CC, CC. 
 
 c c- c«c: 
 
 ccg^.<feK 
 
 fe ■£.< ■ y sc «^V 
 i cc c cc CC C 
 - cc c <«r «e 
 
 c ?&&■ £ ^ ^ 
 cc c «c <c c 
 
 * cc c «c re 
 
 cc o.'c < 
 cc c 
 
 CC C 
 
 c •- CC 
 
 CCCCr c 
 
 cVS 
 
 ( C£ -C 
 
 ^LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 
 
 ,0 # 
 
 ! «^*°y -?4\ I 
 
 cc c v. cc c c 
 'CC CCCC C C (vCt 
 
 cc- "<r cc «_ 
 
 - c c^ CC c^&X dec 
 
 ^*<c^c£&& 
 
 •^!^C5^ 
 
 h £ V $£' S^ C Cc ccc 
 
 r CC cc cc c CC 
 
 W c > c c CCC C cc 
 * c\ f ^C c "c c c 
 
 - Sv c ; c c v cc c 
 
 - r ? ;' CC5; c-i C 
 
 :cc t &«< 
 
 c < c 
 C«c 
 
 ccc 
 
 C«A 
 
 C c 
 
 C K . 
 
 C ccc« c 
 
 : ccc«cc 
 
 cccct 
 
 UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. J 
 
 C4 C CC C 
 
 c cc c 
 
 c CC < 
 
 ceo cc 
 
 c ,c ccc 
 
 CCCC 
 
 c -■■■cc C Cc ^ 
 
 < ccc c c<r «c 
 
 <' :'CC c <3C «L 
 
 «c 
 

 CC <- 
 
 E H 
 
 i CLC 
 
 CC 
 
 C f 
 
 c r^c < 
 
 C C C 
 
 v 
 
 <L ( !J 
 
 
 t « c 
 
 
 c < i< 
 
 c 
 
 C(, 
 
 CC: 
 
 - C <L 
 
 -v 
 
 ..CC 
 
 <c 
 
 C C^' 
 
 'C";< 
 
 
 c c 
 
 
 c A. 
 
 C < •. 
 
 cc :C 
 
 CC v 
 
 C C C CCC^C 
 
 C C C5 <• SV 
 
 c c <^ < <^fS 
 
 <: <c 
 
 C C <£ 
 
 Oar. v < ( .. 
 
 «r 
 
 <cc 
 
 C< l 
 
 ^ C.C v 
 
 ■: K ' 
 
 cc 
 
 CCc c -. cc 
 
 § 
 
 a 
 
 ex 
 
 * CC 
 
 SB 
 
 cc 
 
 CC 
 
 <SLC.CC 
 
 
 < c 
 
 cc 
 
 C ; 
 
 CC 
 
 C<C_ cc. 
 
 ^Svv. 
 
 <_ 
 
 C *-C 
 
 Cc C 
 
 
 ' ,: c 
 
 v «SC_< '<-<- 
 
 «■ 
 
 Ire C 
 
 ~" r C 
 
 c 
 
 <. .« « 
 
 . 
 
 s c « o- <:< 
 
 « 
 
 ■&iw, v 
 
 - * — *■ 
 
 «c< 
 
 
 C ,c 
 
 jjKT- 
 
 
 ess 
 
 
 '- St: ££££■' 
 
 c c 
 <• c 
 
 
 «^ 
 
 
 <* 
 
 : re. '" 
 
 CC / 
 
 «; <rr <c. 
 <C c CC 
 
 - <C cc cC. ' 
 
 <cc< «c 
 
 : x : c 
 
 c C 
 
 
 «C 
 
 c ' <l-f 
 
 .■ 
 
 CC o<?:c 
 
 < c 
 
 ,c cc ( 
 
 ^ 
 
 a i <c^ c 
 
 
 CC t; £ 
 
 cc_ 
 
 < c < 
 
 Lv<C «.<c 
 
CONFESSIONS 
 
 ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER 
 
 BEING AN EXTRACT 
 
 FROM THE LIFE OF A SCHOLAR. 
 
 FROM THE LAST LONDON EDITION. 
 
 > 
 
 BOSTON : 
 WILLIAM D . TICKNOR. 
 
 Corner of Washington and School Streets. 
 
 M DCCC XLI. 
 
 •On, I 
 
IP 
 
 ^V X 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The American publisher having received orders for this 
 work which he was unable to fulfil in this country or in 
 England, has been induced to issue the present edition. 
 To those who became acquainted with it twenty years 
 since in the pages of the London Magazine, as well as to 
 those whose knowledge of it is only traditional, he trusts 
 its reappearance will not be unwelcome. As for the au- 
 thorship and authenticity of these " Confessions," the for- 
 mer has been attributed without denial to De Quincy, and 
 the latter is believed to be unquestionable. 
 
 Butts, Printer. 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 I here present you, courteous reader, with 
 the record of a remarkable period of 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 honorable reserve, which, for 
 the most part, restrains us from the public expos- 
 ure 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 tear- 
 ing away that " decent drapery," which time, 
 or indulgence to human frailty, may have drawn 
 over them : accordingly, the greater part of our 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 confessions (that is, spontaneous and extra-judi- 
 cial confessions) proceed from demireps, adven- 
 turers, 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 nart of society, we must look to 
 French literature, or to that part of the German, 
 which is tainted with the spurious and defective 
 sensibility of the French. All this I feel so 
 forcibly, and so nervously am I alive to reproach 
 of this tendency, that I have for many months 
 hesitated about the propriety of allowing this, or 
 any part of my narrative, to come before the 
 public eye, until after my death (when, for many 
 reasons, the whole will be published) : and it is 
 not without an anxious review of the reasons, 
 for and against this step, that I have, at last, 
 concluded on taking it. 
 
 Guilt and misery shrink, by a natural instinct, 
 from public notice : they court privacy and sol- 
 itude : and, even in their choice of a grave, will 
 sometimes sequester themselves from the general 
 population of the church-yard, as if declining to 
 claim fellowship with the great family of man, 
 and wishing (in the affecting language of Mr. 
 Wordsworth) 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 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 will- 
 ingly, in my own person, manifest a disregard of 
 such salutary feelings ; nor in act or word do any 
 thing to weaken them. But, on the one hand, 
 as my self-accusation does not amount to a con- 
 fession of guilt, so, on the other, it is possible 
 that, if it did, the benefit resulting to others, from 
 the record of an experience purchased at so 
 heavy a price, might compensate, by a vast 
 overbalance, for any violence done to the feelings 
 I have noticed, and justify a breach of the gen- 
 eral rule. Infirmity and misery do not, of ne- 
 cessity, imply guilt. They approach, or recede 
 from, the shades of that dark alliance, in propor- 
 tion to the probable motives and prospects of 
 the offender, and the palliations, known or se- 
 cret, of the offence ; in proportion as the temp- 
 tations to it were potent from the first, and the 
 resistance to it, in act or in effort, was earnest to 
 the last. For my own part, without breach of 
 truth or modesty, I may affirm, that my life has 
 been, on the whole, the life of a philosopher: 
 from my birth I was made an intellectual ere a- 
 
VI TO THE READER. 
 
 ture ; and intellectual in the highest sense my 
 pursuits and pleasures have been, even from my 
 schoolboy days. If opium-eating be a sensual 
 pleasure, and if I am bound to confess that I 
 have indulged in it to an excess, not yet re- 
 corded* of any other man, it is no less true, 
 that 1 have struggled against this fascinating en- 
 thralment with a religious zeal, and have at 
 length, accomplished what I never yet heard at- 
 tributed to any other man — have untwisted, 
 almost to its final links, the accursed chain which 
 fettered me. Such a self-conquest may reason- 
 ably 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 casu- 
 istry, 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 
 
 * ' Not yet recorded? I say : for there is one celebrated 
 man of the present day, who, if all be true which is reported 
 of him, has greatly exceeded me in quantity. 
 
TO THE READER. Vll 
 
 on the present act of confession, in consideration 
 of the service which I may thereby render to the 
 whole class of opium-eaters. But who are 
 they ? Reader, I am sorry to say, a very num- 
 erous 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 talent, 
 or of eminent station) who were known to me, 
 directly or indirectly, as opium-eaters ; such for 
 
 instance, as the eloquent and benevolent , 
 
 the late dean of ; Lord ; Mr. , 
 
 the philosopher ; a late under-secretary of state 
 (who described to me the sensation which first 
 drove him to the use of opium, in the very same 
 
 words as the dean of , viz., " that he felt 
 
 as though rats were gnawing and abrading the 
 
 coats of his stomach ;") Mr. ; and many 
 
 others, hardly less known, whom it would be 
 tedious to mention. Now, if one class, compar- 
 atively so limited, could furnish so many scores 
 of cases, (and that within the knowledge of one 
 single inquirer,) it was a natural inference, that 
 the entire population of England would furnish 
 a proportionable number. The soundness of 
 
Vlll TO THE READER. 
 
 this inference, however, I doubted, until some 
 facts became known to me, which satisfied me, 
 that it was not incorrect. I will mention two : 
 1. Three respectable London druggists, in wide- 
 ly remote quarters of London, from whom I 
 happened lately to be purchasing small quanti- 
 ties 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, 2. (which will 
 possibly surprise the reader more,) some years 
 ago, on passing through Manchester, I was in- 
 formed 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 de- 
 mand 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 
 
TO THE HEADER. IX 
 
 ale or spirits : and wages rising, it may be 
 thought that this practice would cease : but, as 
 I do not readily believe that any man, having 
 once tasted the divine luxuries of opium, will 
 afterwards descend to the gross and mortal en- 
 joyments 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 " Es- 
 say 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, &lc, of this drug, ex- 
 presses himself in the following mysterious terms, 
 ((povovTca (SvvETOitii :) " perhaps he thought the 
 subject of too delicate a nature to be made com- 
 mon ; and as many people might then indiscrim- 
 inately use it, it would take from that necessary 
 fear and caution, which should prevent their ex- 
 periencing the extensive power of this drug : 
 for there are many properties in it, if univer- 
 sally Jcnown, that would habituate the use, and 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 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 altogether 
 concur : but upon that point 1 shall have occa- 
 sion to speak at the close of my confessions, 
 where I shall present the reader with the moral 
 of my narrative. 
 
PRELIMINARY CONFESSIONS 
 
 These preliminary confessions, or introduc- 
 tory narrative of the youthful adventures which 
 laid the foundation of the writer's habit of opi- 
 um eating in after life, it has been judged proper 
 to premise, for three several reasons : 
 
 1. As forestalling that question, and giving it 
 a satisfactory answer, which else would painfully 
 obtrude itself in the course of the Opium Con- 
 fessions — " How came any reasonable being to 
 subject himself to such a yoke of misery, volun- 
 tarily to incur a captivity so servile, and know- 
 ingly to fetter himself with such a seven-fold 
 chain ? " a question which, if not somewhere 
 plausibly resolved, could hardly fail, by the in- 
 dignation which it would be apt to raise as 
 
12 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 against an act of wanton folly, to interfere with 
 that degree of sympathy which is necessary in 
 any case to an author's purposes. 
 
 2. As furnishing a key to some parts of that 
 tremendous scenery which afterwards peopled 
 the dreams of the opium-eater. 
 
 3. As creating some previous interest of a per- 
 sonal sort in the confessing subject, apart from 
 the matter of the confessions, which cannot fail 
 to render the confessions themselves more inter- 
 esting. If a man " whose talk is of oxen," 
 should become an opium-eater, the probability 
 is, that (if he is not too dull to dream at all) — 
 he will dream about oxen : whereas, in the case 
 before him. the reader will find that the opium- 
 eater boasteth himself to be a philosopher ; and 
 accordingly, that the phantasmagoria of his 
 dreams (waking or sleeping, day dreams or night 
 dreams) is suitable to one who in that character, 
 
 Humani nihil a se alienum putat. 
 
 For amongst the conditions which he deems 
 indispensable to the sustaining of any claim to 
 the title of philosopher, is not merely the pos- 
 session of a superb intellect in its analytic func- 
 tions (in which part of the pretension, however, 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 13 
 
 England can for some generations show but few 
 claimants ; at least, he is not aware of any 
 known candidate for this honor who can be 
 styled emphatically a subtle thinlcer, 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 facul- 
 ties, as shall give him an inner eye and power of 
 intuition for the vision and mysteries of human 
 nature : that constitution of faculties, in short, 
 which (amongst all the generations of men that 
 from the beginning of time have deployed into 
 
 * A third exception might perhaps have been added : 
 and my reason for not adding that exception is chiefly be- 
 cause it was only in his juvenile efforts that the writer 
 whom I allude to, expressly addressed himself to philo- 
 sophical themes ; his riper powers have been dedicated (on 
 very excusable and very intelligible grounds, under the 
 present direction of the popular mind in England) to criti- 
 cism and the fine arts. This reason apart, however, I doubt 
 whether he is not rather to be considered an acute thinker 
 than a subtle one. It is, besides, a great drawback on his 
 mastery over philosophical subjects, that he has obviously 
 not had the advantage of a regular scholastic education : 
 he has not read Plato in his youth, (which most likely was 
 only his misfortune,) but neither has he read Kant in his 
 manhood, (which is his fault.) 
 
14 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 life, as it were, upon this planet) our English 
 poets have possessed in the highest degree — 
 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 
 misrepresentation of my case. True it is, that 
 for nearly ten years I did occasionally take opi- 
 um, for the sake of the exquisite pleasure it gave 
 me ; but, so long as I took it with this view, I 
 was effectually protected from all material bad 
 consequences, by the necessity of interposing 
 long intervals between the several acts of indul- 
 gence, in order to renew the pleasurable sensa- 
 tions. 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 ar- 
 ticle of daily diet. In the twenty-eighth year 
 of my age, a most painful affection of the stom- 
 
 * I disclaim any allusion to existing professors, of whom 
 indeed I know only one. 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 15 
 
 ach, which 1 had first experienced about ten 
 years before, attacked me in great strength. 
 This affection had originally been caused by the 
 extremities of hunger, suffered in my boyish 
 days. During the season of hope and redun- 
 dant happiness which succeeded (that is, from 
 eighteen to twenty-four) it had slumbered : for 
 the three following years it had revived at inter- 
 vals : and now, under unfavorable circumstan- 
 ces, from depression of spirits, it attacked me 
 with violence that yielded to no remedies but 
 opium. As the youthful sufferings, which first 
 produced this derangement of the stomach, 
 were interesting in themselves and in the circum- 
 stances 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 guar- 
 dians. I was sent to various schools, great and 
 small ; and was very early distinguished for my 
 classical attainments, especially for my knowl- 
 edge of Greek. At thirteen I wrote Greek with 
 ease ; and at fifteen my command of that lan- 
 guage was so great, that I not only composed 
 Greek verses in lyric metres, but would converse 
 in Greek fluently, and without embarrassment — 
 
16 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 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 expres- 
 sions, as equivalents for modern ideas, images, 
 relations of things, &c, gave me a compass of 
 diction which would never have been called out 
 by a dull translation of moral essays, <^c. "That 
 boy," said one of my masters, pointing the at- 
 tention of a stranger to me, " that boy could 
 harangue an Athenian mob, better than you or 
 I could address an English one." He who 
 honored 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 reve- 
 renced. Unfortunately for me, (and, as I after- 
 wards learned, to this worthy man's great indig- 
 nation,) I was transferred to the care, first of a 
 blockhead, who was in a perpetual panic, lest I 
 should expose his ignorance ; and finally, to that 
 of a respectable scholar, at the head of a great 
 school on an ancient foundation. This man had 
 been appointed to his situation by College, 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 17 
 
 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 favorite master ; 
 and besides, 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 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 1 first entered, I remember that we read 
 Sophocles ; and it was a constant matter of tri- 
 umph to us, the learned triumvirate of the first 
 form, to see our " Archididascalus " (as he loved 
 to be called) conning our lesson 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 
 2 
 
18 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 generally employed in writing epigrams upon his 
 wig, or some such important matter. My two 
 class-fellows were poor, and dependent for their 
 future prospects at the university, on the recom- 
 mendation of the head-master ; but I, who had 
 a small patrimonial property, the income of 
 which was sufficient to support me at college, 
 wished to be sent thither immediately. I made 
 earnest representations on the subject to my 
 guardians, but all to no purpose. One, who was 
 more reasonable, and had more knowledge of the 
 world than the rest, lived at a distance; two of 
 the other three resigned all their authority into 
 the hands of the fourth ; and this fourth with 
 whom I had to negotiate, was a worthy man, in 
 his way, but haughty, obstinate, and intolerant 
 of all opposition to his will. After a certain 
 number of letters and personal interviews, I 
 found that I had nothing to hope for, not even a 
 compromise of the matter, from my guardian : 
 unconditional submission was what he demand- 
 ed ; and I prepared myself, therefore, for other 
 measures. Summer was now coming on with 
 hasty steps, and my seventeenth birth-day was 
 fast approaching ; after which day I had sworn 
 within myself, that I would no longer be num- 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 19 
 
 r 
 
 bered amongst school-boys. 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 de- 
 spond, when, at length, a servant put into my 
 hands a double letter, with a coronet on the seal. 
 The letter was kind and obliging ; the fair wri- 
 ter was on the sea-coast, and in that way the 
 delay had arisen ; she enclosed double of what 
 1 had asked, and good-naturedly hinted, that if 
 I should never repay her, it would not absolutely 
 ruin her. Now then, I was prepared for my 
 scheme : ten guineas, added to about two that I 
 had remaining from my pocket money, seemed 
 to me sufficient for an indefinite length of time ; 
 and at that happy age, if no definite boundary 
 can be assigned to one's power, the spirit of 
 hope and pleasure makes it virtually infinite. 
 
 It is a just remark of Dr. Johnson's (and 
 what cannot often be said of his remarks, it is a 
 very feeling one,) that we never do any thing 
 consciously for the last time, (of things, that is, 
 which we have long been in the habit of doing) 
 
20 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 without sadness of heart. This truth I felt 
 
 deeply, when I came to leave , a place 
 
 which I did not love, and where I had not been 
 
 happy. On the evening before I left for 
 
 ever, I grieved when the ancient and lofty 
 school-room resounded with the evening service, 
 performed for the last time in my hearing ; and 
 at night, when the muster-roll of names was 
 called over, and mine (as usual) was called first, 
 I stepped forward, and, passing the head-master, 
 who was standing by, I bowed to him, and look- 
 ing 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 never shall. He looked at me 
 complacently, smiled good naturedly, returned 
 my salutation, (or rather, my valediction,) and 
 we parted (though he knew it not) for ever. [ 
 could not reverence him intellectually ; but he 
 had been uniformly kind to me, and had allowed 
 me many indulgences ; and I grieved at the 
 thought of the mortification I should inflict upon 
 him. 
 
 The morning came, which was to launch me 
 into the world, and from which my whole suc- 
 ceeding life has, in many important points, taken 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 21 
 
 its coloring. I lodged in the head-master's 
 house, and had been allowed, from my first en- 
 trance, the indulgence of a private room, which 
 I used both as a sleeping room and as a study. 
 At half after three 1 rose, and gazed with deep 
 
 emotion at the ancient towers of , " drest 
 
 in earliest light," and beginning to crimson with 
 the radiant lustre of a cloudless July morning. 
 I was firm and immovable in my purpose : but 
 yet agitated by anticipation of uncertain danger 
 and troubles ; and if I could have foreseen the hur- 
 ricane," and perfect hail -storm of affliction which 
 soon fell upon me, well might I have been agi- 
 tated. 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 per- 
 fect day, chiefly because man is not yet abroad ; 
 and thus, the peace of nature, and of the inno- 
 cent 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 
 
22 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 trouble its sanctity. I dressed myself, took my 
 hat and gloves, and lingered a little in the room. 
 For the last year and a half this room had been 
 my " pensive citadel :" here I had read and 
 studied through all the hours of night : and, 
 though true it was, that for the latter part of this 
 time I, who was framed for love and gentle 
 affections, had lost my gaiety and happiness, 
 during the strife and fever of contention with 
 my guardian ; yet, on the other hand, as a boy, 
 so passionately fond of books, and dedicated to 
 intellectual pursuits, I could not fail to have en- 
 joyed many happy hours in the midst of general 
 dejection. I wept as I looked round on the 
 chair, hearth, writing-table, and other familiar 
 objects, knowing too certainly, that I looked 
 upon them for the last time. Whilst I write 
 this, it is eighteen years ago ; and yet, at this 
 moment, I see distinctly as if it were but yes- 
 terday, the lineaments and expresssions of the 
 object on which I fixed my parting gaze : it was 
 
 a picture of the lovely , which hung over 
 
 the mantel-piece ; the eyes and mouth of which 
 were so beautiful, and the whole countenance 
 so radiant with benignity, and divine tranquillity, 
 that 1 had a thousand times laid down my pen, 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 23 
 
 or my book, to gather consolation from it, as a 
 devotee from his patron saint. Whilst I was 
 
 yet gazing upon it, the deep tones of 
 
 ^»?clock proclaimed that it was four o'clock. I 
 went up to the picture, kissed it, and then 
 gently walked out, and closed the door forever ! 
 
