PREFACE
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 defec-
tive 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 re-
sulting 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, the 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 phi-
losopher: from my birth I was made an intellectual creature:
and intellectual in the highest sense my pursuits and pleasures
have been, even from my school-boy 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 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 con
fession, 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 indirect-
ly,as opium-eaters; such for instance as the eloquent and
benevolent [William Wilberforce], the late Dean of [Carlisle,
Dr. Isaac Milner]; Lord [Erskine]; Mr. ------, the philo-
sopher; a late under-secretary of state [Mr. Addington,
brother to the late Lord Sidmouth] (who described to me
the sensation which first drove him to the use of opium, in
the very same words as the Dean of [Carlisle], viz., that he
felt as though rats were gnawing and abrading the coats of
his stomach ); Mr. [Coleridge]; 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 popula-
tion 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: i. 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 these 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,
(which will possibly surprise the reader more) some years
ago, on passing through Manchester, I was informed by
several cotton-manufacturers, that their work-people were
rapidly getting into the practice of opium-eating; so much
so, that on a Saturday afternoon the counters of the drug-
gists 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 prac-
tice 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, counter-agents, etc.,
of this drug, expresses himself in the following mysterious
terms (GREEK): 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 the Turks themselves: the result of which knowledge, he
adds, must prove a general misfortune. In the necessity
of this conclusion I do not 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.
PRELIMANARY CONFESSIONS.
These preliminary confessions, or introductory narra-
tive 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 rea-
sons:
1. As forestalling that question, and giving it a satis-
factory answer, which else would painfully obtrude it-
self 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 seven-fold
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 neces-
sary 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 philoso-
pher is not merely the possession of a superb intellect
in its analytic functions (in which part of the preten-
sions,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 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 degrece and Scottish
Professors 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 mis-
representation 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 mate-
rial 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 origi-
nally 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 unfav-
ourable circumstances, from depression of spirits, it at-
tacked 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 them-
selves, 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 mod-
ern ideas, images, relations of things, etc., gave me
a compass of diction which would never have been called
out by a dull translation of moral essays, etc. "That
boy," said one of my masters, pointing the attention
of a stranger to me, "that boy could harangue an Ath-
enian 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 good one; and of all my
tutors, was the only one whom I loved or reverenced.
Unfortunate 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 perpe-
tual 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 [Brasenose] 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 u-
pon his wig, or some such important matter. My two class-
fellows were poor, and dependent for their future pros-
pects at the university on the recommendation of the
head-master; but I, who had a small patrimonial proper-
ty, 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, live-
d 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. T he 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 n ever 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
Oriqinal fromoften 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 [Man-
chester], a place which I did not love, and where I
had not been happy. On the evening before I left [Man-
chester] for ever, I grieved when the ancient and lofty
school-room resounded with the evening service, perform-
ed 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. H e looked at me complacently, smiled good-
naturedly, returned my salutation (or rather, my val-
ediction), 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
indulgencies; and I grieved at the thought of the mor-
tification 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 [the Collegiate Church], drest in
earliest light, and beginning to crimson with the radiant
lustre of a cloudless July morning. I was firm and im-
movable in my purpose; but yet agitated by anticipation
of uncertain danger and troubles; and, if I could have
foreseen the hurricane, and perfect hail-storm of affliction
which soon fell upon me, well might I have been agitated.
To this agitation the deep peace of the morning presented
an affecting contrast, and in some degree a medicine.
The silence was more profound than that of midnight;
and to me the silence of a summer morning is more
touching than all other silence, because, the light being
broad and strong, as that of noon day 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
T 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 dedi-
cated to intellectual pursuits, I could not fail to have
enjoyed many happy hours in the midst of general de-
jection. 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 mantlepiece; 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
[Manchester] clock proclaimed that it was four o'clock.
I went up to the picture, kissed it, and 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 aërial elevation in the house, and (what
was worse) the stair-case, 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 com-
municated my embarrassment to a groom of the headmas-
ter'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. Accord-
ingly 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 de-
scending with slow and firm steps; but unfortunately,
from his trepidation, as he drew near the dangerous quar-
ter, 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 bed-room 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 bag-
gage. 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 in-
sulted authority, I could not myself forbear joining in
it; subdued to this, not so much by the unhappy étourderie
of the trunk, as by the effect it had upon the groom.
We both expected, as a matter of course, that Dr.
[Lawson] would sally out of his room; for in general,
if but a mouse stirred, he sprang out like a mastiff from
the 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 bed-room. Dr.
[Lawson] 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 wheel-barrow, 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 Eng-
lish poet in one pocket, and a small i2m o volume, con-
taining about nine plays of [Canter's] Euripides, in the
other.
