the pale neck and cheeks of the marble beauty. But she held it fast by the hair, and in the other hand a silver basin. Then the old woman gave a growl, and pulled out a long knife, and drew it across the white neck of the child. Here something wound forth from behind them, which they seemed not to perceive; or it must have produced in them the same deep horror as in Emilius. The ghastly neck of a serpent curled forth, scale after scale, lengthening and ever lengthening out of the darkness, and stooped down between them over the child, whose lifeless limbs hung from the old woman's arms; its black tongue licked up the spirting red blood, and a green sparkling eye shot over into Emilius's eye, and brain, and heart, so that he fell at the same instant to the ground.

He was senseless when found by Roderick some hours after.

A party of friends was sitting, on the brightest summer morning, in a green arbour, assembled round an excellent breakfast. Laughter and jests passed round, and many a time did the glasses kiss with a merry health to the youthful couple, and a wish that they might be the happiest of the happy. The bride and bridegroom were not present; the fair one being still busied about her dress, while the young husband was sauntering alone in a distant avenue, musing upon his happiness.

'What a pity,' said Anderson, 'that we are to have no music. All our ladies are beclouded at the thought, and never in their whole lives longed for a dance so much as to-day, when to have one is quite out of the question. It is far too painful to his feelings.'

'I can tell you a secret though,' said a young officer; 'which is, that we are to have a dance after all, and a rare madcap and riotous one it will he. Everything is already arranged; the musicians are come secretly, and quartered out of sight. Roderick has managed it all; for he says, one ought not to let him have his own way, or to humour his strange prejudices over-much, especially on such a day as this. Besides, he is already grown far more like a human being, and is much more sociable than he used to be; so that I think even he will not dislike this alteration. Indeed, the whole wedding has been brought about all of a sudden, in a way that nobody could have expected.'

'His whole life,' said Anderson, 'is no less singular than his character. You must all remember how, being engaged on his travels, he arrived last autumn in our city, fixed himself there for the winter, lived like a melancholy man, scarcely ever leaving his room, and never gave himself the least trouble about our theatre or any other amusement. He almost quarrelled with Roderick, his most intimate friend, for trying to divert him, and not pampering him in all his moping humours. In fact, this exaggerated irritability and moodiness must have been a disease that was gathering in his body; for, as you know, he was seized four months since with a most violent nervous fever, so that we were all forced to give him up for lost. After his fancies had raved themselves out, on returning to his senses, he had almost entirely lost his memory; his childhood, indeed, and his early youth were still present to his mind, but he could not recollect anything that had occurred during his travels, or immediately before his illness. He was forced to begin anew his acquaintance with all his friends, even with Roderick; and only by little and little has it grown lighter with him; but slowly has the past with all that had befallen him come again, though still in dim colours, over his memory. He had been removed into his uncle's house, that the better care might be taken of him, and he was like a child, letting them do with him whatever they chose. The first time he went out to enjoy the warmth of spring in the park, he saw a girl sitting thoughtfully by the road-side. She looked up; her eye met his; and, as it were seized with an unaccountable yearning, he bade the carriage stop, got out, sat down by her, took hold of her hands, and poured himself forth in a full stream of tears. His friends were again alarmed for his understanding; but he grew tranquil, lively and conversable, got introduced to the girl's parents, and at the very first besought her hand; which, as her parents did not refuse their consent, she granted him. Thenceforward he was happy, and a new life sprang up within him; every day he became healthier and more cheerful. A week ago he visited me at this country-seat of mine, and was above measure delighted with it; indeed so much so that he would not rest till he had made me sell it to him. I might easily have turned his passionate wish to my own good account, and to his injury; for, whenever he sets his heart on a thing, he will have it, and that forthwith. He immediately made his arrangements, and had furniture brought hither that he may spend the summer months here; and in this way it has come to pass that we are all now assembled together to celebrate our friend's marriage at this villa, which a few days since belonged to me.'

The house was large, and situated in a very lovely country. One side looked down upon a river, and beyond it upon pleasant hills, clad and girt round with shrubs and trees of various kinds; immediately before it lay a beautiful flower-garden. Here the orange and lemon trees were ranged in a large open hall, from which small doors led to the store-rooms and cellars, and pantries. On the other side spread the green plain of a meadow, which was immediately bordered by a large park; here the two long wings of the house formed a spacious court; and three broad, open galleries, supported by rows of pillars standing above each other, connected all the apartments in the building, which gave it on this side an interesting and singular character; for figures were continually moving along these arcades in the discharge of their various household tasks; new forms kept stepping forth between the pillars and out of every room, which reappeared soon after above or below, to be lost behind some other doors; the company too would often assemble there for tea or for play; and thus, when seen from below, the whole had the look of a theatre, before which everybody would gladly pause awhile, expecting, as his fancies wandered, that something strange or pleasing would soon be taking place above.

