Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography; De Quincey, Thomas, 1785-1859
From this day, therefore, I obeyed all my brother's military commands
with the utmost docility; and happy it made me that every sort of
doubt, or question, or opening for demur was swallowed up in the unity
of this one papal principle, discovered by my brother, viz., that all
rights and duties of casuistry were transferred from me to himself.
_His_ was the judgment--_his_ was the responsibility; and to me belonged
only the sublime obligation of unconditional faith in _him_. That faith
I realized. It is true that he taxed me at times, in his reports of
particular fights, with "horrible cowardice," and even with "a cowardice
that seemed inexplicable, except on the supposition of treachery." But
this was only a _façon de parler_ with him: the idea of secret perfidy,
that was constantly moving under ground, gave an interest to the
progress of the war, which else tended to the monotonous. It was a
dramatic artifice for sustaining the interest, where the incidents
might happen to be too slightly diversified. But that he did not believe
his own charges was clear, because he never repeated them in his
"General History of the Campaigns," which was a _resumé_, or
recapitulating digest, of his daily reports.
We fought every day, and, generally speaking, _twice_ every day; and
the result was pretty uniform, viz., that my brother and I terminated
the battle by insisting upon our undoubted right to run away. _Magna
Charta_, I should fancy, secures that great right to every man; else,
surely, it is sadly defective. But out of this catastrophe to most of
our skirmishes, and to all our pitched battles except one, grew a
standing schism between my brother and myself. My unlimited obedience
had respect to action, but not to opinion. Loyalty to my brother did
not rest upon hypocrisy: because I was faithful, it did not follow
that I must be false in relation to his capricious opinions. And these
opinions sometimes took the shape of acts. Twice, at the least, in
every week, but sometimes every night, my brother insisted on singing
"Te Deum" for supposed victories which he had won; and he insisted
also on my bearing a part in these "Te Deums." Now, as I knew of no
such victories, but resolutely asserted the truth,--viz., that we ran
away,--a slight jar was thus given to the else triumphal effect of
these musical ovations. Once having uttered my protest, however,
willingly I gave my aid to the chanting; for I loved unspeakably the
grand and varied system of chanting in the Romish and English churches.
And, looking back at this day to the ineffable benefits which I derived
from the church of my childhood, I account among the very greatest
those which reached me through the various chants connected with the
"O, Jubilate," the "Magnificat," the "Te Deum," the "Benedicite," &c.
Through these chants it was that the sorrow which laid waste my infancy,
and the devotion which nature had made a necessity of my being, were
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