It had been my intention originally to proceed to
Westmoreland, both from the love I bore to that conn-
try, and on other personal accounts. Accident, how-
ever, 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 Caernarvonshire, I took lodgings in ;
a small neat house in B[angor]. Here I might have
stayed with great comfort for many weeks; for pro-
visions were cheap at B[angor], from the scarcity of
other markets for the surplus produce of a wide agri-
cultural district. An accident, however, in which, per-
haps, 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, Caven-
dish, 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 of these dig-
nities is so rapid, that the public ear seldom has time to
become familiar with them, unless where they are con-
nected 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 ac-
knowledged, a sort of n o li m e tangere manner, nervously
apprehensive of too familiar approach, and shrinking
with the sensitiveness of a gouty man, from all contact
with the hoi polloi. Doubtless, a powerful understand-,
ing, 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 man-
ners 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 [Bangor];
.and had but lately married away and settled (as such
people express it) for life. In a little town like B[angor],
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 goodnatured to laugh in any-
body'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 im-
pressed with the bishop's importance; and, perhaps,
to punish me for my indifference, or possibly by acci-
dent, 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 occa-
sion 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 theHead; 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 gentle-
man is a swindler; because------- You don't think
me a swindler? said I, interrupting her, in a tum-
ult 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 lan-
guage; 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 expres-
sions 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 allow-
ance; 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, etc., 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 in 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 partic-
ular, 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 ele-
gance 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
nfan-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 pen-
etration 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 entertain-
ment. 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 sat at breakfast, the expression of some un-
pleasant 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 an-
nual meeting of Methodists, held at Caenarvon, 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 ^tood; 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 man-
ner 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 var-
ious degrees of intensity; but as bitter, perhaps, as
ever any human being can have suffered who has survived
it. I would not needlessly harass my reader's feelings by
a detail of all that I endured; for extremities such as
these, under any circumstances of heaviest misconduct or
guilt, cannot be contemplated, even in description, with-
out a rueful pity that is painful to the natural goodness
of the human heart. Let it suffice, at least on this o-
ccasion, 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 sup-
port. During the former part of my sufferings (that is,
generally in Wales, and always for the first two months
in London) I was houseless, and very seldom slept under
a roof. To this constant exposure to the open air I
ascribe it mainly that I did not sink under my torments.
Latterly, however, when colder and more inclement weather
came on, and when, from the length of my sufferings, I
had begun to sink into a more languishing condition,
it was, no doubt, fortunate for me, that the same per-
son 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 house
hold 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 stair-case
and hall; and, amidst the real fleshly ills of cold,
and, I fear, hunger, the forsaken child had found lei-
sure to suffer still more (it appeared) from the self-
created one of ghosts. I promised her protection a-
gainst 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 gar-
ret, an old sofa-cover, a small piece of rug, and
some fragments of other articles, which added a lit-
tle to our warmth. The poor child crept close to me
for warmth, and for security against her ghostly en-
emies. When I was not more than usually ill, I took
her into my arms, so that, in general, she was tol-
erably warm, and often slept when I could not; for,
during the last two months of my sufferings, I slept
much in day-time, and was apt to fall into transient
dozings 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 call-
ed 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 sen-
sation began to haunt me as soon as I fell into a
slumber, which has since returned upon me at diff-
erent 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 con-
stantly 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 breakfasted alone; indeed, his tea
equipage would hardly have admitted of his hazarding an
invitation to a second person — any more than the quan-
tity 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 co-existence;
in the relation of the parts of time, and not of the
parts of space. During his breakfast I generally con-
trived 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, etc.); that
room was to her the Blue-beard 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. [Brunell], or only a servant, I could not ascer-
tain; she did not herself know; but certainly she was
treated altogether as a menial servant. No sooner did
Mr. [Brunell] make his appearance, than she went below
stairs, brushed his shoes, coat, etc.; and, except when
she was summoned to run an errand, she never emerged from
the dismal Tartarus of the kitchen, etc., 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 day-time, 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 con-
science 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. [Brunell]
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 lim-
ited 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. [Brunell]'s character but such
as did him honour; and of his whole strange composi-
tion, I must forget everything but that towards me he
was obliging, and, to the extent of his power, gen-
erous.
That power was not, indeed, very extensive; however,
in common with the rats-, I sat 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 Blue-beard 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, th August 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
drawingroom, I observed a domestic party, assembled per-
haps 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 remark
ably pleasing in manners. But, thank God! even in
those years I needed not the embellishments of novel
accessories to conciliate my affections: plain hum an
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 et Baccho, etc., 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 con-
trary, from my very earliest youth it has been my pride
to converse familiarly, more Socratico, with all human
beings, man, woman, and child, that chance might fling
in my way — a practice which is friendly to the know-
ledge 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
streetwalkers. 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 thee, 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 friend-
less girl up and down Oxford Street, or had rested with
her on steps and under the shelter of porticos. 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 grad-
ually 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 frame-work 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 at-
tention; 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 no-
thing 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. Mean-
time, 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 sate 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 re-ascent
under my friendless circumstances would soon have be-
come hopeless. Then it was, at this crisis of my fate, that
my poor orphan companion, who had herself met with lit-
tle but injuries in this world, stretched out a saving
hand to me. Uttering a cry of terror, but without a mo-
ment'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 em-
pty 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 own humble purse at a time — be it re-
membered! — when she had scarcely wherewithal to pur-
chase 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 superna-
tural 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 way-lay — to overtake — to
pursue thee into the central darkness of a London bro-
thel, 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 rec-
onciliation!
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 suffer-
ings. On these accounts I am cheerful to this hour;
and, as I have said, I do not often weep. Yet some feel-
ings, though not deeper or more passionate, are more
tender than others; and often, when I walk at this tim e
in Oxford Street by dreamy lamp-light, 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 dis-
pensation 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 record-
ed, I met, in Albemarle Street, a gentleman of his late
Majesty's household. This gentleman had received hospi-
talities, 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 ten-pound bank-note. The letter en-
closing 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 stav-
ing 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 restor-
ing 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
ioin 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 particu-
lar, though, doubtless, my father had in his life-time 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 com pass; and amongst other persons I ap-
plied to a Jew named D[ell].
