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to hear and participate in the service of the mass. Maria came with some flowers in her hand, which she had been gathering in the garden. She took four of them from the rest, and gave them to me through the bars. "How old are you?" "Twenty-one." "And your

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name is ""Maria." "And Clementina as well?" 'Yes, in bygone days!" I leaned as close as I could, and spoke a few words in a low tone, which she did not seem to understand. "She does not understand," said I. "Yes, yes, I understand well; speak." "Are you happy, lady?" The abbess, who was engaged with my companion, turned her head, and Maria answered with an air of gaiety, "O yes, very happy." I shook my head as in doubt. A minute elapsed, and the abbess was occupied again. Maria put her hands through the grating, took one of mine, and made me feel a thin gold ring on her little finger, and then, pressing my hand closely, said, in an accent I still hear, "No, no; I have the heartache."

The service began; the old nuns croaked like frogs, and the young ones paced up and down, and round about, in strange and fanciful figures, chanting as sweetly as caged canarybirds. I gazed at them for a long time with feelings that cannot be told, and when it was time to go, I caught Maria's eye, and made her a slight but earnest bow. She dropped a curtsey, which seemed a genuflection 'to her neighbour, raised a violet behind her servicebook to her mouth, held it, looked at it, and kissed it in token of an eternal farewell.

THE NUN.

BY H. W. LONGFELLOW.

In the convent of Drontheim,
Alone in her chamber
Knelt Astrid the Abbess,
At midnight, adoring,
Beseeching, entreating
The Virgin and Mother.

She heard in the silence The voice of one speaking, Without in the darkness, In gusts of the night-wind, Now louder, now nearer, Now lost in the distance.

The voice of a stranger It seemed as she listened, Of some one who answered, VOL. IV.

Beseeching, imploring,

A cry from afar off
She could not distinguish.

The voice of Saint John,
The beloved disciple
Who wandered and waited
The Master's appearance,
Alone in the darkness,
Unsheltered and friendless.

"It is accepted,

The angry defiance,
The challenge of battle!
It is accepted,

But not with the weapons
Of war that thou wieldest!

"Cross against corslet,
Love against hatred,
Peace-cry for war-cry!
Patience is powerful;
He that o'ercometh
Hath power o'er the nations!

"As torrents in summer,
Half-dried in their channels,
Suddenly rise, though the
Sky is still cloudless,
For rain has been falling
Far off at their fountains;

"So hearts that are fainting
Grow full to o'erflowing,
And they that behold it,
Marvel, and know not
That God at their fountains
Far off has been raining!

"Stronger than steel

Is the sword of the Spirit;
Swifter than arrows

The life of the truth is;
Greater than anger
Is love, and subdueth!

"Thou art a phantom,
A shape of the sea-mist,
A shape of the brumal
Rain, and the darkness
Fearful and formless;
Day dawns and thou art not!

"The dawn is not distant,

Nor is the night starless;
Love is eternal!

God is still God, and

His faith shall not fail us;
Christ is eternal!"

77

THE OPIUM-EATER.

BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY.1

inasmuch as it points to the true theory of musical effects. The mistake of most people is to suppose that it is by the ear they communicate with music, and, therefore, that they are purely passive to its effects. But this is The late Duke of used to say, “Next not so: it is by the reaction of the mind upon Friday, by the blessing of Heaven, I purpose the notices of the ear (the matter coming by to be drunk," and in like manner I used to the senses, the form from the mind) that the fix beforehand how often, within a given time, pleasure is constructed: and therefore it is that and when, I would commit a debauch of opium. people of equally good ear differ so much in This was seldom more than once in three this point from one another. Now opium, by weeks; for at that time I could not have ven- greatly increasing the activity of the mind tured to call every day (as I did afterwards) generally, increases, of necessity, that particufor "a glass of laudanum negus, warm, and lar mode of its activity by which we are able without sugar." No: as I have said, I seldom to construct, out of the raw material of organic drank laudanum, at that time, more than sound, an elaborate intellectual pleasure. But, once in three weeks: this was usually on a says a friend, a succession of musical sounds is Tuesday or a Saturday night; my reason for to me like a collection of Arabic characters: I which was this. In those days Grassini sang can attach no ideas to them! Ideas! my good at the opera: and her voice was delightful to sir? there is no occasion for them: all that me beyond all that I had ever heard. I know class of ideas, which can be available in such a not what may be the state of the opera-house case, has a language of representative feelings. now, having never been within its walls for But this is a subject foreign to my present seven or eight years, but at that time it was purposes: it is sufficient to say, that a chorus, by much the most pleasant place of public &c., of elaborate harmony, displayed before me, resort in London for passing an evening. Five as in a piece of arras work, the whole of my shillings admitted one to the gallery, which past life-not as if recalled by an act of memory, was subject to far less annoyance than the pit but as if present and incarnated in the music: of the theatres: the orchestra was distinguished no longer painful to dwell upon: but the detail by its sweet and melodious grandeur, from all of its incidents removed, or blended in some English orchestras, the composition of which, hazy abstraction; and its passions exalted, I confess, is not acceptable to my ear, from the spiritualized, and sublimed. All this was to predominance of the clangorous instruments, be had for five shillings. And over and above and the absolute tyranny of the violin. The the music of the stage and the orchestra, I had choruses were divine to hear: and when Grassini all around me, in the intervals of the perform appeared in some interlude, as she often did, ance, the music of the Italian language talked and poured forth her passionate soul as Andro- by Italian women: for the gallery was usually mache, at the tomb of Hector, &c., I question crowded with Italians: and I listened with a whether any Turk, of all that ever entered the pleasure such as that with which Weld the paradise of opium-eaters, can have had half traveller lay and listened, in Canada, to the the pleasure I had. But, indeed, I honour the sweet laughter of Indian women; for the less barbarians too much by supposing them cap- you understand of a language, the more sen able of any pleasures approaching to the intel-sible you are to the melody or harshness of its lectual ones of an Englishman. For music is an intellectual or a sensual pleasure, according to the temperament of him who hears it. And, by-the-by, with the exception of the fine extravaganza on that subject in Twelfth Night, I do not recollect more than one thing said adequately on the subject of music in all litera ture: it is a passage in the Religio Medici2 of Sir T. Brown; and, though chiefly remarkable for its sublimity, has also a philosophic value,

