DIFFICULTIES OF WRITING THIS BOOK.--AN ATTEMPT TO RENOUNCE OPIUM IN
THE LATTER STAGES OF THE HABIT DESCRIBED.--COLERIDGE AND DE
QUINCEY.--ANIMADVERSIONS UPON DE QUINCEY'S "CONFESSIONS."
I have promised to describe an attempt to renounce opium while the victim
is in the latter stages. I will endeavor to fulfil my promise, although
sick and weary of the subject, and sick and weary in body and mind.
This book has been composed at irregular intervals, in moments snatched
from an otherwise busy life. It must be inconsecutive and loose in
composition. I beg the reader's kindest indulgence, and his consideration
of the purpose I have had in view,--the benefit of my fellow-man. Oh! if I
can deter but one from being drawn into the "maelstrom," as Coleridge has
so aptly termed it; if I can save but one from the woe and misery I suffer
daily, I shall feel well rewarded for the effort I have made to record my
unhappy personal history.
No fondness for detailing my grievances has had anything to do with the
writing of this little work; on the contrary, I have an almost
unconquerable repugnance to the subject. It is only with the greatest
effort that I can compel myself to return to it. I have been wearied, and
consumed with pain and misery, during the whole progress of it. Had I been
master of my own time, as far as literary merit is concerned, it would
have been more acceptable, although my mind is and has been, during the
whole course of it, debilitated and oppressed by opium. My condition and
preoccupied time precluded that object altogether. If it is found
intelligible, my object, as far as literary excellence is concerned, will
have been attained. But,
"Begin, murderer; leave thy damnable faces, and begin!"
I have not for a number of years made an effort to renounce opium. I know
that my unaided efforts would prove fruitless. My constitution would no
more stand the test than it would the abstinence from food. Death would
follow sooner from want of opium than it would from want of food.
Seventy-two hours' abstinence from opium would, I think, prove fatal in my
case; and I believe that I would die by the expiration of that time. It
may be impossible to conceive, without actual experience, the singular
effect opium has upon the system in making itself a necessity. Being no
physician, I am unable to give a technical description of that effect,
but, with the reader's indulgence, I shall try, however, to describe it in
my own language.
When opium is not taken by the _habitué_ for twenty-four hours, his whole
body commences to sag, droop, and become unjointed. The result is
precisely like taking the starch out of a well-done-up shirt. The man is
as limp as a dish-rag, and as lifeless. He perspires all over,--feels wet
and disagreeable. To take opium now is to brace the man right up; it
tightens him up like the closing of a draw-string. Such is the effect in
the internal man, and it pervades thence the entire system. His mortal
machine is screwed up and put in running order. The opium not taken at the
expiration of the twenty-four hours, rheumatic pains in the lower limbs
soon set in, gradually extending to the arms and back; these grow worse as
time passes, and continue to grow worse until they become unendurable.
Contemporaneously with the pain, all the secretions of the system, but
more notably those of the stomach and bowels, are unloosed like the
opening of a flood-gate, and an acrid and fiery diarrhoea sets in, which
nothing but opium can check. All the corruption engendered and choked up
there for years comes rushing forth in a foul and distempered mass. The
pain and diarrhoea continue until the patient is either cured, if he has
sufficient will and constitution to withstand the torture, or is compelled
by his sufferings to return to opium.
During the period of time endured without opium, the body is fiery hot and
painfully sensitive to every touch or contact. So exquisite is the
sensibility, that to touch a hair of the head or beard, is like the
jagging of needles into the body. The mouth continually dreuls, and in
some instances is ulcerated and sore. As to eating, it is hardly to be
thought of; a mouthful satisfies. Of the suffering hardest to withstand,
is the _apparent_ stationary position of time, which arises, I presume,
from the rigid, intense condition, and intense sensitiveness, of the whole
system, and the hopelessness of the thoughts which march like funeral
processions through the mind; this, in connection with the sinking state
of the spirits, and the awful aching of the heart, places a man in a
predicament which no other earthly suffering can parallel. There is no
prospect in life; opium has so transformed the human body, that it no
longer has natural feelings; there is no expectancy, no hope, for a
different future. The appetite for opium at this time is generally master
of the man; it rages like the hunger of a wild beast.
