Surely, if there was anything which vexed the tender heart of this man,
it was "the little love and the infinite hate" which went to make up the
sum of life. If morbid in any direction, it was not in that of spite,
but of love; and as an instance of almost unnatural intensity of
affection, witness his insane grief over little Kate Wordsworth's
grave,--a grief which satisfied itself only by reasonless prostrations,
for whole nights, over the dark mould which covered her from his sight.
It only remains for us to look in upon De Quincey's last hours. We are
enabled to take almost the position of those who were permitted really
to watch at his bedside, through a slight unpublished sketch, from the
hand of his daughter, in a letter to an American friend. I tremble
almost to use materials that personally are so sacred; but sympathy, and
the tender interest which is awakened in our hearts by such a life, are
also sacred, and in privilege stand nearest to grief.
During the few last, days of his life De Quincey wandered much, mixing
up "real and imaginary, or apparently imaginary things.
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