Excerpt from De QuinceyThe Farm, and then at Greenbay, a country house built by his father, and at that time still outside the spreading Circle of the city.' Here, in one or the other Of these quiet retreats, he felt the earliest impressions of the glory Of life and the pathos of life's withdrawal - that ever lasting contrast which has been so marvellously depicted by him.2 Living in the country, he says, I was naturally first laid hold Of by rural appearances or incidents. The very earliest feel ings that I recall Of a powerful character were connected with some Clusters of crocuses in the garden. Next I felt a passion of grief in a pro found degree for the death Of a beautiful bird, a kingfisher, which had been taken up in the garden with a broken wing. That occurred before I was two years of age. Next I felt, no grief at all, but awe the most enduring, and a dawning sense of the infinite, which brooded over me more or less after that time. Let the student Of De Quincey mark well that dawning sense Of the infinite, for therein lies the Clue to a full understanding of his genius and writings.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.