Suspiria De Profundis by Thomas de Quincey

As nothing which is impassioned escapes the eye of poetry, neither has this escaped it -- that there is, or may be, through solitude, "sublime attractions of the grave. " But even poetry has not perceived that these attractions may arise for a child. Not, indeed, a passion for the grave as the grave -- from that a child revolts; but a passion for the grave as the portal through which it may recover some heavenly countenance, mother or sister, that has vanished. Through solitude this passion may be exalted into a frenzy like a nympholepsy. At first, when in childhood we find ourselves torn away from the lips that we could hang on forever, we throw out our arms in vain struggles to snatch at them, and pull them back again. But when we have felt for a time how hopeless is that effort, and that they cannot come to us, we desist from that struggle, and next we whisper to our hearts, Might not we go to them?

Such in principle and origin was the famous Dulce Domum48 of the English schoolboy. Such is the Heimweh (homesickness) of the German and Swiss soldier in foreign service. Such is the passion of the Calenture. Doubtless, reader, you have seen it described. The poor sailor is in tropical latitudes; deep, breathless calms have prevailed for weeks. Fever and delirium are upon him. Suddenly from his restless hammock he starts up; he will fret no longer in darkness; he ascends upon deck. How motionless are the deeps! How vast -- how sweet are these shining zaarrahs of water! He gazes, and slowly under the blazing scenery of his brain the scenery of his eye unsettles. The waters are swallowed up; the seas have disappeared. Green fields appear, a silent dell, and a pastoral cottage. Two faces appear -- are at the door -- sweet female faces, and behold they beckon him. "Come to us! " they seem to say. The picture rises to his wearied brain like a sanctus from the choir of a cathedral, and in the twinkling of an eye, stung to madness by the cravings of his heart, the man is overboard. He is gone -- he is lost for this world; but if he missed the arms of the lovely women -- wife and sister -- whom he sought, assuredly he has settled into arms that are mightier and not less indulgent.