Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography; De Quincey, Thomas, 1785-1859
some college or other, (Magdalen, he fancied, in after years,) where
he instructed him to call before he quitted Oxford. Had Pink done this,
and had he frankly communicated his whole story, very probably he would
have received, not assistance merely, but the best advice for guiding
his future motions. His reason for not keeping the appointment was
simply that he was nervously shy, and, above all things, jealous of
being entrapped by insidious kindness into revelations that might prove
dangerously circumstantial. Oxford had a mayor; Oxford had a
corporation; Oxford had Greek Testaments past all counting; and so,
remembering past experiences, Pink held it to be the wisest counsel
that he should pursue his route on foot to Liverpool. That guinea,
however, he used to say, saved him from despair.
One circumstance affected me in this part of Pink's story. I was a
student in Oxford at that time. By comparing dates, there was no doubt
whatever that I, who held my guardians in abhorrence, and, above all
things, admired my brother for his conduct, might have rescued him at
this point of his youthful trials, four years before the fortunate
catastrophe of his case, from the calamities which awaited him. This
is felt generally to be the most distressing form of human
blindness--the case when accident brings two fraternal hearts, yearning
for reunion, into almost touching neighborhood, and then, in a moment
after, by the difference, perhaps, of three inches in space, or three
seconds in time, will separate them again, unconscious of their brief
neighborhood, perhaps forever. In the present case, however, it may
be doubted whether this unconscious rencontre and unconscious parting
in Oxford ought to be viewed as a misfortune. Pink, it is true, endured
years of suffering, four, at least, that might have been saved by this
seasonable rencontre; but, on the other hand, by travelling through
his misfortunes with unabated spirit, and to their natural end, he won
experience and distinctions that else he would have missed. His further
history was briefly this:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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