apparel, was enough for me; and I loved the child because she was my partner in wretchedness.” II I cannot agree with Mr. H. S. Salt when, in the course of a clever and interesting biographical study of De Quincey, {40} he says: “It (in _re_ style) conveys precisely the sense that is intended, and attains its effect far less by rhetorical artifice than by an almost faultless instinct in the choice and use of words.” In the delineation of certain moods he is supremely excellent. But surely the style is not a plastic style; and its appeal to the ear rather than to the pictorial faculty limits its emotional effect upon the reader. Images pass before his eyes, and he tries to depict them by cunningly devised phrases; but the veil of phantasy through which he sees those images has blurred their outline and dimmed their colouring. The phrase arrests by its musical cadences, by its solemn, mournful music. Even some of his most admirable pieces—the dream fugues, leave the reader dissatisfied, when they touch poignant realities like sorrow. Despite its many beauties, that dream fugue, “Our Ladies of Sorrow,” seems too misty, too ethereal in texture for the intense actuality of the subject. Compare some of its passages with passages from another prose-poet, Oscar Wilde, where no veil of phantasy comes between the percipient and the thing perceived, and it will be strange if the reader does not feel that the later writer has a finer instinct for the choice and use of words. It would be untrue to say that Wilde’s instinct was faultless. A garish artificiality spoils much of his work; but this was through wilful perversity. Even in his earlier work—in that wonderful book, _Dorian Gray_, he realized the compelling charm of simplicity in style. His fairy stories, _The Happy Prince_, for instance, are little masterpieces of simple, restrained writing, and in the last things that came from his pen there is a growing appreciation of the value of simplicity. De Quincey never realized this; he recognized one form of art—the decorative. And although he became a master of that form, it was inevitable that at times this mode of art should fail in its effect. Here is a passage from _Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow_:—