To this Jew, and to other advertising money-lenders
(some of whom were, I believe, also Jews), I had in tro-
duced myself with an account of my expectations; which
account, on examining my father's will at Doctors' Com-
mons, they had ascertained to be correct. The person
there mentioned as the second son of [Thomas Quincey]
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 scru-
ples, 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 constant-
ly 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 [Altamont], who was at that time my chief (or rather
only) confidential friend. These letters were dated
from Eton. I had also some from the Marquess of [Sligo],
his father, who, though absorbed in agricultural pur-
suits, 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 scho-
lars. 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[ayo] and Sl[igo] 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 pur-
suance of this proposal on the part of the Jew, about
eight or nine days after I had received the 10l, I
prepared to go down to Eton. Nearly 3l of the money
I had given to my money-lending friend, on his alleging
that the stamps must be bought, in order that the writ-
ings 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 at-
torney (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 reestablishing (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, accomp-
anied by Ann, towards Piccadilly; for it was my inten-
tion to go down as far as Salt-hill 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 be-
fore; 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 seven-fold tender-
ness, 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, consider-
ing the shock my health had received, wascheerful 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 over-
come 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 un-
happy condition, not (as novel-reading women of higher
pretensions) to style themselves— Miss Douglass, Miss
Montague, etc., but simply by their Christian names,
Mary, Jane, Frances, etc. Her surname, as the surest
means of tracing her hereafter, I ought now to have in-
quired; but the truth is, having no reason to think that
our meeting could, in consequence of a short interrup-
tion, 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 press-
ing 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 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 in-
cident 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 know-
ing, 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 extrem-
ities, and the infinite field of varieties which lie be-
tween them, are 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 fellowpass-
enger on the roof by occasionally falling against him
w hen'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 circum-
stances, most people would; he expressed his complaint,
however, more morosely than the occasion seemed to war-
rant; 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 bru-
tal fellow. However, I was conscious that I had given
him some cause for complaint; and, therefore, I apol-
ogised 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 in-
side place. The man's manner changed upon hearing this
explanation, in an instant; and when I next awoke for
a minute from the noise and lights of Hounslow (for in
spite of my wishes and efforts I had fallen asleep a-
gain within two minutes from the time I had spoken to
him) I found that he had put his arm round me to pro-
tect me from falling off; and for the rest of my jour-
ney 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. Unfor-
tunately, indeed, I did go rather farther than I in-
tended; for so genial and 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, a-
head 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 in-
tention 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 lav-
ender 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 ev-
ery instant be unconsciously approaching each other
through the darkness; in which case, said I — suppos-
ing I, instead of being (as indeed I am) little bet-
ter than an outcast, —
Lord of my learning and no land beside,
were, like my friend, Lord [Altamont], heir by general
repute to 70,000l per annum, what a panic should I be
under at this moment about my throat! — indeed, it was
not likely that Lord [Altamont] 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 un-
expectedly succeeded to an estate in England of 50,000l
a-year, feel their dislike to bullets considerably
sharpened, ànd 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 remem-
brance 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 -
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 disturb-
ance, 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 habil-
iments, they answered me civilly. my friend Lord [-]
was gone to the University of [Cambridge]. Ibi omnis
effusus labor! I had, however, other friends at Eton;
but it is not to all who 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 [esart], 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 circ-
umstances. 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 preten-
sion 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 ex-
pected that he would have been very rich, but, dying
prematurely, he left no more than about ^,000 amongst
seven different claimants. my mother, I may mention
with honour, was still more highly gifted. For, though
unpretending to the name and honours of a literary wo-
man, 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 pub-
lished, they would be thought generally to exhibit as
much strong and masculine sense, delivered in as pure
mother English, racy and fresh with idiomatic grâces,
as any in our language, hardly excepting those of Lady
M. W. Montague. These are my honours of descent; I
have no others, 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 fel-
low-creatures is not the most favourable to moral or
to intellectual qualities.
Lord D[esart] 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 ten-
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 re-
jected, sometimes with acidity, sometimes immediately,
and without any acidity. On the present occasion, at
Lord D [esart]'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[esart], 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 re-
luctance to ask of Lord D [esart], on whom I was con-
scious I had not sufficient claims, the particular ser-
vice in quest of which I had come down to Eton. I was,
however, unwilling to lose my journey, and--I asked
it. Lord D[esart], 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 re-
quest. 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 ex-
pectations were so much more bounded than those of
[his cousin], 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[esart] 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 [esart]'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 wretched-
ness. 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 univer-
sity, 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 staid 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 trac-
ing 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 acquaintance; 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 excu-
sably 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 [the Priory] in [Chester-]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
sometimes in search of each other, at the very same mo-
ment, through the mighty labyrinths of London; perhaps,
even within a few feet of each other--a barrier no
wider, in 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 heringenuous nature,
or the brutalities of ruffians had completed the ruin they
had begun.
PART II
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--in-
heritors 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 ran-
som for many years to come, as a price of long immunity
from sorrow: and if again I walked in London, a soli-
tary 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 nov-
iciate in London had struck root so deeply in my bodi-
ly constitution that afterwards they shot up and flou-
rished 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 ma-
turer 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 [Grasmere], 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 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, there-
fore, 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 kind-
ness, and to servile ministrations of tenderest affect-
ion; — 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 of men, yet wept sometimes,
and hid her face in her robe.
But these troubles are past: and thou wilt read these
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 op-
pressed 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 hun-
dred miles, and the length of three dreary months,--
I look up the streets that run northwards from Oxford
Street, upon moonlight nights, and recollect my youth-
ful 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 prompt-
ings 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
important 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 very long since I first took opium; so long 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 this inauguration into the use of opium
must be referred to the spring or to the autumn of 1804;
during which seasons I was in London, having come
thither for the first time since my entrance at Oxford.
And this event 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 a casual 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 rheu-
matic 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 pur-
pose of relief. By accident, I met a college acquaint-
ance, who recommended opium. Opium! dread agent of
unimaginable pleasure and pain! I had heard of it as
I had heard of manna or of ambrosia, but no further.
How unmeaning a sound was opium at that time! what
solemn chords does it now strike upon my heart! what
heartquaking vibrations of sad and happy remembrances!
Reverting for a moment to these, I feel a mystic im-
portance attached to the minutest circumstances connect-
ed with the place, and the time, and the man (if man he
iowas), 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 rainy London
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 to me what
seemed to be real copper halfpence, taken out of a real
wooden drawer. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding all
such indications of humanity, he has ever since figured
in my mind as a 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 flitted into any other locality, or (which some
abominable man suggested) to have absconded from the
rent. The reader may choose to think of him as, possi-
bly, no more than a sublunary druggist; it may be so,
but my faith is better. I believe him to have evanesced.
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 dis-
advantage. But I took it; and in an hour, O heavens!
what a revulsion! what a resurrection, from its lowest
depths, of the inner spirit! what an apocalypse of the
world within me! That my pains had vanished was now
a trifle in my eyes; this negative effect was swallowed
up in the immensity of those positive effects which had
opened before me, in the abyss of divine enjoyment thus
suddenly revealed. Here was a panacea, a <j>dpfMKov
V7\ircv0ۍ 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 ecstasies might be corked up in a pint-bottle;
and peace of mind could be sent down by the mail.
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 tawny brown in
colour--and this, take notice, I grant; secondly, that it
is rather dear--which also I grant, for in my time East
India 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 disagreeable to any
man of regular habits--viz. die. These weighty propo-
sitions 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 man 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 in-
cidentally, that it does or can produce intoxication. Now,
reader, assure yourself, meo periculo, that no quantity
of opium ever did, or could, intoxicate. As to the tinct-
ure of opium (commonly called laudanum), that might cer-
tainly intoxicate, if a man could bear to take enough of
it; but why? Because it contains so much proof spirits
of wine, and not because it contains so much opium. But
crude opium, I affirm peremptorily, is incapable of pro-
ducing any state of body at all resembling that which is
produced by alcohol; and not in degree only incapable,
but even in hind; 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 rapidly mounting,
and tending to a crisis, after which as rapidly it declines;
that from opium, when once generated, is stationary for
eight or ten hours: the first, to borrow a technical dis-
tinction from medicine, is a case of acute, the second of
chronic, pleasure; the one is a flickering flame, the o-
ther a steady and equable glow. But the main distinc.tiqn
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 sustains and reinforces it.
Wine unsettles the judgment, and gives a preternatural
brightness and a vivid exaltation to the contempts and
the admirations, to 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 antedi-
luvian 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 kindheartedness which accom--
panies inebriation, there is always more or less of a
maudlin and a transitory 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 animal nature is clearly uppermost. But
the expansion of the benigner feelings incident to opium
is no febrile access, no fugitive paroxysm; it is a healthy
restoration to that state which the mind would naturally
recover upon the removal of any deep-seated irritation
from 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 and exceedingly disguised; and it is
when they are drinking that men 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 concen-
trate what had been distracted. In short, to sum up all
in one word, a man who is inebriated, or tending to in-
ebriation, 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 simply as such, and assume that he is in a normal
state of health) feels that the diviner part of his nature
is paramount--that is, the moral affections are in a state
of cloudless serenity, and high over all 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 authors who have at all
treated of opium, and even of those who have written
professionally on the materia medica, make it evident,
by 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 for a most miserable
affection (past all hope of cure) seated in one particular
organ. This affection was a subtle inflammation, not
acute, but chronic; and with this he fought for more (I
believe) than twenty years; fought victoriously, if victory
it were, to make life supportable for himself, and during
all that time to maintain in respectability a wife and a
family of children altogether dependent on him. I hap-
pened to say to him, that his enemies (as I had heard)
charged him with talking nonsense on politics, and that
his friends apologised for him, by suggesting that he was
constantly in a state of intoxication from opium. Now,
the accusation, said I, is not primâ facie 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 pro-
fit, 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 re-
plied that, as to the allegation of his enemies, as it
seemed to be established upon such respectable test-
imony, seeing that the three parties concerned all
agreed so far, 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 argu-
ment 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 respondent in a dispute.
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 exper-
ience, which was greater than his greatest by more than
seven thousand drops a-day; and, though it was not
possible to suppose a medical man unacquainted with
the characteristic symptoms of vinous intoxication, yet
it struck me that he might proceed on a logical error
of using the word intoxication with too careless a lat-
itude, extending it generically to all modes of nervous
excitement, instead of restricting it to one special
quality of pleasurable elevation, distinguished by
well-known symptoms, and connected with tendencies
not to be evaded. Two of these tendencies I will men-
tion as diagnostic, or characteristic and inseparable
marks of ordinary alcoholic intoxication, but which
no excess in the use of opium ever develops. One is
the loss of self-command, in relation to all one's
acts and purposes, which steals gradually (though
with varying degrees of speed) over all persons
indiscriminately when indulging in wine or distilled
liquors beyond a certain limit. The tongue and other
organs become unmanageable: the intoxicated man speaks
inarticulately; and, with regard to certain words, makes
efforts ludicrously earnest, yet oftentimes unavailing,
to utter them. The eyes are bewildered, and see double;
grasping too little, and too much. The hand aims awry.
The legs stumble, and lose their power of concurrent
action. To this result allpeople tend, though by var-
ying rates of acceleration. Secondly, as another char-
acteristic, it may be noticed that in alcoholic intox-
ication the movement is always along a kind of arch;
the drinker rises through continual ascents to a summit
or apex, from which he descends through corresponding
steps of declension. There is a crowning point in the
movement upwards, which once attained cannot be renewed:
and it is the blind, unconscious, but always unsucces-
sful effort of the obstinate drinker to restore this
supreme altitude of enjoyment which tempts him into
excesses that become dangerous. After reaching this
acme of genial pleasure, it is a mere necessity of the
case to sink through corresponding stages of collapse.
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. All turns, in fact,
upon a rigorous definition of intoxication.
Having dwelt so much on this first and leading error
in respect to opium, I shall notice briefly a second and a
third; which are, that the elevation of spirits produced
by opium is necessarily followed by a proportionate de-
pression, and that the natural and even immediate con-
sequence of opium is torpor and stagnation, animal as
well as 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 not regularly but
intermittingly, 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 novitiate,
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 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 de-
gree in which opium is likely to stupefy the faculties
of an Englishman, I shall (by way of treating the ques-
tion illustratively, rather than argumentatively) describe
the way in which I myself often passed an opium even-
ing in London during the period between 1804 and
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 pro-
nounced 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 oc-
casionally to relaxations as well as other people.
The late Duke of Norfolk used to say, Next Monday,
wind and weather permitting, I purpose to be drunk ;
and in like manner I used to fix beforehand how often
within a given time, when, and with what accessory
circumstances of festal joy, 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 afterwards I did) for a glass of
laudanum negus, warm, and without sugar. No; once in
three weeks sufficed; and the time selected was either
a Tuesday or a Saturday night; my reason for which
was this: — Tuesday and Saturday were for many years
the regular nights of performance at the King's Theatre
(or Opera House); and there it was in those times that
Grassini sang; and her voice (the richest of contraltos)
was delightful to me beyond all that I had ever heard.
Yes; or have since heard; or ever shall hear. 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 pleas-
ant place of resort in London for passing an evening.
Half-a-guinea admitted you to the pit, under the trouble-
some condition, however, of being en grande tenue. But
to the gallery five shillings admitted you; and that
gallery was subject to far less annoyance than the pit
of most theatres. The orchestra was distinguished by its
sweet and melodious grandeur from all English orches-
tras; the composition of which, I confess, is not accept-
able to my ear, from the predominance of the clangorous
instruments, and in some instances from the tyranny of
the violin. Thrilling was the pleasure with which almost
always I heard this angelic Grassini. Shivering with ex-
pectation I sat, when the time drew near for her golden
epiphany; shivering I rose from my seat, incapable of
rest, when that heavenly and harp-like voice sang its
own victorious welcome in its prelusive threttànelo —
threttànelo (O perravcXw— 6perravek oi). The choruses
were divine to hear; and, when Grassini appeared in some
interlude, as she often did, and poured forth her pas-
sionate 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 Religo Medici
of Sir T. Browne, and, though chiefly remarkable for its
sublimity, has also a philosophic value, inasmuch as it
points to the true theory of musical effects. The mis-
take of most people is, to suppose that it is by the ear
they communicate with music, and therefore that they
are purely passive as 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 in-
creasing 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 dear friend! 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 pur-
poses; 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, spiritualised, and
sublimed. All this was to be had for five shillings —
that being the price of admission to the gallery; or, if
a man preferred the high-bred society of the pit, even
this might be had for half-a-guinea; or, in fact, for
halfa-crown less, by purchasing beforehand a ticket at
the music shops. 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 lan-
guage, 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 in those days 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, in those years, Tuesday and Saturday were the regu-
lar 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 thou
sayest is, and ever will be, unanswerable. And yet so it
was that, whereas different men throw their feelings into
different channels, and most men are apt to show their
interest in the concerns of the poor chiefly by sympathy
with their distresses and sorrows, I at that time was dis-
posed to express mine by sympathising with their pleas-
ures. The pains of poverty I had lately seen too much
of — more than I wished to remember; but the pleasures
of the poor, their hopes, their consolations of spirit,
and their restings from toil, can never become oppres-
sive to contemplate. Now, Saturday night is the season
for the chief regular and periodic return of rest to the
poor, and to all that live by bodily labour; 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 renew-
al of toil. On this account I feel always on a Saturday
night as though I also were released from some yoke of
bondage, had some wages to receive, and some luxury
of repose to enjoy. For the sake, therefore, of witness-
ing, upon as large a scale as possible, a spectacle with
which my sympathy was so entire, I used often, on Sat-
urday 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, whither the
poor resort on a Saturday night for laying out their
wages. Many a family party, consisting of a man, his
wife, and sometimes one or two of their 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. Some-
times there might be heard murmurs of discontent; but
far oftener expressions on the countenance, or uttered
in words, of patience, of hope, and of reconciliation
to their lot. Generally speaking, the impression left
upon my mind was that the poor are practically more
philosophic than the rich; that they show a more ready
and cheerful submission to what they consider as irremedi-
able evils or irreparable losses. Whenever I saw occa-
sion, 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 were expected to be so — if the quartern loaf
were a little lower, or it was reported that onions and
butter were falling — I was glad; yet, if the contrary
were true, I drew from opium some means of consola-
tion. For opium (like the bee, that extracts its mate-
rials indiscriminately from roses and from the soot of
chimneys) can overrule all feelings into a 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 ambi-
tiously for a north-west passage, instead of circumnavi-
gating all the capes and headlands I had doubled in my
outward voyage, I came suddenly upon such knotty
problems of alleys, alleys without soundings, such enig-
matical entries, and such sphinx's riddles of streets with-
out obvious outlets or thoroughfares, as must baffle the
audacity of porters, and confound the intellects of hack-
ney coachmen. I could almost have believed, at times,
that I must be the first discoverer of some of these
terræ incognita, and doubted whether they had yet been
laid down in the modern charts of London. Positively,
in one line of communication to the south of Holborn
for foot passengers (known, I doubt not, to many of my
London readers), the road lay through a man's kitchen;
and, as it was a small kitchen, you needed to steer
cautiously, or else you might run foul of the dripping
pan. 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 or intellectual, that brought con-
fusion to the reason, that brought anguish and remorse
to the conscience.
Thus I have shown, or tried to show, 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 consum-
mation 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 these tendencies in my own
thoughts to do all I could to counteract them. I was,
indeed, like a person who, according to the old Pagan
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 sub-
tleties of philosophic speculation. But for these remedies,
I should certainly have become hypochondriacally melan-
choly In after years, however, when my cheerfulness
was more fully re-established, I yielded to my natural
inclination for a solitary life. At that time I often
fell into such reveries after taking opium; and many a
time it has happened to me on a summer night — when I
have been seated at an open window, from which I could
overlook the sea at a mile below me, and could at the
same time command a view of some great town standing
on a different radius of my circular prospect, but at
nearly the same distance — that from sunset to sunrise,
all through the hours of night, I have continued motion-
less, as if frozen, without consciousness of myself as
an object anywise distinct from the multiform scene
which I contemplated from above. Such a scene in all
its elements was not unfrequently realised for me on
the gentle eminence of Everton. Obliquely to the left
lay the many-languaged town of Liverpool; obliquely to
the right, the multitudinous sea. - The scene itself
was somewhat typical of what took place in such a rev-
erie. The town of Liverpool 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, yet brooded over by 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 aloof from the uproar of life; as
if the tumult, the fever, and the strife, were suspend-
ed; a respite were granted from the secret burdens of
the heart,— some sabbath of repose, some 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; tranqui-
llity that seemed no product of inertia, but as if re-
sulting from mighty and equal antagonisms; infinite
activities, infinite repose.
O just, subtle, and all-conquering opium! that, to the
hearts of rich and poor alike, for the wounds that will
never heal, and for the pangs of grief that tempt the
spirit to rebel, bringest an assuaging balm;— eloquent
opium! that with thy potent rhetoric stealest away the
purposes of wrath, pleadest effectually for relenting
pity, and through one night's heavenly sleep callest
back to the guilty man the visions of his infancy, and
hands washed pure from blood; — O just and righteous
opium! that to the chancery of dreams summonest, for the
triumphs of despairing 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 Prax-
iteles, beyond the splendours of Babylon and Flekatômpylos;
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 givest these gifts to man;
and thou hast the keys of Paradise, O just, subtle, and
mighty opium!
INTRODUCTION TO THE PAINS OF OPIUM
Courteous, and I hope indulgent, reader, having accom-
panied me thus far, now let me request you to move on-
wards for about eight years; that is to say, from 1804
(when I said that my acquaintance with opium 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 exists at all, it presses
those of some youthful scholar, I trust, as happy as my
self, and as passionate a lover of knowledge. My gown
is, by this time, I dare to say, in the same condition
with many thousands of excellent books in the Bodleian,
— viz. diligently perused by certain studious moths
and worms; or departed, however (which is all that I
know of its fate), to that great reservoir of some-
where, to which all the tea-cups, tea-caddies, tea-pots,
tea-kettles, &c., have departed, 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 gowns-
men of either university, could give but an obscure
and conjectural history. The persecutions of the
chapel bell, sounding its unwelcome summons to
matins, interrupts my slumbers no longer; the port-
er who rang it is dead, and has ceased to disturb
anybody; and I, with many others who have suffered
much from his tintinnabulous propensities, have now
agreed to overlook his errors, and have forgiven him.
Even with the bell I an; 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 favourably as the malice
of the bell itself could wish; for I am two hundred
and fifty miles away from it, and buried in the depth
of mountains. And what am I doing amongst 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 meta
physics, 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, I may presume to class myself as an unworthy
member of that indefinite body called gentlemen. Partly
on the ground I have assigned — partly because, from
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 mod-
ern England, I am usually addressed on letters, &c.,
esquire, though having, I fear, in the rigorous
construction of heralds, antique or antic, dressed like
the knaves of spades or diamonds, but slender preten-
sions to that distinguished honour; — yes, 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 fact, if I dared to say the real and simple truth
(though, in order to satisfy the theories of some med-
ical men, I ought to be ill), I was never better in my
life than in the spring of 1812; and I hope sincerely
that the quantity of claret, port, or London partic-
ular 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 lit-
tle disorder your health as mine was disordered by all
the opium I had taken (though in quantity such that I
might well have bathed and swum in it) for the eight
years between 1804 and 1812. Hence you may see
again the danger of taking any medical advice from
Anastasius; in divinity, for anything I know, 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 for-
got 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 (that is, 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, as yet
I had been only a dilettante eater of opium; even eight
years' practice, with the 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, then, if you please, reader, to 1813. In the
summer of the year we have just quitted I had suffered
much in bodily health from distress of mind connected
with a melancholy event. This event, being nowise re-
lated 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 ap-
palling irritation of the stomach, in all respects the
same as that which had caused me so much suffer-
ing in youth, and accompanied by a revival of all
the old dreams. Now, then, it was — viz. in the year
1813 — that I became a regular and confirmed (no longer
an intermitting) opium-eater. 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, and 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 forgo 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 grad-
ual 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 acknowledgments). This is the dilemma,
the first horn of which is not to be thought of. It re-
mains, then, that I postulate so much as is necessary
for my purpose. And let me take as full credit for this
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 for
bearance arid 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 my next edition I
will make you believe and tremble; and, à force
d'ennuyer, by mere dint of pandiculation, vulgarly
called yawning, 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 re-conquests of lost ground might not have
been followed up much more energetically — these are
questions which I must decline. Perhaps I might make
out a case of palliation, but (shall I speak ingenuously?)