 So blended and intertwisted in this life are 
 occasions of laughter and of tears, that I cannot 
 yet recall, without smiling, an incident which oc- 
 curred at that time, and which had nearly put a 
 stop to the immediate execution of my plan. I 
 had a trunk of immense weight ; for, besides my 
 clothes, it contained nearly all my library. The 
 difficulty was to get this removed to a carrier's : 
 my room was at an aerial elevation in the house, 
 and (what was worse) the staircase, which com- 
 municated with this angle of the building, was 
 accessible only by a gallery, which passed the 
 head-master's chamber-door. I was a favorite 
 with all the servants ; and, knowing that any of 
 them would screen me, and act confidentially, I 
 communicated my embarrassment to a groom of 
 the head-master's. The groom swore he would 
 do any thing I wished ; and, when the time 
 
24 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 arrived, went up stairs 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 Plains. 
 Accordingly he persisted in bringing down the 
 trunk alone, whilst 1 stood waiting at the foot of 
 the last flight, in anxiety for the event. For 
 some time I heard him descending with slow 
 and firm steps : but, unfortunately, from his 
 trepidation, as he drew near the dangerous 
 quarter, within a few steps of the gallery, his 
 foot slipped ; and the mighty burden falling from 
 his shoulders, gained such increase of impetus 
 at each step of the descent, that on reaching 
 the bottom, it trundled, or rather leaped, right 
 across, with the noise of twenty devils, against 
 the very 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 baggage. However, on reflection, 
 1 determined to abide the issue. The groom 
 was in the utmost alarm, both on his own ac- 
 count and on mine : but, in spite of this, so 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 25 
 
 irresistibly had the sense of the ludicrous, in this 
 unhappy contreiems, taken possession of his 
 fancy, that he sang out a long, loud and canorous 
 peal of laughter, that might have wakened the 
 Seven Sleepers. At the sound of this resonant 
 merriment, within the very ears of insulted au- 
 thority, I could not forbear joining in it ; sub- 
 dued to this, not so much by the unhappy 
 etourderie of the trunk, as by the effect it had 
 upon the groom. We both expected, as a mat- 
 ter of course, that Dr. would sally out of 
 
 his room : for, in general, if but a mouse stirred, 
 he sprang out like a mastiff from his kennel. 
 Strange to say, however, on this occasion, when 
 the noise of laughter had ceased, no sound, or 
 rustling even, was to be heard in the bed-room. 
 Dr. — had a painful complaint, which, some- 
 times keeping him awake, made him sleep, per- 
 haps, when it did come, the deeper. Gathering 
 courage from the silence, the groom hoisted his 
 burden again, and accomplished the remainder 
 of his descent without accident. I waited until 
 I saw the trunk placed on a wheelbarrow, and 
 on its road to the carrier's : then " with Provi- 
 dence my guide," I set off on foot, — carrying 
 a small parcel, with some articles of dress under 
 
 i 
 
26 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 my arm : a favorite English poet in one pocket ; 
 and a small 12mo. volume, containing about nine 
 plays of Euripides, in the other. 
 
 It had been my intention originally to proceed 
 to Westmoreland, both from the love I bore to 
 that county, and on other personal accounts. 
 Accident, however, gave a different direction to 
 my wanderings, and I bent my steps towards 
 North Wales. 
 
 After wandering about for some time in Den- 
 bighshire, Merionethshire, and Caernarvonshire, 
 
 I took lodgings in a small neat house in B . 
 
 Here I might have staid with great comfort for 
 many weeks ; for provisions were cheap at 
 
 B , from the scarcity of other markets for 
 
 the surplus produce of a wide agricultural dis- 
 trict. An accident, however, in which, perhaps, 
 no offence was designed, drove me out to wan- 
 der 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 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 
 
 27 
 
 the children of many untitled houses) are often, 
 to the English ear, adequate exponents of high 
 birth, or descent. Sackville, Manners, Fitzroy, 
 Paulet, Cavendish, and scores of others, tell 
 their own tale. Such persons, therefore, find 
 every where a due sense of their claims already 
 established, except among those who are igno- 
 rant of the world, by virtue of their own obscu- 
 rity ; " Not to know them argues one's self un- 
 known." Their manners take a suitable tone 
 and coloring ; and, for once that they find it ne- 
 cessary to impress a sense of their consequence 
 upon others, they meet with a thousand occa- 
 sions for moderating and tempering this sense by 
 acts of courteous condescension. With the fam- 
 ilies of bishops it is otherwise ; with them it is 
 all up-hill work, to make known their preten- 
 sions ; for the proportion of the episcopal bench, 
 taken from noble families, is not at any time very 
 large ; and the succession to these dignities is so 
 rapid, that the public ear seldom has time to be- 
 come familiar with them, unless where they are 
 connected with some literary reputation. Hence 
 it is, that the children of bishops carry about 
 with them an austere and repulsive air, indica- 
 tive of claims not generally acknowledged, a 
 
28 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 sort of noli me tangere manner, nervously ap- 
 prehensive of too familiar approach, and shrink- 
 ing with the sensitiveness of a gouty man, from 
 all contact with the 01 nolloi. Doubtless, a pow- 
 erful understanding, or unusual goodness of na- 
 ture, 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 do- 
 mestics, and other dependants. Now, my land- 
 lady had been a lady's maid, or a nurse, in the 
 
 family of the Bishop of ; and had but 
 
 lately married away and " settled " (as such 
 people express it) for life. In a little town like 
 B— — , merely to have lived in the bishop's fam- 
 ily, 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 use- 
 ful he was in parliament, and how indispensable 
 at Oxford, formed the daily burden of her talk. 
 All this I bore very well ; for I was too good- 
 natured to laugh in any body's face, and I could 
 make an ample allowance for the garrulity of an 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 29 
 
 old servant. Of necessity, however, I must have 
 appeared in her eyes very inadequately impressed 
 with the bishop's importance ; and, perhaps, to 
 punish me for my indifference, or possibly by ac- 
 cident, she one day repeated to me a conversa- 
 tion 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 sum- 
 moned into the dining-room. In giving an ac- 
 count of her household economy, she happened 
 to mention that she had let her apartments. 
 Thereupon the good bishop (it seemed) had ta- 
 ken occasion to caution her as to her selection of 
 inmates ; " for," said he, " you must recollect, 
 Betty, that this place is in the high road to the 
 Head ; so that multitudes of Irish swindlers, 
 running away from their debts into England — 
 and of English swindlers, running away from 
 their debts to the Isle of Man, are likely to take 
 this place in their route." This advice was cer- 
 tainly not without reasonable grounds : but ra- 
 ther fitted to be stored up for Mrs. Betty's pri- 
 vate meditations, than specially reported to me. 
 What followed, however, was somewhat worse : 
 — " Oh, my lord," answered my landlady (ac- 
 cording to her own representation of the matter) 
 
30 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 V I really don't think this young gentleman is a 
 
 swindler ; because ;" " You don't think 
 
 me a swindler?" said I, interrupting her, in a 
 tumult of indignation ; " for the future, I shall 
 spare you the trouble of thinking about it." 
 And without delay I prepared for my departure. 
 Some concessions the good woman seemed dis- 
 posed 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 impossi- 
 ble. 1 was, indeed, greatly irritated at the bish- 
 op's having suggested any grounds of suspicion, 
 however remotely, against a person whom he 
 had never seen ; and I thought of letting him 
 know my mind in Greek ; which, at the same 
 time that it would furnish some presumption that 
 I was no swindler, would also (I hoped) compel 
 the bishop to reply in the same language ; in 
 which case, I doubted not to make it appear, 
 that if I was not so rich as his lordship, I was a 
 far better Grecian. Calmer thoughts, however, 
 drove this boyish design out of my mind ; for I 
 considered, that the bishop was in the right to 
 counsel an old servant ; that he could not have 
 designed that his advice should be reported to 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 
 
 31 
 
 me ; and that the same coarseness of mind, 
 which had led Mrs. Betty to repeat the advice 
 at all, might have colored it in a way more agree- 
 able to her own style of thinking, than to the 
 actual expressions of the worthy bishop. 
 
 I left the lodging the very same hour ; and 
 this turned out a very unfortunate occurrence for 
 me ; because, living henceforward at inns, 1 was 
 drained of my money very rapidly. In a fort- 
 night I was reduced to short allowance ; that is, 
 I could allow myself only one meal a day. 
 From the keen appetite produced by constant 
 exercise, and mountain air, acting on a youthful 
 stomach, 1 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 af- 
 terwards, so long as I remained in Wales, I sub- 
 sisted either on blackberries, hips, haws, &c, or 
 on the casual hospitalities which I now and then 
 received, in return for such little services as I 
 had an opportunity of rendering. Sometimes I 
 wrote letters of business for cottagers, who hap- 
 pened to have relatives in Liverpool, or in Lon- 
 don ; more often I wrote love-letters to their sweet- 
 hearts for young women who had lived as servants 
 
32 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 in Shrewsbury, or other towns on the English 
 border. On all such occasions I gave great sat- 
 isfaction to my humble friends, and was generally 
 treated with hospitality ; and once, in particular, 
 near the village of Llan-y-styndwr, (or some 
 such name,) in a sequestered part of Merioneth- 
 shire, I was entertained for upwards of three 
 days by a family of young people, with an affec- 
 tionate and fraternal kindness that left an im- 
 pression upon my heart not yet impaired. The 
 family consisted, at that time, of four sisters, and 
 three brothers, all grown up, and remarkable for 
 elegance and delicacy of manners. So much 
 beauty, and so much native good breeding and 
 refinement, I do not remember to have seen be- 
 fore or since in any cottage, except once or twice 
 in Westmoreland and Devonshire. They spoke 
 English ; an accomplishment not often met with 
 in so many members of one family, especially in 
 villages remote from the high road. Here I 
 wrote, on my first introduction, a letter about 
 prize money, for one of the brothers, who had 
 served on board an English man of war ; and 
 more privately, two love-letters for two of the 
 sisters. They were both interesting looking 
 girls, and one of uncommon loveliness. In the 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 33 
 
 midst of their confusion and blushes, whilst dic- 
 tating, or rather giving me general instructions, it 
 did not require any great penetration to discover 
 that what they wished was, that their letters 
 should be as kind as was consistent with proper 
 maidenly pride. 1 contrived so to temper my 
 expressions, as to reconcile the gratification of 
 both feelings ; and they were much pleased with 
 the way in which I had expressed their thoughts, 
 as (in their simplicity) they were astonished at 
 my having so readily discovered them. The 
 reception one meets with from the women of a 
 family, generally determines the tenor of one's 
 whole entertainment. In this case I had dis- 
 charged 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 lit- 
 tle inclination to resist. I slept with the broth- 
 ers, the only unoccupied bed standing in the 
 apartment of the young women : but in all other 
 points, they treated me with a respect not usu- 
 ally 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, 
 3 
 
34 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 from the undiminished kindness which they con- 
 tinued to show me, I believe I might have staid 
 with them up to this time, if their power had 
 corresponded with their wishes. On the last 
 morning, however, I perceived upon their coun- 
 tenances, as they sate at breakfast, the expres- 
 sion of some unpleasant communication which 
 was at hand ; and soon after one of the brothers 
 explained to me, that their parents had gone, the 
 day before my arrival, to an annual meeting of 
 Methodists, held at Caernarvon, and were that 
 day expected to return ; " and if they should 
 not be so civil as they ought to be,'' he begged. 
 on the part of all the young people, that I would 
 not take it amiss. The parents returned with 
 churlish faces, and " Dym Sassenach " (no 
 English) in answer to all my addresses. I saw 
 how matters stood ; and so, taking an affection- 
 ate leave of my kind, and interesting young hosts, 
 I went my way. For, though they spoke warmly 
 to their parents in my behalf, and often excused 
 the manner of the old people, by saying, that it 
 was "only their way," yet I easily understood that 
 my talent for writing love-letters would do as lit- 
 tle to recommend me with two grave sexagena- 
 rian Welsh Methodists, as my Greek Sapphics 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 35 
 
 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 demeanor 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 ge- 
 nial 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 six- 
 teen weeks, the physical anguish of hunger in 
 various degrees of intensity ; but as bitter, per- 
 haps, 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 de- 
 scription, without a rueful pity that is painful to 
 the natural goodness of the human heart. Let 
 it suffice, at least on this occasion, to say, that a 
 
36 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 few fragments of bread from the breakfast-table 
 of one individual (who supposed me to be ill. 
 but did not know of my being in utter want,) 
 and these at uncertain intervals, constituted my 
 whole support. During the former part of my 
 sufferings (that is, generally in Wales, and al- 
 ways 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 as- 
 cribe it mainly, that I did not sink under my 
 torments. Latterly, however, when cold and 
 more inclement weather came on, and when, 
 from the length of my sufferings, I had begun to 
 sink into a more languishing condition, it was, no 
 doubt, fortunate for me, that the same person to 
 whose breakfast-table I had access, allowed me 
 to sleep in a large unoccupied house, of which 
 he was tenant. Unoccupied, I call it, for there 
 was no household or establishment in it ; nor any 
 furniture, indeed, except a table and a few 
 chairs. But I found, on taking possession of my 
 new quarters, that the house already contained 
 one single inmate, a poor, friendless child, appar- 
 ently ten years old ; but she seemed hunger-bit- 
 ten ; and sufferings of that sort often make chil- 
 dren look older than they are. From this for- 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 37 
 
 lom 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 1 was, in future, to be her companion 
 through the hours of darkness. The house was 
 large ; and, from the want of furniture, the noise 
 of the rats made a prodigious echoing on the 
 spacious staircase and hall ; and, amidst the real 
 fleshly ills of cold, and, I fear, hunger, the forsa- 
 ken child had found leisure to suffer still more (it 
 appeared) from the self-created one of ghosts. 
 1 promised her protection against all ghosts what- 
 soever ; but, alas ! I could offer her no other 
 assistance. We lay upon the floor, with a bun- 
 dle of cursed law papers for a pillow ; but with 
 no other covering than a sort of large horseman's 
 cloak ; afterwards, however, we discovered, in a 
 garret, an old sofa-cover, a small piece of rug, 
 and some fragments of other articles, which 
 added a little to our warmth. The poor child 
 crept close to me for warmth, and for security 
 against her ghostly enemies. When I was not 
 more than usually ill, I took her into my arms, 
 so that, in general, she was tolerably warm, and 
 often slept when I could not ; for, during the 
 last two months of my sufferings, I slept much 
 
38 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 in the day time, and was apt to fall into tran- 
 sient dozings at all hours. But my sleep dis- 
 tressed me more than my watching ; for, besides 
 the tumultuousness of my dreams (which were 
 only not so awful as those which 1 shall have to 
 describe hereafter as produced by opium,) my 
 sleep was never more than what is called dog- 
 sleep ; so that I could hear myself moaning, and 
 was often, as it seemed to me, awakened sud- 
 denly by my own voice : and, about this time a 
 hideous sensation began to haunt me as soon as 
 I fell into a slumber, which has since returned 
 upon me, at different periods of my life, viz. a 
 sort of twitching (I know not where, but appar- 
 ently about the region of the stomach.) which 
 compelled me violently to throw out my feet for 
 the sake of relieving it. This sensation coming 
 on as soon as I began to sleep, and the effort to 
 relieve it constantly awaking me, at length I 
 slept only from exhaustion ; and from increasing 
 weakness (as I said before) I was constantly 
 falling asleep, and constantly awaking. Mean- 
 time, 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 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 39 
 
 plan of Cromwell, every night he slept in a dif- 
 ferent 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 quantity of esculent materiel 
 which, for the most part, was little more than a 
 roll, or a few biscuits, which he had bought on 
 his road from the place where he had slept. Or, 
 if he had asked a party, as I once learnedly and 
 facetiously observed to him — the several mem- 
 bers of it must have stood in the relation to each 
 other (not sate in any relation whatever) of suc- 
 cession, as the metaphysicians have it, and not 
 of co-existence ; in the relation of the parts of 
 time, and not of the parts of space. During his 
 breakfast, I generally contrived a reason for 
 lounging in ; and, with an air of as much indif- 
 ference as I could assume, took up such frag- 
 ments 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 
 
40 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 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 de- 
 pository of parchments, law writings, he. ;) 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. , 
 
 or only a servant, I could not ascertain ; she 
 did not herself know ; but certainly she was 
 treated altogether as a menial servant. No 
 
 sooner did Mr. make his appearance than 
 
 she went below stairs, brushed his shoes, coat, 
 &c. ; and, except when she was summoned to 
 run an errand, she never emerged from the dis- 
 mal Tartarus of the kitchens, 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 
 but little but what I gathered from her own ac- 
 count 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 night-fall. 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 41 
 
 But who, and what, meantime, was the mas- 
 ter of the house himself ? Reader, he was one 
 of those anomalous practitioners in lower de- 
 partments of the law, who — what shall 1 say ? 
 — who on prudential reasons, or from necessity, 
 deny themselves all indulgence in the luxury of 
 too delicate a conscience ; (a periphrasis which 
 might be abridged considerably, but that I leave 
 to the reader's taste ;) in many walks of life, a 
 conscience is a more expensive incumbrance, 
 than a wife or a carriage ; and just as people 
 talk of " laying down " their carriages, so I 
 
 suppose my friend, Mr. , had " laid down " 
 
 his conscience for a time ; meaning, doubtless, 
 to resume it as soon as he could afford it. The 
 inner economy of such a man's daily life would 
 present a most strange picture, if 1 could allow 
 myself to amuse the reader at his expense. 
 Even with my limited opportunities for observing 
 what went on, I saw many scenes of London 
 intrigues, and complex chicanery, "cycle and 
 epicycle, orb in orb," at which I sometimes 
 smile to this day — and at which I smiled then, 
 in spite of my misery. My situation, however, 
 at that time, gave me little experience, in my 
 own person, of any qualities in Mr. 's char- 
 
42 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 actcr but such as did him honor ; and of his 
 whole strange composition, I must forget every 
 thing but that towards me he was obliging, and, 
 to the extent of his power, generous. 
 
 That power was not, indeed, very extensive ; 
 however, in common with the rats, I sate rent 
 free ; and, as Dr. Johnson has recorded, that he 
 never but once in his life had as much wall-fruit 
 as he could eat, so let me be grateful, that on 
 that single occasion I had as large a choice of 
 apartments in a London mansion as I could 
 possibly desire. Except the 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 situa- 
 tion, and in a well-known part of London. Many 
 of my readers will have passed it, I doubt not, 
 within a few hours of reading this. For myself, 
 I never fail to visit it when business draws me 
 to London ; about ten o'clock this very night, 
 August 15, 1821, being my birth-day — 1 turned 
 aside from my evening walk, down Oxford Street, 
 purposely to take a glance at it : it is now oc- 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 43 
 
 cupied by a respectable family ; and, by the 
 lights in the front drawing-room, I observed a 
 domestic party, assembled perhaps at tea, and 
 apparently cheerful and gay. Marvellous con- 
 trast 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-by, in after years, I vainly endeavored to 
 trace. Apart from her situation, she was not 
 what would be called an interesting child : she 
 was neither pretty, nor quick in understanding, 
 nor remarkably pleasing in manners. But, 
 thank God ! even in those years I needed not 
 the embellishments of novel-accessaries to con- 
 ciliate my affections ; plain human nature, in its 
 humblest and most homely apparel, was enough 
 for me : and I loved the child because she was 
 my partner in wretchedness. If she is now 
 living, she is probably a mother, with children 
 of her own ; but, as I have said, I could never 
 trace her. 
 
