instruct me in the miseries from wine or in the resources for
struggling with it. I had repeatedly been obliged, indeed, to lay it
aside altogether; but in this I never found room for more than seven
or ten days' struggle: excesses I had never practiced in the use of
wine: simply the habit of using it, and the collateral habits formed
by excessive use of opium, had produced no difficulty at all in
resigning it even on an hour's notice. From opium I derive my right of
offering hints at all upon the subject of abstinence in other
forms. But the modes of suffering from the evil, and the separate
modes of suffering from the effort of self-conquest, together with
errors of judgment incident to such states of transitional torment,
are all nearly allied, practically analogous as regards the remedies,
even if characteristically distinguished to the inner consciousness. I
make no scruple, therefore, of speaking as from a station of high
experience and of most watchful attention, which never remitted even
under sufferings that were at times absolutely frantic. Once for all,
however, in cases deeply rooted no advances ought ever to be made but
by small stages; for the effect, which is insensible at first, by the
tenth, twelfth, or fifteenth day generally accumulates unendurably
under any bolder deduction. Certain it is, that by an error of this
nature at the outset, most natural to human impatience under exquisite
suffering, too generally the triai is abruptly brought to an end
through the crisis of a passionate relapse.
"Another object, and one to which the gladiator matched in single duel
with intemperance must direct a religious vigilance, is the
digestibility of his food. It must be digestible not only by its
original qualities, but also by its culinary preparation.
"The whole process and elaborate machinery of digestion are felt to be
mean and humiliating when viewed in relation to our mere animal
economy. But they rise into dignity and assert their own supreme
importance when they are studied from another station, viz., in
relation to the intellect and temper. No man dares _then_ to
despise them; it is then seen that these functions of the human system
form the essential basis upon which the strength and health of our
higher nature repose; and that upon these functions, chiefly, the
general happiness of life is dependent. All the rules of prudence or
gifts of experience that life can accumulate, will never do as much
for human comfort and welfare as would be done by a stricter
attention, and a wiser science, directed to the digestive system. In
this attention lies the key to any perfect restoration for the victim
of intemperance. The sheet-anchor for the storm-beaten sufferer who is
laboring to recover a haven of rest from the agonies of intemperance,
and who has had the fortitude to abjure the poison which ruined, but
which also for brief intervals offered him his only consolation, lies,
beyond all doubt, in a most anxious regard to every thing connected
with this supreme function of our animal economy. By how much the
organs of digestion are feebler, by so much is it the more
indispensable that solid and animal food should be adopted. A robust
stomach may be equal to the trying task of supporting a fluid such as
tea for breakfast; but for a feeble stomach, and still worse for a
stomach _enfeebled_ by bad habits, broiled beef or something
equally solid and animal, but not too much subjected to the action of
fire, is the only tolerable diet. This indeed is the capital rule for
a sufferer from habitual intoxication, who must inevitably labor under
an impaired digestion: that as little as possible he should use of any
liquid diet, and as little as possible of vegetable diet. Beef and a
little bread (at the least sixty hours old) compose the privileged
bill of fare for his breakfast. Errors of digestion, either from
impaired powers or from powers not so much enfeebled as deranged, is
the one immeasurable source both of disease and of secret wretchedness
to the human race. Next, after the most vigorous attention, and a
scientific attention, to the digestive system, in power of operation,
stands _exercise_. For myself, under the ravages of opium, I have
found walking the most beneficial exercise; besides that, it requires
no previous notice or preparation of any kind; and this is a capital
advantage in a state of drooping energies, or of impatient and
unresting agitation. I may mention, as possibly an accident of my
individual temperament, but possibly, also, no accident at all, that
the relief obtained by walking was always most sensibly brought home
to my consciousness, when some part of it (at least a mile and a half)
had been performed before breakfast. In this there soon ceased to be
any difficulty; for, while under the full oppression of opium it was
