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Page 5
In 1816 De Quincey married Margaret Simpson, a farmer's daughter
living near. There is a pretty scene painted by the author
himself,[3] in which he gives us a glimpse of his domestic life at
this time. Therein he pictures the cottage, standing in a valley,
eighteen miles from any town; no spacious valley, but about two miles
long by three-quarters of a mile in average width. The mountains are
real mountains, between 3000 and 4000 feet high, and the cottage a
real cottage, white, embowered with flowering shrubs, so chosen as to
unfold a succession of flowers upon the walls, and clustering around
the windows, through all the months of spring, summer, and autumn,
beginning, in fact, with May roses and ending with jasmine. It is in
the winter season, however, that De Quincey paints his picture, and so
he describes a room, seventeen feet by twelve, and not more than seven
and one-half feet high. This is the drawing-room, although it might
more justly be termed the library, for it happens that books are the
one form of property in which the owner is wealthy. Of these he has
about 5000, collected gradually since his eighteenth year. The room
is, therefore, populous with books. There is a good fire on the
hearth. The furniture is plain and modest, befitting the unpretending
cottage of a scholar. Near the fire stands a tea table; there are only
two cups and saucers on the tray. It is an "eternal" teapot that the
artist would like us to imagine, for he usually drinks tea from eight
o'clock at night to four in the morning. There is, of course, a
companion at the tea table, and very lovingly does the husband suggest
the pleasant personality of his young wife. One other important
feature is included in the scene; upon the table there rests also a
decanter, in which sparkles the ruby-colored laudanum.
De Quincey's experience with opium had begun while he was a student at
the university, in 1804. It was first taken to obtain relief from
neuralgia, and his use of the drug did not at once become habitual.
During the period of residence at Grasmere, however, De Quincey
became confirmed in the habit, and so thoroughly was he its victim
that for a season his intellectual powers were well-nigh paralyzed;
his mind sank under such a cloud of depression and gloom that his
condition was pitiful in the extreme. Just before his marriage, in
1816, De Quincey, by a vigorous effort, partially regained his
self-control and succeeded in materially reducing his daily allowance
of the drug; but in the following year he fell more deeply than ever
under its baneful power, until in 1818-19 his consumption of opium was
something almost incredible. Thus he became truly enough the great
English Opium-Eater, whose Confessions were later to fill a unique
place in English literature. It was finally the absolute need of
bettering his financial condition that compelled De Quincey to shake
off the shackles of his vice; this he practically accomplished,
although perhaps he was never entirely free from the habit. The event
is coincident with the beginning of his career as a public writer. In
1820 he became a man of letters.
As a professional writer it is to be noted that De Quincey was
throughout a contributor to the periodicals. With one or two
exceptions all his works found their way to the public through the
pages of the magazines, and he was associated as contributor with most
of those that were prominent in his time. From 1821 to 1825 we find
him residing for the most part in London, and here his public career
began. It was De Quincey's most distinctive work which first appeared.
The _London Magazine_, in its issue for September, 1821, contained the
first paper of the _Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_. The
novelty of the subject was sufficient to obtain for the new writer an
interested hearing, and there was much discussion as to whether his
apparent frankness was genuine or assumed. All united in applause of
the masterly style which distinguished the essay, also of the
profundity and value of the interesting material it contained. A
second part was included in the magazine for October. Other articles
by the Opium-Eater followed, in which the wide scholarship of the
author was abundantly shown, although the topics were of less general
interest.
In 1826 De Quincey became an occasional contributor to _Blackwood's
Magazine_, and this connection drew him to Edinburgh, where he
remained, either in the city itself or in its vicinity, for the rest
of his life. The grotesquely humorous _Essay on Murder Considered as
One of the Fine Arts_ appeared in _Blackwood's_ in 1827. In 1832 he
published a series of articles on Roman History, entitled _The
C�sars_. It was in July, 1837, that the _Revolt of the Tartars_
appeared; in 1840 his critical paper upon _The Essenes_. Meanwhile De
Quincey had begun contributions to _Tait's Magazine_, another
Edinburgh publication, and it was in that periodical that the
_Sketches of Life and Manners from the Autobiography of an English
Opium-Eater_ began to appear in 1834, running on through several
years. These sketches include the chapters on Wordsworth, Coleridge,
Lamb, and Southey as well as those _Autobiographic Sketches_ which
form such a charming and illuminating portion of his complete works.
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