the fantastic imagery of the brain, cities and temples beyond the art of Phidias and Praxiteles - beyond the splendour 15 of Babylon and Hekatompylos: and "from the anarchy of dreaming sleep," callest into sunny light the faces of longburied beauties, and the blessed household countenances, cleansed from the "dishonours of the grave." Thou only givest these gifts to man; and thou hast the keys of Para- 20 dise, oh, just, subtle, and mighty opium!

Incident of the Malay

(From the Confessions)

I remember, about this time, a little incident, which I mention, because, trifling as it was, the reader will soon meet it again in my dreams, which it influenced more fearfully than could be imagined. One day a Malay knocked at my door. What business a Malay could have to transact 5 amongst English mountains, I cannot conjecture: but possibly he was on his road to a seaport about forty miles distant.

The servant who opened the door to him was a young girl born and bred amongst the mountains, who had never seen an Asiatic dress of any sort: his turban, therefore, con- 10 founded her not a little; and, as it turned out that his attainments in English were exactly of the same extent as hers in the Malay, there seemed to be an impassable gulf fixed between all communication of ideas, if either party had happened to possess any. In this dilemma, the girl, recol- 15 lecting the reputed learning of her master, and doubtless giving me credit for a knowledge of all the languages of the earth, besides, perhaps, a few of the lunar ones, came and gave me to understand that there was a sort of demon below, whom she clearly imagined that my art could exorcise from 20 the house. I did not immediately go down: but, when I did, the group which presented itself, arranged as it was by

accident, though not very elaborate, took hold of my fancy and my eye in a way that none of the statuesque attitudes 25 exhibited in the ballets at the Opera-house, though so ostentatiously complex, had ever done.

In a cottage kitchen, but panelled on the wall with dark wood that from age and rubbing resembled oak, and looking more like a rustic hall of entrance than a kitchen, stood the 30 Malay his turban and loose trousers of dingy white relieved upon the dark panelling: he had placed himself nearer to the girl than she seemed to relish; though her native spirit of mountain intrepidity contended with the feeling of simple awe which her countenance expressed as she gazed upon the tiger35 cat before her. And a more striking picture there could not be imagined, than the beautiful English face of the girl, and its exquisite fairness, together with her erect and independent attitude, contrasted with the sallow and bilious skin of the Malay, enamelled or veneered with mahogany, by marine 40 air, his small, fierce restless eyes, thin lips, slavish gestures and adorations. Half-hidden by the ferocious looking Malay was a little child from a neighboring cottage who had crept in after him, and was now in the act of reverting its head, and gazing upwards at the turban and the fiery eyes beneath 45 it, whilst with one hand he caught at the dress of the young woman for protection. My knowledge of the Oriental tongues is not remarkably extensive, being indeed confined to two words the Arabic word for barley, and the Turkish for opium (madjoon), which I have learnt from Anastasius. 50 And, as I had neither a Malay dictionary, nor even Adelung's "Mithridates," which might have helped me to a few words, I addressed him in some lines from the Iliad; considering that, of such languages as I possessed, Greek, in point of longitude, came geographically nearest to an Oriental

55 one.

He worshipped me in a most devout manner, and replied in

what I suppose was Malay. In this way I saved my reputation with my neighbors: for the Malay had no means of betraying the secret. He lay down upon the floor for about an hour, and then pursued his journey. On his departure, 60 I presented him with a piece of opium. To him, as an Orientalist, I concluded that opium must be familiar: and the expression of his face convinced me that it was.

Nevertheless, I was struck with some little consternation when I saw him suddenly raise his hand to his mouth, 65 and, in the schoolboy phrase, bolt the whole, divided into three pieces, at one mouthful. The quantity was enough to kill three dragoons and their horses; and I felt some alarm for the poor creature; but what could be done? I had given him the opium in compassion for his solitary life, 70 on recollecting that if he had travelled on foot from London it must be nearly three weeks since he could have exchanged a thought with any human being. I could not think of violating the laws of hospitality by having him seized and drenched with an emetic, and thus frightening him into a 75 notion that we were going to sacrifice him to some English idol. No there was clearly no help for it: - he took his leave and for some days I felt anxious: but as I never heard of any Malay being found dead, I became convinced that he was used to opium: and that I must have done 80 him the service I designed, by giving him one night of respite from the pains of wandering.

This incident I have digressed to mention, because this Malay, partly from the picturesque exhibition he assisted to frame, partly from the anxiety I connected with his image 85 for some days, fastened afterwards upon my dreams, and brought other Malays with him worse than himself, that ran "a-muck" at me, and led me into a world of troubles.

From Pleasure to Pain

(From the Confessions)

But now farewell a long farewell to happiness winter or summer! farewell to smiles and laughter! farewell to peace of mind! farewell to hope and to tranquil dreams, and to the blessed consolations of sleep! for more than 5 three years and a half I am summoned away from these: I am now arrived at an Iliad of woes: for I have now to record

His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse."

Shelley's Revolt of Islam.

A Digression on Reading Aloud

(From the Confessions)

I shall now enter in medias res, and shall anticipate, from a time when my opium pains might be said to be at their acme, an account of their palsying effects on the intellectual faculties.

5 My studies have now been long interrupted. I cannot read to myself with any pleasure, hardly with a moment's endurance. Yet I read aloud sometimes for the pleasure of others; because reading is an accomplishment as a superficial and ornamental attainment, almost the only one I possess: 10 and formerly, if I had any vanity at all connected with any endowment or attainment of mine, it was with this; for I had observed that no accomplishment was so rare. Players are the worst readers of all: John Kemble reads vilely: and Mrs. Siddons, who is so celebrated, can read nothing 15 well but dramatic compositions: Milton she cannot read sufferably. People in general either read poetry without any

passion at all, or else overstep the modesty of nature, and read not like scholars. Of late, if I have felt moved by anything in books, it has been by the grand lamentations of Samson Agonistes, or the great harmonies of the Satanic 20 speeches in "Paradise Regained," when read aloud by myself. A young lady sometimes comes and drinks tea with us: at her request and M[argaret]'s I now and then read Wordsworth's poems to them. (Wordsworth, by and by, is the only poet I ever met who could read his own verses: 25 often indeed he reads admirably.)

4:3

SIR WALTER SCOTT

First Meeting of Edgar and Lucy

(From The Bride of Lammermoor, Chap. V)

Lucy had scarcely replied to her father in the words we have mentioned, and he was just about to rebuke her supposed timidity, when a bull, stimulated either by the scarlet colour of Miss Ashton's mantle, or by one of those fits of capricious ferocity to which their dispositions are liable, 5 detached himself suddenly from the group which was feeding at the upper extremity of a grassy glade, that seemed to lose itself among the crossing and entangled boughs. The animal approached the intruders on his pasture ground, at first slowly, pawing the ground with his hoof, bellowing from 10 time to time, and tearing up the sand with his horns, as if to lash himself up to rage and violence.

The Lord Keeper, who observed the animal's demeanour, was aware that he was about to become mischievous, and, drawing his daughter's arm under his own, began to walk 15 fast along the avenue, in hopes to get out of his sight and his reach. This was the most injudicious course he could have adopted, for, encouraged by the appearance of flight, the bull began to pursue them at full speed. Assailed by a