1See Casquet, vol. i. page 33.

2 I have not the book at this moment to consult, but I think the passage begins-"And even that tavern music, which makes one man merry, another mad, in me strikes a deep fit of devotion, &c."

sounds: for such a purpose, therefore, it was an advantage to me that I was a poor Italian scholar, reading it but little, and not speaking it at all, nor understanding a tenth part of what I heard spoken.

These were my opera pleasures: but another pleasure I had, which, as it could be had only on a Saturday night, occasionally struggled with my love of the opera; for, at that time, Tuesday and Saturday were the regular opera nights. On this subject I am afraid I shall be rather obscure, but, I can assure the reader, not at all more so than Marinus, in his life of Proclus, or many other biographers and autobiographers of fair reputation. This

sures.

pleasure, I have said, was to be had only on a Saturday night. What then was Saturday night to me more than any other night? I had no labours that I rested from; no wages to receive: what needed I to care for Saturday night, more than as it was a summons to hear Grassini? True, most logical reader: what you say is unanswerable. And yet so it was, and is, that, whereas different men throw their feelings into different channels, and most are apt to show their interest in the concerns of the poor, chiefly by sympathy, expressed in some shape or other, with their distresses and sorrows, I, at that time, was disposed to express my interest by sympathizing with their plea The pains of poverty I had lately seen too much of; more than I wished to remember: but the pleasures of the poor, their consolations of spirit, and their reposes from bodily toil, can never become oppressive to contemplate. Now Saturday night is the season for the chief, regular, and periodic return of rest to the poor: in this point the most hostile sects unite, and acknowledge a common link of brotherhood: almost all Christendom rests from its labours. It is a rest introductory to another rest: and divided by a whole day and two nights from the renewal of toil. On this account I feel always, on a Saturday night, as though I also were released from some yoke of labour, had some wages to receive, and some luxury of repose to enjoy. For the sake, therefore, of witnessing, upon as large a scale as possible, a spectacle with which my sympathy was so entire, I used often, on Saturday nights, after I had taken opium, to wander forth, without much regarding the direction or the distance, to all the markets, and other parts of London, to which the poor resort on a Saturday night, for laying out their wages. Many a family party, consisting of a man, his wife, and sometimes one or two of his children, have I listened to, as they stood consulting on their ways and means, or the strength of their exchequer, or the price of household articles. Gradually I became familiar with their wishes, their difficulties, and their opinions. Sometimes there might be heard murmurs of discontent: but far oftener expressions on the countenance, or uttered in words, of patience, hope, and tranquillity. And, taken generally, I must say, that, in this point at least, the poor are far more philosophic than the rich-that they show a more ready and cheerful submission to what they consider as irremediable evils, or irreparable losses. Whenever I saw occasion, or could do it without appearing to be intrusive, I joined their parties; and gave my opinion

upon the matter in discussion, which, if not always judicious, was always received indulgently. If wages were a little higher, or expected to be so, or the quartern loaf a little lower, or it was reported that onions and butter were expected to fall, I was glad: yet, if the contrary were true, I drew from opium some means of consoling myself. For opium (like the bee, that extracts its materials indiscriminately from roses and from the soot of chimneys) can overrule all feelings into a compliance with the master-key. Some of these rambles led me to great distances: for an opium-eater is too happy to observe the motion of time. And sometimes in my attempts to steer homewards, upon nautical principles, by fixing my eye on the pole-star, and seeking ambitiously for a north-west passage, instead of circumnavigating all the capes and headlands I had doubled in my outward voyage, I came suddenly upon such knotty problems of alleys, such enigmatical entries, and such sphinx's riddles of streets without thoroughfares, as must, I conceive, baffle the audacity of porters, and confound the intellects of hackney-coachmen. I could almost have believed, at times, that I must be the first discoverer of some of these terræ incognitæ, and doubted whether they had yet been laid down in the modern charts of London. For all this, however, I paid a heavy price in distant years, when the human face tyrannized over my dreams, and the perplexities of my steps in London came back and haunted my sleep, with the feeling of perplexities moral or intellectual, that brought confusion to the reason, or anguish and remorse to the conscience.