I confess it, as a besetting infirmity of .mine, that
I am too much of an Eudæmonist; I hanker too much after
a state of happiness, both for myself and others; I can-
not 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 gentleman
of The Porch at Manchester in affecting the Stoic phi-
losophy; 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 pleasant
men and courteous, such as Chaucer describes, to hear
confession or to give absolution, and will show some
conscience in the penances they inflict, or 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. A t 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 understand-
ing that the concern is a hopeful one. At my time of
life (six-and-thirty years of age), it cannot be sup-
posed 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.
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 whe-
ther his lungs had performed respiration, or the heart
fulfilled its functions. Now, then, reader, you under-
stand 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 (like Anastasius) to sur-
render 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 Ramadan of absti-
nence from opium. This being fully understood between
us, we shall in future sail before the wind. Now, then,
reader, from the year 1813, where all this time we have
been sitting down and loitering, rise up, if you please;
walk forward about three years more; draw up the cur-
tain, 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
assign; because any event that could occupy so
distinguished a place in a man's retrospect of life,
or be entitled to have shed a special, separate, and
supreme 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 very many years to-
gether. To the happiest lustrum, however, or even
to the happiest year, a man may perhaps allowably
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 gloomy umbrage of
opium. Strange as it may sound, I had a little before
this time descended suddenly, and without any consider-
able effort, from three hundred and twenty grains of
opium (that is, eight thousand drops of laudanum) per
day, to forty grains, or one-eighth part. Instantanéously,
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 summit of a moun-
tain, drew off in one week; passed away 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 one
thousand 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 under-
stood 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 recep-
tion as so poor a man could offer. Whatever else might
be 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
the recesses of English mountains is not my business
to conjecture; but possibly he was on his road to a
seaport — viz., Whitehaven, Workington, &c. — 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 knowledge of English was exactly
commensurate with hers of 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. The group which pre-
sented itself, arranged as it was by accident, though
not very elaborate, took hold of my fancy and my eye
more powerfully than any of the statuesque attitudes
or groups exhibited in the ballets at the operahouse,
though so ostentatiously complex. In a cottage kitchen,
but not looking so much like that as a rustic hall
of entrance, being panelled on the wall with dark wood,
that from age and rubbing resembled oak, stood the
Malay, his turban and loose trousers of dingy white
relieved upon the dark panelling; he had placed him-
self nearer to the girl than she seemed to relish,
though her native spirit of mountain intrepidity con-
tended with the feeling of simple awe which her count-
enance expressed as she gazed upon the tiger-cat before
her. A more striking picture there could not be imagined
than the beautiful English face of the girl, and its
exquisite bloom, together with her erect and independent
attitude, contrasted with the sallow and bilious skin
of the Malay, veneered with mahogany tints by climate
and 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 o f reverting its head and gaz-
ing upwards at the turban and the fiery eyes beneath
it, whilst with one hand he caught at the dress of the
lovely girl for protection. My knowledge of the ori-
ental tongues is not remarkably extensive, being, in-
deed, 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 M alay 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, the Greek, in point
of longitude, came geographically nearest to an orient-
al one. He worshipped me in a devout manner, and replied
in what I suppose to have been Malay. In this way I sav-
ed my reputation as a linguist 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, in tera-
lia, with a piece of opium. To him, as a native of the
East, I could have no doubt that opium was not less fam-
iliar than his daily bread; 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 bolt the whole, divided
into three pieces, at one mouthful. The quantity was e-
nough to kill some half-dozen dragoons, together with
their horses, supposing neither bipeds nor quadrupeds to
be regularly trained opium-eaters. I felt some alarm
for the poor creature; but what could be done? I had
given him the opium in pure compassion for his solitary
life, since, if he had travelled on foot from London,
it must be nearly three weeks since he could have ex-
changed a thought with any human being. Ought I to have
violated the laws of hospitality by having him seized
and drenched with an emetic, 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.
The mischief, if any, was done. He took his leave,
and for some days I felt anxious; but, as I never heard
of any Malay, or of any man in a turban, being found
dead on any part of the very slenderly peopled road
between Grasmere and Whitehaven, I became satisfied
that he was familiar with opium, and that I must doubt-
less 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 fancy, and through that upon my dreams, bringing
with him other Malays worse than himself, that ran
amuck at me, and led me into a world of nocturnal
troubles. But, to quit this episode, and to return to
my intercalary year of happiness. I have already said
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 ploughboy,
who cannot be supposed to have ploughed very deep in
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 a liquid shape, both boiled
and unboiled, both East Indian and Turkish — 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 eight thousand drops of laudanum per day
(and for the same reason as a French surgeon inoculated
himself lately with a cancer, an English one twenty years
ago with plague, and a third, who was also English, with
hydrophobia), I, it will be admitted, must surely now
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 jt,
not didactically, but wrapped up and involved in a pict-
ure 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 families
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 three and four thousand 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 around 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 its sternest shape. This is a most important
point in the science of happiness. And I am surprised
to see people overlook it, as if it were actually 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.
