Bloom's Literary Themes - ymerleksi - home

18
Thomas De Quincey
all more coloured, more living, more subtle than ever, more magic than
ever. “These magnificent cities,” said he, “where the superb houses are
arranged in intervals, look like stage-scenery, this fine ship balanced
by the waves on the shore in a nostalgic indolence, and which seem to
translate our thought: when shall we set sail for the Fortunate Islands?—
these museums which contain such wonderful forms and such intoxicating
colours, these libraries where are accumulated scientific books
and dreams of the Muse, these instruments which placed together seem
as it were to speak with one voice, these enchanting women who are
more charming still by the science of their costumes and by the magic
of their glances; all these things have been created for me, for me, for
me! For me, has humanity travailed, been martyred, been immolated,
to serve for pasture, for pabulum, to my implacable thirst after emotion,
after knowledge and after Beauty!” Je saute et j’abrège. No one ought to
be astonished that a final thought, a supreme sensation should surge
from the dreamer’s brain: Je suis devenu Dieu! that an ardent, a savage
cry rushes from his breast with so intense an energy, with so immense
a power of projection, which if an intoxicated man’s belief and will had
an efficacious virtue, this cry would hurl down on the wings of lightning
the angels disseminated on the heavenly roads: Je suis un Dieu! Suddenly
this storm of pride is transformed into a wonderful temperature, and
the universality of beings present themselves in coloured shapes and as
it were illumined by a sulphurous dawn. If by chance a vague memory
glides into the soul of this deplorable man, deplorable simply because
he is happy: might there not be another God? be certain that he will
rise to his whole height before HIM, that he will discuss his will and
that he will affront him without terror. Who is the French writer who
said—with the intention of mocking modern German doctrines: “Je
suis un dieu qui à mal diné?” This stinging irony could never sting a man
intoxicated by Haschisch; he would reply quietly “Il est possible que j’ai
mal diné, mais je suis un Dieu.”
V.
Moral.
[ . . . ]
It is certainly superfluous, after all these considerations, to insist
on the immoral character of Haschisch. Were I to compare it with
suicide, a slow suicide, with an always blood-stained and an always