Thus, I have shown that opium does not, of necessity, produce inactivity or torpor; but that, on the contrary, it often led me into markets and theatres. Yet, in candour, I will admit that markets and theatres are not the appropriate haunts of the opium-eater, when in the divinest state incident to his enjoyment. In that state crowds become an oppression to him; music even, too sensual and gross. He naturally seeks solitude and silence, as indispensable conditions of those trances, or profoundest reveries, which are the crown and consummation of what opium can do for human nature. I, whose disease it was to meditate too much, and to observe too little, and who, upon my first entrance at college, was nearly falling into a deep melancholy, from brooding too much on the sufferings which I had witnessed in London, was sufficiently aware of the tendencies of my own thoughts to do all I could to counteract them.—I was, indeed, like

a person, who, according to the old legend, had entered the cave of Trophonius; and the remedies I sought were to force myself into society, and to keep my understanding in continual activity upon matters of science. But for these remedies I should certainly have become hypochondriacally melancholy. In after years, however, when my cheerfulness was more fully re-established, I yielded to my natural inclination for a solitary life. And, at that time, I often fell into these reveries upon taking opium; and more than once it has happened to me, on a summer night, when I have been at an open window, in a room from which I could overlook the sea at a mile below me, and could command a view of the great town of L-, at about the same distance, that I have sat, from sunset to sunrise, motionless, and without wishing to move.

OPIUM DREAMS.

I know not whether others share in my feelings on this point; but I have often thought that if I were compelled to forego England, and to live in China, and among Chinese manners and modes of life and scenery, I should go mad. The causes of my horror lie deep; and some of them must be common to others. Southern Asia, in general, is the seat of awful images and associations. As the cradle of the human race, it would alone have a dim and reverential feeling connected with it. But there are other reasons. No man can pretend that the wild, barbarous, and capricious superstitions of Africa, or of savage tribes elsewhere, affect him in the way that he is affected by the ancient, monumental, cruel, and elaborate religions of Indostan, &c. The mere antiquity of Asiatic things, of their institutions, histories, modes of faith, &c., is so impressive, that to me the vast age of the race and name overpowers the sense of youth in the individual. A young Chinese seems to me an antediluvian man renewed. Even Englishmen, though not bred in any knowledge of such institutions, cannot but shudder at the mystic sublimity of castes that have flowed apart, and refused to mix, through such immemorial tracts of time; nor can any man fail to be awed by the names of the Ganges or the Euphrates. It contributes much to these feelings, that Southern Asia is, and has been for thousands of years, the part of the earth most swarming with human life; the great officina gentium. Man is a weed in those regions. The vast empires also, into which the enormous population of Asia has always been cast, give a further sublimity

to the feelings associated with all Oriental names or images. In China, over and above what it has in common with the rest of Southern Asia, I am terrified by the modes of life, by the manners, and the barrier of utter abhorrence and want of sympathy placed between us by feelings deeper than I can analyze. I could sooner live with lunatics or brute animals. All this, and much more than I can say, or have time to say, the reader must enter into before he can comprehend the unimagin able horror which these dreams of Oriental imagery and mythological tortures impressed upon me. Under the connecting feeling of tropical heat and vertical sunlights, I brought together all creatures, birds, beasts, reptiles, all trees and plants, usages and appearances, that are found in all tropical regions, and assembled them together in China or Indostan. From kindred feelings, I soon brought Egypt and all her gods under the same law. I was stared at, hooted at, grinned at, chattered at, by monkeys, by parroquets, by cockatoos. I ran into pagodas: and was fixed, for centuries, at the summit or in secret rooms; I was the idol; I was the priest; I was worshipped; 1 was sacrificed. I fled from the wrath of Brama through all the forests of Asia: Vishnu hated me: Seeva laid wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris: I had done a deed, they said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. I was buried, for a thousand years, in stone coffins, with mummies and sphinxes, in narrow chambers at the heart of eternal pyramids. I was kissed, with cancerous kisses, by crocodiles; and laid, confounded with all unutterable slimy things, amongst reeds and Nilotic mud.

I thus give the reader some slight abstrac tion of my Oriental dreams, which always filled me with such amazement at the monstrous scenery, that horror seemed absorbed, for a while, in sheer astonishment. Sooner or later came a reflux of feeling that swallowed up the astonishment, and left me, not so much in ter ror, as in hatred and abomination of what I saw. Över every form, and threat, and punishment, and dim sightless incarceration, brooded a sense of eternity and infinity that drove me into an oppression as of madness. Into these dreams only it was, with one or two slight exceptions, that any circumstances of physical horror entered. All before had been moral and spiritual terrors. But here the main agents were ugly birds, or snakes, or crocodiles; especially the last. The cursed crocodile became to me the object of more horror than almost all the rest. I was com

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