The English Mail-Coach & Joan of Arc

Book Excerpt: ...that of the broad river, not in its weight or force perhaps, but in its easy flowing progress, in its serene, unhurried certainty of its end. To be sure, only too often the waters overflow their banks and run far afield in alien channels. Yet, when great power over the instrument of language is joined to so much constructive skill, the result is narrative art of high quality, --an achievement that must be in no small measure the solid basis of De Quincey's fame. III. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE..