by impassioned. It is deep,
melancholy reverie, not concentrated essence of emotion; and the epithet
fails to indicate any specific difference between himself and many other
writers. The real peculiarity is not in the passion expressed, but in
the mode of expressing it. De Quincey resembles the story-tellers
mentioned by some Eastern travellers. So extraordinary is their power of
face, and so skilfully modulated are the inflections of their voices,
that even a European, ignorant of the language, can follow the narrative
with absorbing interest. One may fancy that if De Quincey's language
were emptied of all meaning whatever, the mere sound of the words would
move us, as the lovely word Mesopotamia moved Whitefield's hearer. The
sentences are so delicately balanced, and so skilfully constructed, that
his finer passages fix themselves in the memory without the aid of
metre. Humbler writers are content if they can get through a single
phrase without producing a decided jar. They aim at keeping up a steady
jog-trot, which shall not give actual pain to the jaws of the reader.
They no more think of weaving whole paragraphs or chapters into complex
harmonies, than an ordinary pedestrian of 'going to church in a galliard
and coming home in a coranto.' Even our great writers generally settle
down to a stately but monotonous gait, after the fashion of Johnson or
Gibbon, or are content with adopting a style as transparent and
inconspicuous as possible. Language, according to the common phrase, is
the dress of thought; and that dress is the best, according to modern
canons of taste, which attracts least attention from its wearer. De
Quincey scorns this sneaking maxim of prudence, and boldly challenges
our admiration by indulgence in what he often calls 'bravura.' His
language deserves a commendation sometimes bestowed by ladies upon rich
garments, that it is capable of standing up by itself. The form is so
admirable that, for purposes of criticism, we must consider it as
something apart from the substance. The most exquisite passages in De
Quincey's writings are all more or less attempts to carry out the idea
expressed in the title of the dream fugue. They are intended to be
musical compositions, in which words have to play the part of notes.
They are impassioned, not in the sense of expressing any definite
sentiment, but because, from the structure and combination of the
sentences, they harmonise with certain phases of emotion.

B