Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers — Volume 1De Quincey, Thomas
General
Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers — Volume 1
De Quincey, Thomas
English essays; English fiction
cross so common. The hatred of fear is ever the deepest. And men hated
the Jewish taint, as once in Jerusalem they hated the leprosy, because
even whilst they raved against it, the secret proofs of it might be
detected amongst their own kindred, even as in the Temple, whilst once
a king rose in mutiny against the priesthood, (2 Chron. xxvi 16-20,)
suddenly the leprosy that dethroned him, blazed out upon his forehead.]
whilst from her grandmother, Juana drew the deep subtle melancholy and
the beautiful contours of limb which belong to the Indian race--a race
destined silently and slowly to fade from the earth. No awkwardness was
or could be in this antelope, when gliding with forest grace into the
room--no town-bred shame--nothing but the unaffected pleasure of one
who wishes to speak a fervent welcome, but knows not if she ought--the
astonishment of a Miranda, bred in utter solitude, when first beholding
a princely Ferdinand--and just so much reserve as to remind you, that
if Catalina thought fit to dissemble her sex, she did _not_. And
consider, reader, if you look back and are a great arithmetician, that
whilst the Senora had only fifty per cent of Spanish blood, Juana had
seventy-five; so that her Indian melancholy after all was swallowed up
for the present by her Vandal, by her Arab, by her Spanish fire.
Catalina, seared as she was by the world, has left it evident in her
memoirs that she was touched more than she wished to be by this
innocent child. Juana formed a brief lull for Catalina in her too
stormy existence. And if for _her_ in this life the sweet reality
of a sister had been possible, here was the sister she would have
chosen. On the other hand, what might Juana think of the cornet? To
have been thrown upon the kind hospitalities of her native home, to
have been rescued by her mother's servants from that fearful death
which, lying but a few miles off, had filled her nursery with
traditionary tragedies,--_that_ was sufficient to create an
interest in the stranger. But his bold martial demeanor, his yet
youthful style of beauty, his frank manners, his animated conversation
that reported a hundred contests with suffering and peril, wakened for
the first time her admiration. Men she had never seen before, except
menial servants, or a casual priest. But here was a gentleman, young
like herself, that rode in the cavalry of Spain--that carried the
banner of the only potentate whom Peruvians knew of--the King of the
Spains and the Indies--that had doubled Cape Horn, that had crossed the
Andes, that had suffered shipwreck, that had rocked upon fifty storms,
and had wrestled for life through fifty battles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account