Guilty Thing (65 page)

the loveliest spot
. . .
William Wordsworth, ‘Farewell. Composed in the Year 1802'.

the practice of putting the chain. . .
‘Postscript', p. 98.

quite incapable of fear. . .
H. A. Page, I, p. 192.

There must be raging
. . .
‘On Knocking', p. 5. De Quincey's image of an internal hell is lifted from Milton's description of the fallen Satan in Book IV of
Paradise Lost
: ‘The hell within him; for within him Hell/ He brings. . .'

Some of our contemporaries
. . .
De Quincey, ‘Some Thoughts on Biography', in G. Lindop (ed.),
The Works of Thomas De Quincey
, XXI, London: Pickering and Chatto, 2003, p. 26.

We should not assert for De Quincey
. . .
Hogg, p. 1.

review-like essay. . .
Walter Bagehot, ‘The First Edinburgh Reviewers',
Literary Studies
, London: Dent, 1911, 1.1–35, p. 4.

one boundless self-devouring Review
. . .
Thomas Carlyle, ‘Characteristics',
Edinburgh Review
, 54, 1831.

a bat . . .
on the wings of prose
. . . Leslie Stephen,
Hours in a Library
, London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1892, I, p. 240.

wearisome and useless. . .
De Quincey, ‘A Sketch from Childhood',
Instructor,
Edinburgh: 1851, p. 147.

We might imagine this descent. . .
Masson, X, p. 344.

unfortunately diminutive. . .
Middle Years
, pt 1, p. 255.

I wish . . .
he was not so little
. . . Carol Bolton and Tim Fulford (eds),
The Collected Letters of Robert Southey, 1804–9
, University of Maryland:
A Romantic Circles Electronic Edition
, Part 3, no. 1534.

this child has been in hell. . .
Thomas Carlyle,
Reminiscences
, edited by James Anthony Froude, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1881, p. 203.

Chapter 1: Books

‘suddenly' to a ‘violent termination'. . .
Masson, I, p. 28.

in the house of a labouring man
. . .
Masson, I, p. 37.

was rapidly approaching
. . .
De Quincey, ‘Sketches of Life and Manners',
Tait's Edinburgh Magazine
, 1834, p. 22.

lady architect. . .
Masson, I, p. 404.

The door so softly. . .
deeper than the Danube. . .
Masson, I, p. 42.

Nothing. . .
a sorrow without a voice. . .
Masson, I, p. 9.

on a summer day
. . .
on a summer day. . .
Masson, I, pp. 41–2.

without fear. . .
closed. . .
‘Mail-Coach', p. 230.

shut out forever. . .
Masson, I, p. 43.

sank back
. . .
clamorously for death. . .
Masson, I, pp. 44–8.

burst of. . .
open grave. . .
Masson, I, p. 50.

a man, of elegant tastes. . .
Masson, I, p. 130.

deep and memorable
. . .
Masson, I, p. 132.

clouds were dispersed
. . .
Thomas Percival,
A Father's Instructions
,
Consisting of Moral Tales, Fables, and Reflections
, Robert Dodsley, 1775, p. 21.

the finest. . .
astonishment of science. . .
Masson, I, p. 35.

How much the greatest Event. . .
Lord John Russell (ed.),
Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox
, Blanchard and Lea, 1853, II, p. 361.

With freedom, order and good government
. . .
William Pitt,
The Speeches of the Right Honourable William Pitt
, edited by W. S. Hathaway, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1817, II, p. 36.

the British turned Louis into a hero. . .
see John Barrell, ‘Sad Stories',
Imagining the King's Death:
Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793–1796
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

summer and winter came again
. . .
Masson, I, p. 34.

terrific. . .
evil and strife. . .
Masson, I, p. 35.

anniversary of the battle of So-and-So. . .
David Masson,
De Quincey
, London: Macmillan, 1881, p. 107.

What is to be thought of sudden death?. . .
‘Mail-Coach', p. 219.

Wonderful it is. . .
Perceptions. . . Recollections
, p. 259.

‘fugitive' spiders. . .
‘Suspiria', p. 130.

the most upright man. . .
Masson, I, p. 26.

circumstances of luxury. . .
Masson, I, p. 30.

principal room. . .
Masson, I, p. 26.

would have been able to. . .
St Kitts. . .
Masson, I, p. 55.

raising altars and burning incense
. . .
‘A Sketch from Childhood',
Instructor
, 1851, p. 147.

instant amusement. . .
Masson, I, p. 25.

unusual solemnity
. . .
Masson, I, p. 57.

midsummer night's dream
. . .
‘A Sketch from Childhood',
Instructor
, p. 174.

the endless days of summer
. . .
‘Confessions', p. 83.

omen of anticipation. . .
Eaton, p. 284.

a perfect craze . . .
choose to build. . .
Masson, I, p. 59.

detested all books. . .
dream upon it. . .
Masson, I, p. 62.

slovenly and forlorn. . .
Masson, I, p. 70.

What is this I hear, child?. . .
H. A. Page, I, p. 30.

a most splendid. . .
same hour. . .
Masson, I, pp. 116–19.

a new book. . .
Masson, I, p. 115.

Were the lamps of our equipage clean and bright?. . .
Japp, I, pp. 9–10.

a mighty theatre. . .
infinite review. . .
‘Suspiria', p. 151.

Trial by jury, English laws of evidence
. . .
Japp, I, p. 9.

Had the Vatican. . .
carry it off to sea. . .
‘Suspiria', p. 135.

What a huge thing. . .
crack of doom. . .
‘Suspiria', pp. 136–8.

at the front door. . .
set of ropes. . .
‘Suspiria', p. 141.

