In one respect the records of his life efface a suspicion that haunts the reader of his works. More than once the reader is apt to speculate as to how far the arrogance that marks certain of his essays is a superficial quality, a literary trick; how far a moral trait. The record of his conversations tends to show that much of this was merely surface. Unlike Coleridge, unlike Carlyle, he was as willing to listen as to talk; and he said many of his best things with a delightful unconsciousness that they were especially good. He never seemed to have the least wish to impress people by his cleverness or aptness of speech. But when all has been said as to the personality of the man as expressed in his writings—especially his _Confessions_, and to his personality as interpreted by friends and acquaintances—there remains a measure of mystery about De Quincey. This is part of his fascination, just as it is part of the fascination attaching to Coleridge. The frank confidences of his _Confessions_ hide from view the inner ring of reserve, which gave a strange impenetrability to his character, even to those who knew and loved him best. A simple nature and a complex temperament. Well, after all, such personalities are the most interesting of all, for each time we greet them it is with a note of interrogation. III GEORGE BORROW “The common sun, the air, the skies, To him are opening Paradise.” GRAY. “He had an English look; that is was square In make, of a complexion white and ruddy.” BYRON. I Why is it that almost as soon as we can toddle we eagerly demand a story of our elders? Why is it that the most excitable little girl, the most incorrigible little boy can be quieted by a teaspoonful of the jam of fiction? Why is it that “once upon a time” can achieve what moral strictures are powerless to effect? It is because to most of us the world of imagination is the world that matters. We live in the “might be’s” and “peradventures.” Fate may have cast our lot in prosaic places; have predetermined our lives on humdrum lines; but it cannot touch our dreams. There we are princes, princesses—possessed of illimitable wealth, wielding immeasurable power. Our bodies may traverse the same dismal streets day after day; but our minds rove luxuriantly through all the kingdoms of the earth. Those wonderful eastern stories of the “Flying Horse” and the “Magic Carpet,” symbolize for us the matter-of-fact world and the matter-of-dream world. Nay, is there any sound distinction between facts and dreams? After all— “We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.”