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diff --git a/2040-h/2040-h.htm b/2040-h/2040-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2015162 --- /dev/null +++ b/2040-h/2040-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4034 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, by Thomas De Quincey</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Confessions of an English Opium-Eater</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Thomas De Quincey</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January, 2000 [eBook #2040]<br /> +[Most recently updated: November 12, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Price</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER ***</div> + +<h1>CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER:</h1> + +<h3>BEING AN EXTRACT FROM THE<br/> +LIFE OF A SCHOLAR.</h3> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Thomas De Quincey</h2> + +<p> +<i>From the “London Magazine” for September</i> 1821. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>TO THE READER</h2> + +<p> +I here present you, courteous reader, with the record of a remarkable period in +my life: according to my application of it, I trust that it will prove not +merely an interesting record, but in a considerable degree useful and +instructive. In <i>that</i> hope it is that I have drawn it up; and <i>that</i> +must be my apology for breaking through that delicate and honourable reserve +which, for the most part, restrains us from the public exposure of our own +errors and infirmities. Nothing, indeed, is more revolting to English feelings +than the spectacle of a human being obtruding on our notice his moral ulcers or +scars, and tearing away that “decent drapery” which time or indulgence to human +frailty may have drawn over them; accordingly, the greater part of <i>our</i> +confessions (that is, spontaneous and extra-judicial confessions) proceed from +demireps, adventurers, or swindlers: and for any such acts of gratuitous +self-humiliation from those who can be supposed in sympathy with the decent and +self-respecting part of society, we must look to French literature, or to that +part of the German which is tainted with the spurious and defective sensibility +of the French. All this I feel so forcibly, and so nervously am I alive to +reproach of this tendency, that I have for many months hesitated about the +propriety of allowing this or any part of my narrative to come before the +public eye until after my death (when, for many reasons, the whole will be +published); and it is not without an anxious review of the reasons for and +against this step that I have at last concluded on taking it. +</p> + +<p> +Guilt and misery shrink, by a natural instinct, from public notice: they court +privacy and solitude: and even in their choice of a grave will sometimes +sequester themselves from the general population of the churchyard, as if +declining to claim fellowship with the great family of man, and wishing (in the +affecting language of Mr. Wordsworth) +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“—Humbly to express<br/> +A penitential loneliness.” +</p> + +<p> +It is well, upon the whole, and for the interest of us all, that it should be +so: nor would I willingly in my own person manifest a disregard of such +salutary feelings, nor in act or word do anything to weaken them; but, on the +one hand, as my self-accusation does not amount to a confession of guilt, so, +on the other, it is possible that, if it <i>did</i>, the benefit resulting to +others from the record of an experience purchased at so heavy a price might +compensate, by a vast overbalance, for any violence done to the feelings I have +noticed, and justify a breach of the general rule. Infirmity and misery do not +of necessity imply guilt. They approach or recede from shades of that dark +alliance, in proportion to the probable motives and prospects of the offender, +and the palliations, known or secret, of the offence; in proportion as the +temptations to it were potent from the first, and the resistance to it, in act +or in effort, was earnest to the last. For my own part, without breach of truth +or modesty, I may affirm that my life has been, on the whole, the life of a +philosopher: from my birth I was made an intellectual creature, and +intellectual in the highest sense my pursuits and pleasures have been, even +from my schoolboy days. If opium-eating be a sensual pleasure, and if I am +bound to confess that I have indulged in it to an excess not yet +<i>recorded</i> <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a> of any +other man, it is no less true that I have struggled against this fascinating +enthralment with a religious zeal, and have at length accomplished what I never +yet heard attributed to any other man—have untwisted, almost to its final +links, the accursed chain which fettered me. Such a self-conquest may +reasonably be set off in counterbalance to any kind or degree of +self-indulgence. Not to insist that in my case the self-conquest was +unquestionable, the self-indulgence open to doubts of casuistry, according as +that name shall be extended to acts aiming at the bare relief of pain, or shall +be restricted to such as aim at the excitement of positive pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +Guilt, therefore, I do not acknowledge; and if I did, it is possible that I +might still resolve on the present act of confession in consideration of the +service which I may thereby render to the whole class of opium-eaters. But who +are they? Reader, I am sorry to say a very numerous class indeed. Of this I +became convinced some years ago by computing at that time the number of those +in one small class of English society (the class of men distinguished for +talents, or of eminent station) who were known to me, directly or indirectly, +as opium-eaters; such, for instance, as the eloquent and benevolent ——, the +late Dean of ——, Lord ——, Mr. —— the philosopher, a late Under-Secretary of +State (who described to me the sensation which first drove him to the use of +opium in the very same words as the Dean of ——, viz., “that he felt as though +rats were gnawing and abrading the coats of his stomach”), Mr. ——, and many +others hardly less known, whom it would be tedious to mention. Now, if one +class, comparatively so limited, could furnish so many scores of cases (and +<i>that</i> within the knowledge of one single inquirer), it was a natural +inference that the entire population of England would furnish a proportionable +number. The soundness of this inference, however, I doubted, until some facts +became known to me which satisfied me that it was not incorrect. I will mention +two. (1) Three respectable London druggists, in widely remote quarters of +London, from whom I happened lately to be purchasing small quantities of opium, +assured me that the number of <i>amateur</i> opium-eaters (as I may term them) +was at this time immense; and that the difficulty of distinguishing those +persons to whom habit had rendered opium necessary from such as were purchasing +it with a view to suicide, occasioned them daily trouble and disputes. This +evidence respected London only. But (2)—which will possibly surprise the +reader more—some years ago, on passing through Manchester, I was informed +by several cotton manufacturers that their workpeople were rapidly getting into +the practice of opium-eating; so much so, that on a Saturday afternoon the +counters of the druggists were strewed with pills of one, two, or three grains, +in preparation for the known demand of the evening. The immediate occasion of +this practice was the lowness of wages, which at that time would not allow them +to indulge in ale or spirits, and wages rising, it may be thought that this +practice would cease; but as I do not readily believe that any man having once +tasted the divine luxuries of opium will afterwards descend to the gross and +mortal enjoyments of alcohol, I take it for granted +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +That those eat now who never ate before;<br/> +And those who always ate, now eat the more. +</p> + +<p> +Indeed, the fascinating powers of opium are admitted even by medical writers, +who are its greatest enemies. Thus, for instance, Awsiter, apothecary to +Greenwich Hospital, in his “Essay on the Effects of Opium” (published in the +year 1763), when attempting to explain why Mead had not been sufficiently +explicit on the properties, counteragents, &c., of this drug, expresses +himself in the following mysterious terms +(φωναντα +συνετοισι): “Perhaps he +thought the subject of too delicate a nature to be made common; and as many +people might then indiscriminately use it, it would take from that necessary +fear and caution which should prevent their experiencing the extensive power of +this drug, <i>for there are many properties in it, if universally known, that +would habituate the use, and make it more in request with us than with Turks +themselves</i>; the result of which knowledge,” he adds, “must prove a general +misfortune.” In the necessity of this conclusion I do not altogether concur; +but upon that point I shall have occasion to speak at the close of my +Confessions, where I shall present the reader with the <i>moral</i> of my +narrative. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>PRELIMINARY CONFESSIONS</h2> + +<p> +These preliminary confessions, or introductory narrative of the youthful +adventures which laid the foundation of the writer’s habit of opium-eating in +after-life, it has been judged proper to premise, for three several reasons: +</p> + +<p> +1. As forestalling that question, and giving it a satisfactory answer, which +else would painfully obtrude itself in the course of the Opium +Confessions—“How came any reasonable being to subject himself to such a +yoke of misery; voluntarily to incur a captivity so servile, and knowingly to +fetter himself with such a sevenfold chain?”—a question which, if not +somewhere plausibly resolved, could hardly fail, by the indignation which it +would be apt to raise as against an act of wanton folly, to interfere with that +degree of sympathy which is necessary in any case to an author’s purposes. +</p> + +<p> +2. As furnishing a key to some parts of that tremendous scenery which +afterwards peopled the dreams of the Opium-eater. +</p> + +<p> +3. As creating some previous interest of a personal sort in the confessing +subject, apart from the matter of the confessions, which cannot fail to render +the confessions themselves more interesting. If a man “whose talk is of oxen” +should become an opium-eater, the probability is that (if he is not too dull to +dream at all) he will dream about oxen; whereas, in the case before him, the +reader will find that the Opium-eater boasteth himself to be a philosopher; and +accordingly, that the phantasmagoria of <i>his</i> dreams (waking or sleeping, +day-dreams or night-dreams) is suitable to one who in that character +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Humani nihil a se alienum putat. +</p> + +<p> +For amongst the conditions which he deems indispensable to the sustaining of +any claim to the title of philosopher is not merely the possession of a superb +intellect in its <i>analytic</i> functions (in which part of the pretensions, +however, England can for some generations show but few claimants; at least, he +is not aware of any known candidate for this honour who can be styled +emphatically <i>a subtle thinker</i>, with the exception of <i>Samuel Taylor +Coleridge</i>, and in a narrower department of thought with the recent +illustrious exception <a name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2">{2}</a> of +<i>David Ricardo</i>) but also on such a constitution of the <i>moral</i> +faculties as shall give him an inner eye and power of intuition for the vision +and the mysteries of our human nature: <i>that</i> constitution of faculties, +in short, which (amongst all the generations of men that from the beginning of +time have deployed into life, as it were, upon this planet) our English poets +have possessed in the highest degree, and Scottish professors <a +name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3">{3}</a> in the lowest. +</p> + +<p> +I have often been asked how I first came to be a regular opium-eater, and have +suffered, very unjustly, in the opinion of my acquaintance from being reputed +to have brought upon myself all the sufferings which I shall have to record, by +a long course of indulgence in this practice purely for the sake of creating an +artificial state of pleasurable excitement. This, however, is a +misrepresentation of my case. True it is that for nearly ten years I did +occasionally take opium for the sake of the exquisite pleasure it gave me; but +so long as I took it with this view I was effectually protected from all +material bad consequences by the necessity of interposing long intervals +between the several acts of indulgence, in order to renew the pleasurable +sensations. It was not for the purpose of creating pleasure, but of mitigating +pain in the severest degree, that I first began to use opium as an article of +daily diet. In the twenty-eighth year of my age a most painful affection of the +stomach, which I had first experienced about ten years before, attacked me in +great strength. This affection had originally been caused by extremities of +hunger, suffered in my boyish days. During the season of hope and redundant +happiness which succeeded (that is, from eighteen to twenty-four) it had +slumbered; for the three following years it had revived at intervals; and now, +under unfavourable circumstances, from depression of spirits, it attacked me +with a violence that yielded to no remedies but opium. As the youthful +sufferings which first produced this derangement of the stomach were +interesting in themselves, and in the circumstances that attended them, I shall +here briefly retrace them. +</p> + +<p> +My father died when I was about seven years old, and left me to the care of +four guardians. I was sent to various schools, great and small; and was very +early distinguished for my classical attainments, especially for my knowledge +of Greek. At thirteen I wrote Greek with ease; and at fifteen my command of +that language was so great that I not only composed Greek verses in lyric +metres, but could converse in Greek fluently and without embarrassment—an +accomplishment which I have not since met with in any scholar of my times, and +which in my case was owing to the practice of daily reading off the newspapers +into the best Greek I could furnish <i>extempore</i>; for the necessity of +ransacking my memory and invention for all sorts and combinations of +periphrastic expressions as equivalents for modern ideas, images, relations of +things, &c., gave me a compass of diction which would never have been +called out by a dull translation of moral essays, &c. “That boy,” said one +of my masters, pointing the attention of a stranger to me, “that boy could +harangue an Athenian mob better than you and I could address an English one.” +He who honoured me with this eulogy was a scholar, “and a ripe and a good one,” +and of all my tutors was the only one whom I loved or reverenced. Unfortunately +for me (and, as I afterwards learned, to this worthy man’s great indignation), +I was transferred to the care, first of a blockhead, who was in a perpetual +panic lest I should expose his ignorance; and finally to that of a respectable +scholar at the head of a great school on an ancient foundation. This man had +been appointed to his situation by —— College, Oxford, and was a sound, +well-built scholar, but (like most men whom I have known from that college) +coarse, clumsy, and inelegant. A miserable contrast he presented, in my eyes, +to the Etonian brilliancy of my favourite master; and beside, he could not +disguise from my hourly notice the poverty and meagreness of his understanding. +It is a bad thing for a boy to be and to know himself far beyond his tutors, +whether in knowledge or in power of mind. This was the case, so far as regarded +knowledge at least, not with myself only, for the two boys, who jointly with +myself composed the first form, were better Grecians than the head-master, +though not more elegant scholars, nor at all more accustomed to sacrifice to +the Graces. When I first entered I remember that we read Sophocles; and it was +a constant matter of triumph to us, the learned triumvirate of the first form, +to see our “Archididascalus” (as he loved to be called) conning our lessons +before we went up, and laying a regular train, with lexicon and grammar, for +blowing up and blasting (as it were) any difficulties he found in the choruses; +whilst <i>we</i> never condescended to open our books until the moment of going +up, and were generally employed in writing epigrams upon his wig or some such +important matter. My two class-fellows were poor, and dependent for their +future prospects at the university on the recommendation of the head-master; +but I, who had a small patrimonial property, the income of which was sufficient +to support me at college, wished to be sent thither immediately. I made earnest +representations on the subject to my guardians, but all to no purpose. One, who +was more reasonable and had more knowledge of the world than the rest, lived at +a distance; two of the other three resigned all their authority into the hands +of the fourth; and this fourth, with whom I had to negotiate, was a worthy man +in his way, but haughty, obstinate, and intolerant of all opposition to his +will. After a certain number of letters and personal interviews, I found that I +had nothing to hope for, not even a compromise of the matter, from my guardian. +Unconditional submission was what he demanded, and I prepared myself, +therefore, for other measures. Summer was now coming on with hasty steps, and +my seventeenth birthday was fast approaching, after which day I had sworn +within myself that I would no longer be numbered amongst schoolboys. Money +being what I chiefly wanted, I wrote to a woman of high rank, who, though young +herself, had known me from a child, and had latterly treated me with great +distinction, requesting that she would “lend” me five guineas. For upwards of a +week no answer came, and I was beginning to despond, when at length a servant +put into my hands a double letter with a coronet on the seal. The letter was +kind and obliging. The fair writer was on the sea-coast, and in that way the +delay had arisen; she enclosed double of what I had asked, and good-naturedly +hinted that if I should <i>never</i> repay her, it would not absolutely ruin +her. Now, then, I was prepared for my scheme. Ten guineas, added to about two +which I had remaining from my pocket-money, seemed to me sufficient for an +indefinite length of time; and at that happy age, if no <i>definite</i> +boundary can be assigned to one’s power, the spirit of hope and pleasure makes +it virtually infinite. +</p> + +<p> +It is a just remark of Dr. Johnson’s (and, what cannot often be said of his +remarks, it is a very feeling one), that we never do anything consciously for +the last time (of things, that is, which we have long been in the habit of +doing) without sadness of heart. This truth I felt deeply when I came to leave +——, a place which I did not love, and where I had not been happy. On the +evening before I left —— for ever, I grieved when the ancient and lofty +schoolroom resounded with the evening service, performed for the last time in +my hearing; and at night, when the muster-roll of names was called over, and +mine (as usual) was called first, I stepped forward, and passing the +head-master, who was standing by, I bowed to him, and looked earnestly in his +face, thinking to myself, “He is old and infirm, and in this world I shall not +see him again.” I was right; I never <i>did</i> see him again, nor ever shall. +He looked at me complacently, smiled good-naturedly, returned my salutation (or +rather my valediction), and we parted (though he knew it not) for ever. I could +not reverence him intellectually, but he had been uniformly kind to me, and had +allowed me many indulgences; and I grieved at the thought of the mortification +I should inflict upon him. +</p> + +<p> +The morning came which was to launch me into the world, and from which my whole +succeeding life has in many important points taken its colouring. I lodged in +the head-master’s house, and had been allowed from my first entrance the +indulgence of a private room, which I used both as a sleeping-room and as a +study. At half after three I rose, and gazed with deep emotion at the ancient +towers of ——, “drest in earliest light,” and beginning to crimson with the +radiant lustre of a cloudless July morning. I was firm and immovable in my +purpose; but yet agitated by anticipation of uncertain danger and troubles; and +if I could have foreseen the hurricane and perfect hail-storm of affliction +which soon fell upon me, well might I have been agitated. To this agitation the +deep peace of the morning presented an affecting contrast, and in some degree a +medicine. The silence was more profound than that of midnight; and to me the +silence of a summer morning is more touching than all other silence, because, +the light being broad and strong as that of noonday at other seasons of the +year, it seems to differ from perfect day chiefly because man is not yet +abroad; and thus the peace of nature and of the innocent creatures of God seems +to be secure and deep only so long as the presence of man and his restless and +unquiet spirit are not there to trouble its sanctity. I dressed myself, took my +hat and gloves, and lingered a little in the room. For the last year and a half +this room had been my “pensive citadel”: here I had read and studied through +all the hours of night, and though true it was that for the latter part of this +time I, who was framed for love and gentle affections, had lost my gaiety and +happiness during the strife and fever of contention with my guardian, yet, on +the other hand, as a boy so passionately fond of books, and dedicated to +intellectual pursuits, I could not fail to have enjoyed many happy hours in the +midst of general dejection. I wept as I looked round on the chair, hearth, +writing-table, and other familiar objects, knowing too certainly that I looked +upon them for the last time. Whilst I write this it is eighteen years ago, and +yet at this moment I see distinctly, as if it were yesterday, the lineaments +and expression of the object on which I fixed my parting gaze. It was a picture +of the lovely ——, which hung over the mantelpiece, the eyes and mouth of which +were so beautiful, and the whole countenance so radiant with benignity and +divine tranquillity, that I had a thousand times laid down my pen or my book to +gather consolation from it, as a devotee from his patron saint. Whilst I was +yet gazing upon it the deep tones of —— clock proclaimed that it was four +o’clock. I went up to the picture, kissed it, and then gently walked out and +closed the door for ever! +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +So blended and intertwisted in this life are occasions of laughter and of +tears, that I cannot yet recall without smiling an incident which occurred at +that time, and which had nearly put a stop to the immediate execution of my +plan. I had a trunk of immense weight, for, besides my clothes, it contained +nearly all my library. The difficulty was to get this removed to a carrier’s: +my room was at an aërial elevation in the house, and (what was worse) the +staircase which communicated with this angle of the building was accessible +only by a gallery, which passed the head-master’s chamber door. I was a +favourite with all the servants, and knowing that any of them would screen me +and act confidentially, I communicated my embarrassment to a groom of the +head-master’s. The groom swore he would do anything I wished, and when the time +arrived went upstairs to bring the trunk down. This I feared was beyond the +strength of any one man; however, the groom was a man +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Of Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear<br/> +The weight of mightiest monarchies; +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +and had a back as spacious as Salisbury Plain. Accordingly he persisted in +bringing down the trunk alone, whilst I stood waiting at the foot of the last +flight in anxiety for the event. For some time I heard him descending with slow +and firm steps; but unfortunately, from his trepidation, as he drew near the +dangerous quarter, within a few steps of the gallery, his foot slipped, and the +mighty burden falling from his shoulders, gained such increase of impetus at +each step of the descent, that on reaching the bottom it trundled, or rather +leaped, right across, with the noise of twenty devils, against the very bedroom +door of the Archididascalus. My first thought was that all was lost, and that +my only chance for executing a retreat was to sacrifice my baggage. However, on +reflection I determined to abide the issue. The groom was in the utmost alarm, +both on his own account and on mine, but, in spite of this, so irresistibly had +the sense of the ludicrous in this unhappy <i>contretemps</i> taken possession +of his fancy, that he sang out a long, loud, and canorous peal of laughter, +that might have wakened the Seven Sleepers. At the sound of this resonant +merriment, within the very ears of insulted authority, I could not myself +forbear joining in it; subdued to this, not so much by the unhappy +<i>étourderie</i> of the trunk, as by the effect it had upon the groom. We both +expected, as a matter of course, that Dr. —— would sally, out of his room, for +in general, if but a mouse stirred, he sprang out like a mastiff from his +kennel. Strange to say, however, on this occasion, when the noise of laughter +had ceased, no sound, or rustling even, was to be heard in the bedroom. Dr. —— +had a painful complaint, which, sometimes keeping him awake, made his sleep +perhaps, when it did come, the deeper. Gathering courage from the silence, the +groom hoisted his burden again, and accomplished the remainder of his descent +without accident. I waited until I saw the trunk placed on a wheelbarrow and on +its road to the carrier’s; then, “with Providence my guide,” I set off on foot, +carrying a small parcel with some articles of dress under my arm; a favourite +English poet in one pocket, and a small 12mo volume, containing about nine +plays of Euripides, in the other. +</p> + +<p> +It had been my intention originally to proceed to Westmoreland, both from the +love I bore to that country and on other personal accounts. Accident, however, +gave a different direction to my wanderings, and I bent my steps towards North +Wales. +</p> + +<p> +After wandering about for some time in Denbighshire, Merionethshire, and +Carnarvonshire, I took lodgings in a small neat house in B——. Here I might +have stayed with great comfort for many weeks, for provisions were cheap at +B——, from the scarcity of other markets for the surplus produce of a wide +agricultural district. An accident, however, in which perhaps no offence was +designed, drove me out to wander again. I know not whether my reader may have +remarked, but I have often remarked, that the proudest class of people in +England (or at any rate the class whose pride is most apparent) are the +families of bishops. Noblemen and their children carry about with them, in +their very titles, a sufficient notification of their rank. Nay, their very +names (and this applies also to the children of many untitled houses) are +often, to the English ear, adequate exponents of high birth or descent. +Sackville, Manners, Fitzroy, Paulet, Cavendish, and scores of others, tell +their own tale. Such persons, therefore, find everywhere a due sense of their +claims already established, except among those who are ignorant of the world by +virtue of their own obscurity: “Not to know <i>them</i>, argues one’s self +unknown.” Their manners take a suitable tone and colouring, and for once they +find it necessary to impress a sense of their consequence upon