Number 4 turned out “a lecture addressed to myself by an ultra-moral friend—a lecture on procrastination, and not badly written.” And this also De Quincey refused to allow to be sent to the Athenæum. So everything hinged on the fifth and extra dip, which was committed to one of the young ladies. She blushed rosily (De Quincey assures us) at the responsibility, and earnestly “ploitered” among the papers for full five minutes. “She contended that she knew, by intuition, the sort of paper on which duns were written: and, whatever else might come up, she was resolved it should not be a dun.” “Don’t be too sure,” said De Quincey; but when the paper was finally drawn out it was a blank sheet.
This, the referees maintained, was a judgment on De Quincey, and meant that he should use the empty page to begin a new and original contribution for the ladies of Glasgow. Which he did, and turned out a little essay, suggested by their recent sport, on Sortilege and Astrology. We have tried to read it, but so far without success.
We are interested to note that others besides ourself have been turning back to De Quincey. In a recent Fortnightly Review there is an article by H. M. Paull, sound enough in its observations, but grievously lacking in style. Mr. Paull, moreover, seems to us to shoot too far when he says that “to modern readers De Quincey’s efforts to be sprightly only cause annoyance.” It is true that sometimes his astonishing verbosity and his passion for footnotes outrun a hasty temper; but for our part we find something notably odd and agreeable in his queer, preposterous humour. His habit of calling great men familiarly by their first names—Dr. Johnson is “Sam,” and even the learned and ancient Josephus becomes “Joe,” and Thomas à Kempis “Tom”—is deplored by Mr. Paull; but this habit, we fear, has been inherited by columnists, and we had better not defend it too vigorously. The bathtub anecdote, which we have pared down until it loses most of its gusto, is, in the original, not devoid of humour. (Volume XIII of the collected works.)
And De Quincey’s ramified and rambling way of narrative offers surprising delights in unexpected parentheses. For instance, in the Opium Eater he happens to mention a murder that had been committed on Hounslow Heath. “The name of the murdered person was Steele, and he was the owner of a lavender plantation in that neighbourhood.” A lavender plantation! There is a fragrant circumstance for the mind of a poet to dwell on. Think of the chance immortality of the unlucky Steele—deathless now, because (poor devil) he was murdered and had a lavender plantation.
THE SPANISH SULTRY
Turning up masterpieces of unintentional humour is a pleasant diversion of most writers. Everyone has his own favourites—on this side Atlantic many students vouch for The Balsam Groves of Grandfather Mountain (by Shepherd M. Dugger) as the most amusing book written in America; in Britain a few diligent explorers beat the drum for Irene Iddesleigh, a novel written by Mrs. Amanda McKittrick Ros (of Belfast). Neither of these books, unhappily, is easy to lay hand upon. But as a possible competitor, how do you like The Spanish Sultry, by Ambrose Dargason (Harrisburg, 1905)? We have no copy, but once we took down some extracts.
Mr. Dargason’s hero was a window-glass merchant “whose nature was as transparent and reflective as the goods he throve in.” This merchant’s name was Wilbert Vocks; after his retirement from merchandise he spent his time in travelling about looking for a suitable wife to inherit his fortune. Unhappily, his inherent caution always caused him to sheer off just when the reader was expecting the happy nuptials. The scene on the park bench in Harrisburg, one moony evening, is a favourite of ours:
In the anæmic brightness of the crescendo moon Frederica’s eyes were gilded with the splendor of her sex’s softest charms. They were frosted bulbs of allure, and Wilbert trenched delicately upon her French-shod toes as a symbol of hardy waxing tenderness.