ON ENERGY AND AMBITION AS AFFECTED BY THE OPIUM HABIT.
I have devoted a separate chapter to the discussion of these two
qualities, because they are more directly operated upon by the curse of
opium than any other of the principles in human nature. Coleridge, "though
usually described as doing nothing,--'an idler,' 'a dreamer,' and by many
such epithets,--sent forth works which, though they had cost him years of
thought, never brought him any suitable return." So says Gillman, in his
unfinished life of Coleridge. It was so common to charge Coleridge with
being constitutionally idle, that he at length came to believe the crime
charged to be true, and endeavored to extenuate his offence and overcome
his "inbred sin." Before he became an opium eater this offence was not
charged.
No one then said he lacked energy or perseverance. His poetical works
having been composed in his early manhood, would give the lie to this
assertion, were it made. It was not until the fountain of his genius was
frozen by the withering frosts of opium, that this charge had any
foundation, or supposed foundation, in fact. After that time, after being
ensnared in the toils of opium, I think it would be absurd to claim that a
mere casual observer might not think there was some foundation for the
charge that he was "doing nothing," etc. His way was obstructed by almost
impassable barriers. The fangs of the destroyer left wounds which rendered
it impossible for him to work with reasonable facility and success at
certain times. What he did accomplish is better done than it would have
been had he attempted to write when unfit. At times literary labor must
have been entirely out of the question; he must have been too ill to
attempt it.
To write at any time required tremendous exertion of the will, and a calm
resignation to bear any suffering in order to accomplish something.
It is not fair to measure the result of Coleridge's labors by that of
other men. As De Quincey truthfully says, "what he did in spite of opium,"
is the question to be considered.
What was true of Coleridge holds good with all subject to the habit, the
effect of opium being the same on all.
Opium strikes at the very root of energy, as though it would extirpate
that quality altogether. A deadly languor, the opposite of energy, an
averseness to activity, pervades the whole system with paralyzing effect.
Of course this state of feeling is inimical to the accomplishment of any
great ambition. The ambition remains as a quality of remorse, to "prick
and sting" one, but the energy to fulfil is frustrated by the enervating
spells of opium. That dread inertia known only to opium eaters prevents
the doing of everything save that which must be done, that cannot be
avoided.
The "potent poison" was never designed for man's daily use. It is not a
thing which the system counteracts by long usage; it is a thing that
transforms and deforms the whole physical and mental economy, and the
longer its use the more complete the destruction. A man is thrown flat,
and instead of a predisposition or a passion to do anything which aids one
in the accomplishment of purposes, the whole human nature revolts like a
pressed convict; there is no pleasure in the doing or the prospect of
doing anything whatever.
No warmth or glow of passion or genial feeling can be aroused. Hence the
poetical faculty was annihilated in Coleridge. There is a sort of
vitrifying process that chills all sensibility. A man is a stick. To
expect that a man could succeed as well under these conditions, even in
the little accomplished, is unreasonable.
There are no genial impulses, no strength of fervor, no warmth of feeling
of any kind. The man is under a load of poison; the springs of action are
clogged with crushing weight. No hope of pleasure in future prospect can
excite action. Whatever is done, is done in pale, cold strength of
intellect. A man is placed entirely out of sympathy with his fellows or
human kind. He cannot judge from his own heart what they would like or
prefer. He is as completely cut off and dissevered from the body of
mankind, and the interests and feelings of the same, as if he were a
visitant from another sphere, and but faintly manifested here. How can he
write in this condition? That exquisite feeling that teaches a writer to
know when the best word tips the edges of the sensibility, lies buried
under the _débris_ of dead tissue. It is a "lost art" to him. Although a
man longs to do something worthy the praise of men, and although his
ambition may be even higher than it otherwise would be, owing to his being
able to take no pleasure in minutiæ, and having appreciation only for
concrete generalities, he has such a contempt for, and so little pleasure
in, the procuring processes, the details of the work, that he is
overwhelmed with disgust before making an effort.