others, they +meet with a thousand occasions for moderating and tempering this sense by acts +of courteous condescension. With the families of bishops it is otherwise: with +them, it is all uphill work to make known their pretensions; for the proportion +of the episcopal bench taken from noble families is not at any time very large, +and the succession to these dignities is so rapid that the public ear seldom +has time to become familiar with them, unless where they are connected with +some literary reputation. Hence it is that the children of bishops carry about +with them an austere and repulsive air, indicative of claims not generally +acknowledged, a sort of <i>noli me tangere</i> manner, nervously apprehensive +of too familiar approach, and shrinking with the sensitiveness of a gouty man +from all contact with the οι +πολλοι. Doubtless, a powerful +understanding, or unusual goodness of nature, will preserve a man from such +weakness, but in general the truth of my representation will be acknowledged; +pride, if not of deeper root in such families, appears at least more upon the +surface of their manners. This spirit of manners naturally communicates itself +to their domestics and other dependants. Now, my landlady had been a lady’s +maid or a nurse in the family of the Bishop of ——, and had but lately married +away and “settled” (as such people express it) for life. In a little town like +B——, merely to have lived in the bishop’s family conferred some distinction; +and my good landlady had rather more than her share of the pride I have noticed +on that score. What “my lord” said and what “my lord” did, how useful he was in +Parliament and how indispensable at Oxford, formed the daily burden of her +talk. All this I bore very well, for I was too good-natured to laugh in +anybody’s face, and I could make an ample allowance for the garrulity of an old +servant. Of necessity, however, I must have appeared in her eyes very +inadequately impressed with the bishop’s importance, and, perhaps to punish me +for my indifference, or possibly by accident, she one day repeated to me a +conversation in which I was indirectly a party concerned. She had been to the +palace to pay her respects to the family, and, dinner being over, was summoned +into the dining-room. In giving an account of her household economy she +happened to mention that she had let her apartments. Thereupon the good bishop +(it seemed) had taken occasion to caution her as to her selection of inmates, +“for,” said he, “you must recollect, Betty, that this place is in the high road +to the Head; so that multitudes of Irish swindlers running away from their +debts into England, and of English swindlers running away from their debts to +the Isle of Man, are likely to take this place in their route.” This advice +certainly was not without reasonable grounds, but rather fitted to be stored up +for Mrs. Betty’s private meditations than specially reported to me. What +followed, however, was somewhat worse. “Oh, my lord,” answered my landlady +(according to her own representation of the matter), “I really don’t think this +young gentleman is a swindler, because ——” “You don’t <i>think</i> me a +swindler?” said I, interrupting her, in a tumult of indignation: “for the +future I shall spare you the trouble of thinking about it.” And without delay I +prepared for my departure. Some concessions the good woman seemed disposed to +make; but a harsh and contemptuous expression, which I fear that I applied to +the learned dignitary himself, roused her indignation in turn, and +reconciliation then became impossible. I was indeed greatly irritated at the +bishop’s having suggested any grounds of suspicion, however remotely, against a +person whom he had never seen; and I thought of letting him know my mind in +Greek, which, at the same time that it would furnish some presumption that I +was no swindler, would also (I hoped) compel the bishop to reply in the same +language; in which case I doubted not to make it appear that if I was not so +rich as his lordship, I was a far better Grecian. Calmer thoughts, however, +drove this boyish design out of my mind; for I considered that the bishop was +in the right to counsel an old servant; that he could not have designed that +his advice should be reported to me; and that the same coarseness of mind which +had led Mrs. Betty to repeat the advice at all, might have coloured it in a way +more agreeable to her own style of thinking than to the actual expressions of +the worthy bishop. +</p> + +<p> +I left the lodgings the very same hour, and this turned out a very unfortunate +occurrence for me, because, living henceforward at inns, I was drained of my +money very rapidly. In a fortnight I was reduced to short allowance; that is, I +could allow myself only one meal a day. From the keen appetite produced by +constant exercise and mountain air, acting on a youthful stomach, I soon began +to suffer greatly on this slender regimen, for the single meal which I could +venture to order was coffee or tea. Even this, however, was at length +withdrawn; and afterwards, so long as I remained in Wales, I subsisted either +on blackberries, hips, haws, &c., or on the casual hospitalities which I +now and then received in return for such little services as I had an +opportunity of rendering. Sometimes I wrote letters of business for cottagers +who happened to have relatives in Liverpool or in London; more often I wrote +love-letters to their sweethearts for young women who had lived as servants at +Shrewsbury or other towns on the English border. On all such occasions I gave +great satisfaction to my humble friends, and was generally treated with +hospitality; and once in particular, near the village of Llan-y-styndw (or some +such name), in a sequestered part of Merionethshire, I was entertained for +upwards of three days by a family of young people with an affectionate and +fraternal kindness that left an impression upon my heart not yet impaired. The +family consisted at that time of four sisters and three brothers, all grown up, +and all remarkable for elegance and delicacy of manners. So much beauty, and so +much native good breeding and refinement, I do not remember to have seen before +or since in any cottage, except once or twice in Westmoreland and Devonshire. +They spoke English, an accomplishment not often met with in so many members of +one family, especially in villages remote from the high road. Here I wrote, on +my first introduction, a letter about prize-money, for one of the brothers, who +had served on board an English man-of-war; and, more privately, two +love-letters for two of the sisters. They were both interesting-looking girls, +and one of uncommon loveliness. In the midst of their confusion and blushes, +whilst dictating, or rather giving me general instructions, it did not require +any great penetration to discover that what they wished was that their letters +should be as kind as was consistent with proper maidenly pride. I contrived so +to temper my expressions as to reconcile the gratification of both feelings; +and they were as much pleased with the way in which I had expressed their +thoughts as (in their simplicity) they were astonished at my having so readily +discovered them. The reception one meets with from the women of a family +generally determines the tenor of one’s whole entertainment. In this case I had +discharged my confidential duties as secretary so much to the general +satisfaction, perhaps also amusing them with my conversation, that I was +pressed to stay with a cordiality which I had little inclination to resist. I +slept with the brothers, the only unoccupied bed standing in the apartment of +the young women; but in all other points they treated me with a respect not +usually paid to purses as light as mine—as if my scholarship were +sufficient evidence that I was of “gentle blood.” Thus I lived with them for +three days and great part of a fourth; and, from the undiminished kindness +which they continued to show me, I believe I might have stayed with them up to +this time, if their power had corresponded with their wishes. On the last +morning, however, I perceived upon their countenances, as they sate at +breakfast, the expression of some unpleasant communication which was at hand; +and soon after, one of the brothers explained to me that their parents had +gone, the day before my arrival, to an annual meeting of Methodists, held at +Carnarvon, and were that day expected to return; “and if they should not be so +civil as they ought to be,” he begged, on the part of all the young people, +that I would not take it amiss. The parents returned with churlish faces, and +“<i>Dym Sassenach</i>” (<i>no English</i>) in answer to all my addresses. I saw +how matters stood; and so, taking an affectionate leave of my kind and +interesting young hosts, I went my way; for, though they spoke warmly to their +parents in my behalf, and often excused the manner of the old people by saying +it was “only their way,” yet I easily understood that my talent for writing +love-letters would do as little to recommend me with two grave sexagenarian +Welsh Methodists as my Greek sapphics or alcaics; and what had been hospitality +when offered to me with the gracious courtesy of my young friends, would become +charity when connected with the harsh demeanour of these old people. Certainly, +Mr. Shelley is right in his notions about old age: unless powerfully +counteracted by all sorts of opposite agencies, it is a miserable corrupter and +blighter to the genial charities of the human heart. +</p> + +<p> +Soon after this I contrived, by means which I must omit for want of room, to +transfer myself to London. And now began the latter and fiercer stage of my +long sufferings; without using a disproportionate expression I might say, of my +agony. For I now suffered, for upwards of sixteen weeks, the physical anguish +of hunger in various degrees of intensity; but as bitter, perhaps, as ever any +human being can have suffered who has survived it. I would not needlessly +harass my reader’s feelings by a detail of all that I endured; for extremities +such as these, under any circumstances of heaviest misconduct or guilt, cannot +be contemplated, even in description, without a rueful pity that is painful to +the natural goodness of the human heart. Let it suffice, at least on this +occasion, to say that a few fragments of bread from the breakfast-table of one +individual (who supposed me to be ill, but did not know of my being in utter +want), and these at uncertain intervals, constituted my whole support. During +the former part of my sufferings (that is, generally in Wales, and always for +the first two months in London) I was houseless, and very seldom slept under a +roof. To this constant exposure to the open air I ascribe it mainly that I did +not sink under my torments. Latterly, however, when colder and more inclement +weather came on, and when, from the length of my sufferings, I had begun to +sink into a more languishing condition, it was no doubt fortunate for me that +the same person to whose breakfast-table I had access, allowed me to sleep in a +large unoccupied house of which he was tenant. Unoccupied I call it, for there +was no household or establishment in it; nor any furniture, indeed, except a +table and a few chairs. But I found, on taking possession of my new quarters, +that the house already contained one single inmate, a poor friendless child, +apparently ten years old; but she seemed hunger-bitten, and sufferings of that +sort often make children look older than they are. From this forlorn child I +learned that she had slept and lived there alone for some time before I came; +and great joy the poor creature expressed when she found that I was in future +to be her companion through the hours of darkness. The house was large, and, +from the want of furniture, the noise of the rats made a prodigious echoing on +the spacious staircase and hall; and amidst the real fleshly ills of cold and, +I fear, hunger, the forsaken child had found leisure to suffer still more (it +appeared) from the self-created one of ghosts. I promised her protection +against all ghosts whatsoever, but alas! I could offer her no other assistance. +We lay upon the floor, with a bundle of cursed law papers for a pillow, but +with no other covering than a sort of large horseman’s cloak; afterwards, +however, we discovered in a garret an old sofa-cover, a small piece of rug, and +some fragments of other articles, which added a little to our warmth. The poor +child crept close to me for warmth, and for security against her ghostly +enemies. When I was not more than usually ill I took her into my arms, so that +in general she was tolerably warm, and often slept when I could not, for during +the last two months of my sufferings I slept much in daytime, and was apt to +fall into transient dosings at all hours. But my sleep distressed me more than +my watching, for beside the tumultuousness of my dreams (which were only not so +awful as those which I shall have to describe hereafter as produced by opium), +my sleep was never more than what is called <i>dog-sleep</i>; so that I could +hear myself moaning, and was often, as it seemed to me, awakened suddenly by my +own voice; and about this time a hideous sensation began to haunt me as soon as +I fell into a slumber, which has since returned upon me at different periods of +my life—viz., a sort of twitching (I know not where, but apparently about +the region of the stomach) which compelled me violently to throw out my feet +for the sake of relieving it. This sensation coming on as soon as I began to +sleep, and the effort to relieve it constantly awaking me, at length I slept +only from exhaustion; and from increasing weakness (as I said before) I was +constantly falling asleep and constantly awaking. Meantime, the master of the +house sometimes came in upon us suddenly, and very early; sometimes not till +ten o’clock, sometimes not at all. He was in constant fear of bailiffs. +Improving on the plan of Cromwell, every night he slept in a different quarter +of London; and I observed that he never failed to examine through a private +window the appearance of those who knocked at the door before he would allow it +to be opened. He breaksfasted alone; indeed, his tea equipage would hardly have +admitted of his hazarding an invitation to a second person, any more than the +quantity of esculent <i>matériel</i>, which for the most part was little more +than a roll or a few biscuits which he had bought on his road from the place +where he had slept. Or, if he <i>had</i> asked a party—as I once +learnedly and facetiously observed to him—the several members of it must +have <i>stood</i> in the relation to each other (not <i>sate</i> in any +relation whatever) of succession, as the metaphysicians have it, and not of a +coexistence; in the relation of the parts of time, and not of the parts of +space. During his breakfast I generally contrived a reason for lounging in, +and, with an air of as much indifference as I could assume, took up such +fragments as he had left; sometimes, indeed, there were none at all. In doing +this I committed no robbery except upon the man himself, who was thus obliged +(I believe) now and then to send out at noon for an extra biscuit; for as to +the poor child, <i>she</i> was never admitted into his study (if I may give +that name to his chief depository of parchments, law writings, &c.); that +room was to her the Bluebeard room of the house, being regularly locked on his +departure to dinner, about six o’clock, which usually was his final departure +for the night. Whether this child were an illegitimate daughter of Mr. ——, or +only a servant, I could not ascertain; she did not herself know; but certainly +she was treated altogether as a menial servant. No sooner did Mr. —— make his +appearance than she went below stairs, brushed his shoes, coat, &c.; and, +except when she was summoned to run an errand, she never emerged from the +dismal Tartarus of the kitchen, &c., to the upper air until my welcome +knock at night called up her little trembling footsteps to the front door. Of +her life during the daytime, however, I knew little but what I gathered from +her own account at night, for as soon as the hours of business commenced I saw +that my absence would be acceptable, and in general, therefore, I went off and +sate in the parks or elsewhere until nightfall. +</p> + +<p> +But who and what, meantime, was the master of the house himself? Reader, he was +one of those anomalous practitioners in lower departments of the law +who—what shall I say?—who on prudential reasons, or from necessity, +deny themselves all indulgence in the luxury of too delicate a conscience, (a +periphrasis which might be abridged considerably, but <i>that</i> I leave to +the reader’s taste): in many walks of life a conscience is a more expensive +encumbrance than a wife or a carriage; and just as people talk of “laying down” +their carriages, so I suppose my friend Mr. —— had “laid down” his conscience +for a time, meaning, doubtless, to resume it as soon as he could afford it. The +inner economy of such a man’s daily life would present a most strange picture, +if I could allow myself to amuse the reader at his expense. Even with my +limited opportunities for observing what went on, I saw many scenes of London +intrigues and complex chicanery, “cycle and epicycle, orb in orb,” at which I +sometimes smile to this day, and at which I smiled then, in spite of my misery. +My situation, however, at that time gave me little experience in my own person +of any qualities in Mr. ——’s character but such as did him honour; and of his +whole strange composition I must forget everything but that towards me he was +obliging, and to the extent of his power, generous. +</p> + +<p> +That power was not, indeed, very extensive; however, in common with the rats, I +sate rent free; and as Dr. Johnson has recorded that he never but once in his +life had as much wall-fruit as he could eat, so let me be grateful that on that +single occasion I had as large a choice of apartments in a London mansion as I +could possibly desire. Except the Bluebeard room, which the poor child believed +to be haunted, all others, from the attics to the cellars, were at our service; +“the world was all before us,” and we pitched our tent for the night in any +spot we chose. This house I have already described as a large one; it stands in +a conspicuous situation and in a well-known part of London. Many of my readers +will have passed it, I doubt not, within a few hours of reading this. For +myself, I never fail to visit it when business draws me to London; about ten +o’clock this very night, August 15, 1821—being my birthday—I turned +aside from my evening walk down Oxford Street, purposely to take a glance at +it; it is now occupied by a respectable family, and by the lights in the front +drawing-room I observed a domestic party assembled, perhaps at tea, and +apparently cheerful and gay. Marvellous contrast, in my eyes, to the darkness, +cold, silence, and desolation of that same house eighteen years ago, when its +nightly occupants were one famishing scholar and a neglected child. Her, +by-the-bye, in after-years I vainly endeavoured to trace. Apart from her +situation, she was not what would be called an interesting child; she was +neither pretty, nor quick in understanding, nor remarkably pleasing in manners. +But, thank God! even in those years I needed not the embellishments of novel +accessories to conciliate my affections: plain human nature, in its humblest +and most homely apparel, was enough for me, and I loved the child because she +was my partner in wretchedness. If she is now living she is probably a mother, +with children of her own; but, as I have said, I could never trace her. +</p> + +<p> +This I regret; but another person there was at that time whom I have since +sought to trace with far deeper earnestness, and with far deeper sorrow at my +failure. This person was a young woman, and one of that unhappy class who +subsist upon the wages of prostitution. I feel no shame, nor have any reason to +feel it, in avowing that I was then on familiar and friendly terms with many +women in that unfortunate condition. The reader needs neither smile at this +avowal nor frown; for, not to remind my classical readers of the old Latin +proverb, “<i>Sine cerere</i>,” &c., it may well be supposed that in the +existing state of my purse my connection with such women could not have been an +impure one. But the truth is, that at no time of my life have I been a person +to hold myself polluted by the touch or approach of any creature that wore a +human shape; on the contrary, from my very earliest youth it has been my pride +to converse familiarly, <i>more Socratio</i>, with all human beings, man, +woman, and child, that chance might fling in my way; a practice which is +friendly to the knowledge of human nature, to good feelings, and to that +frankness of address which becomes a man who would be thought a philosopher. +For a philosopher should not see with the eyes of the poor limitary creature +calling himself a man of the world, and filled with narrow and self-regarding +prejudices of birth and education, but should look upon himself as a catholic +creature, and as standing in equal relation to high and low, to educated and +uneducated, to the guilty and the innocent. Being myself at that time of +necessity a peripatetic, or a walker of the streets, I naturally fell in more +frequently with those female peripatetics who are technically called +street-walkers. Many of these women had occasionally taken my part against +watchmen who wished to drive me off the steps of houses where I was sitting. +But one amongst them, the one on whose account I have at all introduced this +subject—yet no! let me not class the, oh! noble-minded Ann—with +that order of women. Let me find, if it be possible, some gentler name to +designate the condition of her to whose bounty and compassion, ministering to +my necessities when all the world had forsaken me, I owe it that I am at this +time alive. For many weeks I had walked at nights with this poor friendless +girl up and down Oxford Street, or had rested with her on steps and under the +shelter of porticoes. She could not be so old as myself; she told me, indeed, +that she had not completed her sixteenth year. By such questions as my interest +about her prompted I had gradually drawn forth her simple history. Hers was a +case of ordinary occurrence (as I have since had reason to think), and one in +which, if London beneficence had better adapted its arrangements to meet it, +the power of the law might oftener be interposed to protect and to avenge. But +the stream of London charity flows in a channel which, though deep and mighty, +is yet noiseless and underground; not obvious or readily accessible to poor +houseless wanderers; and it cannot be denied that the outside air and framework +of London society is harsh, cruel, and repulsive. In any case, however, I saw +that part of her injuries might easily have been redressed, and I urged her +often and earnestly to lay her complaint before a magistrate. Friendless as she +was, I assured her that she would meet with immediate attention, and that +English justice, which was no respecter of persons, would speedily and amply +avenge her on the brutal ruffian who had plundered her little property. She +promised me often that she would, but she delayed taking the steps I pointed +out from time to time, for she was timid and dejected to a degree which showed +how deeply sorrow had taken hold of her young heart; and perhaps she thought +justly that the most upright judge and the most righteous tribunals could do +nothing to repair her heaviest wrongs. Something, however, would perhaps have +been done, for it had been settled between us at length, but unhappily on the +very last time but one that I was ever to see her, that in a day or two we +should go together before a magistrate, and that I should speak on her behalf. +This little service it was destined, however, that I should never realise. +Meantime, that which she rendered to me, and which was greater than I could +ever have repaid her, was this:—One night, when we were pacing slowly +along Oxford Street, and after a day when I had felt more than usually ill and +faint, I requested her to turn off with me into Soho Square. Thither we went, +and we sat down on the steps of a house, which to this hour I never pass +without a pang of grief and an inner act of homage to the spirit of that +unhappy girl, in memory of the noble action which she there performed. +Suddenly, as we sate, I grew much worse. I had been leaning my head against her +bosom, and all at once I sank from her arms and fell backwards on the steps. +From the sensations I then had, I felt an inner conviction of the liveliest +kind, that without some powerful and reviving stimulus I should either have +died on the spot, or should at least have sunk to a point of exhaustion from +which all reäscent under my friendless circumstances would soon have +become hopeless. Then it was, at this crisis of my fate, that my poor orphan +companion, who had herself met with little but injuries in this world, +stretched out a saving hand to me. Uttering a cry of terror, but without a +moment’s delay, she ran off into Oxford Street, and in less time than could be +imagined returned to me with a glass of port wine and spices, that acted upon +my empty stomach, which at that time would have rejected all solid food, with +an instantaneous power of restoration; and for this glass the generous girl +without a murmur paid out of her humble purse at a time—be it +remembered!—when she had scarcely wherewithal to purchase the bare +necessaries of life, and when she could have no reason to expect that I should +ever be able to reimburse her. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, youthful benefactress! how often in succeeding years, standing in solitary +places, and thinking of thee with grief of heart and perfect love—how +often have I wished that, as in ancient times, the curse of a father was +believed to have a supernatural power, and to pursue its object with a fatal +necessity of self-fulfilment; even so the benediction of a heart oppressed with +gratitude might have a like prerogative, might have power given to it from +above to chase, to haunt, to waylay, to overtake, to pursue thee into the +central darkness of a London brothel, or (if it were possible) into the +darkness of the grave, there to awaken thee with an authentic message of peace +and forgiveness, and of final reconciliation! +</p> + +<p> +I do not often weep: for not only do my thoughts on subjects connected with the +chief interests of man daily, nay hourly, descend a thousand fathoms “too deep +for tears;” not only does the sternness of my habits of thought present an +antagonism to the feelings which prompt tears—wanting of necessity to +those who, being protected usually by their levity from any tendency to +meditative sorrow, would by that same levity be made incapable of resisting it +on any casual access of such feelings; but also, I believe that all minds which +have contemplated such objects as deeply as I have done, must, for their own +protection from utter despondency, have early encouraged and cherished some +tranquillising belief as to the future balances and the hieroglyphic meanings +of human sufferings. On these accounts I am cheerful to this hour, and, as I +have said, I do not often weep. Yet some feelings, though not deeper or more +passionate, are more tender than others; and often, when I walk at this time in +Oxford Street by dreamy lamplight, and hear those airs played on a barrel-organ +which years ago solaced me and my dear companion (as I must always call her), I +shed tears, and muse with myself at the mysterious dispensation which so +suddenly and so critically separated us for ever. How it happened the reader +will understand from what remains of this introductory narration. +</p> + +<p> +Soon after the period of the last incident I have recorded I met in Albemarle +Street a gentleman of his late Majesty’s household. This gentleman had received +hospitalities on different occasions from my family, and he challenged me upon +the strength of my family likeness. I did not attempt any disguise; I answered +his questions ingenuously, and, on his pledging his word of honour that he +would not betray me to my guardians, I gave him an address to my friend the +attorney’s. The next day I received from him a £10 bank-note. The letter +enclosing it was delivered with other letters of business to the attorney, but +though his look and manner informed me that he suspected its contents, he gave +it up to me honourably and without demur. +</p> + +<p> +This present, from the particular service to which it was applied, leads me +naturally to speak of the purpose which had allured me up to London, and which +I had been (to use a forensic word) soliciting from the first day of my arrival +in London to that of my final departure. +</p> + +<p> +In so mighty a world as London it will surprise my readers that I should not +have found some means of starving off the last extremities of penury; and it +will strike them that two resources at least must have been open to +me—viz., either to seek assistance from the friends of my family, or to +turn my youthful talents and attainments into some channel of pecuniary +emolument. As to the first course, I may observe generally, that what I dreaded +beyond all other evils was the chance of being reclaimed by my guardians; not +doubting that whatever power the law gave them would have been enforced against +me to the utmost—that is, to the extremity of forcibly restoring me to +the school which I had quitted, a restoration which, as it would in my eyes +have been a dishonour, even if submitted to voluntarily, could not fail, when +extorted from me in contempt and defiance of my own wishes and efforts, to have +been a humiliation worse to me than death, and which would indeed have +terminated in death. I was therefore shy enough of applying for assistance even +in those quarters where I was sure of receiving it, at the risk of furnishing +my guardians with any clue of recovering me. But as to London in particular, +though doubtless my father had in his lifetime had many friends there, yet (as +ten years had passed since his death) I remembered few of them even by name; +and never having seen London before, except once for a few hours, I knew not +the address of even those few. To this mode of gaining help, therefore, in part +the difficulty, but much more the paramount fear which I have mentioned, +habitually indisposed me. In regard to the other mode, I now feel half inclined +to join my reader in wondering that I should have overlooked it. As a corrector +of Greek proofs (if in no other way) I might doubtless have gained enough for +my slender wants. Such an office as this I could have discharged with an +exemplary and punctual accuracy that would soon have gained me the confidence +of my employers. But it must not be forgotten that, even for such an office as +this, it was necessary that I should first of all have an introduction to some +respectable publisher, and this I had no means of obtaining. To say the truth, +however, it had never once occurred to me to think of literary labours as a +source of profit. No mode sufficiently speedy of obtaining money had ever +occurred to me but that of borrowing it on the strength of my future claims and +expectations. This mode I sought by every avenue to compass; and amongst other +persons I applied to a Jew named D—— <a name="citation4"></a><a +href="#footnote4">{4}</a> +</p> + +<p> +To this Jew, and to other advertising money-lenders (some of whom were, I +believe, also Jews), I had introduced myself with an account of my +expectations; which account, on examining my father’s will at Doctors’ Commons, +they had ascertained to be correct. The person there mentioned as the second +son of —— was found to have all the claims (or more than all) that I had +stated; but one question still remained, which the faces of the Jews pretty +significantly suggested—was <i>I</i> that person? This doubt had never +occurred to me as a possible one; I had rather feared, whenever my Jewish +friends scrutinised me keenly, that I might be too well known to be that +person, and that some scheme might be passing in their minds for entrapping me +and selling me to my guardians. It was strange to me to find my own self +<i>materialiter</i> considered (so I expressed it, for I doated on logical +accuracy of distinctions), accused, or at least suspected, of counterfeiting my +own self <i>formaliter</i> considered. However, to satisfy their scruples, I +took the only course in my power. Whilst I was in Wales I had received various +letters from young friends; these I produced, for I carried them constantly in +my pocket, being, indeed, by this time almost the only relics of my personal +encumbrances (excepting the clothes I wore) which I had not in one way or other +disposed of. Most of these letters were from the Earl of ——, who was at that +time my chief (or rather only) confidential friend. These letters were dated +from Eton. I had also some from the Marquis of ——, his father, who, though +absorbed in agricultural pursuits, yet having been an Etonian himself, and as +good a scholar as a nobleman needs to be, still retained an affection for +classical studies and for youthful scholars. He had accordingly, from the time +that I was fifteen, corresponded with me; sometimes upon the great improvements +which he had made or was meditating in the counties of M—— and Sl—— since I +had been there, sometimes upon the merits of a Latin poet, and at other times +suggesting subjects to me on which he wished me to write verses. +</p> + +<p> +On reading the letters, one of my Jewish friends agreed to furnish me with two +or three hundred pounds on my personal security, provided I could persuade the +young Earl —— who was, by the way, not older than myself—to guarantee +the payment on our coming of age; the Jew’s final object being, as I now +suppose, not the trifling profit he could expect to make by me, but the +prospect of establishing a connection with my noble friend, whose immense +expectations were well known to him. In pursuance of this proposal on the part +of the Jew, about eight or nine days after I had received the £10, I +prepared to go down to Eton. Nearly £3 of the money I had given to my +money-lending friend, on his alleging that the stamps must be bought, in order +that the writings might be preparing whilst I was away from London. I thought +in my heart that he was lying; but I did not wish to give him any excuse for +charging his own delays upon me. A smaller sum I had given to my friend the +attorney (who was connected with the money-lenders as their lawyer), to which, +indeed, he was entitled for his unfurnished lodgings. About fifteen shillings I +had employed in re-establishing (though in a very humble way) my dress. Of the +remainder I gave one quarter to Ann, meaning on my return to have divided with +her whatever might remain. These arrangements made, soon after six o’clock on a +dark winter evening I set off, accompanied by Ann, towards Piccadilly; for it +was my intention to go down as far as Salthill on the Bath or Bristol mail. Our +course lay through a part of the town which has now all disappeared, so that I +can no longer retrace its ancient boundaries—Swallow Street, I think it +was called. Having time enough before us, however, we bore away to the left +until we came into Golden Square; there, near the corner of Sherrard Street, we +sat down, not wishing to part in the tumult and blaze of Piccadilly. I had told +her of my plans some time before, and I now assured her again that she should +share in my good fortune, if I met with any, and that I would never forsake her +as soon as I had power to protect her. This I fully intended, as much from +inclination as from a sense of duty; for setting aside gratitude, which in any +case must have made me her debtor for life, I loved her as affectionately as if +she had been my sister; and at this moment with sevenfold tenderness, from pity +at witnessing her extreme dejection. I had apparently most reason for +dejection, because I was leaving the saviour of my life; yet I, considering the +shock my health had received, was cheerful and full of hope. She, on the +contrary, who was parting with one who had had little means of serving her, +except by kindness and brotherly treatment, was overcome by sorrow; so that, +when I kissed her at our final farewell, she put her arms about my neck and +wept without speaking a word. I hoped to return in a week at farthest, and I +agreed with her that on the fifth night from that, and every night afterwards, +she would wait for me at six o’clock near the bottom of Great Titchfield +Street, which had been our customary haven, as it were, of rendezvous, to +prevent our missing each other in the great Mediterranean of Oxford Street. +This and other measures of precaution I took; one only I forgot. She had either +never told me, or (as a matter of no great interest) I had forgotten her +surname. It is a general practice, indeed, with girls of humble rank in her +unhappy condition, not (as novel-reading women of higher pretensions) to style +themselves <i>Miss Douglas</i>, <i>Miss Montague</i>, &c., but simply by +their Christian names—<i>Mary</i>, <i>Jane</i>, <i>Frances</i>, &c. +Her surname, as the surest means of tracing her hereafter, I ought now to have +inquired; but the truth is, having no reason to think that our meeting could, +in consequence of a short interruption, be more difficult or uncertain than it +had been for so many weeks, I had scarcely for a moment adverted to it as +necessary, or placed it amongst my memoranda against this parting interview; +and my final anxieties being spent in comforting her with hopes, and in +pressing upon her the necessity of getting some medicines for a violent cough +and hoarseness with which she was troubled, I wholly forgot it until it was too +late to recall her. +</p> + +<p> +It was past eight o’clock when I reached the Gloucester Coffee-house, and the +Bristol mail being on the point of going off, I mounted on the outside. The +fine fluent motion <a name="citation5"></a><a href="#footnote5">{5}</a> of this +mail soon laid me asleep: it is somewhat remarkable that the first easy or +refreshing sleep which I had enjoyed for some months, was on the outside of a +mail-coach—a bed which at this day I find rather an uneasy one. Connected +with this sleep was a little incident which served, as hundreds of others did +at that time, to convince me how easily a man who has never been in any great +distress may pass through life without knowing, in his own person at least, +anything of the possible goodness of the human heart—or, as I must add +with a sigh, of its possible vileness. So thick a curtain of <i>manners</i> is +drawn over the features and expression of men’s <i>natures</i>, that to the +ordinary observer the two extremities, and the infinite field of varieties +which lie between them, are all confounded; the vast and multitudinous compass +of their several harmonies reduced to the meagre outline of differences +expressed in the gamut or alphabet of elementary sounds. The case was this: for +the first four or five miles from London I annoyed my fellow-passenger on the +roof by occasionally falling against him when the coach gave a lurch to his +side: and indeed, if the road had been less smooth and level than it is, I +should have fallen off from weakness. Of this annoyance he complained heavily, +as perhaps, in the same circumstances, most people would; he expressed his +complaint, however, more morosely than the occasion seemed to warrant, and if I +had parted with him at that moment I should have thought of him (if I had +considered it worth while to think of him at all) as a surly and almost brutal +fellow. However, I was conscious that I had given him some cause for complaint, +and therefore I apologized to him, and assured him I would do what I could to +avoid falling asleep for the future; and at the same time, in as few words as +possible, I explained to him that I was ill and in a weak state from long +suffering, and that I could not afford at that time to take an inside place. +This man’s manner changed, upon hearing this explanation, in an instant; and +when I next woke for a minute from the noise and lights of Hounslow (for in +spite of my wishes and efforts I had fallen asleep again within two minutes +from the time I had spoken to him) I found that he had put his arm round me to +protect me from falling off, and for the rest of my journey he behaved to me +with the gentleness of a woman, so that at length I almost lay in his arms; and +this was the more kind, as he could not have known that I was not going the +whole way to Bath or Bristol. Unfortunately, indeed, I <i>did</i> go rather +farther than I intended, for so genial and so refreshing was my sleep, that the +next time after leaving Hounslow that I fully awoke was upon the sudden pulling +up of the mail (possibly at a post-office), and on inquiry I found that we had +reached Maidenhead—six or seven miles, I think, ahead of Salthill. Here I +alighted, and for the half-minute that the mail stopped I was entreated by my +friendly companion (who, from the transient glimpse I had had of him in +Piccadilly, seemed to me to be a gentleman’s butler, or person of that rank) to +go to bed without delay. This I promised, though with no intention of doing so; +and in fact I immediately set forward, or rather backward, on foot. It must +then have been nearly midnight, but so slowly did I creep along that I heard a +clock in a cottage strike four before I turned down the lane from Slough to +Eton. The air and the sleep had both refreshed me; but I was weary +nevertheless. I remember a thought (obvious enough, and which has been prettily +expressed by a Roman poet) which gave me some consolation at that moment under +my poverty. There had been some time before a murder committed on or near +Hounslow Heath. I think I cannot be mistaken when I say that the name of the +murdered person was <i>Steele</i>, and that he was the owner of a lavender +plantation in that neighbourhood. Every step of my progress was bringing me +nearer to the Heath, and it naturally occurred to me that I and the accused +murderer, if he were that night abroad, might at every instant be unconsciously +approaching each other through the darkness; in which case, said +I—supposing I, instead of being (as indeed I am) little better than an +outcast— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Lord of my learning, and no land beside— +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +were, like my friend Lord ——, heir by general repute to £70,000 per +annum, what a panic should I be under at this moment about my throat! Indeed, +it was not likely that Lord —— should ever be in my situation. But +nevertheless, the spirit of the remark remains true—that vast power and +possessions make a man shamefully afraid of dying; and I am convinced that many +of the most intrepid adventurers, who, by fortunately being poor, enjoy the +full use of their natural courage, would, if at the very instant of going into +action news were brought to them that they had unexpectedly succeeded to an +estate in England of £50,000 a-year, feel their dislike to bullets +considerably sharpened, <a name="citation6"></a><a href="#footnote6">{6}</a> +and their efforts at perfect equanimity and self-possession proportionably +difficult. So true it is, in the language of a wise man whose own experience +had made him acquainted with both fortunes, that riches are better fitted +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +To slacken virtue, and abate her edge,<br/> +Than tempt her to do ought may merit praise. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>Paradise Regained</i>. +</p> + +<p> +I dally with my subject because, to myself, the remembrance of these times is +profoundly interesting. But my reader shall not have any further cause to +complain, for I now hasten to its close. In the road between Slough and Eton I +fell asleep, and just as the morning began to dawn I was awakened by the voice +of a man standing over me and surveying me. I know not what he was: he was an +ill-looking fellow, but not therefore of necessity an ill-meaning fellow; or, +if he were, I suppose he thought that no person sleeping out-of-doors in winter +could be worth robbing. In which conclusion, however, as it regarded myself, I +beg to assure him, if he should be among my readers, that he was mistaken. +After a slight remark he passed on; and I was not sorry at his disturbance, as +it enabled me to pass through Eton before people were generally up. The night +had been heavy and lowering, but towards the morning it had changed to a slight +frost, and the ground and the trees were now covered with rime. I slipped +through Eton unobserved; washed myself, and as far as possible adjusted my +dress, at a little public-house in Windsor; and about eight o’clock went down +towards Pote’s. On my road I met some junior boys, of whom I made inquiries. An +Etonian is always a gentleman; and, in spite of my shabby habiliments, they +answered me civilly. My friend Lord —— was gone to the University of ——. “Ibi +omnis effusus labor!” I had, however, other friends at Eton; but it is not to +all that wear that name in prosperity that a man is willing to present himself +in distress. On recollecting myself, however, I asked for the Earl of D——, to +whom (though my acquaintance with him was not so intimate as with some others) +I should not have shrunk from presenting myself under any circumstances. He was +still at Eton, though I believe on the wing for Cambridge. I called, was +received kindly, and asked to breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +Here let me stop for a moment to check my reader from any erroneous +conclusions. Because I have had occasion incidentally to speak of various +patrician friends, it must not be supposed that I have myself any pretension to +rank and high blood. I thank God that I have not. I am the son of a plain +English merchant, esteemed during his life for his great integrity, and +strongly attached to literary pursuits (indeed, he was himself, anonymously, an +author). If he had lived it was expected that he would have been very rich; but +dying prematurely, he left no more than about £30,000 amongst seven +different claimants. My mother I may mention with honour, as still more highly +gifted; for though unpretending to the name and honours of a <i>literary</i> +woman, I shall presume to call her (what many literary women are not) an +<i>intellectual</i> woman; and I believe that if ever her letters should be +collected and published, they would be thought generally to exhibit as much +strong and masculine sense, delivered in as pure “mother English,” racy and +fresh with idiomatic graces, as any in our language—hardly excepting +those of Lady M. W. Montague. These are my honours of descent, I have no other; +and I have thanked God sincerely that I have not, because, in my judgment, a +station which raises a man too eminently above the level of his +fellow-creatures is not the most favourable to moral or to intellectual +qualities. +</p> + +<p> +Lord D—— placed before me a most magnificent breakfast. It was really so; but +in my eyes it seemed trebly magnificent, from being the first regular meal, the +first “good man’s table,” that I had sate down to for months. Strange to say, +however, I could scarce eat anything. On the day when I first received my +£10 bank-note I had gone to a baker’s shop and bought a couple of rolls; +this very shop I had two months or six weeks before surveyed with an eagerness +of desire which it was almost humiliating to me to recollect. I remembered the +story about Otway, and feared that there might be danger in eating too rapidly. +But I had no need for alarm; my appetite was quite sunk, and I became sick +before I had eaten half of what I had bought. This effect from eating what +approached to a meal I continued to feel for weeks; or, when I did not +experience any nausea, part of what I ate was rejected, sometimes with acidity, +sometimes immediately and without any acidity. On the present occasion, at Lord +D-’s table, I found myself not at all better than usual, and in the midst of +luxuries I had no appetite. I had, however, unfortunately, at all times a +craving for wine; I explained my situation, therefore, to Lord D——, and gave +him a short account of my late sufferings, at which he expressed great +compassion, and called for wine. This gave me a momentary relief and pleasure; +and on all occasions when I had an opportunity I never failed to drink wine, +which I worshipped then as I have since worshipped opium. I am convinced, +however, that this indulgence in wine contributed to strengthen my malady, for +the tone of my stomach was apparently quite sunk, and by a better regimen it +might sooner, and perhaps effectually, have been revived. I hope that it was +not from this love of wine that I lingered in the neighbourhood of my Eton +friends; I persuaded myself then that it was from reluctance to ask of Lord +D——, on whom I was conscious I had not sufficient claims, the particular +service in quest of which I had come down to Eton. I was, however unwilling to +lose my journey, and—I asked it. Lord D——, whose good nature was +unbounded, and which, in regard to myself, had been measured rather by his +compassion perhaps for my condition, and his knowledge of my intimacy with some +of his relatives, than by an over-rigorous inquiry into the extent of my own +direct claims, faltered, nevertheless, at this request. He acknowledged that he +did not like to have any dealings with money-lenders, and feared lest such a +transaction might come to the ears of his connexions. Moreover, he doubted +whether <i>his</i> signature, whose expectations were so much more bounded than +those of ——, would avail with my unchristian friends. However, he did not +wish, as it seemed, to mortify me by an absolute refusal; for after a little +consideration he promised, under certain conditions which he pointed out, to +give his security. Lord D—— was at this time not eighteen years of age; but I +have often doubted, on recollecting since the good sense and prudence which on +this occasion he mingled with so much urbanity of manner (an urbanity which in +him wore the grace of youthful sincerity), whether any statesman—the +oldest and the most accomplished in diplomacy—could have acquitted +himself better under the same circumstances. Most people, indeed, cannot be +addressed on such a business without surveying you with looks as austere and +unpropitious as those of a Saracen’s head. +</p> + +<p> +Recomforted by this promise, which was not quite equal to the best but far +above the worst that I had pictured to myself as possible, I returned in a +Windsor coach to London three days after I had quitted it. And now I come to +the end of my story. The Jews did not approve of Lord D——’s terms; whether +they would in the end have acceded to them, and were only seeking time for +making due inquiries, I know not; but many delays were made, time passed on, +the small fragment of my bank-note had just melted away, and before any +conclusion could have been put to the business I must have relapsed into my +former state of wretchedness. Suddenly, however, at this crisis, an opening was +made, almost by accident, for reconciliation with my friends; I quitted London +in haste for a remote part of England; after some time I proceeded to the +university, and it was not until many months had passed away that I had it in +my power again to revisit the ground which had become so interesting to me, and +to this day remains so, as the chief scene of my youthful sufferings. +</p> + +<p> +Meantime, what had become of poor Ann? For her I have reserved my concluding +words. According to our agreement, I sought her daily, and waited for her every +night, so long as I stayed in London, at the corner of Titchfield Street. I +inquired for her of every one who was likely to know her, and during the last +hours of my stay in London I put into activity every means of tracing her that +my knowledge of London suggested and the limited extent of my power made +possible. The street where she had lodged I knew, but not the house; and I +remembered at last some account which she had given me of ill-treatment from +her landlord, which made it probable that she had quitted those lodgings before +we parted. She had few acquaintances; most people, besides, thought that the +earnestness of my inquiries arose from motives which moved their laughter or +their slight regard; and others, thinking I was in chase of a girl who had +robbed me of some trifles, were naturally and excusably indisposed to give me +any clue to her, if indeed they had any to give. Finally as my despairing +resource, on the day I left London I put into the hands of the only person who +(I was sure) must know Ann by sight, from having been in company with us once +or twice, an address to ——, in ——shire, at that time the residence of my +family. But to this hour I have never heard a syllable about her. This, amongst +such troubles as most men meet with in this life, has been my heaviest +affliction. If she lived, doubtless we must have been some time in search of +each other, at the very same moment, through the mighty labyrinths of London; +perhaps even within a few feet of each other—a barrier no wider than a +London street often amounting in the end to a separation for eternity! During +some years I hoped that she <i>did</i> live; and I suppose that, in the literal +and unrhetorical use of the word <i>myriad</i>, I may say that on my different +visits to London I have looked into many, many myriads of female faces, in the +hope of meeting her. I should know her again amongst a thousand, if I saw her +for a moment; for though not handsome, she had a sweet expression of +countenance and a peculiar and graceful carriage of the head. I sought her, I +have said, in hope. So it was for years; but now I should fear to see her; and +her cough, which grieved me when I parted with her, is now my consolation. I +now wish to see her no longer; but think of her, more gladly, as one long since +laid in the grave—in the grave, I would hope, of a Magdalen; taken away, +before injuries and cruelty had blotted out and transfigured her ingenuous +nature, or the brutalities of ruffians had completed the ruin they had begun. +</p> + +<p> +[The remainder of this very interesting article will be given in the next +number.