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 heaven 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 even-
ing which must surely be familiar to everybody born in a
high latitude. And it is evident that most of these deli-
cacies cannot be ripened without weather stormy or in-
clement in some way or other. I am not particular whe-
ther it be snow, or black frost, or wind so strong that
(as Mr. Anti-slavery Clarkson says) you may lean your
back against it like a post. I can put up even with rain,
provided that it rains cats and dogs, or, as sailors say,
great guns and marline-spikes; 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, candles, &c., if I am not to
have the article good of its kind? No: a Canadian win-
ter 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 towards vernal indications: in
fact, it must be divided by a thick wall of dark nights
from all return of light and sunshine. Start, therefore,
at the first week of November: thence to the end of
January, Christmas Eve being the meridian line, you may
compute the period when happiness is in season,— which,
in my judgment, enters the room with the tea tray. For
tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally coarse
in their nervous sensibilities, or are become so from
wine-drinking, and are not susceptible of influence
from so refined a stimulant, will always be the fav-
ourite 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 have presumed 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, un-
less 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 in side 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 draw-
ing-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 eight-
eenth year. Therefore, painter, put as many as you can
into this room. Make it populous with books; and, fur-
thermore, 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 on 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 in the morning.
And, as it is very unpleasant to make tea, or to pour it
out for one's-self, 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 cot-
tage rests upon a tenure so perishable as mere personal
beauty, or that the witchcraft of angelic smiles lies with-
in 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 re-
ceptacle of the pernicious drug lying beside him on the
table. As to the opium, I have no objection to see a pict-
ure of that; you may paint it, if you choose; but I ap-
prise 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 sublunary wine-
decanter as possible. In fact, one day, by a series of
happily-conceived experiments, I discovered that it was
a decanter. Into this you may put a quart of ruby colour-
ed laudanum; that, and a book of German meta physics
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 it
at all? If the public (into whose private ear I am confi-
dentially 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. N o: paint me, if at all, according to your own
fancy; and, since a painter's fancy should teem with beau-
tiful creations, I cannot fail, in that way, to be a gainer.
And now, reader, we have run through all the ten cate-
gories 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, rain
driving vindictively and with malice aforethought against
the windows, and darkness such that you cannot see your
own hand when held up against the sky.
But now farewell, a long farewell, to happiness, winter
or summer! farewell to smiles and laughter! farewell to
peace of mind, to tranquil dreams, and to the blessed
consolations of sleep! For more than three years and
a-half I am summoned away from these. Here opens
upon me an Iliad of woes: for I have to now 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, before we go farther, to a few
explanatory notes.
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 acmé, 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 a-
loud sometimes for the pleasure of others, because reading is an
accomplishment of mine, and, in the slang use of the word "accom-
plishment" 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 lam-
entations 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 hyæna, could not, I suppose (so long as I
lived at all) sink into utter lethargy; and political economy offers this
advantage to a person in my state, that though it is eminently an organic
science (no part, that is to say, but what acts on the whole as the whole
again reacts on each part), yet the several parts may be detached and
contemplated singly. Great as was the prostration of my powers at this
time, yet I could not forget my knowledge; and my understanding had
been for too many years intimate with severe thinkers, with logic, and the
great masters of knowledge, not to be aware of the utter feebleness of
the main herd of modern economists. I had been led in 1811 to look into
loads of books and pamphlets on many branches of economy; and, at my
desire, M. sometimes read to me chapters from more recent works, or
parts of parliamentary debates. I saw that these were generally the very
dregs and rinsings of the human intellect; and that any man of sound
head, and practised in wielding logic with a scholastic adroitness, might
take up the whole academy of modern economists, and throttle them
between heaven and earth with his finger and thumb, or bray their
fungus-heads to powder with a lady’s fan. At length, in 1819, a friend in
Edinburgh sent me down Mr. Ricardo’s book; and recurring to my own
prophetic anticipation of the advent of some legislator for this science,
I said, before I had finished the first chapter, "Thou art the man!"
Wonder and curiosity were emotions that had long been dead in me. Yet
I wondered once more: I wondered at myself that I could once again be
stimulated to the effort of reading, and much more I wondered at the
book. Had this profound work been really written in England during
the nineteenth century? Was it possible? I supposed thinking {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 à priori from the un-
derstanding itself laws which first gave a ray of light into the un-
wieldy chaos of materials, and had constructed what had been but a
collection of tentative discussions into a science of regular propor-
tions, 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 show-
ed; 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 counter-
manded, 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 Œdipus or Priam, before Tyre, before Memphis. And at the
same time a corresponding change took place in my dreams; a theatre
seemed suddenly opened and lighted up within my brain, which
presented nightly spectacles of more than earthly splendour. And the
four following facts may be mentioned as noticeable at this time:
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 simultane-
ously 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 aërial flight of stairs is
beheld, and again is poor Piranesi busy on his aspiring labours; and so
on, until the unfinished stairs and Piranesi both are lost in the upper
gloom of the hall. With the same power of endless growth and self
reproduction did my architecture proceed in dreams. In the early stage
of my malady the splendours of my dreams were indeed chiefly
architectural; and I beheld such pomp of cities and palaces as was never
yet beheld by the waking eye unless in the clouds. From a great modern
poet I cite part of a passage which describes, as an appearance actually
beheld in the clouds, what in many of its circumstances I saw frequently
in sleep:
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 rea-
sons. 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 (cæteris 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 lamplight fell upon her face, as for the
last time I kissed her lips (lips, Ann, that to me were not polluted), her
eyes were streaming with tears: the tears were now wiped away; she
seemed more beautiful than she was at that time, but in all other points
the same, and not older. Her looks were tranquil, but with unusual
solemnity of expression, and I now gazed upon her with some awe; but
suddenly her countenance grew dim, and turning to the mountains I
perceived vapours rolling between us. In a moment all had vanished,
thick darkness came on, and in the twinkling of an eye I was far away
from mountains, and by lamplight in Oxford Street, walking again with
Ann—just as we walked seventeen years before, when we were both
children.
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.