The party of young people were just rising, when the full-dressed bride came through the garden and walked up to them. She was clad in violet-coloured velvet; a sparkling necklace lay cradled on her white neck; the costly lace just allowed her swelling bosom to glimmer through; her brown hair was tinged yet more beautifully by its wreath of myrtles and white roses. She addressed each in turn with a kind greeting, and the young men were astonished at her surpassing beauty. She had been gathering flowers in the garden, and was now returning into the house, to see after the preparations for the dinner. The tables had been placed in the lower open gallery, and shone dazzlingly with their white coverings and their load of sparkling crystal; rich clusters of many-coloured flowers rose from the graceful necks of alabaster vases; green garlands, starred with white blossoms, twined round the columns; and it was a lovely sight to behold the bride gliding along with gentle motion between the tables and the pillars, amid the light of the flowers, overlooking the whole with a searching glance, then vanishing, and re-appearing a moment afterwards higher up to pass into her chamber.

'She is the loveliest and most enchanting creature I ever saw,' cried Anderson; 'our friend is indeed the happiest of men.'

'Even her paleness,' said the officer, taking up the word, 'heightens her beauty. Her brown eyes sparkle only more intensely above those white cheeks, and beneath those dark locks; and the singular, almost burning, redness of her lips gives a truly magical appearance to her face.'

'The air of silent melancholy that surrounds her,' said Anderson, 'sheds a lofty majesty over her whole form.'

The bridegroom joined them, and inquired after Roderick. They had all missed him some time since, and could not conceive where he could be tarrying; and they all set out in search of him. 'He is below in the hall,' said at length a young man whom they happened to ask, 'in the midst of the coachmen, footmen, and grooms, showing off tricks at cards, which they cannot grow tired of staring at.' They went in, and interrupted the noisy admiration of the servants, without, however, disturbing Roderick, who quietly pursued his conjuring exhibition. When he had finished, he walked with the others into the garden, and said, 'I do it only to strengthen the fellows in their faith: for these puzzles give a hard blow to their groomships' free-thinking inclinations, and help to make them true believers.'

'I see,' said the bridegroom, 'my all-sufficing friend, among his other talents, does not think that of a mountebank beneath his cultivation.'

'We live in a strange time,' replied the other. 'Who knows whether mountebanks may not come to rule the roost in their turn. One ought to despise nothing nowadays: the veriest straw of talent may be that which is to break the camel's back.'

When the two friends found themselves alone, Emilius again turned down the dark avenue, and said, 'Why am I in such a gloomy mood on this the happiest day of my life? But I assure you, Roderick, little as you will believe it, I am not made for this moving about among such a mob of human beings; for this keeping my attention on the qui vive for every letter of the alphabet, so that neither A nor Z may go without all fitting respect; for this making a bow to her tenth, and shaking hands with my twentieth; for this rendering of formal homage to her parents; for this handing a flower from my nosegay of compliments to every lady that crosses my eye; for this waiting to receive the tide of newcomers as wave after wave rushes over me, and then turning to give orders that their servants and horses may have each a full trough and pail set before them.'

'That is a watch that goes of its own accord,' answered Roderick. 'Only look at your house, it was just built for such an occasion; and your head-butler, with his right hand taking up at the same time that his left is setting down, and one leg running north while the other seems to be making for south, was begotten and born for no other end than to put confusion in order. He would even set my brains to rights if he could get at them; were the whole city here he would find room for all; and he will make your hospitality the proverb of fifty miles round. Leave all such things to him and to your lovely bride; and where will you find so sweet a lightener of this world's cares?'

'This morning before sunrise,' said Emilius, 'I was walking through the wood; my thoughts were solemnly tuned, and I felt to the bottom of my soul that my life was now receiving its determinate character, that it was become a serious thing, and that this passion had created for me a home and a calling. I passed along by that arbour there, and heard sounds: it was my beloved in close conversation. "Has it not turned out now as I told you?" said a strange voice; "just as I knew it must turn out. You have got your wish, so cheer up and be merry." I would not go near them; afterwards I walked toward the arbour, but they had both already left it. Since then I keep thinking and thinking, what can these words mean?'

Roderick answered: 'Perhaps she may have been in love with you for some time without your knowing it; you are only so much the happier.'

A late nightingale here upraised her song, and seemed to be wishing the lover health and bliss. Emilius became more thoughtful. 'Come down with me, to cheer up your spirits,' said Roderick, 'down to the village, where you will find another couple; for you must not fancy that yours is the only wedding on which to-day's sun is to shine. A young clown, finding his time wear heavily in the house with an ugly old maid, for want of something better to do, did what makes the booby now think himself bound in honour to transform her into his wife. By this time they must both be already dressed, so let us not miss the sight; for doubtless, it will be a most interesting wedding.'