atic power. Long contemplation of a shadow, earnest study for the
welfare of that shadow, sympathy with the wounded sensibilities of that
shadow under accumulated wrongs; these bitter experiences, nursed by
brooding thought, had gradually frozen that shadow into a region of
reality far denser than the material realities of brass or granite."

This confession is a remarkable testimony to the reality of De Quincey's
imaginative life. "I had contracted obligations to Gombrom." Yes,
despite his practical experiences with the world, it was Gombrom, "the
moonlight" side of things, that appealed to him. The boys might fling
stones and brickbats, just as the world did later--but though he felt the
onslaught, it moved him far less than did the phantasies of his
imagination.

There is no necessity to weigh Wilde's experiences of "Our Ladies of
Sorrow" beside those of De Quincey. All we need ask is which impresses
us the more keenly with the actuality of sorrow. And I think there can
be no doubt that it is not De Quincey.

"The Dream Kingdom that rose like a vapour" from his brain, this it
was--this Vagabond imagination of his--that was the one great reality in
life. It is a mistake to assume, as some have done, that this faculty
for daydreaming was a legacy of the opium-eating. The opium gave an
added brilliance to the dream-life, but it did not create it. He was a
dreamer from his birth--a far more thorough-going dreamer than was ever
Coleridge. There was a strain of insanity about him undoubtedly, and it
says much for his intellectual activity and moral power that the Dream
Kingdom did not disturb his mental life more than it did. Had he never
touched opium to relieve his gastric complaint, he would have been
eccentric--that is, if he had lived. Without some narcotic it is
doubtful whether his highly sensitive organization would have survived
the attacks of disease. As it was, the opium not only eased the pain,
but lifted his imagination above the ugly realities of life, and afforded
a solace in times of loneliness and misery.

III

Intellectually he was a man of a conservative turn of mind, with an
ingrained respect for the conventions of life, but temperamentally he was
a restless Vagabond, with a total disregard for the amenities of
civilization, asking for nothing except to live out his own dream-life.
Dealing with him as a writer, you found a shrewd, if wayward critic, with
no little of "John Bull"