 This I regret : but another person there was 
 at that time, whom I have since sought to trace 
 with far deeper earnestness, and with far deeper 
 sorrow at my failure. This person was a young 
 
44 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 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 friend- 
 ly terms with many women in that unfortunate 
 condition. The reader needs neither smile at 
 this avowal, nor frown. For, not to remind my 
 classical readers of the old Latin proverb — 
 " Sine Cerere" &c, it may well be supposed 
 that in the existing state of my purse, my con- 
 nexion 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 knowledge of human 
 nature, to good feelings, and to that frankness 
 of address which becomes a man who would be 
 thought a philosopher. For a philosopher should 
 not see with the eyes of the poor limitary crea- 
 ture calling himself a man of the world, and 
 filled with narrow and self-regarding prejudices 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 45 
 
 of birth and education, but should look upon 
 himself as a Catholic creature, and as standing 
 in an equal relation to high and low — to edu- 
 cated and uneducated, to the guilty and the in- 
 nocent. Being myself at that time of necessity 
 a peripatetic, or a walker of the streets, I natu- 
 rally fell in more frequently with those female 
 peripatetics, who are technically called Street- 
 walkers, Many of these women had occasionally 
 taken my part against watchmen who wished to 
 drive me off the steps of houses where I was sit- 
 ting. But one amongst them, the one on whose 
 account 1 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 de- 
 signate the condition of her to whose bounty and 
 compassion, ministering to my necessities when 
 all the world had forsaken me, I owe it that I am 
 at this time alive. — For many weeks I had 
 walked at nights with this poor, friendless girl 
 up and down Oxford Street, or had rested with 
 her on steps and under the shelter of 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 
 
46 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 her prompted, I had gradually drawn forth her 
 simple history. Her's 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 under 
 ground ; not obvious or readily accessible to 
 poor, houseless wanderers : and it cannot be de- 
 nied that the outside air and frame-work of Lon- 
 don society is harsh, cruel, and repulsive. In 
 any case, however, I saw that part of her in- 
 juries might easily have been redressed : and I 
 urged her often and earnestly to lay her com- 
 plaint before a magistrate : friendless as she was, 
 I assured her that she would meet with imme- 
 diate attention ; and that English justice, which 
 was no respecter of persons, would speedily and 
 amply avenge her on the brutal ruffian who had 
 plundered her little property. She promised me 
 often that she would ; but she delayed taking 
 the steps I pointed out, from time to time : for 
 she was timid and dejected to a degree which 
 showed how deeply sorrow had taken hold of 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 47 
 
 her young heart : and perhaps she thought justly 
 that the most upright judge, and the most right- 
 eous tribunals, could do nothing to repair her 
 heaviest wrongs. Something, however, would 
 perhaps have been done : for it had been set- 
 tled 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 speak on 
 her behalf. This little service it was destined, 
 however, that I should never realize. 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 unusually ill and faint, I request- 
 ed 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 act which she there per- 
 formed. Suddenly, as we sate, I grew much 
 worse : 1 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 sen- 
 sations I then had, I felt an inner conviction of 
 
48 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 the liveliest kind that, without some powerful 
 and reviving stimulus, I should either have died 
 on the spot — or should at least have sunk to a 
 point of exhaustion from which all reascent, un- 
 der my friendless circumstances, would soon have 
 become hopeless. Then it was, at this crisis of 
 my fate, that my poor orphan companion — who 
 had herself met with little but injuries in this 
 world — stretched out a saving hand to me. 
 Uttering a cry of terror, but without a moment's 
 delay, she ran off into Ox ford ^Street, and in 
 less time than could be imagined, returned 
 to me with a glass of port wine and spices, that 
 acted upon my empty stomach (which at that 
 time would have rejected all solid food) with 
 an instantaneous power of restoration : and for 
 this glass the generous girl without a murmur 
 paid out of her own humble purse, at a time — 
 be it remembered ! when she had scarcely where- 
 withal to purchase the bare necessaries of 
 life, and when she could have no reason to ex- 
 pect that I should ever be able to reimburse her. 
 Oh ! youthful benefactress ! how often in suc- 
 ceeding 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 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 49 
 
 times the curse of a father was believed to have 
 a supernatural power, and to pursue its object 
 with a fatal necessity of self-fulfilment, — even 
 so the benediction of a heart oppressed with 
 gratitude, might have a like prerogative ; might 
 have power given to it from above to chase — 
 to haunt — to way-lay — to overtake — to pur- 
 sue thee into the central darkness of a London 
 brothel, or (if it were possible) into the darkness 
 of the grave — there to awaken thee with an 
 authentic message of peace and forgiveness, and 
 of final reconciliation ! 
 
 I do not often weep : for not only do my 
 thoughts on subjects connected with the chief 
 interests of man daily, nay hourly, descend a 
 thousand fathoms " too deep for tears ;" not 
 only does the sternness of my habits of thought 
 present an antagonism to the feelings which 
 prompt tears — wanting of necessity to those 
 who, being protected usually by their levity from 
 any tendency to meditative sorrow, would by 
 that same levity be made incapable of resisting 
 it on any casual access of such feelings : — but 
 also, I believe that all minds which have con- 
 templated such objects as deeply as I have done, 
 must, for their own protection from utter despond- 
 4 
 
50 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 ency, have early encouraged and cherished some 
 tranquillizing belief as to the future balances and 
 the hieroglyphic meanings of human sufferings. 
 On these accounts, I am cheerful to this hour : 
 and, as I have said, I do not often weep. Yet 
 some feelings, though not deeper or more pas- 
 sionate, are more tender than others : and often, 
 when I walk at this time 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 mys- 
 terious dispensation which so suddenly and so 
 critically separated us for ever. How it hap- 
 pened, the reader will understand from what re- 
 mains of this introductory narration. 
 
 Soon after the period of the last incident I 
 have recorded, I met, in Albemarle Street, a 
 gentleman of his late Majesty's household. This 
 gentle i had received hospitalities, on different 
 occasions, from my family : and he challenged 
 me upon the strength of my family likeness. I 
 did not attempt any disguise : I answered his 
 questions ingenuously, — and, on his pledging 
 his word cf honor that he would not betray me 
 to my guardians, I gave him an address to my 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 51 
 
 friend the attorney's. The next day 1 received 
 from him a £10 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 honorably 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 Lon- 
 don, 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 sur- 
 prise my readers that I should not have found 
 some means of staving off the last extremities of 
 penury ; and it will strike them that two re- 
 sources 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 attain- 
 ments into some channel of pecuniary emolu- 
 ment. 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 
 
52 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 against me to the utmost ; that is, to the ex- 
 tremity of forcibly restoring me to the school 
 which I had quitted ; a restoration which as it 
 would in my eyes have been a dishonor, 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 hu- 
 miliation worse to me than death, and which 
 would indeed have terminated in death. I was, 
 therefore, shy enough of applying for assistance 
 even in those quarters where I was sure of re- 
 ceiving it - — at the risk of furnishing my guard- 
 ians with any clue for recovering me. But, as 
 to London in particular, 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, there- 
 fore, in part the difficulty, but much more the 
 paramount fear which I have mentioned, habit- 
 ually 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. 
 Asa corrector of Greek proofs (if in no other 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 53 
 
 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 labors as a 
 source of profit. No mode sufficiently speedy 
 of obtaining money had ever occurred to me, 
 but that of borrowing it on the strength of my 
 future claims and expectations. This mode I 
 sought by every avenue to compass : and 
 amongst other persons 1 applied to a Jew named 
 D * 
 
 * To this same Jew, by the way, some eighteen months 
 afterwards, I applied again on the same business ; and, 
 dating at that time from a respectable college, I was fortu- 
 nate enough to gain his serious attention to my proposals. 
 My necessities had not arison from any extravagance, or 
 youthful levities, (these my habits and the nature of my 
 pleasures raised me far above,) but simply from the vindic- 
 tive malice of my guardian, who, when he found himself 
 no longer able to prevent me from going to the university, 
 
54 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 To this Jew, and to other advertising money- 
 lenders, (some of whom were, I believe, also 
 Jews,) I had introduced myself with an account 
 of my expectations ; which account, on exam- 
 ining my father's will at Doctor's Commons, 
 they had ascertained to be correct. The person 
 there mentioned as the second son of , was 
 
 had, as a parting token of his good nature, refused to sign 
 an order for granting me a shilling beyond the allowance 
 made to me at school — viz. one hundred pounds per an- 
 num. Upon this sum it was, in my time, barely possible 
 to have lived in college ; and not possible to a man who, 
 though above the paltry affectation of ostentatious disregard 
 for money, and without any expensive tastes, confided nev- 
 ertheless rather too much in servants, and did not delight 
 in the petty details of minute economy. I soon, therefore, 
 became embarrassed ; and at length, after a most volumin- 
 ous negotiation with the Jew, (some parts of which, if I 
 had leisure to rehearse them, would greatly amuse my 
 readers,) I was put in possession of the sum I asked for — 
 on the " regular " terms of paying the Jew seventeen and 
 a half per cent, by way of annuity on all the money fur- 
 nished ; Israel, on his part, graciously resuming no more 
 than about ninety guineas of the said money, on account 
 of an attorney's bill, (for what services, to whom rendered, 
 and when, whether at the siege of Jerusalem — at the 
 building of the Second Temple — or on some earlier occa- 
 sion, I have not yet been able to discover). How many 
 perches this bill measured I really forget: but I still keep 
 it in a cabinet of natural curiosities ; and some time or 
 other I believe I shall present it to the British Museum. 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 55 
 
 found to have all the claims (or more than all) 
 that I had stated : but one question still remain- 
 ed, which the faces of the Jews pretty signifi- 
 cantly suggested, — was I that person ? This 
 doubt had never occurred to me as a possible 
 one ; I had rather feared, whenever my Jewish 
 friends scrutinized 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 mate- 
 rialiter considered (so I expressed it, for I doat- 
 ed on logical accuracy of distinctions,) accused, 
 or at least suspected, of counterfeiting my own 
 self, formaliter considered. However, to satisfy 
 their scruples, I took the only course in my 
 power. Whilst I was in Wales, I had received 
 various letters from young friends : these I pro- 
 duced : for I carried them constantly in my 
 pocket — being, indeed, by this time, almost 
 the only relics of my personal incumbrances 
 (excepting the clothes I wore) which I had not 
 in one way or other disposed of. Most of these 
 
 letters were from the Earl of , who was at 
 
 that time my chief (or rather only) confidential 
 friend. These letters were dated from Eton. I 
 
56 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 had also some from the Marquis of , 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 scholars. He had, accordingly, 
 from the time that 1 was fifteen, corresponded 
 with me ; sometimes upon the great improve- 
 ments which he had made, or was meditating, 
 
 in the counties of M and SI since I 
 
 had been there ; sometimes upon the merits of 
 a Latin poet ; at other times, suggesting sub- 
 jects to me on which he wished me to write 
 verses. 
 
 On reading the letters, one of my Jewish 
 friends agreed to furnish 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 connexion with my 
 noble friend, whose immense expectations were 
 well known to him. In pursuance of this pro- 
 posal on the part of the Jew, about eight or 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 57 
 
 nine days after I had received the £10, I pre- 
 pared to go down to Eton. Nearly £3 of the 
 money I had given to my money-lending friend, 
 on his alleging that the stamps must be bought, 
 in order that the writings might be preparing 
 whilst I was away from London. I thought in 
 my heart that he was lying ; but I did not wish 
 to give him any excuse for charging his own 
 delays upon me. A smaller sum I had given 
 to my friend the attorney (who was connected 
 with the money-lenders as their lawyer,) to 
 which, indeed, he was entitled for his unfurnish- 
 ed lodgings. About fifteen shillings I had em- 
 ployed in re-establishing (though in a very hum- 
 ble 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, ac- 
 companied by Ann, towards Piccadilly ; for it 
 was my intention 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, 
 
58 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 however, we bore away to the left until we 
 came into Golden square : there, near the cor- 
 ner of Sherrard Street, we sate down ; not 
 wishing to part in the tumult and blaze of Pic- 
 cadilly. I had told her of my plans some time 
 before : and now I 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 1 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 tenderness, from pity at witnessing her ex- 
 treme dejection. L had, apparently, most rea- 
 son for dejection, because I was leaving the 
 savior of my life : yet 1, considering the shock 
 my health had received, was cheerful and full of 
 hope. She, on the contrary, who was parting 
 with one who had had little means of serving 
 her, except by kindness and brotherly treatment, 
 was overcome by sorrow ; so that, when I kissed 
 her at our final farewell, she put her arms about 
 my neck, and wept without speaking a word. 
 I hoped to return in a week at farthest, and I 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 59 
 
 agreed with her that on the fifth night from that, 
 and every night afterwards, she should wait for 
 me at six o'clock, near the bottom of Great 
 Titchfield Street, which had been our customary 
 haven, as it were, of rendezvous, to prevent our 
 missing each other in the great Mediterranean 
 of Oxford Street. This, and other measures of 
 precaution I took : one only I forgot. She had 
 either never told me, or (as a matter of no great 
 interest) I had forgotten, her surname. It is a 
 general practice, indeed, with girls of humble 
 rank in her unhappy condition, not (as novel- 
 reading women of higher pretensions) to style 
 themselves — Miss Douglass, Miss Montague, 
 he, but simply by their christian names, Mary, 
 Jane, Frances, he. Her surname, as the surest 
 means of tracing her, 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 interruption, be more difficult or uncer- 
 tain than it had been for so many weeks, 1 had 
 scarcely for a moment adverted to it as necessary, 
 or placed it amongst my memoranda against 
 this parting interview : and, my final anxieties 
 being spent in comforting her with hopes, and 
 in pressing upon her the necessity of getting 
 
60 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 some medicines for a violent cough and hoarse- 
 ness with which she was troubled, I wholly for- 
 got 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 re- 
 markable, 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. Connect- 
 ed with this sleep was a little incident, which 
 served, as hundreds of others did at that time, 
 to convince me how easily a man who has never 
 been in any great distress, may pass through life 
 without knowing, in his own person at least, any 
 thing of the possible goodness of the human 
 heart — or, as I must add with a sigh, of its pos- 
 sible 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 
 
 * The Bristol Mail is the best appointed in the kingdom 
 — owing to the double advantage of an unusually good road, 
 and of an extra sum for expenses subscribed by the Bristol 
 merchants. 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 61 
 
 extremities, and the infinite field of varieties 
 which lie between them, are all confounded — 
 the vast and multitudinous compass of their sev- 
 eral 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 an- 
 noyed my fellow passenger on the roof by occa- 
 sionally falling against him when the coach gave 
 a lurch to his side ; and indeed, if the road had 
 been less smooth and level than it is, I should 
 have fallen off from weakness. Of this annoy- 
 ance he complained heavily, as perhaps, in the 
 same circumstances most people would ; he ex- 
 pressed his complaint, however, more morosely 
 than the occasion seemed to warrant ; and, if I 
 had parted with him at that moment, 1 should 
 have thought of him (if I had considered it 
 worth while to think of him at all) as a surly 
 and almost brutal fellow. However, I was con- 
 scious that I had given him some cause for com- 
 plaint ; and, therefore, I apologized to him, and 
 assured him I would do what I could to avoid 
 falling asleep for the future ; and, at the same 
 time, in as few words as possible, I explained to 
 him that I was ill and in a weak state from long 
 
62 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 suffering ; and that I could not afford at that 
 time to take an inside place. The man's 
 manner changed, upon hearing this explana- 
 tion, in an instant ; and when I next woke 
 for a minute from the noise and lights of Houn- 
 slow (for in spite of my wishes and efforts I 
 had fallen asleep again within two minutes 
 from the time I had spoken to him) 1 found that 
 he had put his arm round me to protect me 
 from falling off; and for the rest of my journey 
 he behaved to me with the gentleness of a wo- 
 man, so that, at length, I almost lay in his arms ; 
 and this was the more kind, as he could not have 
 known that 1 was not going the whole way to 
 Bath or Bristol. Unfortunately, indeed, I did 
 go rather farther than I intended ; for so genial 
 and refreshing was my sleep, that the next time, 
 after leaving Hounslow, that 1 fully awoke, was 
 upon the sudden pulling up of the Mail, (possi- 
 bly at a post-office,) and, on inquiry, I found 
 that we had reached Maidenhead — six or seven 
 miles, I think, ahead of Salt-hill. Here 1 
 alighted ; and for the half minute that the Mail 
 stopped, I was entreated by my friendly compan- 
 ion (who, from the transient glimpse I had of 
 him in Piccadilly, seemed to me to be a gentle- 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 63 
 
 man's butler — or person of that rank) to go to 
 bed without delay. This I promised, though 
 with no intention of doing so ; and in fact, I im- 
 mediately set forward, or rather backward, on 
 foot. It must then have been nearly midnight ; 
 but so slowly did 1 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 (ob- 
 vious enough, and which has been prettily ex- 
 pressed by a Roman poet) which gave me some 
 consolation at that moment under my poverty. 
 There had been some time before a murder com- 
 mitted on or near Hounslow-heath. I think I 
 cannot be mistaken when I say that the name of 
 the murdered person was Steele, and that he 
 was the owner of a lavender plantation in that 
 neighborhood. Every step of my progress was 
 bringing me nearer to the Heath ; and it natu- 
 rally occurred to me that I and the accursed 
 murderer, if he were that night abroad, might 
 at every instant be unconsciously approaching 
 each other through the darkness ; in which case, 
 said I. — supposing I, instead of being (as in- 
 deed I am) little better than an outcast, — 
 
64 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 Lord of my learning and no land beside, 
 
 were, like my friend, Lord , heir by general 
 
 repute, to £70,000 per ann., what a panic 
 should 1 be under at this moment about my 
 throat ! — indeed, it was not likely that Lord 
 should ever be in my situation. But nev- 
 ertheless, 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 in- 
 stant of going into action news were brought to 
 them that they had unexpectedly succeeded to 
 an estate in England of £50,000 a year, feel 
 their dislike to bullets considerably sharpened,* 
 and their efforts at perfect equanimity and self- 
 possession proportionably difficult. So true it is, 
 in the language of a wise man whose own expe- 
 rience had made him acquainted with both for- 
 tunes, that riches are better fitted — 
 
 * It will be objected tbat many men, of the highest rank 
 and wealth, have in our own day, as well as throughout 
 our history, been amongst the foremost in courting danger 
 in battle. True ; but this is not the case supposed ; long 
 familiarity with power has to them deadened its effect and 
 its attractions. 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 65 
 
 To slacken virtue and abate her edge, 
 
 Than tempt her to do aught may merit praise. 
 
 Paradise Regained. 
 
 I dally with my subject because, to myself, 
 the remembrance of these times is profoundly 
 interesting. But my reader shall not have any 
 further cause to complain ; for I now hasten to 
 its close. In the road between Slough and Eton 
 1 fell asleep ; and, just as the morning began to 
 dawn, I was awakened by the voice of a man 
 standing over me and surveying rne. I know not 
 what he was ; he was an ill-looking fellow — 
 but not therefore of necessity an ill-meaning fel- 
 low ; or, if he were, I suppose he thought that 
 no person sleeping out-of-doors in winter could 
 be worth robbing. In which conclusion, how- 
 ever, 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 ; 
 1 was not sorry at his disturbance, as it enabled 
 me to pass through Eton before people were 
 generally up. The night had been heavy and 
 lowering ; but towards the morning it had 
 changed to a slight frost ; and the ground and 
 the trees were now covered with rime. I slip- 
 ped through Eton unobserved ; washed myself, 
 5 
 
Ob CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 and, as far as possible, adjusted my dress at a little 
 public house in Windsor ; and about eight o'clock 
 went down towards Pote's. On my road I met 
 some junior boys of whom I made inquiries ; an 
 Etonian is always a gentleman ; and, in spite of 
 my shabby habiliments, they answered me civ- 
 illy. My friend, Lord , was gone to the 
 
 University of . " Ibi omnis effusus labor ! " 
 
 I had, however, other friends at Eton ; but it is 
 not to all 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 , to whom, (though my acquaint- 
 ance with him was not so intimate as with some 
 others) 1 should not have shrunk from presenting 
 myself under any circumstances. He was still 
 at Eton, though I believe on the wing for Cam- 
 bridge. 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 va- 
 rious patrician friends, it must not be supposed 
 that I have myself any pretensions to rank or 
 high blood. I thank God that I have not ; I 
 am the son of a plain English merchant, es- 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 67 
 
 teemed during his life for his great integrity, and 
 strongly attached to literary pursuits (indeed, he 
 was himself, anonymously, an author ;) if he 
 had lived, it was expected that he would have 
 been very rich ; but, dying prematurely, he left 
 no more than about £30,000 amongst seven 
 different claimants. My mother I may mention 
 with honor, as still more highly gifted. For, 
 though unpretending to the name and honors of 
 a literary woman, I shall presume to call her 
 (what many literary women are not) an intel- 
 lectual woman ; and I believe that if ever her 
 letters should be collected and published, they 
 would be thought generally to exhibit as much 
 strong and masculine sense, delivered in as pure 
 " mother English," racy and fresh with idiomatic 
 graces, as any in our language — hardly except- 
 ing those of lady M. W. Montague. These 
 are my honors 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 fellow creatures is not the most favorable to 
 moral, or to intellectual qualities. 
 