No interest in anything of human production, renders him primarily unable
and unfit for the details necessary to be gone through with in the
achievement of any great purpose. The pangs of disappointment he feels as
deeply as any one. He becomes morbidly sorrowful over his lack of success,
his inability to do anything. Unlike Coleridge, but like De Quincey, he
may have gotten into the power of opium while his mind was yet undeveloped
and immature, thus being deprived of the possibility of enjoying that
"blessed interval" which was given to Coleridge, and to which he alludes
with such thankfulness. As to poetry, in Coleridge's case, the beautiful
language of Keats was fulfilled:
"As though a rose should shut and be a bud again."
In the case of De Quincey, cruel winter came on and nipped the flower in
the bud ere yet it had time to bloom, so that when it came to flower
forth, in a later season, it was found that the stalk itself had been
stunted in its growth, and the beauty of the flower impaired. He may have
been afflicted with sickness in his early youth which prevented the
development of his mind, the pain of which threw him into opium, as in my
own case. He may have in this state felt the "stirrings" of genius,
without the power of expression, and when at length his pain was so
relieved, and his strength so increased, as to allow him to attempt
something, the withering blight of opium had blasted his perceptions,
exterminated his feelings, and enfeebled his intellect. Verily, the lines
of Byron apply with special significance to the state of the opium eater:
"We wither from our youth, we gasp away--
Sick--sick; unfound the boon--unslaked the thirst,
Though to the last, in verge of our decay,
Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first--
But all too late,--so we are doubly curst."
If anything whatever is done, it must be done through suffering, and by
herculean efforts to overcome the distaste and disgust that assail one. It
is all against the tide. There is no current to move with. Everything
original seems contemptible, at least of little weight; and although he
can judge the works of others correctly, they excite but faint interest.
But the sickening weight that overpowers one and holds him back, like the
hand of a strong man, is the greatest obstacle. He might ignore his lack
of interest. A man in health warms with his subject, and takes great
pleasure in it. The opium eater remains passive and the same all the way
along, and ends feeling that he has not done justice to his natural
ability, and chafes with grief, disappointment, and despair at his
confined and weakened powers. As a structure, he is riddled "from turret
to foundation-stone." To expect as much from a man in this condition as
from one in the healthful enjoyment of all his faculties, shocks the
sense of justice,--it is "to reason most absurd." Would you expect grapes
from a hyperborean iceberg?--figs from the Sahara?--palms from Siberia?
Would you compare the fettered African with the roving Arabian?--the bond
to the free? In sober practice, would you say to the blind, "Copy this
writing?"--to the palsied, "Run you this errand,"--to the sick in bed,
"Arise, and write a book?" Would you do this? You say it is ridiculous. So
was it ridiculous, so was it wrong, to expect from Coleridge constant
writing, and more than he accomplished. Why, the human face itself tells
the story in a word. The _face_ remains, but the countenance, the
expression and divine resemblance, are erased and stricken off. So the
body remains, but like a blasted oak, whose hollow trunk contains no sap,
and whose withered branches are barren. Coleridge did well,--he did
nobly,--and left a legacy the value of which will yet be learned to man's
everlasting gain.
Numbered with the saints in heaven is the sweet-minded, long-suffering
Coleridge. Oh, venerated shade! thy spirit living yet upon the earth has
kept mine company in this sad ebb and flow of time. Thy nature, so gentle,
so tender, and so true; thy heart so pure; thy whole being so perfect and
so high, hath been a lighted torch to me in this my dark estate,
travelling up the rugged hill of time, and rolling my stone along; hath
been balm to my wounds, wine to my spirit, and hope to my o'er-freighted
heart! To know thee as thou wert, my own kindred suffering tearing all
prejudice away, is at least one solace ungiven the world at large. Thou
hast borne thy part and won thy crown; may the humblest of thy friends
join thee at last in the realms of peace!