impossible for me to rise at any hour that could, by the most
indulgent courtesy, be described as within the pale of morning, no
sooner had there been established any considerable relief from this
oppression than the tendency was in the opposite direction--the
difficulty became continually greater of sleeping even to a reasonable
hour. Having once accomplished the feat of walking at 9 A.M., I backed
in a space of seven or eight months to eight o'clock, to seven, to
six, five, four, three; until at this point a metaphysical fear fell
upon me that I was actually backing into 'yesterday,' and should soon
have no sleep at all. Below three, however, I did not descend; and,
for a couple of years, three and a half hours' sleep was all that I
could obtain in the twenty-four hours. From this no particular
suffering arose, except the nervous impatience of lying in bed for one
moment after awaking. Consequently the habit of walking before
breakfast became at length troublesome no longer as a most odious
duty, but on the contrary, as a temptation that could hardly be
resisted on the wettest mornings. As to the quantity of the exercise,
I found that six miles a day formed the _minimum_ which would
support permanently a particular standard of animal spirits, evidenced
to myself by certain apparent symptoms. I averaged about nine and a
half miles a day, but ascended on particular days to fifteen or
sixteen, and more rarely to twenty-three or twenty-four; a quantity
which did not produce fatigue: on the contrary it spread a sense of
improvement through almost the whole week that followed; but usually,
in the night immediately succeeding to such an exertion, I lost much
of my sleep--a privation that under the circumstances explained,
deterred me from trying the experiment too often. For one or two years
I accomplished more than I have here claimed, viz., from six to seven
thousand miles in the twelve months.
"A necessity more painful to me by far than that of taking continued
exercise arose out of a cause which applies perhaps with the same
intensity only to opium cases, but must also apply in some degree to
all cases of debilitation from morbid stimulation of the nerves,
whether by means of wine, or opium, or distilled liquors. In
travelling on the outside of mails during my youthful days, I made the
discovery that opium, after an hour or so, diffuses a warmth deeper
and far more permanent than could be had from any other known
source. I mention this to explain in some measure the awful passion of
cold which for some years haunted the inverse process of laying aside
the opium. It was a perfect frenzy of misery; cold was a sensation
which then first, as a mode of torment, seemed to have been
revealed. In the months of July and August, and not at all the less
during the very middle watch of the day, I sat in the closest
proximity to a blazing fire: cloaks, blankets, counterpanes,
hearth-rugs, horse-cloths, were piled upon my shoulders, but with
hardly a glimmering of relief.
"At night, and after taking coffee, I felt a little warmer, and could
sometimes afford to smile at the resemblance of my own case to that of
Harry Gile. Meantime, the external phenomenon by which the cold
expressed itself was a sense (but with little reality) of eternal
freezing perspiration. From this I was never free; and at length,
from finding one general ablution sufficient for one day, I was thrown
upon the irritating necessity of repeating it more frequently than
would seem credible if stated. At this time I used always hot water,
and a thought occurred to me very seriously that it would be best to
live constantly, and perhaps to sleep, in a bath. What caused me to
renounce this plan was an accident that compelled me for one day to
use cold water. This, first of all, communicated any lasting warmth;
so that ever afterward I used none _but_ cold water. Now to live
in a cold bath in our climate, and in my own state of preternatural
sensibility to cold, was not an idea to dally with. I wish to mention,
however, for the information of other sufferers in the same way, one
change in the mode of applying the water which led to a considerable
and a sudden improvement in the condition of my feelings. I had
endeavored in vain to procure a child's battledore, as an easy means
(when clothed with sponge) of reaching the interspace between the
shoulders. In default of a battledore, therefore, my necessity threw
my experiment upon a long hair-brush; and this, eventually, proved of
much greater service than any sponge or any battledore, for the
friction of the brush caused an irritation on the surface of the skin,
which, more than any thing else, has gradually diminished the once
continual misery of unrelenting frost, although even yet it renews
itself most distressingly at uncertain intervals.
