Narrative and Miscellaneous PapersDe Quincey, Thomas
General
Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers
De Quincey, Thomas
English essays; English fiction
But the lower lip, which is drawn inwards with the curve of a conch
shell,--oh what a convolute of cruelty and revenge is _there_!
Cruelty!--to whom? Revenge!--for what? Ask not, whisper not. Look
upwards to other mysteries. In the very region of his temples, driving
itself downwards into his cruel brain, and breaking the continuity of
his diadem, is a horrid chasm, a ravine, a shaft, that many centuries
would not traverse; and it is serrated on its posterior wall with a
harrow that perhaps is partly hidden. From the anterior wall of this
chasm rise, in vertical directions, two processes; one perpendicular,
and rigid as a horn, the other streaming forward before some portentous
breath. What these could be, seemed doubtful; but now, when further
examinations by Sir John Herschel, at the Cape of Good Hope, have filled
up the scattered outline with a rich umbrageous growth, one is inclined
to regard them as the plumes of a sultan. Dressed he is, therefore, as
well as armed. And finally comes Lord Rosse, that glorifies him with
the jewellery [Footnote: _The jewellery of Stars_. And one thing is
very remarkable, viz., that not only the stars justify this name of
jewellery, as usual, by the life of their splendor, but also, in this
case, by their arrangement. No jeweller could have set, or disposed with
more art, the magnificent quadrille of stars which is placed immediately
below the upright plume. There is also another, a truncated quadrille,
wanting only the left hand star (or you might call it a bisected
lozenge) placed on the diadem, but obliquely placed as regards the curve
of that diadem. Two or three other arrangements are striking, though
not equally so, both from their regularity and from their repeating each
other, as the forms in a kaleidoscope.] of stars: he is now a vision 'to
dream of, not to tell:' he is ready for the worship of those that
are tormented in sleep: and the stages of his solemn uncovering by
astronomy, first by Sir W. Herschel, secondly, by his son, and finally
by Lord Rosse, is like the reversing of some heavenly doom, like
the raising of the seals that had been sealed by the angel, in the
Revelations. But the reader naturally asks, How does all this concern
Lord Rosse's telescope on the one side, or general astronomy on the
other? This _nebula_, he will say, seems a bad kind of fellow by your
account; and of course it will not break my heart to hear, that he has
had the conceit taken out of him. But in what way can _that_ affect the
pretensions of this new instrument; or, if it did, how can the character
of the instrument affect the general condition of a science? Besides, is
not the science a growth from very ancient times? With great respect for
the Earl of Rosse, is it conceivable that he, or any man, by one hour's
working the tackle of his new instrument, can have carried any stunning
revolutionary effect into the heart of a section so ancient in our
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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