“I am utterly in the dark as to where this paper is—whether chez moi, or chez la presse (I use French simply as being the briefest way of conveying my doubts). Now mark the difference to me, according to the answer. 1. On the assumption that the paper is in my possession, then, of course, I will seek till I find it, and no labour will be thrown away. But 2. On the counter assumption that the paper is all the while in the possession of the press, the difference to me would be this: That I should be searching for perhaps half a day, and, as it is manifestly not on my table, I should proceed on the postulate that it must have been transferred to the floor, consequently the work would all be unavoidably a process of stooping, and all labour lost, from which I should hardly recover for a fortnight. This explains to you my earnestness in the matter. Exactly the same doubt applies (and therefore exactly the same dilemma or alternative of stoop or stoop not) to some other papers.”
How keenly De Quincey felt in consequence of these continually recurring delays, the following sentences will show:—“It distracts me to find that I have been constantly working at the wrong part. It is most unfortunate, nor am I able to guess the cause, that I who am rendered seriously unhappy whenever I find or suppose myself to have caused any loss of time to a compositor, whose time is generally his main estate, am yet continually doing so unintentionally and in most cases unconsciously. It seems as if to the very last my destiny were to cause delays.”
The frequency of the communications and personal interviews which occurred during the eight years in which the works were in progress may be inferred from the following:—“My dear Sir,—I have been in great anxiety through yesterday and to-day as to the cause of a mysterious interruption of the press intercourse with me. Now, it has happened once before that we were at cross purposes, each side supposing itself stopped by the other. As the easiest way, therefore, of creeping out of the mystery I repeat it to you.”
Notwithstanding the continual interruptions and the difficulty of dragging the volumes through the press, the cordial and friendly feeling which existed between De Quincey and Mr. Hogg was never interrupted by a single jarring word.
Since the fourteen volumes passed into the hands of Messrs. Black, they have added other two volumes, made up of biographies contributed by De Quincey to the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” and a number of papers which remained in Mr. Hogg’s hands.