"I counsel the patient not to make the mistake of supposing that his
amendment will necessarily proceed continuously or by equal
increments, because this, which is a common notion, will certainly
lead to dangerous disappointments. How frequently I have heard people
encouraging a self-reformer by such language as this: 'When you have
got over the fourth day of abstinence, which suppose to be Sunday,
then Monday will find you a trifle better; Tuesday better
still--though still it should be only a trifle--and so on. You may at
least rely on never going back, you may assure yourself of having seen
the worst, and the positive improvements, if trifles separately, must
soon gather into a sensible magnitude.' This may be true in a case of
short standing, but as a general rule it is perilously delusive. On
the contrary, the line of progress, if exhibited in a geometrical
construction, would describe an ascending path upon the whole, but
with frequent retrocessions into descending curves, which, compared
with the point of ascent that had been previously gained and so
vexatiously interrupted, would sometimes seem deeper than the original
point of starting. This mortifying tendency I can report from
experience, many times repeated, with regard to opium, and so
unaccountably, as regarded all the previous grounds of expectation,
that I am compelled to suppose it a tendency inherent in the very
nature of all self-restorations for animal systems.
"I counsel the patient frequently to call back before his
thoughts--when suffering sorrowful collapses that seem unmerited by
any thing done or neglected--that such, and far worse perhaps, must
have been his experience, and with no reversion of hope behind, had he
persisted in his intemperate indulgences; _these_ also suffer
their own collapses, and (so far as things not co-present can be
compared) by many degrees more shocking to the genial instincts. I
exhort him to believe that no movement on his own part, not the
smallest conceivable, toward the restoration of his healthy state, can
by possibility perish. Nothing in this direction is finally lost; but
often it disappears and hides itself; suddenly, however, to re-appear,
and in unexpected strength, and much more hopefully, because such
minute elements of improvement, by re-appearing at a remoter stage,
show themselves to have combined with other elements of the same kind,
so that equally by their gathering tendency and their duration through
intervals of apparent darkness, and below the current of what seemed
absolute interruption, they argue themselves to be settled in the
system. There is no good gift that does not come from God. Almost his
greatest is health, with the peace which it inherits, and man must
reap _this_ on the same terms as he was told to reap God's
earliest gift, the fruits of the earth, viz., 'in the sweat of his
brow,' through labor, often through sorrow, through disappointment,
but still through imperishable perseverance, and hoping under clouds
when all hope seemed darkened.
"But it seems to me important not to omit this particular caution: The
patient will be naturally anxious, as he goes on, frequently to test
the amount of his advance, and its rate, if that were possible; but
this he will see no mode of doing except through tentative balancings
of his feelings, and generally of the moral atmosphere around him, as
to pleasure and hope, against the corresponding states so far as he
can recall them from his periods of intemperance. But these
comparisons I warn him are fallacious when made in this way. The two
states are incommensurable on any plan of _direct_ comparison. Some
common measure must be found, and _out of himself_; some positive fact
that will not bend to his own delusive feeling at the moment; as, for
instance, in what degree he finds tolerable what heretofore was _not_
so--the effort of writing letters, or transacting business, or
undertaking a journey, or overtaking the arrears of labor, that had
been once thrown off to a distance. If in these things he finds
himself improved, by tests that can not be disputed, he may safely
disregard any sceptical whispers from a wayward sensibility which can
not yet, perhaps, have recovered its normal health, however much
improved. His inner feelings may not yet point steadily to the truth,
though they may vibrate in that direction. Besides, it is certain that
sometimes very manifest advances, such as any medical man would
perceive at a glance, carry a man through stages of agitation and
discomfort. A far worse condition might happen to be less agitated,
and so far more bearable. Now when a man is positively suffering
discomfort, when he is below the line of pleasurable feeling, he is no
proper judge of his own condition, which he neither will nor can
appreciate. Toothache extorts more groans than dropsy."
