There is, then, in the opium-eater a most marked, a polar antithesis between his every-day life and the central manifestations of his genius.  In the latter, there is beautiful order, as in a symphony of Beethoven’s; but in the former, looked upon from without, all seems confusion.  There is the same antithesis in every meditative mind; but here opium has heightened each part of the contrast.  The more we admire the encentric harmonies of inwrapt power, the more do we find to draw forth laughter in the eccentricities of outward habit.  The very same agencies which undisguised and unveiled the deep, divine heaven, masked the earth with desert sands; and De Quincey’s outward life was thus masked and rendered abnormal, that the blue heaven in which he revelled might be infinitely exalted.

Thus is it possible for the seemingly ludicrous to harmonize with transcendent sublimity.  We smile at De Quincey’s giving in “copy” on the generous margins of a splendid “Somnium Scipionis”; but the precious words, that might perhaps have found some more fit vehicle to the composer’s eye, could have found no deeper place in our hearts.  We look at the hatless sleeper among the mountains:  his face seems utterly blank and meaningless, and to all intents and purposes he seems as good as dead; but let us ascend with him in his dreams, and we shall soon forget that under God’s heavens there exists mortality or the commonplace uses of mortality.

As we ascend from grotesque features to such as are more intellectual, that peculiarity of his character which most strikes us is his inimitable courtesy.  Mr. F.,—­to whom I am indebted for the most novel and interesting portions of this memorial,—­from his own personal interviews with the man, among many other things, retains this chiefly in remembrance,—­that De Quincey was the perfectest gentleman he had ever seen.

I take the liberty here of particularizing somewhat in regard to one visit which this friend of De Quincey’s paid him, particularly as it introduces us to the man towards the last of his life (1851).  Mr. F., curious as it may seem, found but one person in Edinburgh who could inform him definitely as to De Quincey’s whereabouts.  In return to a note, giving De Quincey information of his arrival, etc., the latter replies in a letter which is very characteristic, and which may well be highly prized, so rarely was it that any friend was able to obtain from him such a memento.  The style, perhaps, is as familiar as it was ever his habit to indulge in; and it shows how impossible it was for him, even on the most temporary summons, to dispense with his usual regularity of expression or with any logical nicety of method.  The letter runs thus:—­

     Thursday evening, August 26, 1851.