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diff --git a/old/opium10.txt b/old/opium10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..17f6add --- /dev/null +++ b/old/opium10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3936 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater +Thomas De Quincey + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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The +first edition (London Magazine) text. 1886 George Routledge and +Sons edition. + + + + + +CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER: +BEING AN EXTRACT FROM THE +LIFE OF A SCHOLAR. +From the "London Magazine" for September 1821. + + + + +TO THE READER + + + +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 THAT hope it is that +I have drawn it up; and THAT 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 OUR 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. + +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) + + +Humbly to express +A penitential loneliness. + + +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 DID, 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 RECORDED {1} 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. + +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 +THAT 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 AMATEUR 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 + + +That those eat now who never ate before; +And those who always ate, now eat the more. + + +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 ([Greek text]): "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, 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; 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 MORAL of my +narrative. + + + +PRELIMINARY CONFESSIONS + + + +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: + +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. + +2. As furnishing a key to some parts of that tremendous scenery +which afterwards peopled the dreams of the Opium-eater. + +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 HIS dreams (waking or +sleeping, day-dreams or night-dreams) is suitable to one who in that +character + + +Humani nihil a se alienum putat. + + +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 ANALYTIC 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 A +SUBTLE THINKER, with the exception of SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, and +in a narrower department of thought with the recent illustrious +exception {2} of DAVID RICARDO) but also on such a constitution of +the MORAL faculties as shall give him an inner eye and power of +intuition for the vision and the mysteries of our human nature: +THAT 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 {3} in the +lowest. + +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. + +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 +extempore; 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 WE 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 NEVER 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 DEFINITE boundary can be assigned to one's +power, the spirit of hope and pleasure makes it virtually infinite. + +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 +DID 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. + +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 mid- +night; 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! + + +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 aerial 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 + + +Of Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear +The weight of mightiest monarchies; + + +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 +contretemps 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 etourderie 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. + +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. + +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 THEM, 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 noli me tangere manner, nervously apprehensive of too +familiar approach, and shrinking with the sensitiveness of a gouty +man from all contact with the [Greek text]. 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 THINK 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. + +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 "Dym Sassenach" (no +English) 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. + +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. I various degrees of intensity, but as bitter perhaps as +ever any human being can have suffered who has survived it 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 m 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 DOG-SLEEP; 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 materiel, +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 HAD asked a party--as I once learnedly and +facetiously observed to him--the several members of it must have +STOOD in the relation to each other (not SATE 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, +SHE 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. + +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 THAT 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. + +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. + +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, "Sine cerere," &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, MORE SOCRATIO, 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 reascent 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. + +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! + +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. + +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 pound 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. + +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. + +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- {4} + +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 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 materialiter considered (so I expressed it, for +I doated on logical accuracy of distinctions), accused, or at least +suspected, of counterfeiting my own self formaliter 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. + +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 pounds, I prepared to go down to Eton. Nearly 3 +pounds 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 Miss Douglas, Miss Montague, &c., +but simply by their Christian names--Mary, Jane, Frances, &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. + +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 {5} 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 MANNERS is +drawn over the features and expression of men's NATURES, 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 DID 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 STEELE, 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 - + + +Lord of my learning, and no land beside - + + +were, like my friend Lord -, heir by general repute to 70,000 pounds +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 pounds a-year, feel +their dislike to bullets considerably sharpened, {6} 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 + + +To slacken virtue, and abate her edge, +Than tempt her to do ought may merit praise. +Paradise Regained. + + +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. + +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 pounds 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 LITERARY woman, I shall presume to call her (what many +literary women are not) an INTELLECTUAL 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. + +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 pound 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 HIS 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. + +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. + +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 +DID live; and I suppose that, in the literal and unrhetorical use of +the word MYRIAD, 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. + +[The remainder of this very interesting article will be given in the +next number.--ED.] + + + + +PART II + + + + +From the London Magazine for October 1821. + +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! + +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 THAT, said I, travelling with my eyes up +the long vistas which lay part in light and part in shade, "THAT is +the road to the North, and therefore to, and if I had the wings of a +dove, THAT 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 {7} 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 {8} 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 {9} of men, yet wept sometimes, and hid +her face {10} in her robe. + +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 moon-light 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 THAT way I would fly for comfort!" + + +THE PLEASURES OF OPIUM + + +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, {11} 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. + +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 wasswallowed 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 [Greek text] 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 L'Allegro: even then he speaks and +thinks as becomes Il Penseroso. 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. + +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 ex +cathedra, 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. {12} 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. + +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. + +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, meo +perieulo, that no quantity of opium ever did or could intoxicate. +As to the tincture of opium (commonly called laudanum) THAT 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 DEGREE only incapable, but +even in KIND: 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 +DISGUISED 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 Athenaeus), that men [Greek text]--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 divines 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. + +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 {13} 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 +prima facie and of necessity an absurd one; but the defence IS. To +my surprise, however, he insisted that both his enemies and his +friends were in the right. "I will maintain," said he, "that I DO +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 THAT 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. + +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. + +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 THAT 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. + +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 "A GLASS OF LAUDANUM NEGUS, WARM, AND WITHOUT +SUGAR." 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 Religio Medici {14} 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 MATTER coming by the senses, +the FORM 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. + +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 terrae +incognitae, 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. + +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. + +I shall be charged with mysticism, Behmenism, quietism, &c., but +THAT 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. + +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 Hekatompylos, 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! + + +INTRODUCTION TO THE PAINS OF OPIUM + + +Courteous, and I hope indulgent, reader (for all MY 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 SOMEWHERE +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 (honi soit qui mal y pense), 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 +GENTLEMEN. 