If a person when in this condition had any human feelings or aspirations,
he might resist and go on, if of constitution sufficient; but the
difficulty is, it is necessary for the poor wretch to take opium to have
natural feelings, or to place any reliance upon the future. It is
generally the case, at this stage, that the opium eater would wade through
blood for opium. All else in the world is nothing to him without it, and
for it he would exchange the world and all there is in it. He yields to
the irresistible demand for his destroyer; and with a heart the depth of
whose despair the plummet of hope never sounded.
I fear I may have entirely failed to give the reader any idea of the
vitiating power of opium in making itself a "necessary evil," and in
burning out of the human system all natural feelings, hopes, and
aspirations. I am unable to explain it better; that it has such power, I
know but too well. An opium eater learned in medicine, physiology, and
metaphysics, might explain the subject scientifically, giving reasons why
this and that is so, etc.; "it is beyond my practice."
After the foregoing, it may be unnecessary for me to refer to an attempt
of my own, made some years ago; however, I will relate it briefly. I was
but a couple of years deep in opium; nevertheless the habit was firmly
fastened. The manacles were beyond the strength of my slender
constitution, even then. I cannot state just how many hours I had gone
without opium when the serious pains began. I had taken none that day, but
I do not know at what time I had taken the last dose on the day previous.
At any rate, it was in the middle of the night, and at least thirty hours
after taking any opium, when the most terrible pain set in. During the
most of the day I had sat in a dejected state, a prey to the most trying
melancholy. Though up to that date my feelings were not so frozen but that
I could weep, and I had not yet been forced, as I since have been, to cry
with Hamlet, the noble Dane, "Oh! that this too, too solid flesh would
melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew;" during this attempt, as during
all near that time (I have since made none), weeping would come upon me in
floods. It seemed as if I was the victim of a heart-rending grief,--and so
I was. The consciousness of my predicament,--an opium eater,--with all the
humiliations and failures caused by being so, came upon me with
irresistible power.
Coleridge alludes to this same period in his touching letter to Gillman,
written a few days before he took up his abode with the latter. By the
way, if there is any one who can read that letter without feeling his
heart warm with esteem and reverence for the man that wrote it, I must
acknowledge that his sensibilities are deader than mine, and that is
saying a good deal. The passage referred to is as follows: "The stimulus
of conversation suspends the terror that haunts my mind; but, when I am
alone, the horrors I have suffered from laudanum, the degradation, the
blighted utility, almost overwhelm me."
To recur to my own case again: the terrific pain before mentioned lasted
not long; it was simply impossible for me to bear it. I had gone to bed,
but was compelled to get up. The pain (seemingly in my whole body, but
particularly in my head and limbs) finally became so severe that I had to
run about the room; I could not bear it either standing, sitting, or
lying still. After it had continued this way for some time, seeing no
prospect of abatement, but certainty of growing worse, I took a small dose
of opium. Oh, with what despairing thoughts I always returned to the cause
of all my misery,--as to the den of "Cerberus and blackest midnight!"
Jeremy Taylor, in his address to the clergy, prefacing his work on
repentance, says: "For, to speak truth, men are not very apt to despair;
they have ten thousand ways to flatter themselves, and they will hope in
despite of all arguments to the contrary." This is "too much proved," as
old Polonius would say. But if there is ever a despairing time in life, it
is when an opium eater, who has been earnest and determined in his effort
to quit, sees himself forced back again into the habit, and realizes that
life to him must ever be "but a walking shadow;" that he must languish out
his natural existence, locked a close prisoner in the arms of a grisly
demon!
"Oh, Christ, that ever this should be!"
This refers to a period while there is yet hope and expectation; while
there is confidence that health would bring happiness; while yet the
victim can realize this. But though at all times, in trying to quit, the
victim clutches with eagerness his nepenthe, when he sees that he cannot
succeed, nevertheless, it is with an awful sensation of hopelessness that
he returns to opium; there is an undercurrent of the deepest despair:
this ever continues to be the case,--that is, such is _my_ experience;
upon thought, I will not cast beyond that. The reason why the opium eater
does not despair after getting back into the habit is, I presume, because
his feelings are too much benumbed; he is too dead to feel many deep pangs
that his miserable situation would otherwise inflict upon him. I mean,
now, suicidal despair;--to "curse God and die."
