DE QUINCEY'S LIFE RATHER THAN HIS WRITINGS THE BEST EVIDENCE OF THE
EFFECT OF OPIUM UPON HIM.--DISAPPROVAL OF HIS MANNER OF TREATMENT OF
THE SUBJECT IN HIS "CONFESSIONS."--FROM FIRST TO LAST THE EFFECT OF
OPIUM IS TO PRODUCE UNHAPPINESS.--THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE EFFECT OF
THE DRUG TAKEN HYPODERMICALLY AND OTHERWISE EXPLAINED.--THE VARIOUS
EFFECTS OF OPIUM, STIMULATIVE AND NARCOTIC, DESCRIBED.--THE EFFECT OF
MY FIRST DOSE AT BEGINNING OF HABIT.--REMARKS OF DE QUINCEY ON HIS
FIRST DOSE.--MY OWN REMARKS AS TO FIRST DOSE.--DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
OPIUM AND LIQUOR.--STIMULATION IS FOLLOWED BY COLLAPSE.--MELANCHOLY
FROM BEGINNING.--NERVOUSNESS AND DISTRACTION OF THE INTELLECTUAL
POWERS.--SLEEPLESSNESS.--DIFFERENT AND PECULIAR INFLUENCES OF THE DRUG
DETAILED.--PRESSURE UPON THE BRAIN FROM EXCESSIVE USE OF
OPIUM.--DISTRESS IN THE EPIGASTRIUM.--THE WORKING OF THE BRAIN
IMPEDED.
The life of De Quincey, as gathered from his constant and unguarded, and
therefore sincere, expressions of his wretched condition, which he made to
others while living, shows the effect opium had upon him much more
truthfully than do his writings. His extravagant eulogy of opium, and
almost wildly-gay and lively manner of treating such a sardonically solemn
subject as the effects of opium, though under the anomalous title, "The
Pleasures of Opium," show the man to have been morally depraved,[1] and
utterly regardless of the influence of his writings. The result of the
opium habit, first, last, and always, is to bring hopeless unhappiness.
I began taking opium by having it administered through a hypodermic
syringe, as the reader is aware. The effect, taking it in this way,
differs somewhat from that which follows taking it in the usual way. It is
more pleasant, ethereal, and less gross, I may say. It had not previously
been possible for me to use morphia in the usual way. I had tried it to
relieve myself in a season of severe headaches, and it had given me such a
distressing pain in my stomach that I dropped it as a useless remedy, and
tried it no more. Taking it per hypodermic injection, it did not seem to
come so directly in contact with the sensitive part of my stomach; and
there was, therefore, no impediment in the way of my taking it in this
manner.
Although the effect of morphia taken hypodermically is more pure, and
perhaps more forcible for the time being, its force is expended much more
quickly than when taken in the customary way. The effect of a dose of
morphia--that is, its immediate and exhilarating effect or influence--may
often last but a very short time, and rarely longer than three or four
hours, but the ultimate and narcotic effect does not leave the system
until twenty-four hours have elapsed. This is an effect in morphia that
can be relied on. In stating that the exhilarating effect may last three
or four hours, I mean that it may do this in the first stages of the
habit. Of course, all I have to say just now refers to the first stages.
But to begin with the second dose, the first having been too heavy, and
nearly burst me.
The second dose happened to be the proper quantity, and had the legitimate
effect. As I have not the slightest doubt that I was suffering as much,
and was just as sensitive, I might (though I will not) expatiate with Mr.