Little is definitely known to the public of De Quincey's opium habits
subsequent to the publication in the year 1822 of the Appendix to the
"Confessions." In the "Life of Professor Wilson," by his daughter,
Mrs. Gordon, a letter from De Quincey, under date of February, 1824,
is given, which says: "As to myself--though I have written not as one
who labors under much depression of mind--the fact is, I _do_
so. At this time calamity presses upon me with a heavy hand. I am
quite free of opium, but it has left the liver, which is the Achilles
heel of almost every human fabric, subject to affections which are
tremendous for the weight of wretchedness attached to them. To fence
with these with the one hand, and with the other to maintain the war
with the wretched business of hack author, with all its horrible
degradations, is more than I am able to bear. At this moment I have
not a place to hide my head in. Something I meditate--I know not
what--_'Itaque e conspectu omnium abiit_.' With a good publisher
and leisure to premeditate what I write, I might yet liberate myself;
after which, having paid everybody, I would slink into some dark
comer, educate my children, and show my face in the world no more." To
the statement of De Quincey that he was then free of opium,
Mrs. Gordon adds in a note: "To the very last he asserted this, but
the habit, although modified, was never abandoned." Referring to a
protracted visit made by him in the year 1829-30 to Professor Wilson,
Mrs. Gordon says:
"His tastes were very simple, though a little troublesome, at least to
the servant who prepared his repast. Coffee, boiled rice and milk, and
a piece of mutton from the loin were the materials that invariably
formed his diet. The cook, who had an audience with him daily,
received her instructions in silent awe, quite overpowered by his
manner, for had he been addressing a duchess he could scarcely have
spoken with more deference. He would couch his request in such terms
as these: 'Owing to dyspepsia affecting my system, and the possibility
of any additional disarrangement of the stomach taking place,
consequences incalculably distressing would arise, so much so indeed
as to increase nervous irritation, and prevent me from attending to
matters of overwhelming importance, if you do not remember to cut the
mutton in a diagonal rather than in a longitudinal form.' But these
little meals were not the only indulgences that, when not properly
attended to, brought trouble to Mr. De Quincey. Regularity in doses of
opium was even of greater consequence. An ounce of laudanum per diem
prostrated animal life in the early part of the day. It was no
unfrequent sight to find him in his room, lying upon the rug in front
of the fire, his head resting upon a book, his arms crossed over his
breast, plunged in profound slumber. For several hours he would lie in
this state, until the effects of the torpor had passed away. The time
when he was most brilliant was generally toward the early morning
hours; and then, more than once, in order to show him off, my father
arranged his supper-parties so that, sitting till three or four in the
morning, he brought Mr. De Quincey to that point at which in charm and
power of conversation he was so truly wonderful."
* * * * *
In the "Suspiris de Profundis" of De Quincey, written in the year
1845, we have his own final record of the last chapter of his opium
history. He says:
"In 1821, as a contribution to a periodical work--in 1822, as a
separate volume--appeared the 'Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.'
At the close of this little work the reader was instructed to believe,
and _truly_ instructed, that I had mastered the tyranny of
opium. The fact is, that _twice_ I mastered it, and by efforts
even more prodigious in the second of these cases than in the
first. But one error I committed in both. I did not connect with the
abstinence from opium, so trying to the fortitude under _any_
circumstances, that enormity of exercise which (as I have since
learned) is the one sole resource for making it endurable. I
overlooked, in those days, the one _sine qua non_ for making the
triumph permanent. Twice I sank, twice I rose again. A third time I
sank; partly from the cause mentioned (the oversight as to exercise),
partly from other causes, on which it avails not now to trouble the
reader. I could moralize if I chose; and perhaps _he_ will
moralize whether I choose it or not. But in the mean time neither of
us is acquainted properly with the circumstances of the case; I, from
natural bias of judgment, not altogether acquainted; and he (with his
permission) not at all.
"During this third prostration before the dark idol, and after some
years, new and monstrous phenomena began slowly to arise. For a time
these were neglected as accidents, or palliated by such remedies as I
knew of. But when I could no longer conceal from myself that these
dreadful symptoms were moving forward forever, by a pace steadily,
solemnly, and equably increasing, I endeavored, with some feeling of
panic, for a third time to retrace my steps. But I had not reversed my
motions for many weeks before I became profoundly aware that this was
impossible. Or, in the imagery of my dreams, which translated every
thing into their own language, I saw through vast avenues of gloom
those towering gates of ingress, which hitherto had always seemed to
stand open, now at last barred against my retreat, and hung with
funeral crape.