—ED.] +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>PART II</h2> + +<p> +From the London Magazine for October 1821. +</p> + +<p> +So then, Oxford Street, stony-hearted step-mother! thou that listenest to the +sighs of orphans and drinkest the tears of children, at length I was dismissed +from thee; the time was come at last that I no more should pace in anguish thy +never-ending terraces, no more should dream and wake in captivity to the pangs +of hunger. Successors too many, to myself and Ann, have doubtless since then +trodden in our footsteps, inheritors of our calamities; other orphans than Ann +have sighed; tears have been shed by other children; and thou, Oxford Street, +hast since doubtless echoed to the groans of innumerable hearts. For myself, +however, the storm which I had outlived seemed to have been the pledge of a +long fair-weather—the premature sufferings which I had paid down to have +been accepted as a ransom for many years to come, as a price of long immunity +from sorrow; and if again I walked in London a solitary and contemplative man +(as oftentimes I did), I walked for the most part in serenity and peace of +mind. And although it is true that the calamities of my noviciate in London had +struck root so deeply in my bodily constitution, that afterwards they shot up +and flourished afresh, and grew into a noxious umbrage that has overshadowed +and darkened my latter years, yet these second assaults of suffering were met +with a fortitude more confirmed, with the resources of a maturer intellect, and +with alleviations from sympathising affection—how deep and tender! +</p> + +<p> +Thus, however, with whatsoever alleviations, years that were far asunder were +bound together by subtle links of suffering derived from a common root. And +herein I notice an instance of the short-sightedness of human desires, that +oftentimes on moonlight nights, during my first mournful abode in London, my +consolation was (if such it could be thought) to gaze from Oxford Street up +every avenue in succession which pierces through the heart of Marylebone to the +fields and the woods; for <i>that</i>, said I, travelling with my eyes up the +long vistas which lay part in light and part in shade, “<i>that</i> is the road +to the North, and therefore to, and if I had the wings of a dove, <i>that</i> +way I would fly for comfort.” Thus I said, and thus I wished, in my blindness. +Yet even in that very northern region it was, even in that very valley, nay, in +that very house to which my erroneous wishes pointed, that this second birth of +my sufferings began, and that they again threatened to besiege the citadel of +life and hope. There it was that for years I was persecuted by visions as ugly, +and as ghastly phantoms as ever haunted the couch of an Orestes; and in this +unhappier than he, that sleep, which comes to all as a respite and a +restoration, and to him especially as a blessed <a name="citation7"></a><a +href="#footnote7">{7}</a> balm for his wounded heart and his haunted brain, +visited me as my bitterest scourge. Thus blind was I in my desires; yet if a +veil interposes between the dim-sightedness of man and his future calamities, +the same veil hides from him their alleviations, and a grief which had not been +feared is met by consolations which had not been hoped. I therefore, who +participated, as it were, in the troubles of Orestes (excepting only in his +agitated conscience), participated no less in all his supports. My Eumenides, +like his, were at my bed-feet, and stared in upon me through the curtains; but +watching by my pillow, or defrauding herself of sleep to bear me company +through the heavy watches of the night, sate my Electra; for thou, beloved M., +dear companion of my later years, thou wast my Electra! and neither in nobility +of mind nor in long-suffering affection wouldst permit that a Grecian sister +should excel an English wife. For thou thoughtest not much to stoop to humble +offices of kindness and to servile <a name="citation8"></a><a +href="#footnote8">{8}</a> ministrations of tenderest affection—to wipe +away for years the unwholesome dews upon the forehead, or to refresh the lips +when parched and baked with fever; nor even when thy own peaceful slumbers had +by long sympathy become infected with the spectacle of my dread contest with +phantoms and shadowy enemies that oftentimes bade me “sleep no more!”—not +even then didst thou utter a complaint or any murmur, nor withdraw thy angelic +smiles, nor shrink from thy service of love, more than Electra did of old. For +she too, though she was a Grecian woman, and the daughter of the king <a +name="citation9"></a><a href="#footnote9">{9}</a> of men, yet wept sometimes, +and hid her face <a name="citation10"></a><a href="#footnote10">{10}</a> in her +robe. +</p> + +<p> +But these troubles are past; and thou wilt read records of a period so dolorous +to us both as the legend of some hideous dream that can return no more. +Meantime, I am again in London, and again I pace the terraces of Oxford Street +by night; and oftentimes, when I am oppressed by anxieties that demand all my +philosophy and the comfort of thy presence to support, and yet remember that I +am separated from thee by three hundred miles and the length of three dreary +months, I look up the streets that run northwards from Oxford Street, upon +moonlight nights, and recollect my youthful ejaculation of anguish; and +remembering that thou art sitting alone in that same valley, and mistress of +that very house to which my heart turned in its blindness nineteen years ago, I +think that, though blind indeed, and scattered to the winds of late, the +promptings of my heart may yet have had reference to a remoter time, and may be +justified if read in another meaning; and if I could allow myself to descend +again to the impotent wishes of childhood, I should again say to myself, as I +look to the North, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove—” and with how +just a confidence in thy good and gracious nature might I add the other half of +my early ejaculation—“And <i>that</i> way I would fly for comfort!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>THE PLEASURES OF OPIUM</h2> + +<p> +It is so long since I first took opium that if it had been a trifling incident +in my life I might have forgotten its date; but cardinal events are not to be +forgotten, and from circumstances connected with it I remember that it must be +referred to the autumn of 1804. During that season I was in London, having come +thither for the first time since my entrance at college. And my introduction to +opium arose in the following way. From an early age I had been accustomed to +wash my head in cold water at least once a day: being suddenly seized with +toothache, I attributed it to some relaxation caused by an accidental +intermission of that practice, jumped out of bed, plunged my head into a basin +of cold water, and with hair thus wetted went to sleep. The next morning, as I +need hardly say, I awoke with excruciating rheumatic pains of the head and +face, from which I had hardly any respite for about twenty days. On the +twenty-first day I think it was, and on a Sunday, that I went out into the +streets, rather to run away, if possible, from my torments, than with any +distinct purpose. By accident I met a college acquaintance, who recommended +opium. Opium! dread agent of unimaginable pleasure and pain! I had heard of it +as I had of manna or of ambrosia, but no further. How unmeaning a sound was it +at that time: what solemn chords does it now strike upon my heart! what +heart-quaking vibrations of sad and happy remembrances! Reverting for a moment +to these, I feel a mystic importance attached to the minutest circumstances +connected with the place and the time and the man (if man he was) that first +laid open to me the Paradise of Opium-eaters. It was a Sunday afternoon, wet +and cheerless: and a duller spectacle this earth of ours has not to show than a +rainy Sunday in London. My road homewards lay through Oxford Street; and near +“the stately Pantheon” (as Mr. Wordsworth has obligingly called it) I saw a +druggist’s shop. The druggist—unconscious minister of celestial +pleasures!—as if in sympathy with the rainy Sunday, looked dull and +stupid, just as any mortal druggist might be expected to look on a Sunday; and +when I asked for the tincture of opium, he gave it to me as any other man might +do, and furthermore, out of my shilling returned me what seemed to be real +copper halfpence, taken out of a real wooden drawer. Nevertheless, in spite of +such indications of humanity, he has ever since existed in my mind as the +beatific vision of an immortal druggist, sent down to earth on a special +mission to myself. And it confirms me in this way of considering him, that when +I next came up to London I sought him near the stately Pantheon, and found him +not; and thus to me, who knew not his name (if indeed he had one), he seemed +rather to have vanished from Oxford Street than to have removed in any bodily +fashion. The reader may choose to think of him as possibly no more than a +sublunary druggist; it may be so, but my faith is better—I believe him to +have evanesced, <a name="citation11"></a><a href="#footnote11">{11}</a> or +evaporated. So unwillingly would I connect any mortal remembrances with that +hour, and place, and creature, that first brought me acquainted with the +celestial drug. +</p> + +<p> +Arrived at my lodgings, it may be supposed that I lost not a moment in taking +the quantity prescribed. I was necessarily ignorant of the whole art and +mystery of opium-taking, and what I took I took under every disadvantage. But I +took it—and in an hour—oh, heavens! what a revulsion! what an +upheaving, from its lowest depths, of inner spirit! what an apocalypse of the +world within me! That my pains had vanished was now a trifle in my eyes: this +negative effect was swallowed up in the immensity of those positive effects +which had opened before me—in the abyss of divine enjoyment thus suddenly +revealed. Here was a panacea, a +φαρμακον for all human woes; here was +the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed for so many +ages, at once discovered: happiness might now be bought for a penny, and +carried in the waistcoat pocket; portable ecstacies might be had corked up in a +pint bottle, and peace of mind could be sent down in gallons by the mail-coach. +But if I talk in this way the reader will think I am laughing, and I can assure +him that nobody will laugh long who deals much with opium: its pleasures even +are of a grave and solemn complexion, and in his happiest state the opium-eater +cannot present himself in the character of <i>L’Allegro</i>: even then he +speaks and thinks as becomes <i>Il Penseroso</i>. Nevertheless, I have a very +reprehensible way of jesting at times in the midst of my own misery; and unless +when I am checked by some more powerful feelings, I am afraid I shall be guilty +of this indecent practice even in these annals of suffering or enjoyment. The +reader must allow a little to my infirm nature in this respect; and with a few +indulgences of that sort I shall endeavour to be as grave, if not drowsy, as +fits a theme like opium, so anti-mercurial as it really is, and so drowsy as it +is falsely reputed. +</p> + +<p> +And first, one word with respect to its bodily effects; for upon all that has +been hitherto written on the subject of opium, whether by travellers in Turkey +(who may plead their privilege of lying as an old immemorial right), or by +professors of medicine, writing <i>ex cathedra</i>, I have but one emphatic +criticism to pronounce—Lies! lies! lies! I remember once, in passing a +book-stall, to have caught these words from a page of some satiric author: “By +this time I became convinced that the London newspapers spoke truth at least +twice a week, viz., on Tuesday and Saturday, and might safely be depended upon +for—the list of bankrupts.” In like manner, I do by no means deny that +some truths have been delivered to the world in regard to opium. Thus it has +been repeatedly affirmed by the learned that opium is a dusky brown in colour; +and this, take notice, I grant. Secondly, that it is rather dear, which also I +grant, for in my time East Indian opium has been three guineas a pound, and +Turkey eight. And thirdly, that if you eat a good deal of it, most probably you +must do what is particularly disagreeable to any man of regular habits, viz., +die. <a name="citation12"></a><a href="#footnote12">{12}</a> These weighty +propositions are, all and singular, true: I cannot gainsay them, and truth ever +was, and will be, commendable. But in these three theorems I believe we have +exhausted the stock of knowledge as yet accumulated by men on the subject of +opium. +</p> + +<p> +And therefore, worthy doctors, as there seems to be room for further +discoveries, stand aside, and allow me to come forward and lecture on this +matter. +</p> + +<p> +First, then, it is not so much affirmed as taken for granted, by all who ever +mention opium, formally or incidentally, that it does or can produce +intoxication. Now, reader, assure yourself, <i>meo perieulo</i>, that no +quantity of opium ever did or could intoxicate. As to the tincture of opium +(commonly called laudanum) <i>that</i> might certainly intoxicate if a man +could bear to take enough of it; but why? Because it contains so much proof +spirit, and not because it contains so much opium. But crude opium, I affirm +peremptorily, is incapable of producing any state of body at all resembling +that which is produced by alcohol, and not in <i>degree</i> only incapable, but +even in <i>kind</i>: it is not in the quantity of its effects merely, but in +the quality, that it differs altogether. The pleasure given by wine is always +mounting and tending to a crisis, after which it declines; that from opium, +when once generated, is stationary for eight or ten hours: the first, to borrow +a technical distinction from medicine, is a case of acute—the second, the +chronic pleasure; the one is a flame, the other a steady and equable glow. But +the main distinction lies in this, that whereas wine disorders the mental +faculties, opium, on the contrary (if taken in a proper manner), introduces +amongst them the most exquisite order, legislation, and harmony. Wine robs a +man of his self-possession; opium greatly invigorates it. Wine unsettles and +clouds the judgement, and gives a preternatural brightness and a vivid +exaltation to the contempts and the admirations, the loves and the hatreds of +the drinker; opium, on the contrary, communicates serenity and equipoise to all +the faculties, active or passive, and with respect to the temper and moral +feelings in general it gives simply that sort of vital warmth which is approved +by the judgment, and which would probably always accompany a bodily +constitution of primeval or antediluvian health. Thus, for instance, opium, +like wine, gives an expansion to the heart and the benevolent affections; but +then, with this remarkable difference, that in the sudden development of +kind-heartedness which accompanies inebriation there is always more or less of +a maudlin character, which exposes it to the contempt of the bystander. Men +shake hands, swear eternal friendship, and shed tears, no mortal knows why; and +the sensual creature is clearly uppermost. But the expansion of the benigner +feelings incident to opium is no febrile access, but a healthy restoration to +that state which the mind would naturally recover upon the removal of any +deep-seated irritation of pain that had disturbed and quarrelled with the +impulses of a heart originally just and good. True it is that even wine, up to +a certain point and with certain men, rather tends to exalt and to steady the +intellect; I myself, who have never been a great wine-drinker, used to find +that half-a-dozen glasses of wine advantageously affected the +faculties—brightened and intensified the consciousness, and gave to the +mind a feeling of being “ponderibus librata suis;” and certainly it is most +absurdly said, in popular language, of any man that he is <i>disguised</i> in +liquor; for, on the contrary, most men are disguised by sobriety, and it is +when they are drinking (as some old gentleman says in Athenæus), that men +εαυτους +εμφανιζουσιν +οιτινες +εισιν—display themselves in their true +complexion of character, which surely is not disguising themselves. But still, +wine constantly leads a man to the brink of absurdity and extravagance, and +beyond a certain point it is sure to volatilise and to disperse the +intellectual energies: whereas opium always seems to compose what had been +agitated, and to concentrate what had been distracted. In short, to sum up all +in one word, a man who is inebriated, or tending to inebriation, is, and feels +that he is, in a condition which calls up into supremacy the merely human, too +often the brutal part of his nature; but the opium-eater (I speak of him who is +not suffering from any disease or other remote effects of opium) feels that the +diviner part of his nature is paramount; that is, the moral affections are in a +state of cloudless serenity, and over all is the great light of the majestic +intellect. +</p> + +<p> +This is the doctrine of the true church on the subject of opium: of which +church I acknowledge myself to be the only member—the alpha and the +omega: but then it is to be recollected that I speak from the ground of a large +and profound personal experience: whereas most of the unscientific <a +name="citation13"></a><a href="#footnote13">{13}</a> authors who have at all +treated of opium, and even of those who have written expressly on the materia +medica, make it evident, from the horror they express of it, that their +experimental knowledge of its action is none at all. I will, however, candidly +acknowledge that I have met with one person who bore evidence to its +intoxicating power, such as staggered my own incredulity; for he was a surgeon, +and had himself taken opium largely. I happened to say to him that his enemies +(as I had heard) charged him with talking nonsense on politics, and that his +friends apologized for him by suggesting that he was constantly in a state of +intoxication from opium. Now the accusation, said I, is not <i>prima facie</i> +and of necessity an absurd one; but the defence <i>is</i>. To my surprise, +however, he insisted that both his enemies and his friends were in the right. +“I will maintain,” said he, “that I <i>do</i> talk nonsense; and secondly, I +will maintain that I do not talk nonsense upon principle, or with any view to +profit, but solely and simply, said he, solely and simply—solely and +simply (repeating it three times over), because I am drunk with opium, and +<i>that</i> daily.” I replied that, as to the allegation of his enemies, as it +seemed to be established upon such respectable testimony, seeing that the three +parties concerned all agree in it, it did not become me to question it; but the +defence set up I must demur to. He proceeded to discuss the matter, and to lay +down his reasons; but it seemed to me so impolite to pursue an argument which +must have presumed a man mistaken in a point belonging to his own profession, +that I did not press him even when his course of argument seemed open to +objection; not to mention that a man who talks nonsense, even though “with no +view to profit,” is not altogether the most agreeable partner in a dispute, +whether as opponent or respondent. I confess, however, that the authority of a +surgeon, and one who was reputed a good one, may seem a weighty one to my +prejudice; but still I must plead my experience, which was greater than his +greatest by 7,000 drops a-day; and though it was not possible to suppose a +medical man unacquainted with the characteristic symptoms of vinous +intoxication, it yet struck me that he might proceed on a logical error of +using the word intoxication with too great latitude, and extending it +generically to all modes of nervous excitement, instead of restricting it as +the expression for a specific sort of excitement connected with certain +diagnostics. Some people have maintained in my hearing that they had been drunk +upon green tea; and a medical student in London, for whose knowledge in his +profession I have reason to feel great respect, assured me the other day that a +patient in recovering from an illness had got drunk on a beef-steak. +</p> + +<p> +Having dwelt so much on this first and leading error in respect to opium, I +shall notice very briefly a second and a third, which are, that the elevation +of spirits produced by opium is necessarily followed by a proportionate +depression, and that the natural and even immediate consequence of opium is +torpor and stagnation, animal and mental. The first of these errors I shall +content myself with simply denying; assuring my reader that for ten years, +during which I took opium at intervals, the day succeeding to that on which I +allowed myself this luxury was always a day of unusually good spirits. +</p> + +<p> +With respect to the torpor supposed to follow, or rather (if we were to credit +the numerous pictures of Turkish opium-eaters) to accompany the practice of +opium-eating, I deny that also. Certainly opium is classed under the head of +narcotics, and some such effect it may produce in the end; but the primary +effects of opium are always, and in the highest degree, to excite and stimulate +the system. This first stage of its action always lasted with me, during my +noviciate, for upwards of eight hours; so that it must be the fault of the +opium-eater himself if he does not so time his exhibition of the dose (to speak +medically) as that the whole weight of its narcotic influence may descend upon +his sleep. Turkish opium-eaters, it seems, are absurd enough to sit, like so +many equestrian statues, on logs of wood as stupid as themselves. But that the +reader may judge of the degree in which opium is likely to stupefy the +faculties of an Englishman, I shall (by way of treating the question +illustratively, rather than argumentatively) describe the way in which I myself +often passed an opium evening in London during the period between 1804-1812. It +will be seen that at least opium did not move me to seek solitude, and much +less to seek inactivity, or the torpid state of self-involution ascribed to the +Turks. I give this account at the risk of being pronounced a crazy enthusiast +or visionary; but I regard <i>that</i> little. I must desire my reader to bear +in mind that I was a hard student, and at severe studies for all the rest of my +time; and certainly I had a right occasionally to relaxations as well as other +people. These, however, I allowed myself but seldom. +</p> + +<p> +The late Duke of —— used to say, “Next Friday, by the blessing of heaven, I +purpose to be drunk;” and in like manner I used to fix beforehand how often +within a given time, and when, I would commit a debauch of opium. This was +seldom more than once in three weeks, for at that time I could not have +ventured to call every day, as I did afterwards, for “<i>a glass of laudanum +negus, warm, and without sugar</i>.” No, as I have said, I seldom drank +laudanum, at that time, more than once in three weeks: This was usually on a +Tuesday or a Saturday night; my reason for which was this. In those days +Grassini sang at the Opera, and her voice was delightful to me beyond all that +I had ever heard. I know not what may be the state of the Opera-house now, +having never been within its walls for seven or eight years, but at that time +it was by much the most pleasant place of public resort in London for passing +an evening. Five shillings admitted one to the gallery, which was subject to +far less annoyance than the pit of the theatres; the orchestra was +distinguished by its sweet and melodious grandeur from all English orchestras, +the composition of which, I confess, is not acceptable to my ear, from the +predominance of the clamorous instruments and the absolute tyranny of the +violin. The choruses were divine to hear, and when Grassini appeared in some +interlude, as she often did, and poured forth her passionate soul as Andromache +at the tomb of Hector, &c., I question whether any Turk, of all that ever +entered the Paradise of Opium-eaters, can have had half the pleasure I had. +But, indeed, I honour the barbarians too much by supposing them capable of any +pleasures approaching to the intellectual ones of an Englishman. For music is +an intellectual or a sensual pleasure according to the temperament of him who +hears it. And, by-the-bye, with the exception of the fine extravaganza on that +subject in “Twelfth Night,” I do not recollect more than one thing said +adequately on the subject of music in all literature; it is a passage in the +<i>Religio Medici</i> <a name="citation14"></a><a href="#footnote14">{14}</a> +of Sir T. Brown, and though chiefly remarkable for its sublimity, has also a +philosophic value, inasmuch as it points to the true theory of musical effects. +The mistake of most people is to suppose that it is by the ear they communicate +with music, and therefore that they are purely passive to its effects. But this +is not so; it is by the reaction of the mind upon the notices of the ear (the +<i>matter</i> coming by the senses, the <i>form</i> from the mind) that the +pleasure is constructed, and therefore it is that people of equally good ear +differ so much in this point from one another. Now, opium, by greatly +increasing the activity of the mind, generally increases, of necessity, that +particular mode of its activity by which we are able to construct out of the +raw material of organic sound an elaborate intellectual pleasure. But, says a +friend, a succession of musical sounds is to me like a collection of Arabic +characters; I can attach no ideas to them. Ideas! my good sir? There is no +occasion for them; all that class of ideas which can be available in such a +case has a language of representative feelings. But this is a subject foreign +to my present purposes; it is sufficient to say that a chorus, &c., of +elaborate harmony displayed before me, as in a piece of arras work, the whole +of my past life—not as if recalled by an act of memory, but as if present +and incarnated in the music; no longer painful to dwell upon; but the detail of +its incidents removed or blended in some hazy abstraction, and its passions +exalted, spiritualized, and sublimed. All this was to be had for five +shillings. And over and above the music of the stage and the orchestra, I had +all around me, in the intervals of the performance, the music of the Italian +language talked by Italian women—for the gallery was usually crowded with +Italians—and I listened with a pleasure such as that with which Weld the +traveller lay and listened, in Canada, to the sweet laughter of Indian women; +for the less you understand of a language, the more sensible you are to the +melody or harshness of its sounds. For such a purpose, therefore, it was an +advantage to me that I was a poor Italian scholar, reading it but little, and +not speaking it at all, nor understanding a tenth part of what I heard spoken. +</p> + +<p> +These were my opera pleasures; but another pleasure I had which, as it could be +had only on a Saturday night, occasionally struggled with my love of the Opera; +for at that time Tuesday and Saturday were the regular opera nights. On this +subject I am afraid I shall be rather obscure, but I can assure the reader not +at all more so than Marinus in his Life of Proclus, or many other biographers +and autobiographers of fair reputation. This pleasure, I have said, was to be +had only on a Saturday night. What, then, was Saturday night to me more than +any other night? I had no labours that I rested from, no wages to receive; what +needed I to care for Saturday night, more than as it was a summons to hear +Grassini? True, most logical reader; what you say is unanswerable. And yet so +it was and is, that whereas different men throw their feelings into different +channels, and most are apt to show their interest in the concerns of the poor +chiefly by sympathy, expressed in some shape or other, with their distresses +and sorrows, I at that time was disposed to express my interest by sympathising +with their pleasures. The pains of poverty I had lately seen too much of, more +than I wished to remember; but the pleasures of the poor, their consolations of +spirit, and their reposes from bodily toil, can never become oppressive to +contemplate. Now Saturday night is the season for the chief, regular, and +periodic return of rest of the poor; in this point the most hostile sects +unite, and acknowledge a common link of brotherhood; almost all Christendom +rests from its labours. It is a rest introductory to another rest, and divided +by a whole day and two nights from the renewal of toil. On this account I feel +always, on a Saturday night, as though I also were released from some yoke of +labour, had some wages to receive, and some luxury of repose to enjoy. For the +sake, therefore, of witnessing, upon as large a scale as possible, a spectacle +with which my sympathy was so entire, I used often on Saturday nights, after I +had taken opium, to wander forth, without much regarding the direction or the +distance, to all the markets and other parts of London to which the poor resort +of a Saturday night, for laying out their wages. Many a family party, +consisting of a man, his wife, and sometimes one or two of his children, have I +listened to, as they stood consulting on their ways and means, or the strength +of their exchequer, or the price of household articles. Gradually I became +familiar with their wishes, their difficulties, and their opinions. Sometimes +there might be heard murmurs of discontent, but far oftener expressions on the +countenance, or uttered in words, of patience, hope, and tranquillity. And +taken generally, I must