Another point from
which a connection with "Septimius Felton" may perhaps be traced is the
passing mention of Grandsir Dolliver's grandson Cornelius, by whom this
cordial had been compounded, he having displayed a great efficiency with
powerful drugs. Recalling that the author describes many nostrums as
having been attributed to Septimius, which he had perhaps chanced upon
in his unsuccessful attempts to distil the elixir of life, we may fairly
conjecture this posthumous character of Cornelius, this mere memory, to
be the remains of Septimius, who, it would seem, was to have been buried
by the author under the splendid monument of a still more highly wrought
and more aspiring form of the romance. The only remaining portions of
this latest form have been printed, and are lull of a silvery and
resonant promise. Unquestionably it was to have been as much a "Romance
of Immortality" as "Septimius"; and the exquisite contrast of the child
Pansie--who promised to be the author's most captivating feminine
creation--with the aged man, would no doubt have given us a theme of
celestial loveliness, as compared with the forbidding and remorseless
mournfulness of the preliminary work. In the manuscript sketch for
"Septimius" there is a note referring to a description in the "English
Note-Books" of two pine-trees at Lowood, on Windermere, "quite dead and
dry, although they have the aspect of dark, rich life. But this is
caused by the verdure of two great ivy-vines which have twisted round
them like gigantic snakes, .
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