Into a downright. . .
yet a higher flight. . .
Masson, X, pp. 38–40.

An infinite book
. . .
see Jorge Luis Borges, ‘The Thousand and One Nights',
The Georgia Review
, XXXVIII, No. 3 (Fall 1984), pp. 564–74.

involutes. . .
Masson, I, p. 128.

compound experiences. . .
‘Suspiria', p. 107.

At the opening. . .
corresponding keys
, Masson, I, pp. 128–9.

the opening scene of
‘
Aladdin
'
. . .
De Quincey uses the image again in ‘The Nation of London', where he describes how his visit as a boy to St Paul's
Cathedral was hampered by the vendor selling tickets to see the sights: ‘I ask, does no action at common law lie against the promoters of such enormous abuses? Oh, thou fervent reformer – whose fatal tread he that puts his ear to the ground may hear at a distance coming onwards upon
every
road. . .'

Chapter 2: Childhood and Schooltime

all the signs of the Zodiac. . .
Tobias Smollett,
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
, Munich, 2005, p. 40.

Another stupid party. . .
Claire Tomalin,
Jane Austen, A Life
, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997, pp. 171–2.

mattermoney
. . .
Smollett,
Humphry Clinker
, p. 352.

cold reason. . .
Letter from Walpole to Mme Du Deffand, quoted in W. S. Lewis (ed.),
The Castle of Otranto
, Oxford: World's Classics, 1982, p. x.

no one
. . .
poor judge of a novel
. . . Eaton, p. 467.

purgatory
. . .
Lindop, p. 23.

decaying condition
. . .
Masson, I, p. 288.

crowds of inquirers. . .
Masson, I, p. 289.

the very idea. . .
hereditary poet laureate. . .
Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man
, edited by E. Foner, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969, p. 83.

the age of chivalry. . .
French excesses. . . Recollections
, p. 220.

object. . .
down their faces. . .
see Jenny Uglow,
In These Times, Living in Britain Through Napoleon's Wars, 1793–1815
, London: Faber, 2015, p. 21.

decent drapery of life. . .
‘Confessions', p. 3.

Suddenness . . .
terror. . .
Edmund Burke,
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful
, edited by Adam Philips, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990, pp. 76, 103, 53.

Epigrammatic. . .
quotations. . .
Jordan, p. 251.

travelled. . .
politeness. . .
Masson, XIV, p. 96.

everyone of celebrity. . .
Dr Johnson &c
. . . Jordan, p. 252.

was honoured. . .
extempore. . .
Masson, I, p. 152.

I neither read. . .
till Easter. . .
H. A. Page, I, p. 36.

aged seventeen. . .
We cannot be sure of the date of William's birth, but it is likely to have been 1782.

a contemplative dreamer like myself. . .
Masson, I, p. 115.

no honours to excite one. . .
Japp, I, pp. 40–1.

forty years. . .
Bristol. . .
Masson, I, p. 393.

despicable place. . .
twenty. . .
John Dix,
The Life of Thomas Chatterton, including his Unpublished Poems
, London: Hamilton Adams, 1837, p. 175.

fix his eyes. . .
Charles Bonnycastle Willcox,
The Poetical Works of Thomas Chatterton, with Notices on his Life, History of the Rowley Controversy and Notes illustrative of the Poems
, Cambridge: W. P. Grant, 1842, p. lxxiv.

a miscellaneous. . .
hieroglyphics. . .
Henry H. Jennings,
Thomas Chatterton: The Boy Poet of Bristol, A Biographical Sketch
, Bristol: St Augustine's Press, 1868, p. 13.

the first modern attempt. . .
Walter Scott, introduction to
The Castle of Otranto
, Edinburgh, 1811, p. iii.

Bristol's mercantile. . .
miserable hamlet. . .
Sir Herbert Croft,
Love and Madness: A Story Too True,
London: G. Kearsly, 1780, p. 176.

torn-up pieces of manuscript. . .
see Richard Holmes's compelling essay on Chatterton in
Sidetracks: Explorations of a Romantic Biographer
, London: HarperCollins, 2000, pp. 5–50.

adventurer. . .
by expedients. . .
Thomas Warton,
The History of English Poetry: From the Close of the Eleventh to the Commencement of the Eighteenth Century
, London: J. Dodsley, 1824, II, p. 477.

murdered Chatterton. . .
Croft,
Love and Madness
, p. 172.

Whom did he deceive. . .
Thomas De Quincey, ‘Great Forgers, Chatterton, and Walpole, and Junius', in Alexander H. Japp (ed.),
The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey
, London: Heinemann, 1891, I, p. 125.

forbidden rooms. . .
In 1856, De Quincey's future editor, David Masson, published a novel called
Chatterton
:
The Story of a Year
, in which he described the last moments of Chatterton's life in a way that would have delighted De Quincey. Having climbed the narrow stairs to his room: ‘He entered and locked the door behind him. The Devil was abroad that night in the sleeping city. Down narrow and squalid courts his presence was felt, where savage men seized miserable women by the throat and the neighbourhood was roused by yells of murder. . . Up in the wretched garrets his presence was felt, where solitary mothers gazed on their infants and longed to kill them.'

ghost crab. . .
This image is used by Patrick Bridgwater in
De Quincey's Gothic Masquerade
, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2004, p. 63.

carried. . .
elder poets. . .
Masson, II, p. 58.

if it be possible. . .
Japp (ed.),
Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey
, p. 128.

Poor Chatterton. . .
my friend. . .
Linda Kelly,
The Marvellous Boy
:
The Life and Myth of Thomas Chatterton
, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, p. 230.