These pictures, though true to certain phases of De Quincey’s outward life, are yet far from personally representing him, even to the eye.  They satisfy curiosity, and that is about all.  As to the real character of the man, they are negative and unessential; they represent, indeed, his utter carelessness as to all that, like dress, may at pleasure be put on or off, but “the human child incarnate” is not thus brought before us.  For, could we but once look upon his face in rest, then should we forget these inferior attributes; just as, looking upon the Memnonian statues, one forgets the horrid nicknames of “Shandy” and “Andy” which they have received from casual travellers, observing merely their grotesque features.  Features of this latter sort “dislimn” and yield, as the writing on palimpsests, to the regal majesty of the divine countenance, which none can look upon and smile.  Let me paint De Quincey’s face as at this moment I seem to see it.  It is wrinkled as with an Homeric antiquity; arid it is, and sallow, as parchment.  Through a certain Bedouin-like conformation,—­which, however, is idealized by the lofty, massive forehead, and by the prevailing subtilty of the general expression,—­it seems fitted to desert solitudes; and in this respect it is truly Memnonian.  In another respect, also, is it Memnonian,—­that, whenever should rest upon its features the morning sunlight, we should surely await its responsive requiem or its trembling jubilate.  By a sort of instinctive palmistry (applied, not to the hands, but to the face) we interpret symbols of ineffable sorrow and of ineffable peace.  These, too, are Memnonian,—­as is also that infinite distance which seems to interpose between its subtile meanings and the very possibility of interpretation.  This air of remoteness, baffling the impertinent crowd not less effectually than the dust which has gathered for centuries about the heads of Sphinxes, is due partly to the deeply sunken eyes beneath the wrinkled, overarching forehead; partly it arises from that childlike simplicity and sweetness which lurk in gentle undulations of the features,—­undulations as of happy wavelets set in motion ages since, and that cannot cease forever; but chiefly it is born of a dream-like, brooding eternity of speculation, which we can trace neither to the eye alone, nor to the mouth, but rather to the effect which both together produce in the countenance.

This is the face which for more than half a century opium veiled to mortal eyes, and which refuses to reveal itself save through hints the most fugitive and impalpable.  Here are draperies and involutions of mystery from which mere curiosity stands aloof.  This is the head which we have loved, and which in our eyes wears a triple wreath of glory:  the laurel for his Apollo-like art, the lotos-leaf for his impassioned dreams, and roses for his most gentle and loving nature.