Over De Quincey's childhood, on the contrary,
a strong angel guarded to withstand and thwart all threatened ruin,
teaching him the gentle whisperings of faith and love in the darkest
hours of life: an angel that built happy palaces, the beautiful images
of which, and their echoed festivals, far outlasted the splendor of
their material substance.
"We,--the children of the house,--" says De Quincey, in his
"Autobiographic Sketches," "stood, in fact, upon the very happiest tier
in the social scaffolding for all good influences. The prayer of
Agur--'Give me neither poverty nor riches'--was realized for us. That
blessing we had, being neither too high nor too low. High enough we were
to see models of good manners, of self-respect, and of simple dignity;
obscure enough to be left in the sweetest of solitudes. Amply furnished
with all the nobler benefits of wealth, with _extra_ means of health, of
intellectual culture, and of elegant enjoyment, on the other hand we
knew nothing of its social distinctions.
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