say that, in this point at least, the poor are more +philosophic than the rich—that they show a more ready and cheerful +submission to what they consider as irremediable evils or irreparable losses. +Whenever I saw occasion, or could do it without appearing to be intrusive, I +joined their parties, and gave my opinion upon the matter in discussion, which, +if not always judicious, was always received indulgently. If wages were a +little higher or expected to be so, or the quartern loaf a little lower, or it +was reported that onions and butter were expected to fall, I was glad; yet, if +the contrary were true, I drew from opium some means of consoling myself. For +opium (like the bee, that extracts its materials indiscriminately from roses +and from the soot of chimneys) can overrule all feelings into compliance with +the master-key. Some of these rambles led me to great distances, for an +opium-eater is too happy to observe the motion of time; and sometimes in my +attempts to steer homewards, upon nautical principles, by fixing my eye on the +pole-star, and seeking ambitiously for a north-west passage, instead of +circumnavigating all the capes and head-lands I had doubled in my outward +voyage, I came suddenly upon such knotty problems of alleys, such enigmatical +entries, and such sphynx’s riddles of streets without thoroughfares, as must, I +conceive, baffle the audacity of porters and confound the intellects of +hackney-coachmen. I could almost have believed at times that I must be the +first discoverer of some of these <i>terræ incognitæ</i>, and doubted whether +they had yet been laid down in the modern charts of London. For all this, +however, I paid a heavy price in distant years, when the human face tyrannised +over my dreams, and the perplexities of my steps in London came back and +haunted my sleep, with the feeling of perplexities, moral and intellectual, +that brought confusion to the reason, or anguish and remorse to the conscience. +</p> + +<p> +Thus I have shown that opium does not of necessity produce inactivity or +torpor, but that, on the contrary, it often led me into markets and theatres. +Yet, in candour, I will admit that markets and theatres are not the appropriate +haunts of the opium-eater when in the divinest state incident to his enjoyment. +In that state, crowds become an oppression to him; music even, too sensual and +gross. He naturally seeks solitude and silence, as indispensable conditions of +those trances, or profoundest reveries, which are the crown and consummation of +what opium can do for human nature. I, whose disease it was to meditate too +much and to observe too little, and who upon my first entrance at college was +nearly falling into a deep melancholy, from brooding too much on the sufferings +which I had witnessed in London, was sufficiently aware of the tendencies of my +own thoughts to do all I could to counteract them. I was, indeed, like a person +who, according to the old legend, had entered the cave of Trophonius; and the +remedies I sought were to force myself into society, and to keep my +understanding in continual activity upon matters of science. But for these +remedies I should certainly have become hypochondriacally melancholy. In after +years, however, when my cheerfulness was more fully re-established, I yielded +to my natural inclination for a solitary life. And at that time I often fell +into these reveries upon taking opium; and more than once it has happened to +me, on a summer night, when I have been at an open window, in a room from which +I could overlook the sea at a mile below me, and could command a view of the +great town of L——, at about the same distance, that I have sate from sunset to +sunrise, motionless, and without wishing to move. +</p> + +<p> +I shall be charged with mysticism, Behmenism, quietism, &c., but +<i>that</i> shall not alarm me. Sir H. Vane, the younger, was one of our wisest +men; and let my reader see if he, in his philosophical works, be half as +unmystical as I am. I say, then, that it has often struck me that the scene +itself was somewhat typical of what took place in such a reverie. The town of +L—— represented the earth, with its sorrows and its graves left behind, yet +not out of sight, nor wholly forgotten. The ocean, in everlasting but gentle +agitation, and brooded over by a dove-like calm, might not unfitly typify the +mind and the mood which then swayed it. For it seemed to me as if then first I +stood at a distance and aloof from the uproar of life; as if the tumult, the +fever, and the strife were suspended; a respite granted from the secret +burthens of the heart; a sabbath of repose; a resting from human labours. Here +were the hopes which blossom in the paths of life reconciled with the peace +which is in the grave; motions of the intellect as unwearied as the heavens, +yet for all anxieties a halcyon calm; a tranquillity that seemed no product of +inertia, but as if resulting from mighty and equal antagonisms; infinite +activities, infinite repose. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, just, subtle, and mighty opium! that to the hearts of poor and rich alike, +for the wounds that will never heal, and for “the pangs that tempt the spirit +to rebel,” bringest an assuaging balm; eloquent opium! that with thy potent +rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath; and to the guilty man for one +night givest back the hopes of his youth, and hands washed pure from blood; and +to the proud man a brief oblivion for “Wrongs undress’d and insults unavenged;” +that summonest to the chancery of dreams, for the triumphs of suffering +innocence, false witnesses; and confoundest perjury, and dost reverse the +sentences of unrighteous judges;—thou buildest upon the bosom of +darkness, out of the fantastic imagery of the brain, cities and temples beyond +the art of Phidias and Praxiteles—beyond the splendour of Babylon and +Hekatómpylos, and “from the anarchy of dreaming sleep” callest into +sunny light the faces of long-buried beauties and the blessed household +countenances cleansed from the “dishonours of the grave.” Thou only givest +these gifts to man; and thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh, just, subtle, and +mighty opium! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>INTRODUCTION TO THE PAINS OF OPIUM</h2> + +<p> +Courteous, and I hope indulgent, reader (for all <i>my</i> readers must be +indulgent ones, or else I fear I shall shock them too much to count on their +courtesy), having accompanied me thus far, now let me request you to move +onwards for about eight years; that is to say, from 1804 (when I have said that +my acquaintance with opium first began) to 1812. The years of academic life are +now over and gone—almost forgotten; the student’s cap no longer presses +my temples; if my cap exist at all, it presses those of some youthful scholar, +I trust, as happy as myself, and as passionate a lover of knowledge. My gown is +by this time, I dare say, in the same condition with many thousand excellent +books in the Bodleian, viz., diligently perused by certain studious moths and +worms; or departed, however (which is all that I know of his fate), to that +great reservoir of <i>somewhere</i> to which all the tea-cups, tea-caddies, +tea-pots, tea-kettles, &c., have departed (not to speak of still frailer +vessels, such as glasses, decanters, bed-makers, &c.), which occasional +resemblances in the present generation of tea-cups, &c., remind me of +having once possessed, but of whose departure and final fate I, in common with +most gownsmen of either university, could give, I suspect, but an obscure and +conjectural history. The persecutions of the chapel-bell, sounding its +unwelcome summons to six o’clock matins, interrupts my slumbers no longer, the +porter who rang it, upon whose beautiful nose (bronze, inlaid with copper) I +wrote, in retaliation so many Greek epigrams whilst I was dressing, is dead, +and has ceased to disturb anybody; and I, and many others who suffered much +from his tintinnabulous propensities, have now agreed to overlook his errors, +and have forgiven him. Even with the bell I am now in charity; it rings, I +suppose, as formerly, thrice a-day, and cruelly annoys, I doubt not, many +worthy gentlemen, and disturbs their peace of mind; but as to me, in this year +1812, I regard its treacherous voice no longer (treacherous I call it, for, by +some refinement of malice, it spoke in as sweet and silvery tones as if it had +been inviting one to a party); its tones have no longer, indeed, power to reach +me, let the wind sit as favourable as the malice of the bell itself could wish, +for I am 250 miles away from it, and buried in the depth of mountains. And what +am I doing among the mountains? Taking opium. Yes; but what else? Why reader, +in 1812, the year we are now arrived at, as well as for some years previous, I +have been chiefly studying German metaphysics in the writings of Kant, Fichte, +Schelling, &c. And how and in what manner do I live?—in short, what +class or description of men do I belong to? I am at this period—viz. in +1812—living in a cottage and with a single female servant (<i>honi soit +qui mal y pense</i>), who amongst my neighbours passes by the name of my +“housekeeper.” And as a scholar and a man of learned education, and in that +sense a gentleman, I may presume to class myself as an unworthy member of that +indefinite body called <i>gentlemen</i>. Partly on the ground I have assigned +perhaps, partly because from my having no visible calling or business, it is +rightly judged that I must be living on my private fortune; I am so classed by +my neighbours; and by the courtesy of modern England I am usually addressed on +letters, &c., “Esquire,” though having, I fear, in the rigorous +construction of heralds, but slender pretensions to that distinguished honour; +yet in popular estimation I am X. Y. Z., Esquire, but not justice of the Peace +nor Custos Rotulorum. Am I married? Not yet. And I still take opium? On +Saturday nights. And perhaps have taken it unblushingly ever since “the rainy +Sunday,” and “the stately Pantheon,” and “the beatific druggist” of 1804? Even +so. And how do I find my health after all this opium-eating? In short, how do I +do? Why, pretty well, I thank you, reader; in the phrase of ladies in the +straw, “as well as can be expected.” In fact, if I dared to say the real and +simple truth, though, to satisfy the theories of medical men, I <i>ought</i> to +be ill, I never was better in my life than in the spring of 1812; and I hope +sincerely that the quantity of claret, port, or “particular Madeira,” which in +all probability you, good reader, have taken, and design to take for every term +of eight years during your natural life, may as little disorder your health as +mine was disordered by the opium I had taken for eight years, between 1804 and +1812. Hence you may see again the danger of taking any medical advice from +<i>Anastasius</i>; in divinity, for aught I know, or law, he may be a safe +counsellor; but not in medicine. No; it is far better to consult Dr. Buchan, as +I did; for I never forgot that worthy man’s excellent suggestion, and I was +“particularly careful not to take above five-and-twenty ounces of laudanum.” To +this moderation and temperate use of the article I may ascribe it, I suppose, +that as yet, at least (<i>i.e</i>. in 1812), I am ignorant and unsuspicious of +the avenging terrors which opium has in store for those who abuse its lenity. +At the same time, it must not be forgotten that hitherto I have been only a +dilettante eater of opium; eight years’ practice even, with a single precaution +of allowing sufficient intervals between every indulgence, has not been +sufficient to make opium necessary to me as an article of daily diet. But now +comes a different era. Move on, if you please, reader, to 1813. In the summer +of the year we have just quitted I have suffered much in bodily health from +distress of mind connected with a very melancholy event. This event being no +ways related to the subject now before me, further than through the bodily +illness which it produced, I need not more particularly notice. Whether this +illness of 1812 had any share in that of 1813 I know not; but so it was, that +in the latter year I was attacked by a most appalling irritation of the +stomach, in all respects the same as that which had caused me so much suffering +in youth, and accompanied by a revival of all the old dreams. This is the point +of my narrative on which, as respects my own self-justification, the whole of +what follows may be said to hinge. And here I find myself in a perplexing +dilemma. Either, on the one hand, I must exhaust the reader’s patience by such +a detail of my malady, or of my struggles with it, as might suffice to +establish the fact of my inability to wrestle any longer with irritation and +constant suffering; or, on the other hand, by passing lightly over this +critical part of my story, I must forego the benefit of a stronger impression +left on the mind of the reader, and must lay myself open to the misconstruction +of having slipped, by the easy and gradual steps of self-indulging persons, +from the first to the final stage of opium-eating (a misconstruction to which +there will be a lurking predisposition in most readers, from my previous +acknowledgements). This is the dilemma, the first horn of which would be +sufficient to toss and gore any column of patient readers, though drawn up +sixteen deep and constantly relieved by fresh men; consequently that is not to +be thought of. It remains, then, that I <i>postulate</i> so much as is +necessary for my purpose. And let me take as full credit for what I postulate +as if I had demonstrated it, good reader, at the expense of your patience and +my own. Be not so ungenerous as to let me suffer in your good opinion through +my own forbearance and regard for your comfort. No; believe all that I ask of +you—viz., that I could resist no longer; believe it liberally and as an +act of grace, or else in mere prudence; for if not, then in the next edition of +my Opium Confessions, revised and enlarged, I will make you believe and +tremble; and <i>à force d’ennuyer</i>, by mere dint of pandiculation I will +terrify all readers of mine from ever again questioning any postulate that I +shall think fit to make. +</p> + +<p> +This, then, let me repeat, I postulate—that at the time I began to take +opium daily I could not have done otherwise. Whether, indeed, afterwards I +might not have succeeded in breaking off the habit, even when it seemed to me +that all efforts would be unavailing, and whether many of the innumerable +efforts which I did make might not have been carried much further, and my +gradual reconquests of ground lost might not have been followed up much more +energetically—these are questions which I must decline. Perhaps I might +make out a case of palliation; but shall I speak ingenuously? I confess it, as +a besetting infirmity of mine, that I am too much of an Eudæmonist; I hanker +too much after a state of happiness, both for myself and others; I cannot face +misery, whether my own or not, with an eye of sufficient firmness, and am +little capable of encountering present pain for the sake of any reversionary +benefit. On some other matters I can agree with the gentlemen in the cotton +trade <a name="citation15"></a><a href="#footnote15">{15}</a> at Manchester in +affecting the Stoic philosophy, but not in this. Here I take the liberty of an +Eclectic philosopher, and I look out for some courteous and considerate sect +that will condescend more to the infirm condition of an opium-eater; that are +“sweet men,” as Chaucer says, “to give absolution,” and will show some +conscience in the penances they inflict, and the efforts of abstinence they +exact from poor sinners like myself. An inhuman moralist I can no more endure +in my nervous state than opium that has not been boiled. At any rate, he who +summons me to send out a large freight of self-denial and mortification upon +any cruising voyage of moral improvement, must make it clear to my +understanding that the concern is a hopeful one. At my time of life +(six-and-thirty years of age) it cannot be supposed that I have much energy to +spare; in fact, I find it all little enough for the intellectual labours I have +on my hands, and therefore let no man expect to frighten me by a few hard words +into embarking any part of it upon desperate adventures of morality. +</p> + +<p> +Whether desperate or not, however, the issue of the struggle in 1813 was what I +have mentioned, and from this date the reader is to consider me as a regular +and confirmed opium-eater, of whom to ask whether on any particular day he had +or had not taken opium, would be to ask whether his lungs had performed +respiration, or the heart fulfilled its functions. You understand now, reader, +what I am, and you are by this time aware that no old gentleman “with a +snow-white beard” will have any chance of persuading me to surrender “the +little golden receptacle of the pernicious drug.” No; I give notice to all, +whether moralists or surgeons, that whatever be their pretensions and skill in +their respective lines of practice, they must not hope for any countenance from +me, if they think to begin by any savage proposition for a Lent or a Ramadan of +abstinence from opium. This, then, being all fully understood between us, we +shall in future sail before the wind. Now then, reader, from 1813, where all +this time we have been sitting down and loitering, rise up, if you please, and +walk forward about three years more. Now draw up the curtain, and you shall see +me in a new character. +</p> + +<p> +If any man, poor or rich, were to say that he would tell us what had been the +happiest day in his life, and the why and the wherefore, I suppose that we +should all cry out—Hear him! Hear him! As to the happiest <i>day</i>, +that must be very difficult for any wise man to name, because any event that +could occupy so distinguished a place in a man’s retrospect of his life, or be +entitled to have shed a special felicity on any one day, ought to be of such an +enduring character as that (accidents apart) it should have continued to shed +the same felicity, or one not distinguishably less, on many years together. To +the happiest <i>lustrum</i>, however, or even to the happiest <i>year</i>, it +may be allowed to any man to point without discountenance from wisdom. This +year, in my case, reader, was the one which we have now reached; though it +stood, I confess, as a parenthesis between years of a gloomier character. It +was a year of brilliant water (to speak after the manner of jewellers), set as +it were, and insulated, in the gloom and cloudy melancholy of opium. Strange as +it may sound, I had a little before this time descended suddenly, and without +any considerable effort, from 320 grains of opium (<i>i.e</i>. eight <a +name="citation16"></a><a href="#footnote16">{16}</a> thousand drops of +laudanum) per day, to forty grains, or one-eighth part. Instantaneously, and as +if by magic, the cloud of profoundest melancholy which rested upon my brain, +like some black vapours that I have seen roll away from the summits of +mountains, drew off in one day +(νυχθημερον); passed off +with its murky banners as simultaneously as a ship that has been stranded, and +is floated off by a spring tide— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +That moveth altogether, if it move at all. +</p> + +<p> +Now, then, I was again happy; I now took only 1000 drops of laudanum per day; +and what was that? A latter spring had come to close up the season of youth; my +brain performed its functions as healthily as ever before; I read Kant again, +and again I understood him, or fancied that I did. Again my feelings of +pleasure expanded themselves to all around me; and if any man from Oxford or +Cambridge, or from neither, had been announced to me in my unpretending +cottage, I should have welcomed him with as sumptuous a reception as so poor a +man could offer. Whatever else was wanting to a wise man’s happiness, of +laudanum I would have given him as much as he wished, and in a golden cup. And, +by the way, now that I speak of giving laudanum away, I remember about this +time a little incident, which I mention because, trifling as it was, the reader +will soon meet it again in my dreams, which it influenced more fearfully than +could be imagined. One day a Malay knocked at my door. What business a Malay +could have to transact amongst English mountains I cannot conjecture; but +possibly he was on his road to a seaport about forty miles distant. +</p> + +<p> +The servant who opened the door to him was a young girl, born and bred amongst +the mountains, who had never seen an Asiatic dress of any sort; his turban +therefore confounded her not a little; and as it turned out that his +attainments in English were exactly of the same extent as hers in the Malay, +there seemed to be an impassable gulf fixed between all communication of ideas, +if either party had happened to possess any. In this dilemma, the girl, +recollecting the reputed learning of her master (and doubtless giving me credit +for a knowledge of all the languages of the earth besides perhaps a few of the +lunar ones), came and gave me to understand that there was a sort of demon +below, whom she clearly imagined that my art could exorcise from the house. I +did not immediately go down, but when I did, the group which presented itself, +arranged as it was by accident, though not very elaborate, took hold of my +fancy and my eye in a way that none of the statuesque attitudes exhibited in +the ballets at the Opera-house, though so ostentatiously complex, had ever +done. In a cottage kitchen, but panelled on the wall with dark wood that from +age and rubbing resembled oak, and looking more like a rustic hall of entrance +than a kitchen, stood the Malay—his turban and loose trousers of dingy +white relieved upon the dark panelling. He had placed himself nearer to the +girl than she seemed to relish, though her native spirit of mountain +intrepidity contended with the feeling of simple awe which her countenance +expressed as she gazed upon the tiger-cat before her. And a more striking +picture there could not be imagined than the beautiful English face of the +girl, and its exquisite fairness, together with her erect and independent +attitude, contrasted with the sallow and bilious skin of the Malay, enamelled +or veneered with mahogany by marine air, his small, fierce, restless eyes, thin +lips, slavish gestures and adorations. Half-hidden by the ferocious-looking +Malay was a little child from a neighbouring cottage who had crept in after +him, and was now in the act of reverting its head and gazing upwards at the +turban and the fiery eyes beneath it, whilst with one hand he caught at the +dress of the young woman for protection. My knowledge of the Oriental tongues +is not remarkably extensive, being indeed confined to two words—the +Arabic word for barley and the Turkish for opium (madjoon), which I have +learned from <i>Anastasius</i>; and as I had neither a Malay dictionary nor +even Adelung’s <i>Mithridates</i>, which might have helped me to a few words, I +addressed him in some lines from the Iliad, considering that, of such languages +as I possessed, Greek, in point of longitude, came geographically nearest to an +Oriental one. He worshipped me in a most devout manner, and replied in what I +suppose was Malay. In this way I saved my reputation with my neighbours, for +the Malay had no means of betraying the secret. He lay down upon the floor for +about an hour, and then pursued his journey. On his departure I presented him +with a piece of opium. To him, as an Orientalist, I concluded that opium must +be familiar; and the expression of his face convinced me that it was. +Nevertheless, I was struck with some little consternation when I saw him +suddenly raise his hand to his mouth, and, to use the schoolboy phrase, bolt +the whole, divided into three pieces, at one mouthful. The quantity was enough +to kill three dragoons and their horses, and I felt some alarm for the poor +creature; but what could be done? I had given him the opium in compassion for +his solitary life, on recollecting that if he had travelled on foot from London +it must be nearly three weeks since he could have exchanged a thought with any +human being. I could not think of violating the laws of hospitality by having +him seized and drenched with an emetic, and thus frightening him into a notion +that we were going to sacrifice him to some English idol. No: there was clearly +no help for it. He took his leave, and for some days I felt anxious, but as I +never heard of any Malay being found dead, I became convinced that he was used +<a name="citation17"></a><a href="#footnote17">{17}</a> to opium; and that I +must have done him the service I designed by giving him one night of respite +from the pains of wandering. +</p> + +<p> +This incident I have digressed to mention, because this Malay (partly from the +picturesque exhibition he assisted to frame, partly from the anxiety I +connected with his image for some days) fastened afterwards upon my dreams, and +brought other Malays with him, worse than himself, that ran “a-muck” <a +name="citation18"></a><a href="#footnote18">{18}</a> at me, and led me into a +world of troubles. But to quit this episode, and to return to my intercalary +year of happiness. I have said already, that on a subject so important to us +all as happiness, we should listen with pleasure to any man’s experience or +experiments, even though he were but a plough-boy, who cannot be supposed to +have ploughed very deep into such an intractable soil as that of human pains +and pleasures, or to have conducted his researches upon any very enlightened +principles. But I who have taken happiness both in a solid and liquid shape, +both boiled and unboiled, both East India and Turkey—who have conducted +my experiments upon this interesting subject with a sort of galvanic battery, +and have, for the general benefit of the world, inoculated myself, as it were, +with the poison of 8000 drops of laudanum per day (just for the same reason as +a French surgeon inoculated himself lately with cancer, an English one twenty +years ago with plague, and a third, I know not of what nation, with +hydrophobia), I (it will be admitted) must surely know what happiness is, if +anybody does. And therefore I will here lay down an analysis of happiness; and +as the most interesting mode of communicating it, I will give it, not +didactically, but wrapped up and involved in a picture of one evening, as I +spent every evening during the intercalary year when laudanum, though taken +daily, was to me no more than the elixir of pleasure. This done, I shall quit +the subject of happiness altogether, and pass to a very different +one—<i>the pains of opium</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Let there be a cottage standing in a valley, eighteen miles from any +town—no spacious valley, but about two miles long by three-quarters of a +mile in average width; the benefit of which provision is that all the family +resident within its circuit will compose, as it were, one larger household, +personally familiar to your eye, and more or less interesting to your +affections. Let the mountains be real mountains, between 3,000 and 4,000 feet +high, and the cottage a real cottage, not (as a witty author has it) “a cottage +with a double coach-house;” let it be, in fact (for I must abide by the actual +scene), a white cottage, embowered with flowering shrubs, so chosen as to +unfold a succession of flowers upon the walls and clustering round the windows +through all the months of spring, summer, and autumn—beginning, in fact, +with May roses, and ending with jasmine. Let it, however, <i>not</i> be spring, +nor summer, nor autumn, but winter in his sternest shape. This is a most +important point in the science of happiness. And I am surprised to see people +overlook it, and think it matter of congratulation that winter is going, or, if +coming, is not likely to be a severe one. On the contrary, I put up a petition +annually for as much snow, hail, frost, or storm, of one kind or other, as the +skies can possibly afford us. Surely everybody is aware of the divine pleasures +which attend a winter fireside, candles at four o’clock, warm hearth-rugs, tea, +a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies on the +floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without, +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +And at the doors and windows seem to call,<br/> +As heav’n and earth they would together mell;<br/> +Yet the least entrance find they none at all;<br/> +Whence sweeter grows our rest secure in massy hall. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>Castle of Indolence</i>. +</p> + +<p> +All these are items in the description of a winter evening which must surely be +familiar to everybody born in a high latitude. And it is evident that most of +these delicacies, like ice-cream, require a very low temperature of the +atmosphere to produce them; they are fruits which cannot be ripened without +weather stormy or inclement in some way or other. I am not “<i>particular</i>,” +as people say, whether it be snow, or black frost, or wind so strong that (as +Mr. —— says) “you may lean your back against it like a post.” I can put up +even with rain, provided it rains cats and dogs; but something of the sort I +must have, and if I have it not, I think myself in a manner ill-used; for why +am I called on to pay so heavily for winter, in coals and candles, and various +privations that will occur even to gentlemen, if I am not to have the article +good of its kind? No, a Canadian winter for my money, or a Russian one, where +every man is but a co-proprietor with the north wind in the fee-simple of his +own ears. Indeed, so great an epicure am I in this matter that I cannot relish +a winter night fully if it be much past St. Thomas’s day, and have degenerated +into disgusting tendencies to vernal appearances. No, it must be divided by a +thick wall of dark nights from all return of light and sunshine. From the +latter weeks of October to Christmas Eve, therefore, is the period during which +happiness is in season, which, in my judgment, enters the room with the +tea-tray; for tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally of coarse +nerves, or are become so from wine-drinking, and are not susceptible of +influence from so refined a stimulant, will always be the favourite beverage of +the intellectual; and, for my part, I would have joined Dr. Johnson in a +<i>bellum internecinum</i> against Jonas Hanway, or any other impious person, +who should presume to disparage it. But here, to save myself the trouble of too +much verbal description, I will introduce a painter, and give him directions +for the rest of the picture. Painters do not like white cottages, unless a good +deal weather-stained; but as the reader now understands that it is a winter +night, his services will not be required except for the inside of the house. +</p> + +<p> +Paint me, then, a room seventeen feet by twelve, and not more than seven and a +half feet high. This, reader, is somewhat ambitiously styled in my family the +drawing-room; but being contrived “a double debt to pay,” it is also, and more +justly, termed the library, for it happens that books are the only article of +property in which I am richer than my neighbours. Of these I have about five +thousand, collected gradually since my eighteenth year. Therefore, painter, put +as many as you can into this room. Make it populous with books, and, +furthermore, paint me a good fire, and furniture plain and modest, befitting +the unpretending cottage of a scholar. And near the fire paint me a tea-table, +and (as it is clear that no creature can come to see one such a stormy night) +place only two cups and saucers on the tea-tray; and, if you know how to paint +such a thing symbolically or otherwise, paint me an eternal +tea-pot—eternal <i>à parte ante</i> and <i>à parte post</i>—for I +usually drink tea from eight o’clock at night to four o’clock in the morning. +And as it is very unpleasant to make tea or to pour it out for oneself, paint +me a lovely young woman sitting at the table. Paint her arms like Aurora’s and +her smiles like Hebe’s. But no, dear M., not even in jest let me insinuate that +thy power to illuminate my cottage rests upon a tenure so perishable as mere +personal beauty, or that the witchcraft of angelic smiles lies within the +empire of any earthly pencil. Pass then, my good painter, to something more +within its power; and the next article brought forward should naturally be +myself—a picture of the Opium-eater, with his “little golden receptacle +of the pernicious drug” lying beside him on the table. As to the opium, I have +no objection to see a picture of <i>that</i>, though I would rather see the +original. You may paint it if you choose, but I apprise you that no “little” +receptacle would, even in 1816, answer <i>my</i> purpose, who was at a distance +from the “stately Pantheon,” and all druggists (mortal or otherwise). No, you +may as well paint the real receptacle, which was not of gold, but of glass, and +as much like a wine-decanter as possible. Into this you may put a quart of +ruby-coloured laudanum; that, and a book of German Metaphysics placed by its +side, will sufficiently attest my being in the neighbourhood. But as to +myself—there I demur. I admit that, naturally, I ought to occupy the +foreground of the picture; that being the hero of the piece, or (if you choose) +the criminal at the bar, my body should be had into court. This seems +reasonable; but why should I confess on this point to a painter? or why confess +at all? If the public (into whose private ear I am confidentially whispering my +confessions, and not into any painter’s) should chance to have framed some +agreeable picture for itself of the Opium-eater’s exterior, should have +ascribed to him, romantically an elegant person or a handsome face, why should +I barbarously tear from it so pleasing a delusion—pleasing both to the +public and to me? No; paint me, if at all, according to your own fancy, and as +a painter’s fancy should teem with beautiful creations, I cannot fail in that +way to be a gainer. And now, reader, we have run through all the ten categories +of my condition as it stood about 1816-17, up to the middle of which latter +year I judge myself to have been a happy man, and the elements of that +happiness I have endeavoured to place before you in the above sketch of the +interior of a scholar’s library, in a cottage among the mountains, on a stormy +winter evening. +</p> + +<p> +But now, farewell—a long farewell—to happiness, winter or summer! +Farewell to smiles and laughter! Farewell to peace of mind! Farewell to hope +and to tranquil dreams, and to the blessed consolations of sleep. For more than +three years and a half I am summoned away from these. I am now arrived at an +Iliad of woes, for I have now to record +</p> + +<h3>THE PAINS OF OPIUM</h3> + +<p class="poem"> +—as when some great painter dips<br/> +His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +S<small>HELLEY’S</small> <i>Revolt of Islam</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Reader, who have thus far accompanied me, I must request your attention to a +brief explanatory note on three points: +</p> + +<p> +1. For several reasons I have not been able to compose the notes for this part +of my narrative into any regular and connected shape. I give the notes +disjointed as I find them, or have now drawn them up from memory. Some of them +point to their own date, some I have dated, and some are undated. Whenever it +could answer my purpose to transplant them from the natural or chronological +order, I have not scrupled to do so. Sometimes I speak in the present, +sometimes in the past tense. Few of the notes, perhaps, were written exactly at +the period of time to which they relate; but this can little affect their +accuracy, as the impressions were such that they can never fade from my mind. +Much has been omitted. I could not, without effort, constrain myself to the +task of either recalling, or constructing into a regular narrative, the whole +burthen of horrors which lies upon my brain. This feeling partly I plead in +excuse, and partly that I am now in London, and am a helpless sort of person, +who cannot even arrange his own papers without assistance; and I am separated +from the hands which are wont to perform for me the offices of an amanuensis. +</p> + +<p> +2. You will think perhaps that I am too confidential and communicative of my +own private history. It may be so. But my way of writing is rather to think +aloud, and follow my own humours, than much to consider who is listening to me; +and if I stop to consider what is proper to be said to this or that person, I +shall soon come to doubt whether any part at all is proper. The fact is, I +place myself at a distance of fifteen or twenty years ahead of this time, and +suppose myself writing to those who will be interested about me hereafter; and +wishing to have some record of time, the entire history of which no one can +know but myself, I do it as fully as I am able with the efforts I am now +capable of making, because I know not whether I can ever find time to do it +again. +</p> + +<p> +3. It will occur to you often to ask, why did I not release myself from the +horrors of opium by leaving it off or diminishing it? To this I must answer +briefly: it might be supposed that I yielded to the fascinations of opium too +easily; it cannot be supposed that any man can be charmed by its terrors. The +reader may be sure, therefore, that I made attempts innumerable to reduce the +quantity. I add, that those who witnessed the agonies of those attempts, and +not myself, were the first to beg me to desist. But could not have I reduced it +a drop a day, or, by adding water, have bisected or trisected a drop? A +thousand drops bisected would thus have taken nearly six years to reduce, and +that way would certainly not have answered. But this is a common mistake of +those who know nothing of opium experimentally; I appeal to those who do, +whether it is not always found that down to a certain point it can be reduced +with ease and even pleasure, but that after that point further reduction causes +intense suffering. Yes, say many thoughtless persons, who know not what they +are talking of, you will suffer a little low spirits and dejection for a few +days. I answer, no; there is nothing like low spirits; on the contrary, the +mere animal spirits are uncommonly raised: the pulse is improved: the health is +better. It is not there that the suffering lies. It has no resemblance to the +sufferings caused by renouncing wine. It is a state of unutterable irritation +of stomach (which surely is not much like dejection), accompanied by intense +perspirations, and feelings such as I shall not attempt to describe without +more space at my command. +</p> + +<p> +I shall now enter <i>in medias res</i>, and shall anticipate, from a time when +my opium pains might be said to be at their <i>acmé</i>, an account of their +palsying effects on the intellectual faculties. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +My studies have now been long interrupted. I cannot read to myself with any +pleasure, hardly with a moment’s endurance. Yet I read aloud sometimes for the +pleasure of others, because reading is an accomplishment of mine, and, in the +slang use of the word “accomplishment” as a superficial and ornamental +attainment, almost the only one I possess; and formerly, if I had any vanity at +all connected with any endowment or attainment of mine, it was with this, for I +had observed that no accomplishment was so rare. Players are the worst readers +of all: —— reads vilely; and Mrs. ——, who is so +celebrated, can read nothing well but dramatic compositions: Milton she cannot +read sufferably. People in general either read poetry without any passion at +all, or else overstep the modesty of nature, and read not like scholars. Of +late, if I have felt moved by anything it has been by the grand lamentations of +Samson Agonistes, or the great harmonies of the Satanic speeches in Paradise +Regained, when read aloud by myself. A young lady sometimes comes and drinks +tea with us: at her request and M.’s, I now and then read W-’s poems to them. +(W., by-the-bye is the only poet I ever met who could read his own verses: +often indeed he reads admirably.) +</p> + +<p> +For nearly two years I believe that I read no book, but one; and I owe it to +the author, in discharge of a great debt of gratitude, to mention what that +was. The sublimer and more passionate poets I still read, as I have said, by +snatches, and occasionally. But my proper vocation, as I well know, was the +exercise of the analytic understanding. Now, for the most part analytic studies +are continuous, and not to be pursued by fits and starts, or fragmentary +efforts. Mathematics, for instance, intellectual philosophy, &c, were all +become insupportable to me; I shrunk from them with a sense of powerless and +infantine feebleness that gave me an anguish the greater from remembering the +time when I grappled with them to my own hourly delight; and for this further +reason, because I had devoted the labour of my whole life, and had dedicated my +intellect, blossoms and fruits, to the slow and elaborate toil of constructing +one single work, to which I had presumed to give the title of an unfinished +work of Spinosa’s—viz., <i>De Emendatione Humani Intellectus</i>. This +was now lying locked up, as by frost, like any Spanish bridge or aqueduct, +begun upon too great a scale for the resources of the architect; and instead of +reviving me as a monument of wishes at least, and aspirations, and a life of +labour dedicated to the exaltation of human nature in that way in which God had +best fitted me to promote so great an object, it was likely to stand a memorial +to my children of hopes defeated, of baffled efforts, of materials uselessly +accumulated, of foundations laid that were never to support a +super-structure—of the grief and the ruin of the architect. In this state +of imbecility I had, for amusement, turned my attention to political economy; +my understanding, which formerly had been as active and restless as a +hyæna, could not, I suppose (so long as I lived at all) sink into utter +lethargy; and political economy offers this advantage to a person in my state, +that though it is eminently an organic science (no part, that is to say, but +what acts on the whole as the whole again reacts on each part), yet the several +parts may be detached and contemplated singly. Great as was the prostration of +my powers at this time, yet I could not forget my knowledge; and my +understanding had been for too many years intimate with severe thinkers, with +logic, and the great masters of knowledge, not to be aware of the utter +feebleness of the main herd of modern economists. I had been led in 1811 to +look into loads of books and pamphlets on many branches of economy; and, at my +desire, M. sometimes read to me chapters from more recent works, or parts of +parliamentary debates. I saw that these were generally the very dregs and +rinsings of the human intellect; and that any man of sound head, and practised +in wielding logic with a scholastic adroitness, might take up the whole academy +of modern economists, and throttle them between heaven and earth with his +finger and thumb, or bray their fungus-heads to powder with a lady’s fan. At +length, in 1819, a friend in Edinburgh sent me down Mr. Ricardo’s book; and +recurring to my own prophetic anticipation of the advent of some legislator for +this science, I said, before I had finished the first chapter, “Thou art the +man!” Wonder and curiosity were emotions that had long been dead in me. Yet I +wondered once more: I wondered at myself that I could once again be stimulated +to the effort of reading, and much more I wondered at the book. Had this +profound work been really written in England during the nineteenth century? Was +it possible? I supposed thinking <a name="citation19"></a><a +href="#footnote19">{19}</a> had been extinct in England. Could it be that an +Englishman, and he not in academic bowers, but oppressed by mercantile and +senatorial cares, had accomplished what all the universities of Europe and a +century of thought had failed even to advance by one hair’s breadth? All other +writers had been crushed and overlaid by the enormous weight of facts and +documents. Mr. Ricardo had deduced <i>à priori</i> from the understanding +itself laws which first gave a ray of light into the unwieldy chaos of +materials, and had constructed what had been but a collection of tentative +discussions into a science of regular proportions, now first standing on an +eternal basis. +</p> + +<p> +Thus did one single work of a profound understanding avail to give me a +pleasure and an activity which I had not known for years. It roused me even to +write, or at least to dictate what M. wrote for me. It seemed to me that some +important truths had escaped even “the inevitable eye” of Mr. Ricardo; and as +these were for the most part of such a nature that I could express or +illustrate them more briefly and elegantly by algebraic symbols than in the +usual clumsy and loitering diction of economists, the whole would not have +filled a pocket-book; and being so brief, with M. for my amanuensis, even at +this time, incapable as I was of all general exertion, I drew up my +<i>Prolegomena to all future Systems of Political Economy</i>. I hope it will +not be found redolent of opium; though, indeed, to most people the subject is a +sufficient opiate. +</p> + +<p> +This exertion, however, was but a temporary flash, as the sequel showed; for I +designed to publish my work. Arrangements were made at a provincial press, +about eighteen miles distant, for printing it. An additional compositor was +retained for some days on this account. The work was even twice advertised, and +I was in a manner pledged to the fulfilment of my intention. But I had a +preface to write, and a dedication, which I wished to make a splendid one, to +Mr. Ricardo. I found myself quite unable to accomplish all this. The +arrangements were countermanded, the compositor dismissed, and my “Prolegomena” +rested peacefully by the side of its elder and more dignified brother. +</p> + +<p> +I have thus described and illustrated my intellectual torpor in terms that +apply more or less to every part of the four years during which I was under the +Circean spells of opium. But for misery and suffering, I might indeed be said +to have existed in a dormant state. I seldom could prevail on myself to write a +letter; an answer of a few words to any that I received was the utmost that I +could accomplish, and often <i>that</i> not until the letter had lain weeks or +even months on my writing-table. Without the aid of M. all records of bills +paid or <i>to be</i> paid must have perished, and my whole domestic economy, +whatever became of Political Economy, must have gone into irretrievable +confusion. I shall not afterwards allude to this part of the case. It is one, +however, which the opium-eater will find, in the end, as oppressive and +tormenting as any other, from the sense of incapacity and feebleness, from the +direct embarrassments incident to the neglect or procrastination of each day’s +appropriate duties, and from the remorse which must often exasperate the stings +of these evils to a reflective and conscientious mind. The opium-eater loses +none of his moral sensibilities or aspirations. He wishes and longs as +earnestly as ever to realize what he believes possible, and feels to be exacted +by duty; but his intellectual apprehension of what is possible infinitely +outruns his power, not of execution only, but even of power to attempt. He lies +under the weight of incubus and nightmare; he lies in sight of all that he +would fain perform, just as a man forcibly confined to his bed by the mortal +languor of a relaxing disease, who is compelled to witness injury or outrage +offered to some object of his tenderest love: he curses the spells which chain +him down from motion; he would lay down his life if he might but get up and +walk; but he is powerless as an infant, and cannot even attempt to rise. +</p> + +<p> +I now pass to what is the main subject of these latter confessions, to the +history and journal of what took place in my dreams, for these were the +immediate and proximate cause of my acutest suffering. +</p> + +<p> +The first notice I had of any important change going on in this part of my +physical economy was from the reawakening of a state of eye generally incident +to childhood, or exalted states of irritability. I know not whether my reader +is aware that many children, perhaps most, have a power of painting, as it were +upon the darkness, all sorts of phantoms. In some that power is simply a +mechanical affection of the eye; others have a voluntary or semi-voluntary +power to dismiss or to summon them; or, as a child once said to me when I +questioned him on this matter, “I can tell them to go, and they go ——, but +sometimes they come when I don’t tell them to come.” Whereupon I told him that +he had almost as unlimited a command over apparitions as a Roman centurion over +his soldiers.—In the middle of 1817, I think it was, that this faculty +became positively distressing to me: at night, when I lay awake in bed, vast +processions passed along in mournful pomp; friezes of never-ending stories, +that to my feelings were as sad and solemn as if they were stories drawn from +times before Œdipus or Priam, before Tyre, before Memphis. And at the +same time a corresponding change took place in my dreams; a theatre seemed +suddenly opened and lighted up within my brain, which presented nightly +spectacles of more than earthly splendour. And the four following facts may be +mentioned as noticeable at this time: +</p> + +<p> +1. That as the creative state of the eye increased, a sympathy seemed to arise +between the waking and the dreaming states of the brain in one point—that +whatsoever I happened to call up and to trace by a voluntary act upon the +darkness was very apt to transfer itself to my dreams, so that I feared to +exercise this faculty; for, as Midas turned all things to gold that yet baffled +his hopes and defrauded his human desires, so whatsoever things capable of +being visually represented I did but think of in the darkness, immediately +shaped themselves into phantoms of the eye; and by a process apparently no less +inevitable, when thus once traced in faint and visionary colours, like writings +in sympathetic ink, they were drawn out by the fierce chemistry of my dreams +into insufferable splendour that fretted my heart. +</p> + +<p> +2. For this and all other changes in my dreams were accompanied by deep-seated +anxiety and gloomy melancholy, such as are wholly incommunicable by words. I +seemed every night to descend, not metaphorically, but literally to descend, +into chasms and sunless abysses, depths below depths, from which it seemed +hopeless that I could ever reascend. Nor did I, by waking, feel that I +<i>had</i> reascended. This I do not dwell upon; because the state of gloom +which attended these gorgeous spectacles, amounting at last to utter darkness, +as of some suicidal despondency, cannot be approached by words. +</p> + +<p> +3. The sense of space, and in the end the sense of time, were both powerfully +affected. Buildings, landscapes, &c., were exhibited in proportions so vast +as the bodily eye is not fitted to receive. Space swelled, and was amplified to +an extent of unutterable infinity. This, however, did not disturb me so much as +the vast expansion of time; I sometimes seemed to have lived for 70 or 100 +years in one night—nay, sometimes had feelings representative of a +millennium passed in that time, or, however, of a duration far beyond the +limits of any human experience. +</p> + +<p> +4. The minutest incidents of childhood, or forgotten scenes of later years, +were often revived: I could not be said to recollect them, for if I had been +told of them when waking, I should not have been able to acknowledge them as +parts of my past experience. But placed as they were before me, in dreams like +intuitions, and clothed in all their evanescent circumstances and accompanying +feelings, I <i>recognised</i> them instantaneously. I was once told by a near +relative of mine, that having in her childhood fallen into a river, and being +on the very verge of death but for the critical assistance which reached her, +she saw in a moment her whole life, in its minutest incidents, arrayed before +her simultaneously as in a mirror; and she had a faculty developed as suddenly +for comprehending the whole and every part. This, from some opium experiences +of mine, I can believe; I have indeed seen the same thing asserted twice in +modern books, and accompanied by a remark which I am convinced is true; viz., +that the dread book of account which the Scriptures speak of is in fact the +mind itself of each individual. Of this at least I feel assured, that there is +no such thing as <i>forgetting</i> possible to the mind; a thousand accidents +may and will interpose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret +inscriptions on the mind; accidents of the same sort will also rend away this +veil; but alike, whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains for ever, +just as the stars seem to withdraw before the common light of day, whereas in +fact we all know that it is the light which is drawn over them as a veil, and +that they are waiting to be revealed when the obscuring daylight shall have +withdrawn. +</p> + +<p> +Having noticed these four facts as memorably distinguishing my dreams from +those of health, I shall now cite a case illustrative of the first fact, and +shall then cite any others that I remember, either in their chronological +order, or any other that may give them more effect as pictures to the reader. +</p> + +<p> +I had been in youth, and even since, for occasional amusement, a great reader +of Livy, whom I confess that I prefer, both for style and matter, to any other +of the Roman historians; and I had often felt as most solemn and appalling +sounds, and most emphatically representative of the majesty of the Roman +people, the two words so often occurring in Livy—<i>Consul Romanus</i>, +especially when the consul is introduced in his military character. I mean to +say that the words king, sultan, regent, &c., or any other titles of those +who embody in their own persons the collective majesty of a great people, had +less power over my reverential feelings. I had also, though no great reader of +history, made myself minutely and critically familiar with one period of +English history, viz., the period of the Parliamentary War, having been +attracted by the moral grandeur of some who figured in that day, and by the +many interesting memoirs which survive those unquiet times. Both these parts of +my lighter reading, having furnished me often with matter of reflection, now +furnished me with matter for my dreams. Often I used to see, after painting +upon the blank darkness a sort of rehearsal whilst waking, a crowd of ladies, +and perhaps a festival and dances. And I heard it said, or I said to myself, +“These are English ladies from the unhappy times of Charles I. These are the +wives and the daughters of those who met in peace, and sate at the same table, +and were allied by marriage or by blood; and yet, after a certain day in August +1642, never smiled upon each other again, nor met but in the field of battle; +and at Marston Moor, at Newbury, or at Naseby, cut asunder all ties of love by +the cruel sabre, and washed away in blood the memory of ancient friendship.” +The ladies danced, and looked as lovely as the court of George IV. Yet I knew, +even in my dream, that they had been in the grave for nearly two centuries. +This pageant would suddenly dissolve; and at a clapping of hands would be heard +the heart-quaking sound <i>of Consul Romanus</i>; and immediately came +“sweeping by,” in gorgeous paludaments, Paulus or Marius, girt round by a +company of centurions, with the crimson tunic hoisted on a spear, and followed +by the <i>alalagmos</i> of the Roman legions. +</p> + +<p> +Many years ago, when I was looking over Piranesi’s Antiquities of Rome, Mr. +Coleridge, who was standing by, described to me a set of plates by that artist, +called his <i>Dreams</i>, and which record the scenery of his own visions +during the delirium of a fever. Some of them (I describe only from memory of +Mr. Coleridge’s account) represented vast Gothic halls, on the floor of which +stood all sorts of engines and machinery, wheels, cables, pulleys, levers, +catapults, &c. &c., expressive of enormous power put forth and +resistance overcome. Creeping along the sides of the walls you perceived a +staircase; and upon it, groping his way upwards, was Piranesi himself: follow +the stairs a little further and you perceive it come to a sudden and abrupt +termination without any balustrade, and allowing no step onwards to him who had +reached the extremity except into the depths below. Whatever is to become of +poor Piranesi, you suppose at least that his labours must in some way terminate +here. But raise your eyes, and behold a second flight of stairs still higher, +on which again Piranesi is perceived, but this time standing on the very brink +of the abyss. Again elevate your eye, and a still more aërial flight of +stairs is beheld, and again is poor Piranesi busy on his aspiring labours; and +so on, until the unfinished stairs and Piranesi both are lost in the upper +gloom of the hall. With the same power of endless growth and self-reproduction +did my architecture proceed in dreams. In the early stage of my malady the +splendours of my dreams were indeed chiefly architectural; and I beheld such +pomp of cities and palaces as was never yet beheld by the waking eye unless in +the clouds. From a great modern poet I cite part of a passage which describes, +as an appearance actually beheld in the clouds, what in many of its +circumstances I saw frequently in sleep: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The appearance, instantaneously disclosed,<br/> +Was of a mighty city—boldly say<br/> +A wilderness of building, sinking far<br/> +And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth,<br/> +Far sinking into splendour—without end!