"The sentiment which attends the sudden revelation that _all is
lost!_ silently is gathered up into the heart; it is too deep for
gestures or for words; and no part of it passes to the outside. Were
the ruin conditional, or were it in any point doubtful, it would be
natural to utter ejaculations, and to seek sympathy. But where the
ruin is understood to be absolute, where sympathy can not be
consolation, and counsel can not be hope, this is otherwise. The voice
perishes; the gestures are frozen; and the spirit of man flies back
upon its own centre. I, at least, upon seeing those awful gates closed
and hung with draperies of woe, as for a death already past, spoke
not, nor started, nor groaned. One profound sigh ascended from my
heart, and I was silent for days." [Footnote: Mr. De Quincey died at
Edinburgh, Dec. 8, 1859.]
OPIUM REMINISCENCES OF COLERIDGE.
Soon after the death of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a retired book-seller
of Bristol by the name of Joseph Cottle felt called upon to make
public what he knew or could gather respecting the opium habits of the
philosopher and poet. His first publication was made in the year 1837,
and was entitled "Recollections of Coleridge." Ten years later he
elaborated this publication into "The Reminiscences of Coleridge and
Southey." From the pages of the latter, from Gilman's "Life of
Coleridge," from the poet's own correspondence, and from the
miscellaneous writings of De Quincey, the following record has been
chiefly compiled. From these sources the reader can obtain a pretty
accurate knowledge of the circumstances under which Coleridge became
an opium-eater; of the struggles he made to emancipate himself from
the habit, and of the intellectual ruin which opium entailed upon one
of the most marvellous-minded men the world has produced.
It seems certain that Coleridge became familiar with opium as early at
least as the year 1796, though it is probable that its use did not
become habitual till about 1802 or 1803. From this period to the year
1814, his consumption of laudanum appears to have been enormous. The
efforts he made at self-reformation immediately previous to his
admission in 1816 into the family of Dr. Gilman, were unsuccessful;
and while the quantity of laudanum to which he had been so long
accustomed, was subsequently reduced to a small daily allowance, the
opium _habit_ ceased only with his life.
In justice to his memory, and in part mitigation of the censures of
many of his personal friends, as well as to enable the reader to judge
of the circumstances under which this distinguished man fell into his
ruinous habit, the following extracts from his own letters and from
other sources are given, nearly in chronological order, that it may be
seen how far, from his childhood to his grave, Coleridge's
constitutional infirmities furnish a partial apology for his
excesses. Under date of Nov. 5, 1796, he writes to a friend:
"I wanted such a letter as yours, for I am very unwell. On Wednesday
night I was seized with an intolerable pain from my temple to the tip
of my right shoulder, including my right eye, cheek, jaw, and that
side of the throat. I was nearly frantic, and ran about the house
almost naked, endeavoring by every means to excite sensation in
different parts of my body, and so to weaken the enemy by creating a
diversion. It continued from one in the morning till half-past five,
and left me pale and faint. It came on fitfully, but not so violently,
several times on Thursday, and began severer threats toward night; but
I took between sixty and seventy drops of laudanum, and sopped the
Cerberus just as his mouth began to open. On Friday it only niggled,
as if the chief had departed, as from a conquered place, and merely
left a small garrison behind, or as if he had evacuated the Corsica,
and a few straggling pains only remained. But this morning he returned
in full force, and his name is Legion. Giant-fiend of a hundred hands,
with a shower of arrowy death-pangs he transpierced me; and then he
became a Wolf, and lay gnawing my bones! I am not mad, most noble
Festus! but in sober sadness I have suffered this day more bodily pain
than I had before a conception of. My right cheek has certainly been
placed with admirable exactness under the focus of some invisible
burning-glass, which concentrated all the rays of a Tartarean sun. My
medical attendant decides it to be altogether nervous, and that it
originates either in severe application or excessive anxiety. My
beloved Poole, in excessive anxiety I believe it might originate. I
have a blister under my right ear, and I take twenty-five drops of
laudanum every five hours, the ease and spirits gained by which have
enabled me to write to you this flighty but not exaggerating account."