Instead of the pure air of outside Lancashire, let there be
substituted the cotton-dust of the Lancashire mills. The contrast, even
in thought, is painful. It is true that thus the irrepressible fires of
human genius could not be quenched. Nay, through just these
instrumentalities, oftentimes, is genius fostered. We need not the
instance of Romulus and Remus, or of the Persian Cyrus, to prove that
men have sometimes been nourished by bears or by she-wolves.
Nevertheless, this is essentially a Roman nurture. The Greeks, on the
contrary, laid their infant heroes on beds of violets,--if we may
believe the Pindaric odes,--set over them a divine watch, and fed them
with angels' food. And this Grecian nurture De Quincey had.
And not the least important element of this nurture is that of perfect
_leisure_. Through this it is that we pass from the outward to the
subjective relations of De Quincey's childhood; for only in connection
with these has the element just introduced any value, since leisure,
which is the atmosphere, the breathing-place of genius, is also cap and
bells for the fool.
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