be brought against this Corsican as universal pickpocket!  This pecuniary depreciation De Quincey himself realized some years later, when, determining to quit school, he thought himself compelled[A] to cut off all communication with his guardians, and gave himself up to a Bohemian life among the Welsh mountains, wandering from one rustic valley to another with the most scanty means of support,—­for just then the Allies were in full rig against France, and the shrinkage of guineas in our young wanderer’s pocket became palpably evident in view of the increased price of his dinner.

[Footnote A:  But afterwards he discovered his mistake, and that it was only by the lack on his part of that frankness which the kindness of his guardians deserved that he had brought so much misery upon himself in after-life.  His younger brother, Richard,—­the Pink of the “Autobiographic Sketches,”—­made the same mistake, a mistake which in his case was never rectified, but led to a life of perilous wanderings and adventures.]

The time did come at length when the full epos of a remarkable prosperity was closed up and sealed for De Quincey.  But that was in the unseen future.  To the child it was not permitted to look beyond the hazy lines that bounded his oasis of flowers into the fruitless waste abroad.  Poverty, want, at least so great as to compel the daily exercise of his mind for mercenary ends, was stealthily advancing from the rear; but the sound of its stern steppings was wholly muffled by intervening years of luxurious opulence and ease.

I dwell thus at length upon the aristocratic elegance of De Quincey’s earliest surroundings, (which, coming at a later period, I should notice merely as an accident,) because, although not a potential element, capable of producing or of adding one single iota to the essential character of genius, it is yet a negative condition—­a sine qua non—­to the displays of genius in certain directions and under certain aspects.  By misfortune it is true that power may be intensified.  So may it by the baptism of malice.  But, given a certain degree of power, there still remains a question as to its kind.  So deep is the sky:  but of what hue, of what aspect?  Wine is strong, and so is the crude alcohol but what the mellowness?  And the blood in our veins, it is an infinite force:  but of what temper?  Is it warm, or is it cold?  Does it minister to Moloch, or to Apollo?  Will it shape the Madonna face, or the Medusa?  Why, the simple fact that the rich blue sky over-arches this earth of ours, or that it is warm blood which flows in our veins, is sufficient to prove that no malignant Ahriman made the world.  Just here the question is not, what increment or what momentum genius may receive from outward circumstances, but what coloring, what mood.  Here it is that a Mozart differs from a Mendelssohn.  The important difference which obtains, in this respect, between great powers in literature,