 Lord D placed before me a most mag- 
 nificent breakfast. It was really so ; but in my 
 
68 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 eyes it seemed trebly magnificent — from being 
 the first regular meal, the first " good man's ta- 
 ble," that I had sate down to for months. 
 Strange to say, however, I could scarcely eat 
 any thing. On the day when I first received 
 my £10 bank note, I had gone to a baker's 
 shop and bought a couple of rolls ; this very 
 shop I had two months or six weeks before sur- 
 veyed with an eagerness of desire which it was 
 almost humiliating to me to recollect. I remem- 
 bered the story about Otway ; and feared that 
 there might be danger in eating too rapidly. But 
 I had no need for alarm, my appetite was quite 
 sunk, and I became sick before I had eaten half 
 of what I had bought. This effect from eating 
 what approached to a meal, I continued to feel 
 for weeks ; or, when I did not experience any 
 nausea, part of what I ate was rejected, some- 
 times with acidity, sometimes immediately, and 
 without any acidity. On the present occasion, 
 
 at Lord D 's table, I found myself not at all 
 
 better than usual ; and, in the midst of luxuries, 
 I had no appetite. I had, however, unfortu- 
 nately, at all times a craving for wine ; I ex- 
 plained my situation, therefore, to Lord D , 
 
 and gave him a short account of my late suffer- 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 69 
 
 ings, at which he expressed great compassion, 
 and called for wine. This gave me a momen- 
 tary 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, how- 
 ever, that this indulgence in wine continued to 
 strengthen my malady ; for the tone of my stom- 
 ach was apparently quite sunk ; but by a better 
 regimen it might sooner, and perhaps effectually, 
 have been revived. I hope that it was not from 
 this love bf wine that I lingered in the neighbor- 
 hood of my Eton friends ; I persuaded myself 
 then that it was from reluctance to ask of Lord 
 D , on whom I was conscious I had not suf- 
 ficient claims, the particular service in quest of 
 which I had come to Eton. I was, however, 
 unwilling to lose my journey, and — I asked it. 
 Lord D , whose good nature was unbound- 
 ed, 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 rig- 
 orous inquiry into the extent of my own direct 
 claims, faltered, nevertheless, at this request. 
 He acknowledged that he did not like to have 
 
70 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 any dealings with money-lenders, and feared 
 lest such a transaction might come to the ears of 
 his connexions. Moreover, he doubted whether 
 his signature, whose expectations were so much 
 
 more bounded than those of , would avail 
 
 with my unchristian friends. However, he did 
 not wish, as it seemed, to mortify me by an ab- 
 solute refusal ; for after a little consideration, he 
 promised, under certain conditions, which he 
 
 pointed out, to give his security. Lord D 
 
 was at this time not eighteen years of age ; but 
 I have often doubted, on recollecting since, the 
 good sense and prudence which on this occasion 
 he mingled with so much urbanity of manner, 
 (an urbanity which in him wore the grace of 
 youthful sincerity,) whether any statesman — 
 the oldest and the most accomplished in diplo- 
 macy — could have acquitted himself better un- 
 der the same circumstances. Most people, in- 
 deed, 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,! returned 
 in a Windsor coach to London three days after 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 71 
 
 I had quitted it. And now I come to the end 
 of my story ; the Jews did not approve of Lord 
 
 D 's terms ; whether they would in the end 
 
 have acceded to them, and were only seeking 
 time for making due inquiries, 1 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 re- 
 lapsed into my former state of wretchedness. 
 Suddenly, however, at this crisis, an opening 
 was made, almost by accident, for reconciliation 
 with my friends. I quitted London in haste, for 
 a remote part of England ; after some time, I 
 proceeded to the university ; and it was not until 
 many months had passed away, that I had it in 
 my power again to revisit the ground which had 
 become so interesting to me, and to this day re- 
 mains so, as the chief scene of my youthful suf- 
 ferings. 
 
 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 
 
72 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 know her ; and during the last hours of my stay 
 in London, I put into activity every means of 
 tracing her that my knowledge of London sug- 
 gested, and the limited extent of my power 
 made possible. The street where she had 
 lodged I knew, but not the house ; and I remem- 
 ber at last some account which she had given 
 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 earnest- 
 ness of my inquiries arose from motives which 
 moved their laughter, or their slight regard ; and 
 others, thinking that I was in chase of a girl who 
 had robbed me of some trifles, were naturally 
 and excusably indisposed to give me any clue 
 to her, if, indeed, they had any to give. Finally, 
 as my despairing resource, on the day I left Lon- 
 don I put into the hands of the only person who 
 (I was sure) must know Ann by sight, from 
 having been in company with us once or twice, 
 
 an address to in shire, at that time 
 
 the residence of my family. But, to this hour, 
 1 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 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 73 
 
 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 eter- 
 nity ! During some years, I hoped that she did 
 live ; and 1 suppose that, in the literal and un- 
 rhetorical 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 pecu- 
 liar and graceful carriage of the head. I sought 
 her, I have said, in hope. So it was for years ; 
 but now I shouldTear 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 transfig- 
 ured her ingenuous nature, or the brutalities of 
 ruffians had completed the ruin they had begun. 
 
74 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 So then, Oxford Street, stony-hearted step- 
 mother ! thou that listenest to the sighs of or- 
 phans, 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 an- 
 guish thy never-ending terraces ; no more should 
 dream, and wake in captivity to the pangs of 
 hunger. Successors, too many, to myself and 
 Ann, have, doubtless, since then trodden in our 
 footsteps ; inheritors of our calamities : other 
 orphans than Ann have sighed : tears have been 
 shed by other children : and thou, Oxford Street, 
 hast since echoed to the groans of innumerable 
 hearts. For myself, however, the storm which 
 I had outlived seemed to have been the pledge 
 of a long fair weather ; the premature sufferings 
 which I had paid down, to have been accepted 
 as a ransom for many years to come, as a price 
 of long immunity from sorrow : and if again I 
 walked in London, a solitary and contemplative 
 man, (as oftentimes I did,) I walked for the most 
 part in serenity and peace of mind. And, al- 
 though it is true that the calamities of my novi- 
 ciate in London had struck root so deeply in 
 my bodily constitution that afterwards they shot 
 up and flourished afresh, and grew into a noxious 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 75 
 
 umbrage that has overshadowed and darkened 
 my latter years, yet these second assaults of 
 suffering were met with a fortitude more con- 
 firmed, with the resources of a maturer intellect, 
 and with alleviations from sympathising affec- 
 tion — how deep and tender ! 
 
 Thus, however, with whatsoever alleviations, 
 years that were far asunder were bound together 
 by subtle links of suffering deprived 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 Ox- 
 ford Street up every avenue in succession which 
 pierces through the heart of Mary-le-bone to 
 the fields and the woods ; for that, said I, travel- 
 ing with my eyes up the long vistas which lay 
 part in light and part in shade, " that is the road 
 
 to the north, and therefore to , and if I had 
 
 the wings of a dove, that way I would fly for 
 comfort." Thus I said, and thus I wished in 
 my blindness ; yet, even in that very northern 
 region it was, in that very valley, nay, in that 
 very house to which my erroneous wishes point- 
 ed, that this second birth of my sufferings be- 
 
76 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 gan ; 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, therefore, who parti- 
 cipated, as it were, in the troubles of Orestes, 
 (excepting only in his agitated conscience,) par- 
 ticipated no less in all his supports ; my Eu- 
 menides, 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 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 77 
 
 permit that a Grecian sister should excel an En- 
 glish wife. For thou thoughtst not much to 
 stoop to humble offices of kindness, and to servile 
 ministrations of tenderest affection ; to wipe 
 away for years the unwholesome dews upon the 
 forehead, or to refresh the lips when parched 
 and baked with fever ; nor, even when thy own 
 peaceful slumbers had by long sympathy be- 
 come 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 
 facef in her robe. 
 
 * Agamemnon. 
 
 t Ouiia Qeis eiso nemov. The scholar will know that 
 throughout this passage I refer to the early scenes of the 
 Orestes ; one of the most beautiful exhibitions of the do- 
 mestic affections which even the dramas of Euripides can 
 furnish. To the English reader, it may be necessary to 
 say, that the situation at the opening of the drama is that 
 of a brother attended only by his sister during the demon- 
 
78 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 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 Ox- 
 ford Street by night : and oftentimes, when I 
 am oppressed by anxieties that demand all my 
 philosophy and the comfort of thy presence to 
 support, and yet remember that I am separated 
 from thee by three hundred miles, and the length 
 of three dreary months, — I look up the streets 
 that run northward from Oxford Street, upon 
 moonlight nights, and recollect my youthful 
 ejaculation of anguish ; and remembering that 
 thou art sitting alone in that same valley, and 
 mistress of that very house to which my heart 
 turned in its blindness nineteen years ago, I 
 think that, though blind indeed, and scattered to 
 the winds of late, the promptings of my heart 
 may yet have had reference to a remoter time, 
 and may be justified if read in another meaning ; 
 — and, if I could allow myself to descend again 
 
 iacal possession of a suffering conscience, (or, in the mytho- 
 logy of the play haunted by the furies,) and in circum- 
 stances of immediate danger from enemies, and of desertion 
 or cold regard from nominal friends. 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 79 
 
 to the impotent wishes of childhood, I should 
 again say to myself, as 1 look to the north, " Oh 
 that [ had the wings of a dove — " and with 
 how just a confidence in thy good and gracious 
 nature might I add the other half of my early 
 ejaculation — " And that way I would fly for 
 comfort." 
 
THE PLEASURES OF OPIUM. 
 
 It is so long since I first took opium, that if it 
 had been a trifling incident in my life, I might 
 have forgotten its date ; but cardinal events are 
 not to be forgotten ; and from circumstances 
 connected with it, I remember that it must be 
 referred to the autumn of 1804. During that 
 season I was in London, having come thither for 
 the first time since my entrance at college. 
 And my introduction to opium arose in the fol- 
 lowing 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 
 tooth-ache, I attributed it to some relaxation 
 caused by an accidental intermission of that 
 practice ; jumped out of bed ; plunged my head 
 into a basin of cold water ; and with hair thus 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 81 
 
 wetted went to sleep. The next morning, as 1 
 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 tor- 
 ments, than with any distinct purpose. By ac- 
 cident I met a college acquaintance who recom- 
 mended opium. Opium ! dread agent of unim- 
 aginable 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 it at that 
 time ! what solemn chords does it now strike 
 upon my heart ! what heart quaking vibrations 
 of sad and happy remembrances ! Reverting 
 for a moment to these, I feel a mystic import- 
 ance attached to the minutest circumstances 
 connected with the place and the time, and the 
 man (if man he was) that first laid open to me 
 the Paradise of opium-eaters. It was a Sunday 
 afternoon, wet and cheerless ; and a duller spec- 
 tacle 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 
 6 
 
82 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 called it) I saw a druggist's shop. The druggist, 
 unconscious minister of celestial pleasures ! — 
 as if in sympathy with the rainy Sunday, looked 
 dull and stupid, just as any mortal druggist might 
 be expected to look on a Sunday ; and, when I 
 asked for the tincture of opium, he gave it to me 
 as any other man might do ; and furthermore, 
 out of my shilling, returned to me what seemed to 
 be a real copper halfpence, taken out of a real 
 wooden drawer. Nevertheless, in spite of such 
 indications of humanity, he has ever since exist- 
 ed in my mind as a beatific vision of an immor- 
 tal druggist sent down to earth on a special mis- 
 sion 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 Pan- 
 theon, and found him not : and thus to me, who 
 knew not his name (if indeed he had one) he 
 seemed rather to have vanished from Oxford- 
 street than to have removed in any bodily fash- 
 ion. The reader may choose to think of him 
 as, possibly, no more than a sublunary druggist : 
 it may be so ; but my faith is better ; I believe 
 him to have evanesced,* or evaporated. So 
 
 * Evanesced : — this way of going off the stage of life 
 appears to have been well known in the 17th century, but 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. ©3 
 
 unwillingly would I connect any mortal remem- 
 brances with that hour, and place, and creature, 
 that first brought me acquainted with the celes- 
 tial drug. 
 
 Arrived at my lodgings, it may be supposed 
 that I lost not a moment in taking the quantity 
 prescribed. I was necessarily ignorant of the 
 whole art and mystery of opium-taking ; and, 
 what I took, I took under every disadvantage. 
 But I took it ; — and in an hour, oh ! Heavens! 
 what a revulsion ! what an upheaving, from its 
 lowest depths, of the inner spirit ! what an apoc- 
 alypse 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 im- 
 mensity of those positive effects which had 
 opened before me — in the abyss of divine en- 
 joyment thus suddenly revealed. Here was a 
 
 at that time to have been considered a peculiar privilege of 
 blood royal, and by no means to be allowed to druggists. 
 For about the year 1686 a poet of rather ominous name (and 
 who, by-the-by, did ample justice to his name,) viz. Mr. 
 Flat-maw, in speaking of the death of Charles II, ex- 
 presses his surprise that any prince should commit so ab- 
 surd an act as dying ; because, says he, 
 
 Kings should disdain to die, and only disappear, 
 They should abscond, that is, into the other world. 
 
84 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 panacea — a (paguaxov rt7iavda$ 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 waist- 
 coat pocket ; portable ecstacies might be had 
 corked up in a pint bottle ; and peace of mind 
 could be sent down in gallons by the mail- 
 coach. But, if I talk in this way the reader 
 will think 1 am laughing ; and I can assure him 
 that no body 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 V Allegro ; even then, he speaks 
 and thinks as becomes 17 Pcnseroso. Never- 
 theless, I have a very reprehensible way of jest- 
 ing 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 al- 
 low a little to my infirm nature in this respect ; 
 and with a few indulgences of that sort, I shall 
 endeavor to be as grave, if not drowsy, as fits a 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 85 
 
 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 writ- 
 ten on the subject of opium, whether by travel- 
 ers in Turkey (who may plead their privilege 
 of lying as an old immemorial right,) or by pro- 
 fessors of medicine, writing ex cathedra ; I have 
 but one emphatic criticism to pronounce — Lies ! 
 lies ! lies ! 1 remember once, in passing a book- 
 stall, to have caught these words from a page of 
 some satiric author : " By this time I became 
 convinced that the London newspapers spoke 
 truth at least twice a week, viz. on Tuesday and 
 Saturday, and might safely be depended upon 
 for — the list of bankrupts." In like manner, I 
 do by no means deny that some truths have been 
 delivered to the world in regard to opium ; thus, 
 it has been repeatedly affirmed by the learned, 
 that opium is a dusky brown in color ; 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 particularly disagreeable to any man of 
 
S6 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 regular habits, viz., — die.* These weighty pro- 
 positions 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 knowl- 
 edge 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 ta- 
 ken for granted, by all who ever mention opium, 
 formally or incidentally, that it does, or can, 
 produce intoxication. Now, reader, assure your- 
 self, meo periculo, that no quantity of opium 
 ever did, or could intoxicate. As to the tincture 
 of opium (commonly called laudanum) that 
 might certainly intoxicate if a man could bear 
 
 * Of this, however, the learned appear latterly to have 
 doubted: for in a pirated edition of Buchan's Domestic 
 Medicine, which I once saw in the hands of a farmer's 
 wife who was studying it for the benefit of her health, the 
 Doctor was made to say — " Be particularly careful never 
 to take above five-and-twenty ounces of laudanum at 
 once ;" the true reading being probably five-and-twenty 
 drops, which are held to be equal to about one grain of 
 crude opium. 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 87 
 
 to take enough of it ; but why ? because it con- 
 tains so much proof spirit, and not because it 
 contains so much opium. But crude opium, I 
 affirm peremptorily, is incapable of producing 
 any state of body at all resembling that which is 
 produced by alcohol ; and not in degree only 
 incapable, but even in kind; it is not in the 
 quantity of its effects merely, but in the quality, 
 that it differs altogether. The pleasure given by 
 wine is always mounting, and tending to a cri- 
 sis, after which 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 flame, 
 the other a steady and equable glow. But the 
 main distinction lies in this, that whereas wine 
 disorders the mental faculties, opium, on the con- 
 trary, (if taken in a proper manner,) introduces 
 amongst them the most exquisite order, legisla- 
 tion, and harmony. Wine robs a man of his 
 self-possession ; opium greatly invigorates it. 
 Wine unsettles and clouds the judgment, and 
 gives a preternatural brightness, and a vivid ex- 
 altation to the contempts and the admira- 
 tions, to the loves and the hatreds, of the drink- 
 er; opium, on the contrary, communicates 
 
SO CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 serenity and equapoise to all the faculties, active 
 or passive ; and with respect to the temper and 
 moral feelings in general, it gives simply that 
 sort of vital warmth which is approved by the 
 judgment, and which would probably always 
 accompany a bodily constitution of primeval or 
 antediluvian health. Thus, for instance, opium, 
 like wine, gives an expansion to the heart and 
 the benevolent affections ; but then, with this 
 remarkable difference, that in the sudden devel- 
 opment of kind-heartedness which accompanies 
 inebriation, there is always more or less of a 
 maudlin character, which exposes it to the con- 
 tempt of the bystander. Men shake hands, 
 swear eternal friendship, and shed tears — no 
 mortal knows why ; and the sensual creature is 
 clearly uppermost. But the expansion of the 
 benigner feelings, incident to opium, is no febrile 
 access, but a healthy restoration to that state 
 which the mind would naturally recover upon 
 the removal of any deep-seated irritation of pain 
 that had disturbed and quarrelled with the im- 
 pulses 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 ; 1 myself, who have 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 89 
 
 never been a great wine-drinker, used to find 
 that half a dozen glasses of wine advantageously 
 affected the faculties — brightened and intensi- 
 fied 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 dis- 
 guised by sobriety ; and it is when they are 
 drinking, (as some old gentleman says in Athe- 
 na3us,) that men display themselves in their true 
 complexion of character ; which surely is not dis- 
 guising themselves. But still, wine constantly 
 leads a man to the brink of absurdity and extrav- 
 agance ; and, beyond a certain point, it is sure to 
 volatilize and to disperse the intellectual energies; 
 whereas opium always seems to compose what 
 had been agitated, and to concentrate what had 
 been distracted. In short, to sum up all in one 
 word, a man who is inebriated, or tending to in- 
 ebriation, is, and feels that he is, in a condition 
 which calls up into supremacy the merely hu- 
 man, too often the brutal, part of his nature ; 
 but the opium-eater (I speak of him who is not 
 suffering from any disease, or other remote ef- 
 fects of opium) feels that the diviner part of his 
 
90 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 nature is paramount ; that is, the moral affec- 
 tions are in a state of cloudless serenity ; and 
 over all is the great light of the majestic in- 
 tellect. 
 
 This is the doctrine of the true church on the 
 subject of opium : of which church I acknowl- 
 edge myself to be the only member — the alpha 
 and omega : but then it is to be recollected, that 
 1 speak from the ground of a large and profound 
 personal experience : whereas most of the un- 
 scientific* authors who have at all treated of 
 
 * Amongst the great herd of travelers, &c. who show 
 sufficiently by their stupidity that they never held any in- 
 tercourse with opium, I must caution my readers specially 
 against the brilliant author of " Anastasius." This gen- 
 tleman, whose wit would lead one to presume him an 
 opium-eater, has made it impossible to consider him in 
 that character, from the grievous misrepresentation which 
 he has given of its effects, at page 215 — 17, of vol. 1. 
 Upon consideration, it must appear such to the author him- 
 self : for, waiving the errors I have insisted on in the text, 
 which (and others) are adopted in the fullest manner, he 
 will himself admit, that an old gentleman, "with a snow- 
 white beard," who eats " ample doses of opium," and is 
 yet able to deliver what is meant and received as very 
 weighty counsel on the bad effects of that practice, is but 
 an indifferent evidence that opium either kills people pre- 
 maturely, or sends them into a mad-house. But, for my 
 part, I see into this old gentleman and his motives ; the 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 91 
 
 opium, and even of those who have written 
 expressly on the materia medica, make it evi- 
 dent, from the horror they express of it, 
 that their experimental knowledge of its ac- 
 tion is none at all. I will, however, candidly 
 acknowledge that I have met with one person 
 who bore evidence to its intoxicating power, 
 such as staggered my own incredulity : for he 
 was a surgeon, and had himself taken opium 
 largely. I happened to say to him, that his 
 enemies (as I had heard) charged him with 
 talking nonsense on politics, and that his friends 
 apologized for him, by suggesting that he was 
 constantly in a state of intoxication from opium. 
 Now the accusation, said I, is not prima facie, 
 and of necessity, an absurd one : but the de- 
 fence is. To my surprise, however, he insisted, 
 that both his enemies and his friends were in the 
 
 fact is, he was enamoured of " the little golden receptacle of 
 the pernicious drug," which Anastasius carried about him; 
 and no way of obtaining it so safe and so feasible occurred, 
 as that of frightening its owner out of his wits, (which, 
 by-the-by, are none of the strongest.) This commentary 
 throws a new light upon the case, and greatly improves 
 it as a story : for the old gentleman's speech, considered 
 as a lecture on pharmacy, is highly absurd : but, consider- 
 ed as a hoax on Anastatius, it reads excellently. 
 
92 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 right : " I will maintain," said he, " that I do 
 talk nonsense ; and secondly, I will maintain 
 that I do not talk nonsense upon principle, or 
 with any view to profit, but solely and simply, 
 said he, solely and simply, — solely and simply, 
 (repeating it three times over,) because I am 
 drunk with opium ; and that daily." I replied 
 that, as to the allegation of his enemies, as it 
 seemed to be established upon such respectable 
 testimony, seeing that the three parties concerned 
 all agreed in it, it did not become me to question 
 it ; but the defence set up I must demur to. He 
 proceeded to discuss the matter, and to lay down 
 his reasons ; but it seemed to me so impolite to 
 pursue an argument which must have presumed 
 a man mistaken in a point belonging to his own 
 profession, that I did not press him even when 
 his course of argument seemed open to objec- 
 tion : not to mention that a man who talks non- 
 sense, even though " with no view to profit," is 
 not altogether the most agreeable partner in a 
 dispute, whether as opponent or respondent. I 
 confess, however, that the authority of a surgeon, 
 and one who was reputed a good one, may seem 
 a weighty one to my prejudice : but still I must 
 plead my experience, which was greater than his 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 93 
 
 greatest by seven thousand drops a day ; and, 
 though it was not possible to suppose a medical 
 man unacquainted with the characteristic symp- 
 toms of vinous intoxication, it yet struck me that 
 he might proceed on a logical error of using the 
 word intoxication with too great latitude, and 
 extending it generically to all modes of nervous 
 excitement, instead of restricting it as the ex- 
 pression for a specific sort of excitement, con- 
 nected with certain diagnostics. Some people 
 have maintained, in my hearing, that they had 
 been drunk upon green tea : and a medical stu- 
 dent in London, for whose knowledge in his 
 profession 1 have reason to feel great respect, 
 assured me, the other day, that a patient, in re- 
 covering from an illness, had got drunk on a 
 beef-steak. 
 
 Having dwelt so much on this first and leading 
 error, in respect to opium, I shall notice very 
 briefly a second and a third ; which are, that 
 the elevation of spirits produced by opium is 
 necessarily followed by a proportionate depres- 
 sion, and that the natural and even immediate 
 consequence of opium is torpor and stagnation, 
 animal and mental. The first of these errors I 
 shall content myself with simply denying j as- 
 
94 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 suring my reader, that for ten years, during 
 which I took opium at intervals, the day suc- 
 ceeding to that on which I allowed myself this 
 luxury was always a day of unusually good 
 spirits. 
 
 Wittfrespect to the torpor supposed to follow, 
 or rather, (if we were to credit the numerous 
 pictures of Turkish opium-eaters,) to accom- 
 pany the practice of opium-eating, I deny that 
 also. Certainly, opium is classed under the 
 head of narcotics ; and some such effect it may 
 produce in the end : but the primary effects of 
 opium are always, and in the highest degree, to 
 excite and stimulate the system : this first stage 
 of its action always lasted with me, during my 
 noviciate, for upwards of eight hours ; so that it 
 must be the fault of the opium-eater himself if 
 he does not so time his exhibition of the dose 
 (to speak medically) as that the whole weight 
 of its narcotic influence may descend upon his 
 sleep. Turkish opium-eaters, it seems, are ab- 
 surd enough to sit, like so many equestrian statues, 
 on logs of wood as stupid as themselves. But 
 that the reader may judge of the degree in 
 which opium is likely to stupify the faculties of 
 an Englishman, I shall (by way of treating the 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 95 
 
 question illustratively, rather than argumentative- 
 ly) describe the way in which I myself often 
 passed an opium evening in London, during the 
 period between 1804 — 1812. It will be seen, 
 that at least opium did not move me to seek 
 solitude, and much less to seek inactivity, or the 
 torpid state of self-involution ascribed to the 
 Turks. I give this account at the risk of being 
 pronounced a crazy enthusiast or visionary : but 
 I regard that little : I must desire my reader to 
 bear in mind, that I was a hard student, and at 
 severe studies for all the rest of my time : and 
 certainly I had a right occasionally to relaxations 
 as well as other people ; these, however, 1 allow- 
 ed myself but seldom. 
 
 The late Duke of used to say, " Next 
 
 Friday, by the blessing of heaven, I purpose to 
 be drunk ;" and in like manner I used to fix 
 beforehand how often, within a given time, and 
 when, I would commit a debauch of opium. 
 This was seldom more than once in three weeks : 
 for at that time I could not have ventured to 
 call every day (as I did afterwards, for " a glass 
 of laudanum negus, warm, and without sugar. ," 
 No : as I have said, I seldom drank laudanum, 
 at that time, more than once in three weeks : 
 
96 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 this was usually on a Tuesday or a Saturday 
 night : my reason for which was this. In those 
 days Grassini sang at the Opera : and her voice 
 was delightful to me beyond all that I had ever 
 heard. I know not what may be the state of 
 the Opera-house now, having never been within 
 its walls for seven or eight years, but at that 
 time it was by much the most pleasant place of 
 public resort in London for passing an evening. 
 Five shillings admitted one to the gallery, which 
 was subject to far less annoyance than the pit of 
 the theatres ; the orchestra was distinguished by 
 its sweet and melodious grandeur, from all Eng- 
 lish orchestras, the composition of which, I con- 
 fess, is not acceptable to my ear, from the predom- 
 inance of the clangorous instruments, and the abso- 
 lute tyranny of the violin. The chorusses were 
 divine to hear : and when Grassini appeared in 
 some interlude, as she often did, and poured forth 
 her passionate soul as Andromache, at the tomb of 
 Hector, &c, I question whether any Turk, of 
 all that ever entered the paradise of opium-eaters, 
 can have had half the pleasure I had. But, 
 indeed, I honor the barbarians too much by 
 supposing them capable of any pleasures ap- 
 proaching to the intellectual ones of an English- 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 97 
 
 man. For music is an intellectual or a sensual 
 pleasure, according to the temperament of him 
 who hears it. And, by-the-by, with the excep- 
 tion of the fine extravaganza on that subject in 
 Twelfth Night, I do not recollect more than one 
 thing said adequately on the subject of music in 
 all literature : it is a passage in the Religio 
 Medici* of Sir T. Brown ; and, though chiefly 
 remarkable for its sublimity, has also a philoso • 
 phic value, inasmuch as it points to the true 
 theory of musical effects. The mistake of most 
 people is, to suppose that it is by the ear they 
 communicate with music, and, therefore, that 
 they are purely passive to its effects. But this 
 is not so : it is by the reaction of the mind upon 
 the notices of the ear, (the matter coming by 
 the senses, the form from the mind,) that the 
 pleasure is constructed : and therefore it is that 
 people of equally good ear differ so much in 
 this point from one another. Now opium, by 
 greatly increasing the activity of the mind, 
 generally increases, of necessity, that particular 
 
 * I have not the hook at this moment to consult : but I 
 think the passage begins — " And even that tavern music, 
 which makes one man merry, another mad, in me strikes 
 a deep fit of devotion," &c. 
 
 7 
 
98 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 mode of its activity by which we are able to 
 construct out of the raw material of organic 
 sound an elaborate intellectual pleasure. But, 
 says a friend, a succession of musical sounds is 
 to me like a collection of Arabic characters : 
 I can attach no ideas to them. Ideas ! my good 
 sir? there is no occasion for them : all that class 
 of ideas, which can be available in such a case, 
 has a language of representative feelings. But 
 this is a subject foreign to my present purposes : 
 it is sufficient to say, that a chorus, &c, of 
 elaborate harmony, displayed before me, as in a 
 piece of arras-work, the whole of my past life — 
 not, as if recalled by an act of memory, but as 
 if present and incarnated in the music : no 
 longer painful to dwell upon : but the detail of 
 its incidents removed, or blended in some hazy 
 abstraction : and its passions exalted, spiritual- 
 ized, and sublimed. All this was to be had for 
 five shillings. And over and above the music 
 of the stage and the orchestra, I had all around 
 me, in the intervals of the performance, the mu- 
 sic 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 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 99 
 
 and listened, in Canada, to the sweet laughter 
 of Indian women ; for the less you understand 
 of a language, the more sensible you are to the 
 melody or harshness of its sounds ; for such a 
 purpose, therefore, it was an advantage to me 
 that I was a poor Italian scholar, reading it but 
 little, and not speaking it at all, nor understand- 
 ing a tenth part of what I heard spoken. 
 
 These were my Opera pleasures ; but another 
 pleasure I had which, as it could be had only 
 on a Saturday night, occasionally struggled with 
 my love of the Opera ; for, at that time, Tues- 
 day and Saturday were the regular Opera nights. 
 On this subject I am afraid I shall be rather ob- 
 scure, but, I can assure the reader, not at all 
 more so than Marinus in his life of Proclus, or 
 many other biographers and auto-biographers 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 labors that I rested 
 from ; no wages to receive ; what needed I to 
 care for Saturday night, more than as it was a 
 summons to hear Grassini ? True, most logical 
 reader; what you say is unanswerable. And 
 yet so it was and is, that, whereas different men 
 
100 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 throw their feelings into different channels, and 
 most are apt to show their interest in the con- 
 cerns of the poor, chiefly by sympathy, ex- 
 pressed in some shape or other, with their dis- 
 tresses and sorrows, 1, at that time was disposed 
 to express my interest by sympathising with their 
 pleasures. The pains of poverty I had lately 
 seen too much of; more than I wished to re- 
 member ; but the pleasures of the poor, their 
 consolations of spirit, and their reposes from 
 bodily toil, can never become oppressive to con- 
 template. Now Saturday night is the season 
 for the chief, regular, and periodic return of rest 
 to the poor ; in this point the most hostile sects 
 unite, and acknowledge a common link of broth- 
 erhood ; almost all Christendom rests from its 
 labors. It is a rest introductory to another rest ; 
 and divided by a whole day and two nights from 
 the renewal of toil. On this account I feel al- 
 ways, on a Saturday night, as though I also 
 were released from some yoke of labor, had 
 some wages to receive, and some luxury of re- 
 pose to enjoy. For the sake, therefore, of wit- 
 nessing, upon as large a scale as possible, a 
 spectacle with which my sympathy was so en- 
 tire, I used often, on Saturday nights, after I had 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 101 
 
 taken opium, to wander forth, without much re- 
 garding the direction or the distance, to all the 
 markets, and other parts of London, to which 
 the poor resort on a Saturday night, for laying 
 out their wages. Many a family party, consist- 
 ing of a man, his wife, and sometimes one or two 
 of his children, have I listened to, as they stood 
 consulting on their ways and means, or the 
 strength of their exchequer, or the price of house- 
 hold articles. Gradually I became familiar with 
 their wishes, their difficulties, and their opinions. 
 Sometimes there might be heard murmurs of 
 discontent ; but far oftener expressions on the 
 countenance, or uttered in words, of patience, 
 hope, and tranquillity. And, taken generally, I 
 must say, that, in this point at least, the poor 
 are far more philosophic than the rich — that 
 they show a more ready and cheerful submission 
 to what they consider as irremediable evils, or 
 irreparable losses. Whenever I saw occasion, 
 or could do it without appearing to be intrusive, 
 I joined their parties ; and gave my opinion up- 
 on the matter in discussion, which, if not al- 
 ways judicious, was always received indulgently. 
 If wages were a little higher, or expected to be 
 so, or the quartern loaf a little lower, or it was 
 
102 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 reported that onions and butter were expected 
 to fall, I was glad ; yet, if the contrary were 
 true, I drew from opium some means of con- 
 soling myself. For opium (like the bee, that 
 extracts its materials 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 distan- 
 ces ; for an opium-eater is too happy to observe 
 the motion of time. And sometimes in my at- 
 tempts to steer homewards, upon nautical prin- 
 ciples, by fixing my eye on the pole-star, and 
 seeking ambitiously for a north-west passage, in- 
 stead of circumnavigating all the capes and 
 head-lands I had doubled in my outward voy- 
 age, I came suddenly upon such knotty problems 
 of alleys, such enigmatical entries, and such 
 sphynx's riddles of streets without thoroughfares, 
 as must, I conceive, baffle the audacity of por- 
 ters, and confound the intellects of hackney- 
 coachmen. I could almost have believed, at 
 times, that I must be the first discoverer of some 
 of these terra incognita, and doubted, whether 
 they had yet been laid down in the modern 
 charts of London. For all this, however, I paid 
 a heavy price in distant years, when the human 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 103 
 
 face tyrannized over my dreams, and the per- 
 plexities of my steps in London came back and 
 haunted my sleep, with the feeling of perplexi- 
 ties moral or intellectual, that brought confusion 
 to the reason, or anguish and remorse to the 
 conscience. 
 
 Thus I have shown that opium does not, of 
 necessity, produce inactivity or torpor ; but that, 
 on the contrary, it often led me into markets and 
 theatres. Yet, in candor, I will admit that mar- 
 kets and theatres are not the appropriate haunts 
 of the opium-eater, when in the divinest state 
 incident to his enjoyment. In that state, crowds 
 become an oppression to him ; music even, too 
 sensual and gross. He naturally seeks solitude 
 and silence, as indispensable conditions of those 
 trances, or profoundest reveries, which are the 
 crown and consummation of what opium can do 
 for human nature. I, whose disease it was to 
 meditate too much, and to observe too little, and 
 who, upon my first entrance at college, was 
 nearly falling into a deep melancholy, from 
 brooding too much on the sufferings which I 
 had witnessed in London, was sufficiently aware 
 of the tendencies of my own thoughts to do all 
 I could to counteract them. — I was, indeed, 
 
104 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 like a person who, according to the old legend, 
 had entered the cave of Trophonius ; and the 
 remedies I sought were to force myself into so- 
 ciety, and to keep my understanding in contin- 
 ual activity upon matters of science. But for 
 these remedies, I should certainly have become 
 hypocondriacally melancholy. In after years, 
 however, when my cheerfulness was more fully 
 re-established, 1 yielded to my natural inclination 
 for a solitary life. And, at that time, 1 often 
 fell into these reveries upon taking opium ; and 
 more than once it has happened to me, on a 
 summer-night, when I have been at an open 
 window, in a room from which I could overlook 
 the sea at a mile below me, and could command 
 
 a view of the great town of L , at about 
 
 the same distance, that I have sate from sunset 
 to sunrise, motionless, and without wishing to 
 move. 
 
 I shall be charged with mysticism, Behmen- 
 ism, quietism, &c, but that shall not alarm me. 
 Sir H. Vane, the younger, was one of our 
 wisest men ; and let my readers see if he, in his 
 philosophical works, be half as unmystical as I 
 am. — I say, then, that it has often struck me 
 that the scene itself was somewhat typical of 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 105 
 
 what took place in such a reverie. The town 
 
 of L represented the earth, with its sorrows 
 
 and its graves left behind, yet not out of sight, 
 nor wholly forgotten. The ocean, in everlasting 
 but gentle agitation, and brooded over by dove- 
 like calm, might not unfitly typify the mind and 
 the mood which then swayed it. For it seemed 
 to me as if then first I stood at a distance, and 
 aloof from the uproar of life ; as if the tumult, 
 the fever, and the strife, were suspended ; a re- 
 spite granted from the secret burdens of the 
 heart ; a sabbath of repose ; a resting from hu- 
 man labors. Here were the hopes which blos- 
 som in the paths of life, reconciled with the 
 peace which is in the grave ; motions of the in- 
 tellect as unwearied as the heavens, yet for all 
 anxieties a halcyon calm ; a tranquillity that 
 seemed no product of inertia, but as if resulting 
 from mighty and equal antagonisms ; infinite ac- 
 tivities, infinite repose. 
 
 Oh ! just, subtle, and mighty opium ! that to 
 the hearts of poor and rich alike, for the wounds 
 that will never heal, and for " the pangs that 
 tempt the spirit to rebel, " bringest an assuaging 
 balm ; eloquent opium ! that with thy potent 
 rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath ; 
 
106 CONFESSIONS, ETC. 
 
 and to the guilty man, for one night givest back 
 the hopes of his youth, and hands washed pure 
 from blood ; and to the proud man, a brief obliv- 
 ion for 
 
 Wrongs unredress'd, and insults unavenged ; 
 
 that summonest to the chancery of dreams, for 
 the triumphs of suffering innocence, false wit- 
 nesses ; and confoundest perjury ; and dost re- 
 verse 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 Praxite- 
 les — beyond the splendor of Babylon and He- 
 katompylos ; and " from the anarchy of dream- 
 ing sleep," callest into sunny light the faces of 
 long-buried beauties, and the blessed household 
 countenances, cleansed from the u dishonors of 
 the grave." Thou only givest these gifts to 
 man ; and thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh, 
 just, subtle, and mighty opium ! 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE PAINS OF OPIUM 
 
 Courteous, and, I hope, indulgent reader, 
 (for all my readers must be indulgent ones, or 
 else, I fear, I shall shock them too much to 
 count on their courtesy,) having accompanied 
 me thus far, now let me request you to move 
 onwards, for about eight years ; that is to say, 
 from 1804 (when I have said that my acquaint- 
 ance with opium first began) to 1812. The 
 years of academic life are now over and gone — 
 almost forgotten : — the student's cap no longer 
 presses my temples ; if my cap exist at all, it 
 presses those of some youthful scholar, I trust, as 
 happy as myself, and as passionate a lover of 
 knowledge. My gown is, by this time, I dare to 
 
103 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 say, in the same condition with many thousands 
 of excellent books in the Bodleian, viz., dili- 
 gently perused by certain studious moths and 
 worms ; or departed, however, (which is all that 
 I know of its fate,) to that great reservoir of 
 someivhere, to which all the tea-cups, tea-caddies, 
 tea-pots, tea-kettles, &tc, have departed, (not 
 to speak of still frailer vessels, such as glasses, 
 decanters, bed-makers, he.,) 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 com- 
 mon with most gownsmen of either university, 
 could give, I suspect, but an obscure and con- 
 jectural history. The persecutions of the chap- 
 el-bell, sounding its unwelcome summons to six 
 o'clock matins, interrupts my slumbers no lon- 
 ger ; the porter who rang it, upon whose beauti- 
 ful nose (bronze, inlaid with copper) I wrote, in 
 retaliation, so many Greek epigrams, whilst 1 
 was dressing, is dead, and has ceased to disturb 
 any body ; and I, and many others, who suf- 
 fered much from his tintinnabulous propensities 
 have now agreed to overlook his errors, and 
 have forgiven him. Even with the bell I am 
 now in charity ; it rings, I suppose, as formerly, 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 109 
 
 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, 
 1 regard its treacherous voice no longer, (treach- 
 erous 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 favorable 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 metaphysics, in the writings 
 of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, &c. And how, 
 and in what manner do I live ? in short, what 
 class or description of men do I belong to ? I 
 am at this period, viz., in 1812, living in a cot- 
 tage ; and with a single female servant, (honi 
 soit qui mal y pense,) who, amongst my neigh- 
 bors, passes by the name of my " house-keep- 
 er." And, as a scholar and a man of learned 
 education, and in that sense a gentleman, I may 
 presume to class myself as an unworthy mem- 
 
110 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 ber of that indefinite body called gentlemen. 
 Partly on the ground I have assigned, perhaps ; 
 partly because, from my having no visible call- 
 ing or business, it is rightly judged that I must be 
 living on my private fortune ; 1 am so classed 
 by my neighbors ; and, by the courtesy of mod- 
 ern England, I am usually addressed on letters, 
 &c, esquire, though having, I fear, in the rigor- 
 ous construction of heralds, but slender preten- 
 sions to that distinguished honor ; yes, in popular 
 estimation, 1 am X. Y. Z., esquire, but not 
 Justice of the Peace, nor Custos Rotulorum. 
 Am I married ? Not yet. And I still take 
 opium ? On Saturday nights. And, perhaps, 
 have taken it unblushingly ever since " the rainy 
 Sunday," and " the stately Pantheon," and 
 " the beatific druggist " of 1804? — Even so. 
 And how do I find my health after all this opium 
 eating ? in short, how do I do ? Why, pretty 
 well, I thank you, reader ; in the phrase of 
 ladies in the straw, " as well as can be expect- 
 ed." In fact, if I dared to say the real and 
 simple truth, it must not be forgotten, that hitherto 
 I thought to satisfy the theories of medical men, 
 I ought to be ill, I was never better in my life 
 than in the spring of 1812'; and I hope sin- 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. HI 
 
 cerely, that the quantity of claret, port, or 
 " particular Madeira," which, in all probability, 
 you, good reader, have taken, and design to 
 take, for every term of eight years, during your 
 natural life, may as little disorder your health as 
 mine was disordered by opium I had taken for 
 the eight years, between 1804 and 1812. 
 Hence you may see again the danger of taking 
 any medical advice from Anastasius ; in divin- 
 ity, for aught I know, or law, he may be a safe 
 councillor ; but not in medicine. No ; it is far 
 better to consult Dr. Buchan ; as I did ; for I 
 never forgot that worthy man's excellent sug- 
 gestion ; 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, (£. e. in 1812,) I am ignorant and un- 
 suspicious of the avenging terrors which opium 
 has in store for those who abuse its lenity. At 
 the same time, I have been only a dilettante 
 eater of opium ; eight years practice even 
 with the single precaution of allowing suffi- 
 cient intervals between every indulgence, has 
 not been sufficient to make opium necessary to 
 
112 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 me as an article of daily diet. But now comes 
 a different era. Move on, if you please, reader, 
 to 1813. In the summer of the year we have 
 just quitted, I had suffered much in bodily health 
 from distress of mind connected with a very mel- 
 ancholy event. This event, being no ways 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, 1 was attacked by a most appalling 
 irritation of the stomach, in all respects the same 
 as that which had caused me so much suffering 
 in youth, and accompanied by a revival of all 
 the old dreams. This is the point of my narra- 
 tive on which, as respects my own self-justifica- 
 tion, the whole of what follows may be said to 
 hinge. And here I find myself in a perplexing 
 dilemma ; — Either, on the one hand, I must 
 exhaust the reader's patience, by such a detail 
 of my malady, 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 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 
 
 113 
 
 forego the benefit of a stronger impression left on 
 the mind of the reader, and must lay myself 
 open to the misconstruction of having slipped by 
 the easy and gradual steps of self-indulging per- 
 sons, 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 dilem- 
 ma ; the first horn of which would be sufficient 
 to toss and gore any column of patient readers, 
 though drawn up sixteen deep and constantly 
 relieved by fresh men ; consequently that is not 
 to be thought of. It remains then, that I postu- 
 late so much as is necessary for my purpose. 
 And let me take as full credit for what I postu- 
 late as if I had demonstrated it, good reader, at 
 the expense of your patience and my own. Be 
 not so ungenerous as to let me suffer in your 
 good opinion through my own forbearance and 
 regard for your comfort. No ; believe all that 
 I ask of you, viz., that I could resist no longer, 
 believe it liberally, and as an act of grace ; or 
 else in mere prudence ; for, if not, then in the 
 next edition of my Opium Confessions revised 
 and enlarged, I will make you believe, and trem- 
 8 
 
114 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 ble ; and a force d'ennvyer, by mere dint of 
 pandiculation I will terrify all readers of mine 
 from ever again questioning any postulate that I 
 shall think fit to make. 
 
 This then, let me repeat, I postulate — that, 
 at the time I began to take opium daily, I could 
 not have done otherwise. Whether, indeed, af- 
 terwards 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 midit not have been carried much further, 
 and my gradual re-conquests of ground lost 
 might not have been followed up much more 
 energetically — these are questions which I must 
 decline. Perhaps I might make out a case of 
 palliation ; but shall I speak ingenuously ? I 
 confess it, as a besetting infirmity of mine, that 
 1 am too much of an Eudaemonist : I hanker 
 too much after a state of happiness, both for 
 myself and others ; I cannot face misery, 
 whether my own or not, with an eye of sufficient 
 firmness ; and am little capable of encountering 
 present pain for the sake of any reversionary 
 benefit. On some other matters, 1 can agree 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 115 
 
 with the gentlemen in the cotton-trade* at Man- 
 chester in affecting the Stoic philosophy : but 
 not in this. Here I take the liberty of an 
 Eclectic philosopher, and I look out for some 
 courteous and considerate sect that will conde- 
 scend more to the infirm condition of an opium- 
 eater ; that are " sweet men;" as Chaucer says, 
 a to give absolution," and will show some con- 
 science in the penances they inflict, and the 
 efforts of abstinence they exact, from poor sin- 
 ners like myself. An inhuman moralist I can 
 no more endure in my nervous state than opium 
 that has not been boiled. At any rate, he, who 
 summons me to send out a large freight of self- 
 denial and mortification upon any cruising 
 voyage of moral improvement, must make it 
 clear to my understanding that the concern is a 
 hopeful one. At my time of life (six and thirty 
 years of age) it cannot be supposed that I have 
 much energy to spare : in fact, I find it all little 
 
 * A handsome news-room, of which I was very politely 
 made free in passing through Manchester by several gen- 
 tlemen of that place, is called, I think, The porch; whence 
 I, who am a stranger in Manchester, inferred that the sub- 
 scribers meant to profess themselves followers of Zeno. 
 But I have been since assured that this is a mistake. 
 
116 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 enough for the intellectual labors I have on my 
 hands : and, therefore, let no man expect to 
 frighten me by a few hard words into embark- 
 ing any part of it upon desperate adventures of 
 morality. 
 
 Whether desperate or not, however, the issue 
 of the stru£2;le in 1813 was what I have men- 
 tioned ; and from this date, the reader is to 
 consider me as a regular and confirmed opium- 
 eater, of whom to ask whether on any particular 
 day he had or had not taken opium, would be 
 to ask whether his lungs had performed respira- 
 tion, or the heart fulfilled its functions. — You 
 understand now, reader, what 1 am ; and you 
 are by this time aware, that no old gentleman, 
 " with a snow-white beard," will have any 
 chance of persuading me to surrender " the little 
 golden receptacle of the pernicious drug." No : 
 I give notice to all, whether moralists or sur- 
 geons, 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 abstinence from opium. 
 This then being all fully understood between us, 
 we shall in future sail before the wind. Now, 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 117 
 
 then, reader, from 1813, where all this time we 
 have been sitting down and loitering — rise up, 
 if you please, and walk forward about three 
 years more. Now draw up the curtain, and you 
 shall see me in a new character. 
 
 If any man, poor or rich, were to say that he 
 would tell us what had been the happiest day in 
 his life, and the why, and the wherefore, I sup- 
 pose that we should all cry out — Hear him ! 
 hear him ! — As to the happiest day, that must 
 be very difficult for any wise man to name : be- 
 cause any event, that could occupy so distinguish- 
 ed a place in a man's retrospect of his life, or 
 be entitled to have shed a special felicity on 
 any one day, ought to be of such an enduring 
 character, as that (accidents apart) it should 
 have continued to shed the same felicity, or one 
 not distinguishably less, on many years together. 
 To the happiest lustrum, however, or even to 
 the happiest year, it may be allowed to any man 
 to point without discountenance from wisdom. 
 This year, in my case, reader, was the one 
 which we have now reached ; though it stood, 
 I confess, as a parenthesis between years of a 
 gloomier character. It was a year of brilliant 
 water, (to speak after the manner of jewellers,) 
 
118 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 set as it were, and insulated, in the gloom and 
 cloudy melancholy of opium. Strange as it 
 may sound, I had a little before this time de- 
 scended suddenly, and without any considerable 
 effort, from three hundred and twenty grains of 
 opium (i. e. eight* thousand drops of laudanum) 
 per day, to forty grains, or one-eighth part. In- 
 stantaneously, and as if by magic, the cloud of 
 profoundest melancholy which rested upon my 
 brain, like some black vapors that I have seen 
 roll away from the summits of mountains, drew 
 off in one day ; passed off with its murky ban- 
 ners 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, 1 was again happy : I now took 
 
 * I here reckon twenty-five drops of laudanum as equiv- 
 alent to one grain of opium, which, I believe, is the com- 
 mon estimate. However, as both may be considered va- 
 riable quantities (the crude opium varying much in strength, 
 and the tincture still more) I suppose that no infinitesimal 
 accuracy can be had in such a calculation. Tea-spoons 
 vary as much in size as opium in strength. Small ones 
 hold about one hundred drops : so that eight thousand 
 drops are about eighty times a tea-spoonful. The reader 
 sees how much I kept within Dr. Buchan's indulgent al- 
 lowance. 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 119 
 
 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 per- 
 formed its functions as healthily as ever before : 
 1 read Kant again ; and again I understood him, 
 or fancied that I did. Again my feelings of 
 pleasure expanded themselves to all around me : 
 and if any man from Oxford or Cambridge, or 
 from neither, had been announced to me in my 
 unpretending cottage, I should have welcomed 
 him with as sumptuous a reception as so poor a 
 man could offer. Whatever else was wanting to 
 a wise man's happiness, — of laudanum I would 
 have given him as much as he wished, and in a 
 golden cup. And, by the way, now that I 
 speak of giving laudanum away, I remember, 
 about this time, a little incident, which I men- 
 tion, because, trifling as it was, the reader will 
 soon meet it again in my dreams, which it influ- 
 enced more fearfully than could be imagined. 
 One day a Malay knocked at my door. What 
 business a Malay could have to transact amongst 
 English mountains, 1 cannot conjecture : but 
 possibly he was on his road to a sea-port about 
 forty miles distant. 
 
 The servant who opened the door to him was 
 
120 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 a young girl born and bred amongst the moun- 
 tains, who had never seen an Asiatic dress of any 
 sort : his turban, therefore, confounded her not a 
 little : and, as it turned out, that his attainments 
 in English were exactly of the same extent as 
 hers in the Malay, there seemed to be an im- 
 passable 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 lan- 
 guages of the earth, besides, perhaps, a few of 
 the lunar ones,) came and gave me to understand 
 that there was a sort of demon below, whom she 
 clearly imagined that my art could exorcise from 
 the house. I did not immediately go down ; 
 but, when I did. the group which presented itself, 
 arranged as it was by accident, though not very 
 elaborate, took hold of my fancy and my eye in 
 a way that none of the statuesque attitudes ex- 
 hibited in the ballets at the Opera House, though 
 so ostentatiously complex, had ever done. In a 
 cottage kitchen, but panelled on the wall with 
 dark wood that from age and rubbing resembled 
 oak, and looking more like a rustic hall of en- 
 trance than a kitchen, stood the Malay — his 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 121 
 
 turban and loose trowsers of dingy white relieved 
 upon the dark panelling : he had placed himself 
 nearer to the girl than she seemed to relish ; 
 though her native spirit of mountain intrepidity 
 contended with the feeling of simple awe which 
 her countenance expressed as she gazed upon 
 the tiger-cat before her. And a more striking 
 picture there could not be imagined, than the 
 beautiful English face of the girl, and its ex- 
 quisite fairness, together with her erect and in- 
 dependent attitude, contrasted with the sallow 
 and bilious skin of the Malay, enamelled or 
 veneered with mahogany, by marine air, his 
 small, fierce, restless eyes, thin lips, slavish ges- 
 tures, and adorations. Half-hidden by the fe- 
 rocious looking Malay, was a little child from a 
 neighboring cottage who had crept in after him, 
 and was now in the act of reverting its head 
 and gazing upwards at the turban and the fiery 
 eyes beneath it, whilst with one hand he caught 
 at the dress of the young woman for protection. 
 My knowledge of the Oriental tongues is not 
 remarkably extensive, being indeed confined to 
 two words — the Arabic word for barley, and 
 the Turkish for opium, (madjoon,) which I have 
 learnt from Anastasius. And, as I had neither 
 
122 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 a Malay dictionary, nor even Adelung's Mith- 
 ridales, which might have helped me to a few- 
 words, I addressed hirn in some lines from the 
 Iliad ; considering that, of such language as I 
 possessed, the Greek, in point of longitude, 
 came geographically nearest to an Oriental one. 
 He worshipped me in a devout manner, and re- 
 plied in what I suppose was Malay. In this 
 way I saved my reputation with my neighbors : 
 for the Malay had no means of betraying the 
 secret. He lay down upon the floor for about 
 an hour, and then pursued his journey. On his 
 departure, I presented him with a piece of opium. 
 To him as an Orientalist, I concluded that 
 opium must be familiar : and the expression of 
 his face convinced me that it was. Neverthe- 
 less, I was struck with some little consternation 
 when I saw him suddenly raise his hand to his 
 mouth, and (in the schoolboy phrase) bolt the 
 whole, divided into three pieces, at one mouth- 
 ful. The quantity was enough to kill three 
 dragoons and their horses : and I felt some alarm 
 for the poor creature : but what could be done ? 
 I had given him the opium in compassion for 
 his solitary life, on recollecting that if he had 
 travelled on foot from London, it must be nearly 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 123 
 
 three weeks since he could have exchanged a 
 thought with any human being. I could not 
 think of violating the laws of hospitality, by 
 having him seized and drenched with an emetic, 
 and thus frightening him into a notion that we 
 were going to sacrifice him to some English idol. 
 No : there was clearly no help for it : — he took 
 his leave : and for some days I felt anxious : but 
 as I never heard of any Malay being found dead, 
 I became convinced that he was used* to opium : 
 and that I must have done him the service I 
 designed, by giving him one night of respite 
 from the pains of wandering. 
 
 This incident I have digressed to mention, be- 
 
 * This, however, is not a necessary conclusion : the va- 
 rieties of effect produced by opium on different constitutions 
 are infinite. A London Magistrate (Harriott's "Struggles 
 through Life," vol. hi. p. 391, third edition,) has recorded 
 that, on the first occasion of his trying laudanum for the 
 gout, he took forty drops, the next night sixty, and on 
 the fifth night eighty, without any effect whatever : and 
 this at an advanced age. I have an anecdote from a coun- 
 try surgeon, however, which sinks Mr. Harriott's case 
 into a trifle ; and in my projected medical treatise on opium, 
 which I will publish, provided the College of Surgeons 
 will pay me for enlightening their benighted understand- 
 ings upon this subject, I will relate it: but it is far too 
 good a story to be published gratis. 
 
124 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 cause this Malay (partly from the picturesque 
 exhibition he assisted to frame, partly from the 
 anxiety I connected with his image for some 
 days) fastened afterwards upon my dreams, and 
 brought other Malays with him worse than him- 
 self, that ran "a-muck"*at me, and led me 
 into a world of troubles. But to quit this epi- 
 sode, and to return to my intercalary year of 
 happiness. I have said already, that on a sub- 
 ject so important to us all as happiness, we should 
 listen with pleasure to any man's experience or 
 experiments, even though he were but a plough- 
 boy, who cannot be supposed to have ploughed 
 very deep into such an intractable soil as that of 
 human pains and pleasures, or to have conducted 
 his researches upon any very enlightened prin- 
 ciples. But I, who have taken happiness, both 
 in a solid and a liquid shape, both boiled and 
 unboiled, both East India and Turkey — who 
 have conducted my experiments upon this inter- 
 esting subject with a sort of galvanic battery — 
 and have, for the general benefit of the world, 
 
 * See the common accounts in any Eastern traveler or 
 voyager of the frantic excesses committed by Malays who 
 have taken opium, or are reduced to desperation by ill luck 
 at gambling. 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 125 
 
 inoculated myself, as it were, with the poison of 
 eight hundred drops of laudanum per day, - — 
 (just 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, I know not of what nation, with 
 hydrophobia,) I (it will be admitted) must surely 
 know what happiness is, if any body does. And 
 therefore, I will here lay down an analysis of 
 happiness ; and as the most interesting mode of 
 communicating it, 1 will give it, not didactically, 
 but wrapt up and involved in a picture of one 
 evening, as I spent every evening during the 
 intercalary year when laudanum, though taken 
 daily, was to me no more than the elixir of 
 pleasure. This done, I shall quit the subject of 
 happiness altogether, and pass to a very different 
 one — ■ the pains of opium. 
 
 Let there be a cottage, standing in a valley, 
 eighteen miles from any town — no spacious 
 valley, but about two miles long, by three quar- 
 ters 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. 
 
126 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 Let the mountains be real mountains, between 
 three and four thousand feet high, and the cot- 
 tage, a real cottage ; not (as a witty author has 
 it) " a cottage with a double coach-house :" let 
 it be, in fact, (for 1 must abide by the actual 
 scene,) a white cottage, embowered with flower- 
 ing shrubs, so chosen as to unfold a succession 
 of flowers upon the walls, and clustering round 
 the windows through all the months of spring, 
 summer and autumn — beginning, in fact, with 
 May roses, and ending with jasmine. Let it, 
 however, not be spring, nor summer, nor au- 
 tumn — but winter, in his sternest shape. This 
 is a most important point in the science of hap- 
 piness. And I am surprised to see people over- 
 look it, and think it matter of congratulation that 
 winter is going ; or, if coming, is not likely to 
 be a severe one. On the contrary, I put up a 
 petition annually, for as much snow, hail, frost, 
 or storm, of one kind or other, as the skies can pos- 
 sibly afford us. Surely every body is aware of 
 the divine pleasures which attend a winter fire- 
 side, candles at four o'clock, warm hearth-rugs, 
 tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flow- 
 ing in ample draperies on the floor, whilst the 
 wind and rain are raging audibly without, 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 127 
 
 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 win- 
 ter evening, which must surely be familiar to 
 every body born in a high latitude. And it is 
 evident, that most of these delicacies, like ice- 
 cream, require a very low temperature of the 
 atmosphere to produce them : they are fruits 
 which cannot be ripened without weather stormy 
 or inclement, in some way or other. I am not 
 "particular ," as people say, whether it be 
 snow, or black frost, or wind so strong, that (as 
 
 Mr. says, " you may lean your back 
 
 against it like a post." 1 can put up even with 
 rain, provided that it rains cats and dogs : but 
 something of the sort I must have : and, if I 
 have not, I think myself in a manner ill used : 
 for why am I called on to pay so heavily for 
 winter, in coals, and candles, and various priva- 
 tions that will occur even to gentlemen, if I am 
 not to have the article good of its kind ? No : 
 a Canadian winter for my money : or a Russian 
 one where every man is but a co- proprietor with 
 
128 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 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 degen- 
 erated into disgusting tendencies to vernal ap- 
 pearances : no ; it must be divided by a thick 
 wall of dark nights from all return of light and 
 sunshine. — From the latter weeks of October 
 to Christmas-eve, therefore, is the period during 
 which happiness is in season, which in my judg- 
 ment, enter the room with the tea-tray : for tea, 
 though ridiculed by those who are naturally of 
 coarse nerves, or are become so from wine-drink- 
 ing, and are not susceptible of influence from so 
 refined a stimulant, will always be the favorite 
 beverage of the intellectual : and, for my part, 
 I would have joined Dr. Johnson in a helium 
 internecinum against Jonas Hanway, or any 
 other impious person, who should presume to 
 disparage it. — But here, to save myself the 
 trouble of too much verbal description, I will 
 introduce a painter ; and give him directions for 
 the rest of the picture. Painters do not like 
 white cottages, unless a good deal weather-stain- 
 ed : but as the reader now understands that it is 
 a winter night, his services will not be required 
 except for the inside of the house. 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 129 
 
 Paint me, then, a room seventeen feet by 
 twelve, and not more than seven and a half feet 
 high. This, reader, is somewhat ambitiously styled, 
 in my family, the drawing-room : but, being con- 
 trived " 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 neighbors. Of these, 
 I have about five thousand, collected gradually 
 since my eighteenth year. Therefore, painter, 
 put as many as you can into this room. Make 
 it populous with books : and, furthermore, paint 
 me a good fire ; and furniture, plain and modest, 
 befitting the unpretending cottage of a scholar. 
 And, near the fire, paint me a tea-table ; and 
 (as it is clear that no creature can come to see 
 one such a stormy night) place only two cups 
 and saucers on the tea-tray ; and, if you know 
 how to paint such a thing symbolically, or other- 
 wise, paint me an eternal tea-pot — eternal a 
 parte ante, and a parte post ; for 1 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 oneself, paint me a 
 lovely young woman, sitting at the table. Paint 
 her arms like Aurora's, and her smiles like 
 9 
 
130 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 Hebe's : — But no, dear M., not even in jest 
 let me insinuate that thy power to illuminate my 
 cottage rests upon a tenure so perishable as mere 
 personal beauty ; or that the witchcraft of an- 
 gelic smiles lies within the empire of any earth- 
 ly pencil. Pass, then, my good painter, to 
 something more within its power : and the next 
 article brought forward should naturally be my- 
 self — a picture of the Opium-eater, with his 
 " little golden receptacle of the pernicious drug," 
 lying beside him on the table. As to the opium, 
 1 have no objection to see a picture of that, 
 though I would rather see the original : you 
 may paint it, if you choose ; but I apprize you, 
 that no " little " receptacle would, even in 1816, 
 answer my purpose, who was at a distance from 
 the " stately Pantheon/' and all druggists (mor- 
 tal or otherwise.) No : you may as well paint 
 the real receptacle, which was not of gold, but 
 of glass, and as much like a wine-decanter as 
 possible. Into this you may put a quart of 
 ruby-colored laudanum : that, and a book of 
 German metaphysics placed by its side, will 
 sufficiently attest my being in the neighborhood ; 
 but, as to myself, — there I demur. I admit, 
 that, naturally, I ought to occupy the foreground 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 131 
 
 of the picture ; that being the hero of the piece, 
 or (if you choose) the criminal at the bar, my 
 body should be had into court. This seems 
 reasonable ; but why should I confess, on this 
 point, to a painter ? or why confess at all ? If 
 the public (into whose private ear I am 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 pub- 
 lic and to me ? No : paint me, if at all, accord- 
 ing to your own fancy : and, as a painter's 
 fancy should teem with beautiful creations, I 
 cannot fail, in that way, to be a gainer. And 
 now, reader, we have run through all the ten 
 categories of my condition, as it stood about 
 1816 — 17 ; up to the middle of which latter 
 year I judge myself to have been a happy man : 
 and the elements of that happiness I have en- 
 deavored 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. 
 
132 CONFESSIONS, ETC. 
 
 But now farewell — a long farewell to happi- 
 ness — winter or summer ! farewell to smiles 
 and laughter ! farewell to peace of mind ! fare- 
 well to hope and to tranquil dreams, and to the 
 blessed consolations of sleep ! for more than 
 three years and a half I am summoned away 
 from these : I am now arrived at an Iliad of 
 woes : for I have now to record 
 
THE PAINS OF OPIUM. 
 
 as when some great painter dips 
 
 His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse. 
 
 shelly's revolt of islam. 
 
 Reader, who have thus far accompanied me, 
 I must request your attention to a brief explan- 
 atory note on three points : 
 
 1. For several reasons, I have not been able 
 to compose the notes for this part of my narra- 
 tive 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 dat- 
 ed ; and some are undated. Whenever it could 
 answer my purpose to transplant them from the 
 natural or chronological order, I have not scru- 
 
134 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 pled to do so. Sometimes I speak in the pre- 
 sent, sometimes in the past tense. Few of the 
 notes, perhaps, were written exactly at the pe- 
 riod 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 burden 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 aman- 
 uensis. 
 