<br/> +Fabric it seem’d of diamond, and of gold,<br/> +With alabaster domes, and silver spires,<br/> +And blazing terrace upon terrace, high<br/> +Uplifted; here, serene pavilions bright<br/> +In avenues disposed; there towers begirt<br/> +With battlements that on their restless fronts<br/> +Bore stars—illumination of all gems!<br/> +By earthly nature had the effect been wrought<br/> +Upon the dark materials of the storm<br/> +Now pacified; on them, and on the coves,<br/> +And mountain-steeps and summits, whereunto<br/> +The vapours had receded,—taking there<br/> +Their station under a Cerulean sky. &c. &c. +</p> + +<p> +The sublime circumstance, “battlements that on their <i>restless</i> fronts +bore stars,” might have been copied from my architectural dreams, for it often +occurred. We hear it reported of Dryden and of Fuseli, in modern times, that +they thought proper to eat raw meat for the sake of obtaining splendid dreams: +how much better for such a purpose to have eaten opium, which yet I do not +remember that any poet is recorded to have done, except the dramatist Shadwell; +and in ancient days Homer is I think rightly reputed to have known the virtues +of opium. +</p> + +<p> +To my architecture succeeded dreams of lakes and silvery expanses of water: +these haunted me so much that I feared (though possibly it will appear +ludicrous to a medical man) that some dropsical state or tendency of the brain +might thus be making itself (to use a metaphysical word) <i>objective</i>; and +the sentient organ <i>project</i> itself as its own object. For two months I +suffered greatly in my head, a part of my bodily structure which had hitherto +been so clear from all touch or taint of weakness (physically I mean) that I +used to say of it, as the last Lord Orford said of his stomach, that it seemed +likely to survive the rest of my person. Till now I had never felt a headache +even, or any the slightest pain, except rheumatic pains caused by my own folly. +However, I got over this attack, though it must have been verging on something +very dangerous. +</p> + +<p> +The waters now changed their character—from translucent lakes shining +like mirrors they now became seas and oceans. And now came a tremendous change, +which, unfolding itself slowly like a scroll through many months, promised an +abiding torment; and in fact it never left me until the winding up of my case. +Hitherto the human face had mixed often in my dreams, but not despotically nor +with any special power of tormenting. But now that which I have called the +tyranny of the human face began to unfold itself. Perhaps some part of my +London life might be answerable for this. Be that as it may, now it was that +upon the rocking waters of the ocean the human face began to appear; the sea +appeared paved with innumerable faces upturned to the heavens—faces +imploring, wrathful, despairing, surged upwards by thousands, by myriads, by +generations, by centuries: my agitation was infinite; my mind tossed and surged +with the ocean. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>May</i>, 1818 +</p> + +<p> +The Malay has been a fearful enemy for months. I have been every night, through +his means, transported into Asiatic scenes. I know not whether others share in +my feelings on this point; but I have often thought that if I were compelled to +forego England, and to live in China, and among Chinese manners and modes of +life and scenery, I should go mad. The causes of my horror lie deep, and some +of them must be common to others. Southern Asia in general is the seat of awful +images and associations. As the cradle of the human race, it would alone have a +dim and reverential feeling connected with it. But there are other reasons. No +man can pretend that the wild, barbarous, and capricious superstitions of +Africa, or of savage tribes elsewhere, affect him in the way that he is +affected by the ancient, monumental, cruel, and elaborate religions of +Indostan, &c. The mere antiquity of Asiatic things, of their institutions, +histories, modes of faith, &c., is so impressive, that to me the vast age +of the race and name overpowers the sense of youth in the individual. A young +Chinese seems to me an antediluvian man renewed. Even Englishmen, though not +bred in any knowledge of such institutions, cannot but shudder at the mystic +sublimity of <i>castes</i> that have flowed apart, and refused to mix, through +such immemorial tracts of time; nor can any man fail to be awed by the names of +the Ganges or the Euphrates. It contributes much to these feelings that +southern Asia is, and has been for thousands of years, the part of the earth +most swarming with human life, the great <i>officina gentium</i>. Man is a weed +in those regions. The vast empires also in which the enormous population of +Asia has always been cast, give a further sublimity to the feelings associated +with all Oriental names or images. In China, over and above what it has in +common with the rest of southern Asia, I am terrified by the modes of life, by +the manners, and the barrier of utter abhorrence and want of sympathy placed +between us by feelings deeper than I can analyse. I could sooner live with +lunatics or brute animals. All this, and much more than I can say or have time +to say, the reader must enter into before he can comprehend the unimaginable +horror which these dreams of Oriental imagery and mythological tortures +impressed upon me. Under the connecting feeling of tropical heat and vertical +sunlights I brought together all creatures, birds, beasts, reptiles, all trees +and plants, usages and appearances, that are found in all tropical regions, and +assembled them together in China or Indostan. From kindred feelings, I soon +brought Egypt and all her gods under the same law. I was stared at, hooted at, +grinned at, chattered at, by monkeys, by parroquets, by cockatoos. I ran into +pagodas, and was fixed for centuries at the summit or in secret rooms: I was +the idol; I was the priest; I was worshipped; I was sacrificed. I fled from the +wrath of Brama through all the forests of Asia: Vishnu hated me: Seeva laid +wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris: I had done a deed, they +said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. I was buried for a thousand +years in stone coffins, with mummies and sphynxes, in narrow chambers at the +heart of eternal pyramids. I was kissed, with cancerous kisses, by crocodiles; +and laid, confounded with all unutterable slimy things, amongst reeds and +Nilotic mud. +</p> + +<p> +I thus give the reader some slight abstraction of my Oriental dreams, which +always filled me with such amazement at the monstrous scenery that horror +seemed absorbed for a while in sheer astonishment. Sooner or later came a +reflux of feeling that swallowed up the astonishment, and left me not so much +in terror as in hatred and abomination of what I saw. Over every form, and +threat, and punishment, and dim sightless incarceration, brooded a sense of +eternity and infinity that drove me into an oppression as of madness. Into +these dreams only it was, with one or two slight exceptions, that any +circumstances of physical horror entered. All before had been moral and +spiritual terrors. But here the main agents were ugly birds, or snakes, or +crocodiles; especially the last. The cursed crocodile became to me the object +of more horror than almost all the rest. I was compelled to live with him, and +(as was always the case almost in my dreams) for centuries. I escaped +sometimes, and found myself in Chinese houses, with cane tables, &c. All +the feet of the tables, sofas, &c., soon became instinct with life: the +abominable head of the crocodile, and his leering eyes, looked out at me, +multiplied into a thousand repetitions; and I stood loathing and fascinated. +And so often did this hideous reptile haunt my dreams that many times the very +same dream was broken up in the very same way: I heard gentle voices speaking +to me (I hear everything when I am sleeping), and instantly I awoke. It was +broad noon, and my children were standing, hand in hand, at my +bedside—come to show me their coloured shoes, or new frocks, or to let me +see them dressed for going out. I protest that so awful was the transition from +the damned crocodile, and the other unutterable monsters and abortions of my +dreams, to the sight of innocent <i>human</i> natures and of infancy, that in +the mighty and sudden revulsion of mind I wept, and could not forbear it, as I +kissed their faces. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +June 1819 +</p> + +<p> +I have had occasion to remark, at various periods of my life, that the deaths +of those whom we love, and indeed the contemplation of death generally, is +(<i>cæteris paribus</i>) more affecting in summer than in any other season of +the year. And the reasons are these three, I think: first, that the visible +heavens in summer appear far higher, more distant, and (if such a solecism may +be excused) more infinite; the clouds, by which chiefly the eye expounds the +distance of the blue pavilion stretched over our heads, are in summer more +voluminous, massed and accumulated in far grander and more towering piles. +Secondly, the light and the appearances of the declining and the setting sun +are much more fitted to be types and characters of the Infinite. And thirdly +(which is the main reason), the exuberant and riotous prodigality of life +naturally forces the mind more powerfully upon the antagonist thought of death, +and the wintry sterility of the grave. For it may be observed generally, that +wherever two thoughts stand related to each other by a law of antagonism, and +exist, as it were, by mutual repulsion, they are apt to suggest each other. On +these accounts it is that I find it impossible to banish the thought of death +when I am walking alone in the endless days of summer; and any particular +death, if not more affecting, at least haunts my mind more obstinately and +besiegingly in that season. Perhaps this cause, and a slight incident which I +omit, might have been the immediate occasions of the following dream, to which, +however, a predisposition must always have existed in my mind; but having been +once roused it never left me, and split into a thousand fantastic varieties, +which often suddenly reunited, and composed again the original dream. +</p> + +<p> +I thought that it was a Sunday morning in May, that it was Easter Sunday, and +as yet very early in the morning. I was standing, as it seemed to me, at the +door of my own cottage. Right before me lay the very scene which could really +be commanded from that situation, but exalted, as was usual, and solemnised by +the power of dreams. There were the same mountains, and the same lovely valley +at their feet; but the mountains were raised to more than Alpine height, and +there was interspace far larger between them of meadows and forest lawns; the +hedges were rich with white roses; and no living creature was to be seen, +excepting that in the green churchyard there were cattle tranquilly reposing +upon the verdant graves, and particularly round about the grave of a child whom +I had tenderly loved, just as I had really beheld them, a little before sunrise +in the same summer, when that child died. I gazed upon the well-known scene, +and I said aloud (as I thought) to myself, “It yet wants much of sunrise, and +it is Easter Sunday; and that is the day on which they celebrate the first +fruits of resurrection. I will walk abroad; old griefs shall be forgotten +to-day; for the air is cool and still, and the hills are high and stretch away +to heaven; and the forest glades are as quiet as the churchyard, and with the +dew I can wash the fever from my forehead, and then I shall be unhappy no +longer.” And I turned as if to open my garden gate, and immediately I saw upon +the left a scene far different, but which yet the power of dreams had +reconciled into harmony with the other. The scene was an Oriental one, and +there also it was Easter Sunday, and very early in the morning. And at a vast +distance were visible, as a stain upon the horizon, the domes and cupolas of a +great city—an image or faint abstraction, caught perhaps in childhood +from some picture of Jerusalem. And not a bow-shot from me, upon a stone and +shaded by Judean palms, there sat a woman, and I looked, and it was—Ann! +She fixed her eyes upon me earnestly, and I said to her at length: “So, then, I +have found you at last.” I waited, but she answered me not a word. Her face was +the same as when I saw it last, and yet again how different! Seventeen years +ago, when the lamplight fell upon her face, as for the last time I kissed her +lips (lips, Ann, that to me were not polluted), her eyes were streaming with +tears: the tears were now wiped away; she seemed more beautiful than she was at +that time, but in all other points the same, and not older. Her looks were +tranquil, but with unusual solemnity of expression, and I now gazed upon her +with some awe; but suddenly her countenance grew dim, and turning to the +mountains I perceived vapours rolling between us. In a moment all had vanished, +thick darkness came on, and in the twinkling of an eye I was far away from +mountains, and by lamplight in Oxford Street, walking again with Ann—just +as we walked seventeen years before, when we were both children. +</p> + +<p> +As a final specimen, I cite one of a different character, from 1820. +</p> + +<p> +The dream commenced with a music which now I often heard in dreams—a +music of preparation and of awakening suspense, a music like the opening of the +Coronation Anthem, and which, like <i>that</i>, gave the feeling of a vast +march, of infinite cavalcades filing off, and the tread of innumerable armies. +The morning was come of a mighty day—a day of crisis and of final hope +for human nature, then suffering some mysterious eclipse, and labouring in some +dread extremity. Somewhere, I knew not where—somehow, I knew not +how—by some beings, I knew not whom—a battle, a strife, an agony, +was conducting, was evolving like a great drama or piece of music, with which +my sympathy was the more insupportable from my confusion as to its place, its +cause, its nature, and its possible issue. I, as is usual in dreams (where of +necessity we make ourselves central to every movement), had the power, and yet +had not the power, to decide it. I had the power, if I could raise myself to +will it, and yet again had not the power, for the weight of twenty Atlantics +was upon me, or the oppression of inexpiable guilt. “Deeper than ever plummet +sounded,” I lay inactive. Then like a chorus the passion deepened. Some greater +interest was at stake, some mightier cause than ever yet the sword had pleaded, +or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came sudden alarms, hurryings to and fro, +trepidations of innumerable fugitives—I knew not whether from the good +cause or the bad, darkness and lights, tempest and human faces, and at last, +with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and the features that were +worth all the world to me, and but a moment allowed—and clasped hands, +and heart-breaking partings, and then—everlasting farewells! And with a +sigh, such as the caves of Hell sighed when the incestuous mother uttered the +abhorred name of death, the sound was reverberated—everlasting farewells! +And again and yet again reverberated—everlasting farewells! +</p> + +<p> +And I awoke in struggles, and cried aloud—“I will sleep no more.” +</p> + +<p> +But I am now called upon to wind up a narrative which has already extended to +an unreasonable length. Within more spacious limits the materials which I have +used might have been better unfolded, and much which I have not used might have +been added with effect. Perhaps, however, enough has been given. It now remains +that I should say something of the way in which this conflict of horrors was +finally brought to a crisis. The reader is already aware (from a passage near +the beginning of the introduction to the first part) that the Opium-eater has, +in some way or other, “unwound almost to its final links the accursed chain +which bound him.” By what means? To have narrated this according to the +original intention would have far exceeded the space which can now be allowed. +It is fortunate, as such a cogent reason exists for abridging it, that I +should, on a maturer view of the case, have been exceedingly unwilling to +injure, by any such unaffecting details, the impression of the history itself, +as an appeal to the prudence and the conscience of the yet unconfirmed +opium-eater—or even (though a very inferior consideration) to injure its +effect as a composition. The interest of the judicious reader will not attach +itself chiefly to the subject of the fascinating spells, but to the fascinating +power. Not the Opium-eater, but the opium, is the true hero of the tale, and +the legitimate centre on which the interest revolves. The object was to display +the marvellous agency of opium, whether for pleasure or for pain: if that is +done, the action of the piece has closed. +</p> + +<p> +However, as some people, in spite of all laws to the contrary, will persist in +asking what became of the Opium-eater, and in what state he now is, I answer +for him thus: The reader is aware that opium had long ceased to found its +empire on spells of pleasure; it was solely by the tortures connected with the +attempt to abjure it that it kept its hold. Yet, as other tortures, no less it +may be thought, attended the non-abjuration of such a tyrant, a choice only of +evils was left; and <i>that</i> might as well have been adopted which, however +terrific in itself, held out a prospect of final restoration to happiness. This +appears true; but good logic gave the author no strength to act upon it. +However, a crisis arrived for the author’s life, and a crisis for other objects +still dearer to him—and which will always be far dearer to him than his +life, even now that it is again a happy one. I saw that I must die if I +continued the opium. I determined, therefore, if that should be required, to +die in throwing it off. How much I was at that time taking I cannot say, for +the opium which I used had been purchased for me by a friend, who afterwards +refused to let me pay him; so that I could not ascertain even what quantity I +had used within the year. I apprehend, however, that I took it very +irregularly, and that I varied from about fifty or sixty grains to 150 a day. +My first task was to reduce it to forty, to thirty, and as fast as I could to +twelve grains. +</p> + +<p> +I triumphed. But think not, reader, that therefore my sufferings were ended, +nor think of me as of one sitting in a <i>dejected</i> state. Think of me as +one, even when four months had passed, still agitated, writhing, throbbing, +palpitating, shattered, and much perhaps in the situation of him who has been +racked, as I collect the torments of that state from the affecting account of +them left by a most innocent sufferer <a name="citation20"></a><a +href="#footnote20">{20}</a> of the times of James I. Meantime, I derived no +benefit from any medicine, except one prescribed to me by an Edinburgh surgeon +of great eminence, viz., ammoniated tincture of valerian. Medical account, +therefore, of my emancipation I have not much to give, and even that little, as +managed by a man so ignorant of medicine as myself, would probably tend only to +mislead. At all events, it would be misplaced in this situation. The moral of +the narrative is addressed to the opium-eater, and therefore of necessity +limited in its application. If he is taught to fear and tremble, enough has +been effected. But he may say that the issue of my case is at least a proof +that opium, after a seventeen years’ use and an eight years’ abuse of its +powers, may still be renounced, and that <i>he</i> may chance to bring to the +task greater energy than I did, or that with a stronger constitution than mine +he may obtain the same results with less. This may be true. I would not presume +to measure the efforts of other men by my own. I heartily wish him more energy. +I wish him the same success. Nevertheless, I had motives external to myself +which he may unfortunately want, and these supplied me with conscientious +supports which mere personal interests might fail to supply to a mind +debilitated by opium. +</p> + +<p> +Jeremy Taylor conjectures that it may be as painful to be born as to die. I +think it probable; and during the whole period of diminishing the opium I had +the torments of a man passing out of one mode of existence into another. The +issue was not death, but a sort of physical regeneration; and I may add that +ever since, at intervals, I have had a restoration of more than youthful +spirits, though under the pressure of difficulties which in a less happy state +of mind I should have called misfortunes. +</p> + +<p> +One memorial of my former condition still remains—my dreams are not yet +perfectly calm; the dread swell and agitation of the storm have not wholly +subsided; the legions that encamped in them are drawing off, but not all +departed; my sleep is still tumultuous, and, like the gates of Paradise to our +first parents when looking back from afar, it is still (in the tremendous line +of Milton) +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +With dreadful faces throng’d, and fiery arms. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>APPENDIX</h2> + +<p> +From the “London Magazine” for December 1822. +</p> + +<p> +The interest excited by the two papers bearing this title, in our numbers for +September and October 1821, will have kept our promise of a Third Part fresh in +the remembrance of our readers. That we are still unable to fulfil our +engagement in its original meaning will, we, are sure, be matter of regret to +them as to ourselves, especially when they have perused the following affecting +narrative. It was composed for the purpose of being appended to an edition of +the Confessions in a separate volume, which is already before the public, and +we have reprinted it entire, that our subscribers may be in possession of the +whole of this extraordinary history. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +The proprietors of this little work having determined on reprinting it, some +explanation seems called for, to account for the non-appearance of a third part +promised in the <i>London Magazine</i> of December last; and the more so +because the proprietors, under whose guarantee that promise was issued, might +otherwise be implicated in the blame—little or much—attached to its +non-fulfilment. This blame, in mere justice, the author takes wholly upon +himself. What may be the exact amount of the guilt which he thus appropriates +is a very dark question to his own judgment, and not much illuminated by any of +the masters in casuistry whom he has consulted on the occasion. On the one hand +it seems generally agreed that a promise is binding in the inverse ratio of the +numbers to whom it is made; for which reason it is that we see many persons +break promises without scruple that are made to a whole nation, who keep their +faith religiously in all private engagements, breaches of promise towards the +stronger party being committed at a man’s own peril; on the other hand, the +only parties interested in the promises of an author are his readers, and these +it is a point of modesty in any author to believe as few as possible—or +perhaps only one, in which case any promise imposes a sanctity of moral +obligation which it is shocking to think of. Casuistry dismissed, however, the +author throws himself on the indulgent consideration of all who may conceive +themselves aggrieved by his delay, in the following account of his own +condition from the end of last year, when the engagement was made, up nearly to +the present time. For any purpose of self-excuse it might be sufficient to say +that intolerable bodily suffering had totally disabled him for almost any +exertion of mind, more especially for such as demands and presupposes a +pleasurable and genial state of feeling; but, as a case that may by possibility +contribute a trifle to the medical history of opium, in a further stage of its +action than can often have been brought under the notice of professional men, +he has judged that it might be acceptable to some readers to have it described +more at length. <i>Fiat experimentum in corpore vili</i> is a just rule where +there is any reasonable presumption of benefit to arise on a large scale. What +the benefit may be will admit of a doubt, but there can be none as to the value +of the body; for a more worthless body than his own the author is free to +confess cannot be. It is his pride to believe that it is the very ideal of a +base, crazy, despicable human system, that hardly ever could have been meant to +be seaworthy for two days under the ordinary storms and wear and tear of life; +and indeed, if that were the creditable way of disposing of human bodies, he +must own that he should almost be ashamed to bequeath his wretched structure to +any respectable dog. But now to the case, which, for the sake of avoiding the +constant recurrence of a cumbersome periphrasis, the author will take the +liberty of giving in the first person. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Those who have read the Confessions will have closed them with the impression +that I had wholly renounced the use of opium. This impression I meant to +convey, and that for two reasons: first, because the very act of deliberately +recording such a state of suffering necessarily presumes in the recorder a +power of surveying his own case as a cool spectator, and a degree of spirits +for adequately describing it which it would be inconsistent to suppose in any +person speaking from the station of an actual sufferer; secondly, because I, +who had descended from so large a quantity as 8,000 drops to so small a one +(comparatively speaking) as a quantity ranging between 300 and 160 drops, might +well suppose that the victory was in effect achieved. In suffering my readers, +therefore, to think of me as of a reformed opium-eater, I left no impression +but what I shared myself; and, as may be seen, even this impression was left to +be collected from the general tone of the conclusion, and not from any specific +words, which are in no instance at variance with the literal truth. In no long +time after that paper was written I became sensible that the effort which +remained would cost me far more energy than I had anticipated, and the +necessity for making it was more apparent every month. In particular I became +aware of an increasing callousness or defect of sensibility in the stomach, and +this I imagined might imply a scirrhous state of that organ, either formed or +forming. An eminent physician, to whose kindness I was at that time deeply +indebted, informed me that such a termination of my case was not impossible, +though likely to be forestalled by a different termination in the event of my +continuing the use of opium. Opium therefore I resolved wholly to abjure as +soon as I should find myself at liberty to bend my undivided attention and +energy to this purpose. It was not, however, until the 24th of June last that +any tolerable concurrence of facilities for such an attempt arrived. On that +day I began my experiment, having previously settled in my own mind that I +would not flinch, but would “stand up to the scratch” under any possible +“punishment.” I must premise that about 170 or 180 drops had been my ordinary +allowance for many months; occasionally I had run up as high as 500, and once +nearly to 700; in repeated preludes to my final experiment I had also gone as +low as 100 drops; but had found it impossible to stand it beyond the fourth +day—which, by the way, I have always found more difficult to get over +than any of the preceding three. I went off under easy sail—130 drops a +day for three days; on the fourth I plunged at once to 80. The misery which I +now suffered “took the conceit” out of me at once, and for about a month I +continued off and on about this mark; then I sunk to 60, and the next day +to—none at all. This was the first day for nearly ten years that I had +existed without opium. I persevered in my abstinence for ninety hours; i.e., +upwards of half a week. Then I took—ask me not how much; say, ye +severest, what would ye have done? Then I abstained again—then took about +25 drops then abstained; and so on. +</p> + +<p> +Meantime the symptoms which attended my case for the first six weeks of my +experiment were these: enormous irritability and excitement of the whole +system; the stomach in particular restored to a full feeling of vitality and +sensibility, but often in great pain; unceasing restlessness night and day; +sleep—I scarcely knew what it was; three hours out of the twenty-four was +the utmost I had, and that so agitated and shallow that I heard every sound +that was near me. Lower jaw constantly swelling, mouth ulcerated, and many +other distressing symptoms that would be tedious to repeat; amongst which, +however, I must mention one, because it had never failed to accompany any +attempt to renounce opium—viz., violent sternutation. This now became +exceedingly troublesome, sometimes lasting for two hours at once, and recurring +at least twice or three times a day. I was not much surprised at this on +recollecting what I had somewhere heard or read, that the membrane which lines +the nostrils is a prolongation of that which lines the stomach; whence, I +believe, are explained the inflammatory appearances about the nostrils of dram +drinkers. The sudden restoration of its original sensibility to the stomach +expressed itself, I suppose, in this way. It is remarkable also that during the +whole period of years through which I had taken opium I had never once caught +cold (as the phrase is), nor even the slightest cough. But now a violent cold +attacked me, and a cough soon after. In an unfinished fragment of a letter +begun about this time to ——, I find these words: “You ask me to +write the ——. Do you know Beaumont and Fletcher’s play of “Thierry +and Theodore”? There you will see my case as to sleep; nor is it much of an +exaggeration in other features. I protest to you that I have a greater influx +of thoughts in one hour at present than in a whole year under the reign of +opium. It seems as though all the thoughts which had been frozen up for a +decade of years by opium had now, according to the old fable, been thawed at +once—such a multitude stream in upon me from all quarters. Yet such is my +impatience and hideous irritability that for one which I detain and write down +fifty escape me: in spite of my weariness from suffering and want of sleep, I +cannot stand still or sit for two minutes together. ‘I nunc, et versus tecum +meditare canoros.’” +</p> + +<p> +At this stage of my experiment I sent to a neighbouring surgeon, requesting +that he would come over to see me. In the evening he came; and after briefly +stating the case to him, I asked this question; Whether he did not think that +the opium might have acted as a stimulus to the digestive organs, and that the +present state of suffering in the stomach, which manifestly was the cause of +the inability to sleep, might arise from indigestion? His answer was; No; on +the contrary, he thought that the suffering was caused by digestion itself, +which should naturally go on below the consciousness, but which from the +unnatural state of the stomach, vitiated by so long a use of opium, was become +distinctly perceptible. This opinion was plausible; and the unintermitting +nature of the suffering disposes me to think that it was true, for if it had +been any mere <i>irregular</i> affection of the stomach, it should naturally +have intermitted occasionally, and constantly fluctuated as to degree. The +intention of nature, as manifested in the healthy state, obviously is to +withdraw from our notice all the vital motions, such as the circulation of the +blood, the expansion and contraction of the lungs, the peristaltic action of +the stomach, &c., and opium, it seems, is able in this, as in other +instances, to counteract her purposes. By the advice of the surgeon I tried +<i>bitters</i>. For a short time these greatly mitigated the feelings under +which I laboured, but about the forty-second day of the experiment the symptoms +already noticed began to retire, and new ones to arise of a different and far +more tormenting class; under these, but with a few intervals of remission, I +have since continued to suffer. But I dismiss them undescribed for two reasons: +first, because the mind revolts from retracing circumstantially any sufferings +from which it is removed by too short or by no interval. To do this with +minuteness enough to make the review of any use would be indeed <i>infandum +renovare dolorem</i>, and possibly without a sufficient motive; for secondly, I +doubt whether this latter state be anyway referable to opium—positively +considered, or even negatively; that is, whether it is to be numbered amongst +the last evils from the direct action of opium, or even amongst the earliest +evils consequent upon a <i>want</i> of opium in a system long deranged by its +use. Certainly one part of the symptoms might be accounted for from the time of +year (August), for though the summer was not a hot one, yet in any case the sum +of all the heat <i>funded</i> (if one may say so) during the previous months, +added to the existing heat of that month, naturally renders August in its +better half the hottest part of the year; and it so happened that—the +excessive perspiration which even at Christmas attends any great reduction in +the daily quantum of opium—and which in July was so violent as to oblige +me to use a bath five or six times a day—had about the setting-in of the +hottest season wholly retired, on which account any bad effect of the heat +might be the more unmitigated. Another symptom—viz., what in my ignorance +I call internal rheumatism (sometimes affecting the shoulders, &c., but +more often appearing to be seated in the stomach)—seemed again less +probably attributable to the opium, or the want of opium, than to the dampness +of the house <a name="citation21"></a><a href="#footnote21">{21}</a> which I +inhabit, which had about this time attained its maximum, July having been, as +usual, a month of incessant rain in our most rainy part of England. +</p> + +<p> +Under these reasons for doubting whether opium had any connexion with the +latter stage of my bodily wretchedness—except, indeed, as an occasional +cause, as having left the body weaker and more crazy, and thus predisposed to +any mal-influence whatever—I willingly spare my reader all description of +it; let it perish to him, and would that I could as easily say let it perish to +my own remembrances, that any future hours of tranquillity may not be disturbed +by too vivid an ideal of possible human misery! +</p> + +<p> +So much for the sequel of my experiment. As to the former stage, in which +probably lies the experiment and its application to other cases, I must request +my reader not to forget the reasons for which I have recorded it. These were +two: First, a belief that I might add some trifle to the history of opium as a +medical agent. In this I am aware that I have not at all fulfilled my own +intentions, in consequence of the torpor of mind, pain of body, and extreme +disgust to the subject which besieged me whilst writing that part of my paper; +which part being immediately sent off to the press (distant about five degrees +of latitude), cannot be corrected or improved. But from this account, rambling +as it may be, it is evident that thus much of benefit may arise to the persons +most interested in such a history of opium, viz., to opium-eaters in general, +that it establishes, for their consolation and encouragement, the fact that +opium may be renounced, and without greater sufferings than an ordinary +resolution may support, and by a pretty rapid course <a +name="citation22"></a><a href="#footnote22">{22}</a> of descent. +</p> + +<p> +To communicate this result of my experiment was my foremost purpose. Secondly, +as a purpose collateral to this, I wished to explain how it had become +impossible for me to compose a Third Part in time to accompany this +republication; for during the time of this experiment the proof-sheets of this +reprint were sent to me from London, and such was my inability to expand or to +improve them, that I could not even bear to read them over with attention +enough to notice the press errors or to correct any verbal inaccuracies. These +were my reasons for troubling my reader with any record, long or short, of +experiments relating to so truly base a subject as my own body; and I am +earnest with the reader that he will not forget them, or so far misapprehend me +as to believe it possible that I would condescend to so rascally a subject for +its own sake, or indeed for any less object than that of general benefit to +others. Such an animal as the self-observing valetudinarian I know there is; I +have met him myself occasionally, and I know that he is the worst imaginable +<i>heautontimoroumenos</i>; aggravating and sustaining, by calling into +distinct consciousness, every symptom that would else perhaps, under a +different direction given to the thoughts, become evanescent. But as to myself, +so profound is my contempt for this undignified and selfish habit, that I could +as little condescend to it as I could to spend my time in watching a poor +servant girl, to whom at this moment I hear some lad or other making love at +the back of my house. Is it for a Transcendental Philosopher to feel any +curiosity on such an occasion? Or can I, whose life is worth only eight and a +half years’ purchase, be supposed to have leisure for such trivial employments? +However, to put this out of question, I shall say one thing, which will perhaps +shock some readers, but I am sure it ought not to do so, considering the +motives on which I say it. No man, I suppose, employs much of his time on the +phenomena of his own body without some regard for it; whereas the reader sees +that, so far from looking upon mine with any complacency or regard, I hate it, +and make it the object of my bitter ridicule and contempt; and I should not be +displeased to know that the last indignities which the law inflicts upon the +bodies of the worst malefactors might hereafter fall upon it. And, in +testification of my sincerity in saying this, I shall make the following offer. +Like other men, I have particular fancies about the place of my burial; having +lived chiefly in a mountainous region, I rather cleave to the conceit, that a +grave in a green churchyard amongst the ancient and solitary hills will be a +sublimer and more tranquil place of repose for a philosopher than any in the +hideous Golgothas of London. Yet if the gentlemen of Surgeons’ Hall think that +any benefit can redound to their science from inspecting the appearances in the +body of an opium-eater, let them speak but a word, and I will take care that +mine shall be legally secured to them—i.e., as soon as I have done with +it myself. Let them not hesitate to express their wishes upon any scruples of +false delicacy and consideration for my feelings; I assure them they will do me +too much honour by “demonstrating” on such a crazy body as mine, and it will +give me pleasure to anticipate this posthumous revenge and insult inflicted +upon that which has caused me so much suffering in this life. Such bequests are +not common; reversionary benefits contingent upon the death of the testator are +indeed dangerous to announce in many cases: of this we have a remarkable +instance in the habits of a Roman prince, who used, upon any notification made +to him by rich persons that they had left him a handsome estate in their wills, +to express his entire satisfaction at such arrangements and his gracious +acceptance of those loyal legacies; but then, if the testators neglected to +give him immediate possession of the property, if they traitorously “persisted +in living” (<i>si vivere perseverarent</i>, as Suetonius expresses it), he was +highly provoked, and took his measures accordingly. In those times, and from +one of the worst of the Cæsars, we might expect such conduct; but I am sure +that from English surgeons at this day I need look for no expressions of +impatience, or of any other feelings but such as are answerable to that pure +love of science and all its interests which induces me to make such an offer. +</p> + +<p> +Sept 30, 1822 +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> + +<p> +<a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> “Not yet <i>recorded</i>,” +I say; for there is one celebrated man of the present day, who, if all be true +which is reported of him, has greatly exceeded me in quantity. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2">{2}</a> A third exception might +perhaps have been added; and my reason for not adding that exception is chiefly +because it was only in his juvenile efforts that the writer whom I allude to +expressly addressed hints to philosophical themes; his riper powers having been +all dedicated (on very excusable and very intelligible grounds, under the +present direction of the popular mind in England) to criticism and the Fine +Arts. This reason apart, however, I doubt whether he is not rather to be +considered an acute thinker than a subtle one. It is, besides, a great drawback +on his mastery over philosophical subjects that he has obviously not had the +advantage of a regular scholastic education: he has not read Plato in his youth +(which most likely was only his misfortune), but neither has he read Kant in +his manhood (which is his fault). +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3">{3}</a> I disclaim any allusion to +<i>existing</i> professors, of whom indeed I know only one. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote4"></a><a href="#citation4">{4}</a> To this same Jew, by the +way, some eighteen months afterwards, I applied again on the same business; +and, dating at that time from a respectable college, I was fortunate enough to +gain his serious attention to my proposals. My necessities had not arisen from +any extravagance or youthful levities (these my habits and the nature of my +pleasures raised me far above), but simply from the vindictive malice of my +guardian, who, when he found himself no longer able to prevent me from going to +the university, had, as a parting token of his good nature, refused to sign an +order for granting me a shilling beyond the allowance made to me at +school—viz., £100 per annum. Upon this sum it was in my time barely +possible to have lived in college, and not possible to a man who, though above +the paltry affectation of ostentatious disregard for money, and without any +expensive tastes, confided nevertheless rather too much in servants, and did +not delight in the petty details of minute economy. I soon, therefore, became +embarrassed, and at length, after a most voluminous negotiation with the Jew +(some parts of which, if I had leisure to rehearse them, would greatly amuse my +readers), I was put in possession of the sum I asked for, on the “regular” +terms of paying the Jew seventeen and a half per cent. by way of annuity on all +the money furnished; Israel, on his part, graciously resuming no more than +about ninety guineas of the said money, on account of an attorney’s bill (for +what services, to whom rendered, and when, whether at the siege of Jerusalem, +at the building of the second Temple, or on some earlier occasion, I have not +yet been able to discover). How many perches this bill measured I really +forget; but I still keep it in a cabinet of natural curiosities, and some time +or other I believe I shall present it to the British Museum. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote5"></a><a href="#citation5">{5}</a> The Bristol mail is the +best appointed in the Kingdom, owing to the double advantages of an unusually +good road and of an extra sum for the expenses subscribed by the Bristol +merchants. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote6"></a><a href="#citation6">{6}</a> It will be objected that +many men, of the highest rank and wealth, have in our own day, as well as +throughout our history, been amongst the foremost in courting danger in battle. +True; but this is not the case supposed; long familiarity with power has to +them deadened its effect and its attractions. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote7"></a><a href="#citation7">{7}</a> +Φιλον υπνη +θελyητρον +επικουρον +νοσον. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote8"></a><a href="#citation8">{8}</a> ηδυ +δουλευμα. EURIP. Orest. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote9"></a><a href="#citation9">{9}</a> +αναξανδρων +’Αyαμεμνων. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote10"></a><a href="#citation10">{10}</a> +ομμα θεισ’ +ειτω πεπλων. The scholar +will know that throughout this passage I refer to the early scenes of the +Orestes; one of the most beautiful exhibitions of the domestic affections which +even the dramas of Euripides can furnish. To the English reader it may be +necessary to say that the situation at the opening of the drama is that of a +brother attended only by his sister during the demoniacal possession of a +suffering conscience (or, in the mythology of the play, haunted by the Furies), +and in circumstances of immediate danger from enemies, and of desertion or cold +regard from nominal friends. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote11"></a><a href="#citation11">{11}</a> <i>Evanesced</i>: this +way of going off the stage of life appears to have been well known in the 17th +century, but at that time to have been considered a peculiar privilege of +blood-royal, and by no means to be allowed to druggists. For about the year +1686 a poet of rather ominous name (and who, by-the-bye, did ample justice to +his name), viz., Mr. <i>Flat-man</i>, in speaking of the death of Charles II. +expresses his surprise that any prince should commit so absurd an act as dying, +because, says he, +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Kings should disdain to die, and only <i>disappear</i>.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +They should <i>abscond</i>, that is, into the other world. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote12"></a><a href="#citation12">{12}</a> Of this, however, the +learned appear latterly to have doubted; for in a pirated edition of Buchan’s +<i>Domestic Medicine</i>, which I once saw in the hands of a farmer’s wife, who +was studying it for the benefit of her health, the Doctor was made to +say—“Be particularly careful never to take above five-and-twenty +<i>ounces</i> of laudanum at once;” the true reading being probably +five-and-twenty <i>drops</i>, which are held equal to about one grain of crude +opium. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote13"></a><a href="#citation13">{13}</a> Amongst the great herd +of travellers, &c., who show sufficiently by their stupidity that they +never held any intercourse with opium, I must caution my readers specially +against the brilliant author of <i>Anastasius</i>. This gentleman, whose wit +would lead one to presume him an opium-eater, has made it impossible to +consider him in that character, from the grievous misrepresentation which he +gives of its effects at pp. 215-17 of vol. i. Upon consideration it must appear +such to the author himself, for, waiving the errors I have insisted on in the +text, which (and others) are adopted in the fullest manner, he will himself +admit that an old gentleman “with a snow-white beard,” who eats “ample doses of +opium,” and is yet able to deliver what is meant and received as very weighty +counsel on the bad effects of that practice, is but an indifferent evidence +that opium either kills people prematurely or sends them into a madhouse. But +for my part, I see into this old gentleman and his motives: the fact is, he was +enamoured of “the little golden receptacle of the pernicious drug” which +Anastasius carried about him; and no way of obtaining it so safe and so +feasible occurred as that of frightening its owner out of his wits (which, by +the bye, are none of the strongest). This commentary throws a new light upon +the case, and greatly improves it as a story; for the old gentleman’s speech, +considered as a lecture on pharmacy, is highly absurd; but considered as a hoax +on Anastasius, it reads excellently. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote14"></a><a href="#citation14">{14}</a> I have not the book at +this moment to consult; but I think the passage begins—“And even that +tavern music, which makes one man merry, another mad, in me strikes a deep fit +of devotion,” &c. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote15"></a><a href="#citation15">{15}</a> A handsome newsroom, of +which I was very politely made free in passing through Manchester by several +gentlemen of that place, is called, I think, <i>The Porch</i>; whence I, who am +a stranger in Manchester, inferred that the subscribers meant to profess +themselves followers of Zeno. But I have been since assured that this is a +mistake. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote16"></a><a href="#citation16">{16}</a> I here reckon +twenty-five drops of laudanum as equivalent to one grain of opium, which, I +believe, is the common estimate. However, as both may be considered variable +quantities (the crude opium varying much in strength, and the tincture still +more), I suppose that no infinitesimal accuracy can be had in such a +calculation. Teaspoons vary as much in size as opium in strength. Small ones +hold about 100 drops; so that 8,000 drops are about eighty times a teaspoonful. +The reader sees how much I kept within Dr. Buchan’s indulgent allowance. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote17"></a><a href="#citation17">{17}</a> This, however, is not a +necessary conclusion; the varieties of effect produced by opium on different +constitutions are infinite. A London magistrate (Harriott’s <i>Struggles +through Life</i>, vol. iii. p. 391, third edition) has recorded that, on the +first occasion of his trying laudanum for the gout he took <i>forty</i> drops, +the next night <i>sixty</i>, and on the fifth night <i>eighty</i>, without any +effect whatever; and this at an advanced age. I have an anecdote from a country +surgeon, however, which sinks Mr. Harriott’s case into a trifle; and in my +projected medical treatise on opium, which I will publish provided the College +of Surgeons will pay me for enlightening their benighted understandings upon +this subject, I will relate it; but it is far too good a story to be published +gratis. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote18"></a><a href="#citation18">{18}</a> See the common accounts +in any Eastern traveller or voyager of the frantic excesses committed by Malays +who have taken opium, or are reduced to desperation by ill-luck at gambling. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote19"></a><a href="#citation19">{19}</a> The reader must +remember what I here mean by <i>thinking</i>, because else this would be a very +presumptuous expression. England, of late, has been rich to excess in fine +thinkers, in the departments of creative and combining thought; but there is a +sad dearth of masculine thinkers in any analytic path. A Scotchman of eminent +name has lately told us that he is obliged to quit even mathematics for want of +encouragement. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote20"></a><a href="#citation20">{20}</a> William Lithgow. His +book (Travels, &c.) is ill and pedantically written; but the account of his +own sufferings on the rack at Malaga is overpoweringly affecting. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote21"></a><a href="#citation21">{21}</a> In saying this I mean +no disrespect to the individual house, as the reader will understand when I +tell him that, with the exception of one or two princely mansions, and some few +inferior ones that have been coated with Roman cement, I am not acquainted with +any house in this mountainous district which is wholly waterproof. The +architecture of books, I flatter myself, is conducted on just principles in +this country; but for any other architecture, it is in a barbarous state, and +what is worse, in a retrograde state. +</p> + +<p> +<a name="footnote22"></a><a href="#citation22">{22}</a> On which last notice I +would remark that mine was <i>too</i> rapid, and the suffering therefore +needlessly aggravated; or rather, perhaps, it was not sufficiently continuous +and equably graduated. But that the reader may judge for himself, and above all +that the Opium-eater, who is preparing to retire from business, may have every +sort of information before him, I subjoin my diary:— +</p> + +<pre> +First Week Second Week + Drops of Laud. Drops of Laud. +Mond. June 24 ... 130 Mond. July 1 ... 80 + 25 ... 140 2 ... 80 + 26 ... 130 3 ... 90 + 27 ... 80 4 ... 100 + 28 ... 80 5 ... 80 + 29 ... 80 6 ... 80 + 30 ... 80 7 ... 80 +Third Week Fourth Week +Mond. July 8 ... 300 Mond. July 15 ... 76 + 9 ... 50 16 ... 73.5 + 10 } 17 ... 73.5 + 11 } Hiatus in 18 ... 70 + 12 } MS. 19 ... 240 + 13 } 20 ... 80 + 14 ... 76 21 ... 350 +Fifth Week +Mond. July 22 ... 60 + 23 ... none. + 24 ... none. + 25 ... none. + 26 ... 200 + 27 ... none. +</pre> + +<p> +What mean these abrupt relapses, the reader will ask perhaps, to such numbers +as 300, 350, &c.? The <i>impulse</i> to these relapses was mere infirmity +of purpose; the <i>motive</i>, where any motive blended with this impulse, was +either the principle, of “<i>reculer pour mieux sauter</i>;” (for under the +torpor of a large dose, which lasted for a day or two, a less quantity +satisfied the stomach, which on awakening found itself partly accustomed to +this new ration); or else it was this principle—that of sufferings +otherwise equal, those will be borne best which meet with a mood of anger. Now, +whenever I ascended to my large dose I was furiously incensed on the following +day, and could then have borne anything. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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