# The English Mail-Coach explained — Suspiria de Profundis

> Chapter companion for Suspiria de Profundis by Thomas De Quincey.

## What happens

This chapter recounts the author's experiences with the English mail-coach system, exploring its speed, grandeur, and the profound emotional and symbolic impact it had on him. It weaves together personal memories, historical events like the delivery of the Waterloo news, and vivid dreams, reflecting on themes of time, mortality, and the sublime.

## Themes in this chapter

### Time and Mortality

The mail-coach's speed and the fleeting nature of the journeys evoke a meditation on the passage of time and human mortality.

### The Sublime and the Dreadful

The overwhelming power and beauty of the mail-coach's motion, combined with the terror of potential accidents, embody the sublime.

## Character check-ins

### The Narrator

The central consciousness experiencing and reflecting on the mail-coach journeys.

### Mr. Palmer

Inventor of the mail-coach system, credited with revolutionizing travel and communication.

### Cyclops the Charioteer

The coachman, depicted as a powerful and almost mythical figure driving the mail-coach.

## Key lines

> The mail-coach it was that distributed over the face of the land, like the opening of apocalyptic vials, the heart-shaking news of Trafalgar, of Salamanca, of Vittoria, of Waterloo.

The mail-coach spread momentous news of battles across the country, as if pouring out prophetic judgments.

_Highlights the mail-coach's role in disseminating crucial war news._

> The very sensibility of the horse, his dread of collision, his intense instinct of self-preservation, were the very agencies that secured our safety.

The horse's acute awareness and fear of accidents were exactly what kept us safe.

_Reflects on the paradoxical nature of the horse's instincts ensuring safety._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/suspiria_de_profundis_se/chapters/the-english-mail-coach
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/suspiria_de_profundis_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/suspiria_de_profundis_se/chapters