confidently be said: There is
"fundamental brainwork" in every article that De Quincey has written.

V

What gives his works their especial attraction is not so much the
analytic faculty, interesting as it is, or the mystical turn of mind, as
in the piquant blend of the two. Thus, while he is poking fun at
Astrology or Witchcraft, we are conscious all the time that he retains a
sneaking fondness for the occult. He delights in dreams, omens, and
coincidences. He reminds one at times of the lecturer on
"Superstitions," who, in the midst of a brilliant analysis of its
futility and absurdity, was interrupted by a black cat walking on to the
platform, and was so disturbed by this portent that he brought his
lecture to an abrupt conclusion.

On the whole the Mystic trampled over the Logician. His poetic
imagination impresses his work with a rich inventiveness, while the
logical faculty, though subsidiary, is utilized for giving form and
substance to the visions.

It is curious to contrast the stateliness of De Quincey's literary style,
the elaborate full-dress manner, with the extreme simplicity of the man.
One might be tempted to add, surely here the style is _not_ the man. His
friends have testified that he was a gentle, timid, shrinking little man,
and abnormally sensitive to giving offence; and to those whom he cared
for--his family, for instance--he was the incarnation of affection and
tenderness.

Yet in the writings we see another side, a considerable sprinkle of
sturdy prejudices, no little self-assertion and pugnacity. But there is
no real disparity. The style is the man here as ever. When roused by
opposition he could even in converse show the claws beneath the velvet.
Only the militant, the more aggressive side of the man is expressed more
readily in his writings. And the gentle and amiable side more readily in
personal intimacy. Both the life and the writings are wanted to supply a
complete picture.

In one respect the records of his life efface a suspicion that haunts the
reader of his works. More than once the reader is apt to speculate as to
how far the arrogance that marks certain of his essays is a superficial
quality, a literary trick; how far a moral trait. The record of his
conversations tends to show that much of this was merely surface. Unlike
Coleridge, unlike Carlyle, he was as willing to listen as to talk; and he
said many of his best things with a delightful unconsciousness