The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 2De Quincey, Thomas
General
The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 2
De Quincey, Thomas
English essays
probably the bad young lady that prescribed whipping as the orthodox
medicine for curing it, and the poor Ancient Mariner himself--that had
to fight his way through such enemies at the price of ague, rheumatism,
and tears uncounted--are all asleep at present, but in graves how widely
divided! One near London; one near Seringapatam; and the young lady, we
suppose, in Ottery churchyard, but her offence, though beyond the power
of Philosophy to pardon, is not remembered, we trust, in her epitaph!
We are sorry that S. T. C. having been so much of a darling with his
father, and considering that he looked back to the brief connection
between them as solemnized by its pathetic termination, had not reported
some parts of their graver intercourse. One such fragment he does
report; it is an elementary lesson upon astronomy, which his father gave
him in the course of a walk upon a starry night. This is in keeping with
the grandeur and responsibility of the paternal relation. But really, in
the only other example (which immediately occurs) of Papa's attempt to
bias the filial intellect, we recognise nothing but what is mystical;
and involuntarily we think of him in the modern slang character of
'governor,' rather than as a 'guide, philosopher, and friend.' It seems
that one Saturday, about the time when the Rev. Walker in Furness must
have been sitting down to his _exegesis_ of hard sayings in the _Town
and Country Magazine_, the Rev. Coleridge thought fit to reward S. T. C.
for the most singular act of virtue that we have ever heard imputed to
man or boy--to 'saint, to savage, or to sage'--viz., the act of eating
beans and bacon to a large amount. The stress must be laid on the word
_large_; because simply to masticate beans and bacon, we do not
recollect to have been regarded with special esteem by the learned
vicar; it was the liberal consumption of them that entitled Samuel to
reward. That reward was one penny, so that in degree of merit, after
all, the service may not have ranked high. But what perplexes us is the
_kind_ of merit. Did it bear some mystical or symbolic sense? Was it
held to argue a spirit of general rebellion against Philosophy, that S.
T. C. should so early in life, by one and the same act, proclaim
mutinous disposition towards two of the most memorable amongst earth's
philosophers--Moses and Pythagoras; of whom the latter had set his face
against beans, laying it down for his opinion that to eat beans and to
cut one's father's throat were acts of about equal atrocity; whilst the
other, who tolerated the beans, had expressly forbidden the bacon? We
are really embarrassed; finding the mere fact recorded with no further
declaration of the rev. governor's reasons, than that such an
'attachment' (an _attachment_ to beans and bacon!) 'ought to be
encouraged'; but upon what principle we no more understand than we do
the principle of the _Quale-quare-quidditive_ case.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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