De Quincey to the following effect: "Heavens! what a revulsion! what an
upheaving, from its lowest depths, of the inner spirit! what an apocalypse
of the world within me! That my pains had vanished, was now a trifle in my
eyes; this negative effect was swallowed up in the immensity of those
positive effects which had opened before me--in the abyss of divine
enjoyment thus suddenly revealed. Here was a panacea for all human woes;
here was the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed
for so many ages, at once discovered; happiness might now be bought for a
penny, and carried in the waistcoat pocket; portable ecstasies might be
had corked up in a pint bottle; and peace of mind sent down in gallons by
the mail-coach. But, if I talk in this way, the reader will think I am
laughing; and I can assure him that no one will laugh long who deals much
with opium; its pleasures even are of a grave and solemn complexion; and
in his happiest state, the opium eater cannot present himself in the
character of _L'Allegro_; even then he speaks and thinks as becomes _Il
Penseroso_. Nevertheless, I have a very reprehensible way of jesting at
times in the midst of my own misery; and, unless when I am checked by some
more powerful feelings, I am afraid I shall be guilty of this indecent
practice, even in these annals of suffering or enjoyment. The reader must
allow a little to my infirm nature in this respect; and with a few
indulgences of that sort, I shall endeavor to be as grave, if not drowsy,
as fits a theme like opium, so anti-mercurial as it really is, and so
drowsy as it is falsely reputed." I will say, and admit, however, that
this second dose of mine highly stimulated me; that I retired from the
doctor's presence in an extremely sentimental condition of complacency and
self-assurance, with a partly-defined feeling that the world had injured
me; but that I did not care particularly; that the remainder of my life I
could live alone and without it very comfortably. Opium does not
intoxicate, as liquor, even at the beginning of its use; it does not
deprive one of reason or judgment, but, while under its influence, it
makes one more sanguine and hopeful.
The next day after taking this first dose, as I may call it (though
second in reality), I was physically wilted and mentally collapsed, and
felt a kind of nervous headache whenever I stirred the least from perfect
quietness. I was unfit to do any work, a thumping, distressing headache
and mental distraction, with nothing but a shaken and nervously exhausted
system to withstand it, followed quickly and overpoweringly upon the least
exertion. I found myself in wretched plight, and could have exclaimed in
the language of our ever-beloved poet:
"I 'gin to be aweary of the sun,
And wish the estate o' the world were now undone."
It was my experience straight along that for every stimulation I had a
corresponding depression. I confess that the drug did stimulate me, and
highly enough, but there was always an attending sickishness, and the
general tenor of the stimulation was to produce melancholy rather than a
healthy cheerfulness of spirit. This melancholy seemed a _relaxation_,
which the mind and feelings could lay back and enjoy sometimes, but the
appearance of a mortal and intruder on the scene would throw a person into
a deplorable state of irritability and confusion.[2] The stimulation bred
nervousness very fast, and the distraction of the intellectual forces was
one of the first and worst consequences and devastations experienced.
After I had come to take the drug daily, I often passed sleepless nights,
the brain in uncontrollable action during the whole night. Having started
it, I could not stop it at pleasure, and I was then but a novice in the
art of opium taking. Yet I do not know, either, but that, had I taken it
at any time during the day then, the result would have been the same, as I
was still very susceptible to its influence, which, in its shattering
effects on the nervous system, extended over the period of twenty-four
hours.
After a time, when my body became more benumbed and deadened by opium, and
consequently less susceptible to its stimulating influence, I could, and
did, so regulate my taking of the drug as to insure sleep at night, and
the best digestion possible under the circumstances at meals. But as to
sleep, I could not do this in the first stages; the effect was too
powerful, and extended over too long a time.
The effect of opium, the reader must bear in mind, always lasts
twenty-four hours; but its higher, more refined and stimulating influence
exists but a few hours, when it sinks into the soporific effect, which
extends over the remainder of the time. In the advanced stages of the
opium habit, the stimulating influence, if there be any at all, lasts but
a few minutes. I mean, that is, the pleasurable sensation and revival of
the spirits; there may be at times or always an almost imperceptible
stimulation which obtains a short time after taking a dose of opium, but
this is an effect entirely different from the pleasurable sensation,
though it may exist with or follow it for a short time. This I may term
stimulation without sensation. A person's body may be so deadened by opium
that it can no longer produce sensation, but may produce slight
stimulation for a short time. One may become conscious of this by an
increase of power in the faculties of the brain, and in the temporary
removal of the obstructions that weigh upon the brain, and which the poor
opium eater so often suffers from. "Suffers from?" Days upon days my head
has felt as though it were encircled by an iron helmet, which was
gradually becoming more and more contracted, until it would literally
crush my skull. Add to this the distress so often experienced in the
region of the epigastrium (pit of the stomach), which, perhaps, more at
one time than another, but which does always, impair the working of the
brain for the time being, and often cuts off almost totally the use of the
mind, and what is left of a man mentally is very little indeed. Yet all
these miseries he must endure, and more; but of these in the proper place,
for we must now return to the subject properly in hand,--the first stages
of opium eating,--from which I beg the reader's pardon for having
digressed too far.