 2. You will think, perhaps, that I am too 
 confidential and communicative of my own pri- 
 vate history. It may be so. But my way of 
 writing is rather to think aloud, and follow my 
 own humors, than much to consider who is lis- 
 tening to me ; and, if I stop to consider what is 
 proper to be said to this or that person, 1 shall 
 soon come to doubt whether any part at all is 
 proper. The fact is, I place myself at a dis- 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 135 
 
 tance of fifteen or twenty years ahead of this 
 time, and suppose myself writing to those who 
 will be interested about me hereafter ; and wish- 
 ing to have some record of a 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 1 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 
 1 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 innumera- 
 ble 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 1 have 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 they would certainly not 
 have answered. But this is a common mis- 
 take of those who know nothing of opium 
 
136 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 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 dejeciion for a few days. I answer, 
 no ; there is nothing like low spirits ; on the 
 contrary, the mere animal spirits are uncom- 
 monly 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 perspi- 
 rations, and feelings such as I shall not attempt 
 to describe without more space at my com- 
 mand. 
 
 I shall now enter " in medias res" and shall 
 anticipate, from a time when my opium pains 
 might be said to be at their acme, an account of 
 their palsying effects on the intellectual facul- 
 ties. 
 
 My studies have now been long interrupted. 
 I cannot read to myself with any pleasure, 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 137 
 
 hardly with a moment's endurance. Yet I read 
 aloud sometimes for the pleasure of others ; be- 
 cause reading is an accomplishment of mine ; and, 
 in the slang use of the word accomplishment as a 
 superficial and ornamental attainment, almost the 
 only one 1 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 sufTerably. 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 any thing in books, it has been 
 by the grand lamentations of Sampson Agon- 
 istes, 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-by, is the only poet I ever met who 
 could read his own verses : often indeed he reads 
 admirably.) 
 
138 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 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 men- 
 tion what that was. The sublimer and more 
 passionate poets I still read, as 1 have said, by 
 snatches, and occasionally. But my proper 
 vocation, as 1 well knew, 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, be- 
 cause I had devoted the labor of my whole life, 
 and had dedicated my intellect, blossoms and 
 fruits, to the slow and elaborate toil of con- 
 structing one single work, to which I had pre* 
 sumed to give the title of an unfinished work of 
 Spinosa's, viz. De emendatione humani intellec- 
 ts. 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 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATEE. 139 
 
 architect ; and, instead of surviving me as a 
 monument of wishes at least, and aspirations, 
 and a life of labor 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 superstructure, — 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 under- 
 standing, which formerly had been as active and 
 restless as a hyena, 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 in- 
 timate with severe thinkers, with logic, and the 
 great masters of knowledge, not to be aware of 
 
140 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 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 fungous 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 pro- 
 phetic anticipation of the advent of some 
 legislator for this science, I said, before 1 had 
 finished the first chapter, " Thou art the man !" 
 Wonder and curiosity were emotions that had 
 long been dead in me. Yet 1 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 pos- 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 141 
 
 sible ? I supposed thinking* 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 accom- 
 plished 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 
 weights of facts and documents ; Mr. Ricardo 
 had deduced, a priori, from the understanding 
 itself, laws which first gave a ray of light into 
 the unwieldy chaos of materials, and had con- 
 structed what had been but a collection of 
 tentative discussions into a science of regular 
 proportions, now first standing on an eternal 
 basis. 
 
 Thus did one simple work of a profound un- 
 derstanding avail to give me a pleasure and an 
 
 * The reader must remember what I here mean by 
 thinking; because, else this would be a very presump- 
 tuous expression. England, of late, has been rich to ex- 
 cess in fine thinkers, in the departments of creative and 
 combining thought ; but there is a sad dearth of masculine 
 thinkers in any analytic path. A Scotchman of eminent 
 name has lately told us, that he is obliged to quit even 
 mathematics, for want of encouragement. 
 
142 CONFESSIONS OF 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 1 
 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 gen- 
 eral 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 itself is a 
 sufficient opiate. 
 
 This exertion, however, was but a temporary 
 flash ; as the sequel showed — for I designed to 
 publish my work ; arrangements were made at a 
 provincial press, about eighteen miles distant, for 
 printing it. An additional compositor was re- 
 tained, for some days, on this account. The 
 work was even twice advertised : and I was, in 
 a manner, pledged to the fulfilment of my in- 
 tention. But I had a preface to write ; and a 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 143 
 
 dedication, which I wished to make a splendid 
 one to Mr. Ricardo. I found myself quite 
 unable to accomplish all this. The arrange- 
 ments were countermanded : the compositor dis- 
 missed : and my " prolegomena " rested peace- 
 fully by the side of its elder and more dignified 
 brother. 
 
 I have thus described and illustrated my in- 
 tellectual 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 sel- 
 dom 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 do- 
 mestic 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 
 
144 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 incapacity and feebleness, from the direct em- 
 barrassments incident to the neglect or procras- 
 tination of each day's appropriate duties, and 
 from the remorse which must often exasperate 
 the stings of these evils to a reflective and con- 
 scientious 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 night- 
 mare : 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 power- 
 less 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 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 145 
 
 were the immediate and proximate cause of my 
 
 acutest suffering. 
 
 . \ 
 
 The first notice 1 had of any important change 
 
 going on in this part of my physical economy, 
 was from the reawaking of a state of eye gen- 
 erally 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 dark- 
 ness, all sorts of phantoms ; in some that power 
 is simply a mechanic 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 some- 
 times 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 mid- 
 dle 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 (Edipus or Priam, before 
 10 
 
146 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 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 splendor. And 
 the four following facts may be mentioned, as 
 noticeable at this time : — 
 
 I. That, as the creative state of the eye in- 
 creased, 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 de- 
 sires, 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 appar- 
 ently no less inevitable, when thus once traced 
 in faint and visionary colors, like writings in sym- 
 pathetic ink, they were drawn out by the fierce 
 chemistry of my dreams, into insufferable splen- 
 dor that fretted my heart. 
 
 II. For this, and all other changes in my 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 147 
 
 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 reascend- 
 ed. This I do not dwell upon : because the 
 state of gloom which attended these gorgeous 
 spectacles, amounting at least to utter darkness, 
 as of some suicidal despondency, cannot be 
 approached by words. 
 
 III. 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 seventy or one hundred years in 
 one night ; nay, sometimes had feelings repre- 
 sentative of a millennium passed in that time, or, 
 however, of a duration far beyond the limits of 
 any human experience. 
 
148 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 IV. The minutest incidents of childhood, or 
 forgotten scenes of later years, were often re- 
 vived : 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, 
 ancT clothed in all their evanescent circumstan- 
 ces and accompanying feelings, I recognised 
 them instantaneously. I was once told by a 
 near relative of mine, that having in her child- 
 hood 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 be- 
 fore her simultaneously as in a mirror ; and she 
 had a faculty developed as suddenly for com- 
 prehending 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 accompa- 
 nied by a remark which 1 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 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 149 
 
 to the mind ; a thousand accidents may, and 
 will interpose a veil between our present con- 
 sciousness and the secret inscriptions on the 
 mind ; accidents of the same sort will also rend 
 away this veil ; but alike, whether veiled or un- 
 veiled, 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 with- 
 drawn. 
 
 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 occa- 
 sional amusement, a great reader of Livy, whom, 
 1 confess, that I prefer, both for style and mat- 
 ter, 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 
 
150 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 words so often occurring in Livy — Consul 
 Romanus ; especially when the consul is intro- 
 duced in his military character, I mean to say, 
 that the words king, sultan, regent, he, 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 sur- 
 vive 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 re- 
 hearsal 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 daughters of those who met 
 in peace, and sate at the same tables, and were 
 allied by marriage or by blood ; and yet, after a 
 certain day in August, 1642, never smiled upon 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 151 
 
 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 dis- 
 solve : and, at a clapping of hands, would be 
 heard the heart-quaking sound of Consul Ro- 
 manics : 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 
 (1 describe only from memory of Mr. Coleridge's 
 account) represented vast gothic balls : on the 
 floor of which stood all sorts of engines and 
 machinery, wheels, cables, pulleys, levers, cata- 
 
152 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 pults, &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 
 abrupt termination, without any balustrade, and 
 allowing no step onwards to him who had reach- 
 ed the extremity, except into the depths below. 
 Whatever is to become of poor Piranesi, you 
 suppose, at least, that his labors 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, by this time 
 standing on the very brink of the abyss. Again 
 elevate your eye, and a still more aerial flight of 
 stairs is beheld : and again is poor Piranesi busy 
 on his aspiring labors : and so on, until the un- 
 finished 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 splendors 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 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 153 
 
 the clouds. From a great modern poet I cite 
 part of a passage which describes, as an appear- 
 ance 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 splendor — without end! 
 Fabric it seemed 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 ; their 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 vapors 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 Dry- 
 den, and of Fuseli in modern times, that they 
 
154 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 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 per- 
 son. — Till now I had never felt a headache 
 even, or any the slightest pain, except rheu- 
 matic pains caused by my own folly. How- 
 ever, I got over this attack, though it must have 
 been verging on something very dangerous. 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 155 
 
 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, prom- 
 ised an abiding torment ; and, in fact, it never 
 left me until the winding up of my case. Hith- 
 erto 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 Lon- 
 don 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 innumera- 
 ble faces, upturned to the heavens : faces, im- 
 ploring, wrathful, despairing, surged upwards by 
 thousands, by myriads, by generations, by cen- 
 turies : — my agitation was infinite, — my mind 
 tossed — and surged with the ocean. 
 
 May, 1818. — The Malay had 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 1 have often 
 
156 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 thought that if I were compelled to forego 
 England, and to live in China, and among Chi- 
 nese manners and modes of life and scenery, I 
 should go mad. The causes of my horror lie 
 deep ; and some of them must be common to 
 others. Southern Asia, in general, is the seat of 
 awful images and associations. As the cradle 
 of the human race, it would alone have a dim 
 and reverential feeling connected with it. But 
 there are other reasons. No man can pretend 
 that the wild, barbarous, and capricious super- 
 stitions of Africa, or of savage tribes elsewhere, 
 affect him in the way that he is affected by the 
 ancient, monumental, cruel, and elaborate reli- 
 gions 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 re- 
 newed. 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, 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 157 
 
 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, into which the enormous pop- 
 ulation 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 ab- 
 horrence, and want of sympathy, placed be- 
 tween us by feelings deeper than I can analyze. 
 I could sooner live with lunatics, or brute ani- 
 mals. 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 sun-lights, 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 to- 
 gether in China or Indostan. From kindred 
 
158 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 feelings, 1 soon brought Egypt and all her gods 
 under the same law. I was stared at, hooted at, 
 grinned at, chattered at, by monkeys, by paro- 
 quets, 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 : 1 
 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 can- 
 cerous kisses, by crocodiles ; and laid, confound- 
 ed 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, 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 159 
 
 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 circum- 
 stances 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 hor- 
 ror 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 ta- 
 bles, 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 every thing when I am sleeping,) 
 and instantly I awoke : it was broad noon ; and 
 my children were standing, hand in hand, at my 
 
160 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 bedside ; come to show me their colored 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 re- 
 mark, at various periods of my life, that the 
 deaths of those whom we love, and indeed the 
 contemplation of death generally, is (ceteris 
 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 dis- 
 tant, 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, 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 161 
 
 (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 sug- 
 gest 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 obsti- 
 nately 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 predis- 
 position 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. 
 
 11 
 
162 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 Right before me lay the very scene which could 
 really be commanded from that situation, but 
 exalted, as was usual, and solemnized by the 
 power of dreams. There were the same moun- 
 tains, and the same lovely valley at their feet ; 
 but the mountains were raised to more than Al- 
 pine 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 church-yard there were cattle tranquilly 
 reposing upon the verdant graves, and particu- 
 larly 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 firuits 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 church-yard ; 
 and, with the dew, I can wash the fever from 
 my forehead, and then I shall be unhappy no 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 163 
 
 longer." And I turned, as if to open my gar- 
 den 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 cupulos 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 Ju- 
 dean palms, there sat a woman ; and I looked ; 
 and it was — Ann ! She fixed her eyes upon 
 me earnestly ; and I said to her at length : " So 
 then I have found you at last." I waited ; but 
 she answered me not a word. Her face was the 
 same as when I saw it last, and yet again how 
 different ! Seventeen years ago, when the lamp- 
 light fell upon her face, as for the last time I 
 kissed her lips (lips, Ann, that to me were not 
 polluted,) her eyes were streaming with tears : 
 her 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 
 
164 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 of expression ; and I now gazed upon her with 
 some awe, but suddenly her countenance grew 
 dim, and, turning to the mountains, I perceived 
 vapors 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 moun- 
 tains, and by lamp-light in Ox ford -street, walk- 
 ing again with Ann — just as we walked seven- 
 teen years before, when we were both children. 
 
 As a final specimen, 1 cite one of a different 
 character, from 1820. 
 
 The dream commenced with a music which 
 now I often heard in dreams — a music of prep- 
 aration 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 laboring 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 sym- 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 165 
 
 \ 
 
 pathy was the more insupportable from my con- 
 fusion 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 twen- 
 ty 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 pro- 
 claimed. Then came sudden alarms ; hurry ings 
 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 break- 
 ing 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 — 
 
166 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 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 nar- 
 rative which has already extended to an un- 
 reasonable 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 its 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, al- 
 most to its final links, the accursed chain which 
 bound him." By what means ? To have nar- 
 rated this, according to the original intention, 
 would have far exceeded the space which can 
 now be allowed. It is fortunate, as such a co- 
 gent reason exists for abridging it, that I should, 
 on a maturer view of the case, have been ex- 
 ceedingly unwilling to injure, by any such unaf- 
 fecting details, the impression of the history 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 167 
 
 itself, as an appeal to the prudence and the con- 
 science of the yet unconfirmed opium-eater — 
 or even (though a very inferior consideration) 
 to injure its effect as a composition. The in- 
 terest of the judicious reader will not attach it- 
 self 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 mar- 
 vellous 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 be- 
 came of the opium-eater, and in what state he 
 now is, 1 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 happi- 
 ness. This appears true ; but good logic gave 
 
168 CONFESSIONS OF AN 
 
 the author no strength to act upon it. How- 
 ever, 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 appre- 
 hend, however, that I took it very irregularly : 
 and that I varied from about fifty or sixty grains., 
 to one hundred and fifty 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 of one, even when four months had 
 passed, still agitated, writhing, throbbing, palpi- 
 tating, shattered ; and much, perhaps, in the 
 situation of him who has been racked, as I col- 
 lect the torments of that state from the affecting 
 
ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 169 
 
 account of them left by the most innocent sufferer* 
 (of the times of James 1.) Meantime, I derived 
 no benefit from any medicine, except one pre- 
 scribed 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 situ- 
 ation. 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 ef- 
 forts of other men by my own ; I heartily wish 
 him more energy ; I wish him the same success. 
 
 * William Lithgow : his book (Travels, &c.) is ill and 
 pedantically written ; but the account of his own suffer- 
 ings on the rack at Malaga is overpoweringly affecting. 
 
170 CONFESSIONS, ETC. 
 
 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 re- 
 generation : and I may add, that ever since, at 
 intervals, I have had a restoration of more than 
 youthful spirits, though under the pressure of dif- 
 culties, which, in a less happy state of mind, I 
 should have called misfortunes. 
 
 One memorial of my former condition still re- 
 mains ; 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 tumultuous, and like the gates of 
 Paradise to our first parents when looking back 
 from afar, it is still (in the tremendous line of 
 Milton) — 
 
 With dreadful faces throng'd and fiery arms. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 The proprietors of this little work having 
 determined on reprinting it, some explanation 
 seems called for, to account for the non-appear- 
 ance of a Third Part promised in the London 
 Magazine of December last ; and the more so, 
 because the proprietors, under whose guarantee 
 that promise was issued, might otherwise be im- 
 plicated in the blame — little or much — at- 
 tached to its non-fulfilment. This blame, in 
 mere justice, the author takes wholly upon him- 
 self. What may be the exact amount of the 
 guilt which he thus appropriates, is a very dark 
 question to his own judgment, and not much 
 illuminated by any of the masters in casuistry 
 whom he has consulted on the occasion. On 
 the one hand, it seems generally agreed that a 
 promise is binding in the inverse ratio of the 
 
174 APPENDIX. 
 
 numbers to whom it is made : for which reason 
 it is that we see many persons break promises 
 without scruple that are made to a whole nation, 
 who keep their faith religiously in all private 
 engagements, — breaches of promise towards the 
 stronger party being committed at a man's own 
 peril : on the other hand, the only parties in- 
 terested in the promises of an author are his 
 readers ; and these it is a point of modesty in 
 any author to believe as few as possible ; or 
 perhaps only one, in which case any promise 
 imposes a sanctity of moral obligation which it 
 is shocking to think of. Casuistry dismissed 
 however, — the author throws himself on the 
 indulgent consideration of all who may conceive 
 themselves aggrieved by his delay — in the fol- 
 lowing account of his own condition from the 
 end of last year, when the engagement was 
 made, up nearly to the present time. For any 
 purpose of self- excuse, it might be sufficient to 
 say that intolerable bodily suffering had totally 
 disabled him for almost any exertion of mind, 
 more especially for such as demand and presup- 
 pose a pleasurable and genial state of feeling : 
 but, as a case that may by possibility contribute 
 a trifle to the medical history of Opium in a fur- 
 
APPENDIX. 175 
 
 ther stage of its action than can often have been 
 brought under the notice of professional men, 
 he has judged that it might be acceptable to 
 some readers to have it described more at length. 
 Fiat eocperimentum in corpore vili is a just rule 
 where there is any reasonable presumption of 
 benefit to arise on a large scale ; what the 
 benefit may be, will admit of a doubt : but 
 there can be none as to the value of the body : 
 for a more worthless body than his own, the 
 author is free to confess, cannot be : it is his 
 pride to believe — that it is the very ideal of a 
 base, crazy, despicable human system — that 
 hardly ever could have been meant to be sea- 
 worthy for two days under the ordinary storms 
 and wear-and-tear of life ! and indeed, if that 
 were the creditable way of disposing of human 
 bodies, he must own that he should almost be 
 ashamed to bequeath his wretched structure to 
 any respectable dog. — But now to the case; 
 which, for the sake of avoiding the constant re- 
 currence of a cumbersome periphrasis, the au- 
 thor will take the liberty of giving in the first 
 person. 
 
176 APPENDIX. 
 
 Those who have read the Confessions will 
 have closed them with the impression that I had 
 wholly renounced the use of Opium. This im- 
 pression I meant to convey ; and that for two 
 reasons : first, because the very act of delib- 
 erately recording such a state of suffering neces- 
 sarily presumes in the recorder a power of sur- 
 veying his own case as a cool spectator, and a 
 degree of spirits for adequately describing it, 
 which it would be inconsistent to suppose in 
 any person speaking from the station of an 
 actual sufferer : secondly, because I, who had 
 descended from so large a quantity as eight 
 thousand drops to so small a one (compara- 
 tively speaking) as a quantity ranging be- 
 tween three hundred and one hundred and sixty 
 drops, might well suppose that the victory 
 was in effect achieved. In suffering my read- 
 ers therefore to think of me as of a reformed 
 opium-eater, I left no impression but what I 
 shared myself; and, as may be seen, even this 
 impression was left to be collected from the 
 general tone of the conclusion, and not from any 
 specific words — which are in no instance at 
 variance with the literal truth. — In no long 
 time after that paper was written, I became 
 
APPENDIX. 177 
 
 sensible that the effort which remained would 
 cost me far more energy than I had anticipated : 
 and the necessity for making it was more ap- 
 parent every month. In particular I became 
 aware of an increasing callousness or defect of 
 sensibility in the stomach ; and this I imagined 
 might imply a schirrous state of that organ either 
 formed or forming. An eminent physician, to 
 whose kindness I was at that time deeply in- 
 debted, informed me that such a termination of 
 my case was not impossible, though likely to be 
 forestalled by a different termination, in the 
 event of my continuing the use of opium. 
 Opium, therefore, I resolved wholly to abjure, 
 as soon as 1 should find myself at liberty to 
 bend my undivided attention and energy to 
 this purpose. It was not, however, until the 
 24th of June last that any tolerable concur- 
 rence of facilities for such an attempt arrived. 
 On that day I began my experiment, having 
 previously settled in my own mind that I would 
 not flinch, but would " stand up to the scratch'' 
 — under any possible "punishment." I must 
 premise, that about one hundred and seventy 
 or one hundred and eighty drops had been my 
 ordinary allowance for many months : occa- 
 12 
 
178 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 sionally I had run up as high as five hundred ; 
 and once nearly to seven hundred : in repeated 
 preludes to my final experiment I had also 
 gone as low as one hundred drops ; but had 
 found it impossible to stand it beyond the fourth 
 day — which, by the way, I have always found 
 more difficult to get over than any of the pre- 
 ceding three. I went off under easy sail — one 
 hundred and thirty drops a day for three days : 
 on the fourth I plunged at once to eighty : the 
 misery which I now suffered " took the conceit" 
 out of me at once : and for about a month I con- 
 tinued off and on about this mark : then I sunk 
 
 to sixty : and the next day to none at all. 
 
 This was the first day for nearly ten years that 
 I had existed without opium. I persevered in 
 my abstinence for ninety hours ; i. e. upwards 
 
 of half a week. Then I took ask me not 
 
 how much : say, ye severest, what would ye 
 have done ? then I abstained again : then took 
 about twenty-five drops : then abstained : and 
 so on. 
 