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 OUGHT 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 +Anastasius; 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.e. 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 POSTULALE 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 a force d'ennuyer, 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. + +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 Eudaemonist; 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 {15} 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. + +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. + +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 DAY, 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 LUSTRUM, however, or even to the happiest YEAR, 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.e. +eight {16} 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 ([Greek text]); passed off with its murky +banners as simultaneously as a ship that has been stranded, and is +floated off by a spring tide - + + +That moveth altogether, if it move at all. + + +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. + +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 Anastasius; +and as I had neither a Malay dictionary nor even Adelung's +Mithridates, 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 {17} 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. + +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" {18} 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--THE PAINS OF OPIUM. + +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, NOT 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, + + +And at the doors and windows seem to call, +As heav'n and earth they would together mell; +Yet the least entrance find they none at all; +Whence sweeter grows our rest secure in massy hall. +Castle of Indolence. + + +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 "PARTICULAR," 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 bellum internecinum 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. + +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 a +parte ante and a parte post--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 THAT, +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 MY 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. + +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 + + +THE PAINS OF OPIUM + + +As when some great painter dips +His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse. +SHELLEY'S Revolt of Islam. + +Reader, who have thus far accompanied me, I must request your +attention to a brief explanatory note on three points: + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I shall now enter in medias res, and shall anticipate, from a time +when my opium pains might be said to be at their acme, an account of +their palsying effects on the intellectual faculties. + + +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.) + +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., De Emendatione Humani +Intellectus. 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 hyaena, 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 {19} 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 a priori 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. + +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 PROLEGOMENA TO ALL FUTURE SYSTEMS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. I hope +it will not be found redolent of opium; though, indeed, to most +people the subject is a sufficient opiate. + +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. + +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 THAT 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 TO BE 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. + +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. + +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 OEdipus 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: + +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. + +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 HAD +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. + +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. + +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 RECOGNISED 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 FORGETTING 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. + +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. + +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--Consul Romanus, 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 OF CONSUL ROMANUS; +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 alalagmos of the Roman +legions. + +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 DREAMS, 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 aerial 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: + + +The appearance, instantaneously disclosed, +Was of a mighty city--boldly say +A wilderness of building, sinking far +And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth, +Far sinking into splendour--without end! +Fabric it seem'd of diamond, and of gold, +With alabaster domes, and silver spires, +And blazing terrace upon terrace, high +Uplifted; here, serene pavilions bright +In avenues disposed; there towers begirt +With battlements that on their restless fronts +Bore stars--illumination of all gems! +By earthly nature had the effect been wrought +Upon the dark materials of the storm +Now pacified; on them, and on the coves, +And mountain-steeps and summits, whereunto +The vapours had receded,--taking there +Their station under a cerulean sky. &c. &c. + + +The sublime circumstance, "battlements that on their RESTLESS 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. + +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) OBJECTIVE; and the sentient organ PROJECT 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. + +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. + + +May 1818 + + +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 CASTES 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 officina gentium. 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. + +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 HUMAN 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. + + +June 1819 + + +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 (caeteris paribus) 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. + +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 lamp-light 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. + +As a final specimen, I cite one of a different character, from 1820. + +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 THAT, 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! + +And I awoke in struggles, and cried aloud--"I will sleep no more." + +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. + +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 THAT 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. + +I triumphed. But think not, reader, that therefore my sufferings +were ended, nor think of me as of one sitting in a DEJECTED 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 {20} 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 HE 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. + +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. + +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) + + +With dreadful faces throng'd, and fiery arms. + + + +APPENDIX + + + +From the "London Magazine" for December 1822. + +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. + + +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 London Magazine 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. +Fiat experimentum in corpore vili 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. + + +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. + +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.'" + +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 IRREGULAR 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 +BITTERS. 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 infandum renovare dolorem, 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 WANT 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 FUNDED (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 {21} 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. + +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! + +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 {22} +of descent. + +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 +HEAUTONTIMOROUMENOS; 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" (si vivere perseverarent, as Suetonius +expresses it), he was highly provoked, and took his measures +accordingly. In those times, and from one of the worst of the +Caesars, 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. + +Sept 30, 1822 + + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} "Not yet RECORDED," 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. + +{2} 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). + +{3} I disclaim any allusion to EXISTING professors, of whom indeed +I know only one. + +{4} 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 pounds 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. + +{5} 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. + +{6} 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. + +{7} [Greek text] + +{8} [Greek text]. EURIP. Orest. + +{9} [Greek text] + +{10} [Greek text]. 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. + +{11} EVANESCED: 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. FLAT-MAN, 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, + +"Kings should disdain to die, and only DISAPPEAR." + +They should ABSCOND, that is, into the other world. + +{12} Of this, however, the learned appear latterly to have doubted; +for in a pirated edition of Buchan's Domestic Medicine, 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 OUNCES of laudanum at +once;" the true reading being probably five-and-twenty DROPS, which +are held equal to about one grain of crude opium. + +{13} 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 Anastasius. 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. + +{14} 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. + +{15} 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, The Porch; 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. + +{16} 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. + +{17} This, however, is not a necessary conclusion; the varieties of +effect produced by opium on different constitutions are infinite. A +London magistrate (Harriott's Struggles through Life, vol. iii. p. +391, third edition) has recorded that, on the first occasion of his +trying laudanum for the gout he took FORTY drops, the next night +SIXTY, and on the fifth night EIGHTY, 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. + +{18} 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. + +{19} The reader must remember what I here mean by THINKING, 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. + +{20} 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. + +{21} 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. + +{22} On which last notice I would remark that mine was TOO 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:- + +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. + +What mean these abrupt relapses, the reader will ask perhaps, to +such numbers as 300, 350, &c.? The IMPULSE to these relapses was +mere infirmity of purpose; the MOTIVE, where any motive blended with +this impulse, was either the principle, of "reculer pour mieux +sauter;" (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. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater + |