MANUSCRIPT: destroyed.

PUBLICATION: L (1894) 275-276; LL 286-287; L (1931) 250-251, dated: 1874.

Edward Dickinson's notation on an almanac for 1874 (AC) indicates that he was at home in late February and early March of this year. De Quincey's call on Christopher North is related by North's daughter, Mary Wilson Gordon, Memoir of John Wilson (Christopher North), 1862, 327:

I remember his [De Quincey's] coming to Gloucester Place one stormy night. He remained hour after hour, in vain expectation that the waters could assuage and the hurly-burly cease. There was nothing for it but that our visitor should remain all night. The Professor [Wilson] ordered a room to be prepared for him, and they found each other such good company that this accidental detention was prolonged, without further difficulty, for the greater part of a year.

ED's interest in De Quincey, who died in 1859, began evidently in 1858 (see letter no. 191). The scripture paraphrase is from Deuteronomy 33.25: ". . . as thy days, so shall thy strength be."