 Meantime the symptoms which attended my 
 case for the first six weeks of the experiment 
 were these : — enormous irritability and excite- 
 ment of the whole system : the stomach in par- 
 
APPENDIX. 179 
 
 ticular restored to a full feeling of vitality and 
 sensibility ; but often in great pain : unceasing 
 restlessness night and day : sleep 1 scarce- 
 ly knew what it was : three hours out of the 
 twenty-four was the utmost I had, and that so 
 agitated and shallow that I heard every sound 
 that was near me : lower jaw constantly swell- 
 ing : mouth ulcerated : and many other distress- 
 ing symptoms that would be tedious to repeat ; 
 amongst which, however, 1 must mention one, 
 because it had never failed to accompany any 
 attempt to renounce opium — viz. violent ster- 
 nutation : this now became exceedingly trouble- 
 some : sometimes lasting for two hours at once, 
 and recurring at least twice or three times a 
 day. I was not much surprised at this, on 
 recollecting what I had somewhere heard or 
 read, that the membrane which lines the nos- 
 trils is a prolongation of that which lines the 
 stomach ; whence I believe are explained the 
 inflammatory appearances about the nostrils of 
 dram-drinkers. The sudden restoration of its 
 original sensibility to the stomach expressed it- 
 self, I suppose, in this way. It is remarkable 
 also, that, during the whole period of years 
 through which I had taken opium, I had never 
 
180 APPENDIX. 
 
 once caught cold (as the phrase is,) nor even 
 the slightest cough. But now a violent cold 
 attacked me, and a cough soon after. In an 
 unfinished fragment of a letter begun about 
 
 this time to 1 find these words : " You 
 
 ask me to write the . Do you know 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher's play of Thierry and 
 Theodoret ? There you will see my case as to 
 sleep : nor is it much of an exaggeration in 
 other features. — I protest to you that I have a 
 greater influx of thoughts in one hour at present 
 than in a whole year under the reign of opium. 
 It seems as though all the thoughts which had 
 been frozen up for a decade of years by opium, 
 had now, according to the old fable, been 
 thawed at once — such a multitude stream in 
 upon me from all quarters. Yet such is my 
 impatience and hideous irritability — that, for 
 one which I detain and write down, fifty escape 
 me : in spite of my weariness from suffering 
 and want of sleep, I cannot stand still or sit for 
 two minutes together. ' I nunc, et versus te- 
 cum meditare canoros.' " 
 
 At this stage of my experiment I sent to a 
 neighboring surgeon, requesting that he would 
 come over to see me. In the evening he came : 
 
APPENDIX. 181 
 
 and after briefly stating the case to him, I asked 
 this question : — Whether he did not think that 
 the opium might have acted as a stimulus to the 
 digestive organs ; and that the present state of 
 suffering in the stomach, which manifestly was 
 the cause of the inability to sleep, might arise 
 from indigestion ? His answer was — No : on 
 the contrary he thought that the suffering was 
 caused by digestion itself — which should natu- 
 rally go on below the consciousness, but which 
 from the unnatural state of the stomach, vitiated 
 by so long a use of opium, was become dis- 
 tinctly perceptible. This opinion was plausi- 
 ble : and the unintermitting nature of the suffer- 
 ing disposes me to think that it was true : for, if 
 it had been any mere irregular affection of the 
 stomach, it should naturally have intermitted 
 occasionally, and constantly fluctuated as to de- 
 gree. The intention of nature, as manifested 
 in the healthy state, obviously is — to withdraw 
 from our notice all the vital motions, such as the 
 circulation of the blood, the expansion and con- 
 traction of the lungs, the peristaltic action of the 
 stomach, &c. ; and opium, it seems, is able in 
 this as in other instances to counteract her pur- 
 poses. — By the advice of the surgeon 1 tried 
 
182 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 bitters : for a short time these greatly mitigated 
 the feelings under which I labored : but about 
 the forty-second day of the experiment the 
 symptoms already noticed began to retire, and 
 new ones to arise of a different and far more 
 tormenting class : under these, but with a few 
 intervals of remission, I have since continued to 
 suffer. But I dismiss them undescribed for 
 two reasons : 1st, because the mind revolts from 
 retracing circumstantially any sufferings from 
 which it is removed by too short or by no in- 
 terval : to do this with minuteness enough to 
 make the review of any use — would be indeed 
 " infandum renovare dolorem" and possibly 
 without a sufficient motive : for, 2dly, I doubt 
 whether this latter state be any way referable 
 to opium — positively considered, or even nega- 
 tively ; that is, whether it is to be numbered 
 amongst the last evils from the direct action of 
 opium, or even amongst the earliest evils conse- 
 quent upon a want of opium in a system long 
 deranged by its use. Certainly one part of the 
 symptoms might be accounted for from the time 
 of year (August :) for, though the summer was 
 not a hot one, yet in any case the sum of all 
 the hedit funded (if one may say so) during the 
 
APPENDIX. 183 
 
 previous months, added to the existing heat of 
 that month, naturally renders August in its bet- 
 ter half the hottest part of the year : and it so 
 happened that the excessive perspiration, which 
 even at Christmas attends any great reductiou 
 in the daily quantum of opium — and which in 
 July was so violent as to oblige me to use a 
 bath five or six times a day, had about the set- 
 ing-in of the hottest season wholly retired : on 
 which account any bad effect of the heat might 
 be the more unmitigated. Another symptom, 
 viz. what in my ignorance I call internal rheu- 
 matism (sometimes affecting the shoulders, &jc, 
 but more often appearing to be seated in the 
 stomach,) seemed again less probably attribu- 
 table to the opium or the want of opium than to 
 the dampness of the house* which I inhabit, 
 
 * In saying this I mean no disrespect to the individual 
 house, as the reader will understand when I tell him that, 
 with the exception of one or two princely mansions, and 
 some few inferior ones that have been coated with Roman 
 cement, I am not acquainted with any house in this moun- 
 tainous district which is wholly water-proof. The archi- 
 tecture of books, I flatter myself, is conducted on just 
 principles in this county : but for any other architecture 
 — it is in a barbarous state ; and, what is worse, in a retro- 
 grade state. 
 
184 APPENDIX. 
 
 which had about that time attained its maximum 
 — July having been, as usual, a month of in- 
 cessant rain in our most rainy part of England. 
 
 Under these reasons for doubting whether 
 opium had any connexion with the latter stage 
 of my bodily wretchedness — (except indeed as 
 an occasional cause, as having left the body 
 weaker and more crazy, and thus predisposed 
 to any mal-influence whatever,) — I willingly 
 spare my reader all description of it : let it per- 
 ish to him : and would that 1 could as easily 
 say, let it perish to my own remembrances : that 
 any future hours of tranquillity may not be dis- 
 turbed by too vivid an ideal of possible human 
 misery ! 
 
 So much for the sequel of my experiment : 
 as to the former stage, in which properly lies 
 the experiment and its application to other cases, 
 I must request my reader not to forget the rea- 
 sons for which I have recorded it : these were 
 two : 1st, a belief that I might add some trifle 
 to the history of opium as a medical agent : in 
 this I am aware that I have not at all fulfilled 
 myown intentions, in consequence of the torpor 
 of mind — pain of body — and extreme disgust 
 to the subject which besieged me whilst writing 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 185 
 
 that part of my paper ; which part, being im- 
 mediately sent off to the press (distant about 
 five degrees of latitude,) cannot be corrected 
 or improved. But from this account, rambling 
 as it may be, it is evident that thus much of 
 benefit may arise to the persons most interested 
 in such a history of opium — viz. to opium- 
 eaters in general — that it establishes, for their 
 consolation and encouragement, the fact that 
 opium may be renounced ; and without greater 
 sufferings than an ordinary resolution may sup- 
 port ; and by a pretty rapid course* of descent. 
 
 * On which last notice I would remark, that mine was 
 too rapid, and the suffering therefore needlessly aggra- 
 vated : or rather perhaps it was not sufficiently continuous 
 and equably graduated. But, that the reader may judge 
 for himself — and above all that the opium-eater, who is 
 preparing to retire from business, may have every sort of 
 information before him, I subjoin my diary ; 
 
 FIRST WEER. SECOND WEEK. 
 
 Drops of Laud. Drops of Laud. 
 
 Mond. June 24 130 Mond. July 1 80 
 
 "25 140 "2 80 
 
 "26 130 "3 90 
 
 " 27 80 « 4 100 
 
 "28 80 "5 80 
 
 "29 80 "6 SO 
 
 "30 80 "7 80 
 
186 APPENDIX. 
 
 To communicate this result of my experiment 
 — was my foremost purpose. 2dly, as a pur- 
 
 THIRD WEEK. FOURTH WEEK. 
 
 Drops of Laud. Drops of Laud. 
 
 Mond. July 8 300 Mond. July 15 76 
 
 "9 50 "16 73£ 
 
 "10-| "17 73£ 
 
 " 11 ' Hiatus in " 18 ...... 70 
 
 " 12 I MS. « 19 240 
 
 " lsJ « 20 80 
 
 "14 76 "21 350 
 
 FIFTH WEEK. 
 
 Drops of Laud. 
 
 Mond. July 22 60 
 
 " 23 none 
 
 " 24 none 
 
 " 25 none 
 
 " 26 200 
 
 '« 27 none. 
 
 What mean these abrupt relapses, the reader will ask per- 
 haps, to such numbers as 300 — 350, &c.? The impulse 
 to these relapses was mere infirmity of purpose : the mo- 
 tive, where any motive blended with this impulse, was 
 either the principle of " reculer pour mieux sauter ;" (for 
 under the torpor of a large dose, which lasted for a day or 
 two, a less quantity satisfied the stomach — which, on 
 awaking, found itself partly accustomed to this new ra- 
 tion :) or else it was this principle — that of sufferings 
 otherwise equal those will be borne best which meet with 
 a mood of anger ; now, whenever I ascended to any large 
 dose, I was furiously incensed on the following day, and 
 could then have borne any thing. 
 
APPENDIX. 187 
 
 pose collateral to this, I wished to explain how 
 it had become impossible for me to compose a 
 Third Part in time to accompany this republi- 
 cation : for during the very time of this experi- 
 ment, the proof sheets of this reprint were sent 
 to me from London : and such was my inability 
 to expand or to improve them, that I could not 
 even bear to read them over with attention 
 enough to notice the press errors, or to correct 
 any verbal inaccuracies. These were my rea- 
 sons for troubling my reader with any record, 
 long or short, of experiments relating to so truly 
 base a subject as my own body : and I am 
 earnest with the reader, that he will not forget 
 them, or so far misapprehend me as to believe 
 it possible that 1 would condescend to so rascal- 
 ly a subject for its own sake, or indeed for any 
 less object than that of general benefit to others. 
 Such an animal as the self-observing valetudina- 
 rian — I know there is : 1 have met him myself 
 occasionally : and I know that he is the worst 
 imaginable heautoniimoroumenos ; aggravating 
 and sustaining, by calling into distinct conscious- 
 ness, every symptom that would else perhaps 
 — under a different direction given to the 
 thoughts — become evanescent. But as to my- 
 
188 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 self, so profound is my contempt for this undig- 
 nified and selfish habit, that 1 could as little con- 
 descend to it as I could to spend my time in 
 watching a poor servant girl — to whom at this 
 moment I hear some lad or other making love at 
 the back of my house. Is it for a Transcenden- 
 tal Philosopher to feel any curiosity on such an 
 occasion ? Or can 1, whose life is worth only 
 eight and a half years' purchase, be supposed to 
 have leisure for such trivial employments ? — 
 However, to put this out of question, I shall say 
 one thing, which will, perhaps, shock some 
 readers ; but I am sure it ought not to do so, 
 considering the motives on which I say it. No 
 man, I suppose, employs much of his time on 
 the phenomena of his own body without some 
 regard for it ; whereas the reader sees that, so 
 far from looking upon mine with any compla- 
 cency or regard, I hate it and make it the object 
 of my bitter ridicule and contempt : and I should 
 not be displeased to know that the last indigni- 
 ties which the law inflicts upon the bodies of the 
 worst malefactors might hereafter fall upon it. 
 And in testification of my sincerity in saying 
 this, I shall make the following offer. Like 
 other men, I have particular fancies about the 
 
 & 
 
APPENDIX. 189 
 
 place of my burial : having lived chiefly in a 
 mountainous region, I rather cleave to the con- 
 ceit that a grave in a green church-yard amongst 
 the ancient and solitary hills will be a sublimer 
 and more tranquil place of repose for a philoso- 
 pher than any in the hideous Golgothas of Lon- 
 don. Yet if the gentlemen of Surgeons' Hall 
 think that any benefit can redound to their sci- 
 ence from inspecting the appearances in the 
 body of an opium-eater, let them speak but a 
 word, and I will take care that mine shall be 
 
 legally secured to them i. e. as soon as I 
 
 have done with it myself. Let them not hesi- 
 tate to express their wishes upon any scruples 
 of false delicacy, and consideration for my feel- 
 ings : I assure them they will do me too much 
 honor by " demonstrating " on such a crazy body 
 as mine ; and it will give me pleasure to antici- 
 pate this posthumous revenge and insult inflicted 
 upon that which has caused me so much suf- 
 fering in this life. Such bequests are not com- 
 mon : reversionary benefits contingent upon the 
 death of the testator are indeed dangerous to 
 announce in many cases : of this we have a re- 
 markable instance in the habits of a Roman 
 prince — who used, upon any notification made 
 
190 APPENDIX. 
 
 to him by rich persons that they had left him a 
 handsome estate in their wills, to express his 
 entire satisfaction at such arrangements, and his 
 gracious acceptance of those loyal legacies : but 
 then, if the testators neglected to give him im- 
 mediate possession of the property, if they 
 traitorously " persisted in living " (si vivere per- 
 sevcrarent, as Suetonius expresses it,) he was 
 highly provoked, and took his measures ac- 
 cordingly. — In those times, and from one of the 
 worst of the Caesars, we might expect such con- 
 duct ; but I am sure that from English surgeons 
 at this day I need look for no expressions of im- 
 patience, or of any other feelings but such as are 
 answerable to that pure love of science and all 
 its interests which induces me to make such an 
 offer. 
 
 Sept. 30th, 1822. 
 
3S> 
 
 
 
 
 g»viT>.. 3.-J 
 
 
 w 
 
 
 S» O > 
 
 
 S" W V ) 
 
 ► 3 ?? v ^ 
 
 ► * 
 
 >. > 
 
 ^ ^? 
 
 > 
 
 a»)->- ^j ? >> r» 
 
 
 
 
 ■ M k ; 
 
 
 
 
 
 ?> $r 
 
 *^^> "^^fc 
 
 >>j>i»>->^ - » 35 
 
 > • > ^ v 
 
 
 . » s§ 
 
 
 
 -> --<.> 
 
 .38* - -^^^* 
 
 > ^>^)»>^» ^ ^^ "^fc 
 
 "3 > >^ ,:^ 
 
 > ~> > 
 
 ""'•* S~^l^ 
 
 > yr>^~> .>*> £ ^K 
 
 3 ' J -"-^ 
 
 • > I 
 
 ^ ? * 
 
 '■■ ) J > > > V > -^ -=« 
 
 » > ^< 5 
 
 > > *' 
 
 * -.-^^ — '^r^ 
 
 ' >^ )>: ^ ' ? >> 3S 
 
 
 ■ * > j 
 
 ^r^E 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 » ^^' ; -lL^ §, 
 
 
 
 > » 
 
 
 9 > V -» 
 
 i 3> 
 
 '^B *^ £ 
 
 
 > • 7> 33> 
 ■> > a 
 
 >>^» >>> ^^g_ > ^ ,. , 
 
 jS^ >, : 
 
 , 
 
 , "-> 
 
 ^».^>^T> : 1& 1 !? 
 
 - >^: ^» ^ 
 
 
 * -» • 7> 
 
 
 ^ >> :>> > 
 
 ^ 
 
 ->V>D ^ 
 
 ^^^V^afe? ? 
 
 v> \\ > 
 
 *£i ■ • 
 
 "> "5 
 
 >•">-) j J ; j"5jW» ' - 
 
 ~>y 3> 
 
 J& * 
 
 -> ) ' 
 
 ">!>^ -i > 5 > >^|^^ > , 
 
 3 > 5 ^ 
 
 * r»> ■ * ' 
 
 > ~*^ 3 > 
 
 > ~Ifc> ) > > -■ \jB> -* 
 
 i S3 O 
 
 3K» 
 
 : 
 
 
 ^3 33 >^> 
 
 >>>!» ' 
 
 » > 
 
 >> ' ^>^^ ^^A^ 
 
 ?»5^P> 
 
 < > 
 
 > > ^ »o ) )J>> ; ' { 
 
 -< >> .)> 
 
 hp** 
 
 
 y>> y ^m ^> ^ 
 
 * *•:'€** 
 3 
 
 
 •> > „ 
 
 >> >^ > ) 3» > \ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ~~xyyn^ ~, 
 
 - .. > ►> ^> 
 
 )>"> > ■ , ^ 3 • 
 
 > ^ f . > 
 
 3 ">j55 3 
 
 
 >> -> • ) > ^ > ■ 
 
 } ^ ,v i 
 
 ">,^^j5T .> 
 
 "- -> o 
 
 :>, >> j), , ^^ > > . 
 
 > ^3» > % * ) 
 
 3>2i^» 
 
 >e>"> _> 
 
 ^^ ry. y _■» _> - 
 
 ? ^ »'"5 > 
 
 "^ \E3^^ 
 
 ► > > > 
 
 ■^» tfc> 5 • ")• ' ) ^ "> 
 
 J > 
 
 ." ?4i^> ^ 
 
 3> 
 
 ^ 5^ - -^ -^^^ 
 
 ) _>^> .^ 
 
 '^X^^^ "" 
 
 r v > 
 
 
 ^*^> 
 
 > >^3B* 
 
 > > ^> ^5 
 
 3> ^^ > ^ 
 
 3 ^33 
 
 
 j> ^ r> » 
 
 >3>- 3>»» V~> ^> ">» >'•' 
 
 ^^^«^ 
 
 *4S 
 
 > -> > > 
 
 
 
 >^>^ 
 
 > 3» > 
 
 
 
 j> >^»* 
 
 ^» > > 
 
 3> > ^^ > 3 > >■ ^ J> > 
 
 _j ' ; ^3^, 
 
 > >•> 3Y 
 
 
 
 =*^ i ? > 
 
 '-^SL 
 
 
 j: ?*> 
 
 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
 
 
 5* > :3>»7^»v.r> - 
 
 ^)>'55 
 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 
 
 
 
 5 33>a 
 
 j. V >^ 
 >-> ^ XT 
 
 1 YV\ "~N i *^ 
 
 Treatment Date: March 2009 
 
 PreservationTechnologies 
 
 
 '-O >3lS> 
 
 5 3> 3. 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 
 
 
 :> 3 
 
 ^ *>» ^ 
 
 111 Thomson Park Drive 
 
 
 »~3 ^ 
 
 >^k^* 
 
 
 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
 
 J 
 
 33®?» ^> 
 
 
 (724)779-2111 
 
 » 
 
y 33^ |Q 
 
 ^> 3 ;^> ^>3 
 >> > »> 33 
 
 >3>3» 
 
 3 3> >>>' 
 
 :* y>> > 
 
 ■->■> ^ -^ 
 » 33 ^> > 
 
 »;.3J. > .» 
 
 >3» > 
 
 l>3> - 
 
 >0 3 0> 
 
 >o > 3 
 
 . DD > o 
 
 33 3> O 
 
 >y > > 
 
 >J» 3»^ r> > 
 
 >3 2 
 
 > 3.d~: 
 
 > so ;>* » : 
 
 > y 
 
 -3 ~»: 
 
 ) 3 3> 
 D ^> >>_ 
 : r> ;> >>_ 
 
 ^ T> 33>l 
 
 ■3>j t»~33-v^ 
 
 
 3 >>3>' 
 > 3 mm 
 
 3,3^3»> > 3 !> 
 Y2>3 
 
 33J3* ) 3 
 
 >3 '_* o;> }> 
 
 » ^> 3> 3 
 
 » 3> >> 33 
 3) 3> 3j> 3 
 
 3>Z3> ) > •> 
 3">3> >3 > 
 
 3\S> > 3> 
 
 3>3 3 , 
 
 b 3V3 XX 
 
 » > :> 
 
 i >3 : 
 
 33 - 
 JO 
 
 >3» 3^; 
 
 ^O 3>^ 
 
 3 » 
 
 j ) 3 y 
 
 y 3 ? 
 
 3 » 3 3 
 
 3 3 J> 
 
 ^ J3> ) 
 
 JS> 3>3 
 
 ^*> 3^3 
 
 > )") 53 3 > 
 
 >~D"33 >"- 
 
 5 yv>3 ■ - 
 >3>3> 
 
 S^3 3 _. 
 
 ^^rsD;)> 2^35^ 
 
 
 )\>:> 3> 
 
 > >3 .3 3> 
 3 >^> 3> 
 30>>3> 
 
 3 3 3J » 
 
 ^33 3^ 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 456 253 7