He has already, in common parlance, despaired of any happiness in his
future;--in his future natural life, I mean. That is to say, he does not,
like other men, expect to be happy on this or that occasion, though he
works and expects more security and ease of mind on the attainment of this
or that end.
Still, the opium eater's sensibilities are not armor. A wound from a cruel
word pierces deep and rankles. In truth, I used to have to watch myself
closely, to see whether in reality my wounds had their origin in fact or
imagination. Any fancied neglect or slight from the business manager lay
upon my heart with sickening weight. Direct and "palpable hits" cut to the
bone. During the past year or so, although I have not changed my business
situation, I seem to have been treated better, and have not been so much
ruffled in this respect. But the opium eater's general state of feeling,
aside from pains in body and hurts in mind, is such as might be left
behind by some great sorrow; an abiding gloominess of feeling is cast
over his spirit. This exists in varying degrees of depth or intensity, of
course:--it depends upon his condition as to opium, and the particular
state of his body and mind as an opium eater.
Julius C. Hare, in speaking of Coleridge, said: "His sensibilities were
such as an averted look would rack, who would have stood in the presence
of an earthquake unmoved." In reading an article on Tom Hood, some time
ago, I observed that the author, in speaking of Hood's companions in
literature, alluded to the "pale, sad face of De Quincey." Oh, that men of
such transcendent powers as Coleridge and De Quincey should be stricken
down by the fiend of opium! Verily, if "in struggling with misfortune lies
the proof of virtue," I have not the slightest doubt that to-day these two
stars in literature, their bright spirits divested of the mask of opium,
shine with light ineffable in the councils of the blest! What they did is
not so much, as that they accomplished it under the withering curse of
opium. And yet what they have left will stand comparison with that of the
best of their contemporaries, each in his particular field or fields of
literature. And if
"Tears and groans, and never-ceasing care,
And all the pious violence of prayer,"
avail to redeem a man from his sins, surely Coleridge fully atoned for
all the fault that could be imputed to him for taking opium. His course
ought to satisfy the most exacting now, as it should have done in his own
age. But prejudice! Alas! who or what is equal to it? His getting into
opium was without fault upon his part. He was afflicted with rheumatism,
and all who have read his life know why. A medicine, called the "Kendal
Black Drop," was prescribed for rheumatism in a medical work which he had
read. He obtained the medicine, and it worked wonders; his swellings went
down, and his pains subsided. It was a glorious discovery, and he
recommended it wherever he went. The pains would come back, however, so he
kept the medicine handy. It is unnecessary to pursue the phantom any
further; the ever-effectual remedy was nothing but opium, and Coleridge
was into the habit before he knew what he was about. And for such a nature
as Coleridge's to get out of opium, when once in it, is not among the
things that happen.
De Quincey took laudanum for the toothache, and afterwards continued it at
intervals for the pleasure it gave him, until finally, his stomach giving
way, he was precipitated into the daily use of it.
Which of these men was the most to blame in getting into the habit, is not
the object of these present remarks. I agree, however, with Coleridge,
that De Quincey's work, entitled, "The Confessions of an English Opium
Eater," tends rather to induce others into the habit, "through
wantonness," than to warn them from it. Coleridge said as much in a couple
of private notes, which were printed, after his death, in his "Life" by
Gillman. He likewise used the following significant language in one of the
said notes:
"From this aggravation I have, I humbly trust, been free, as far as acts
of my free will and intention are concerned; even to the author of that
work ('Confessions of an English Opium Eater'), I pleaded with flowing
tears, and with an agony of forewarning. He utterly denied it, but I fear
that I had, even then, to _deter_, perhaps, not to forewarn."
This raised the ire of De Quincey, who animadverted very freely upon
Gillman's "Life of Coleridge," Coleridge and Gillman, in a paper entitled,
"Coleridge and Opium Eating," which is, in my opinion, far more creditable
to the parties attacked than to its author. In this paper he also attempts
to give some excuse for writing his "Confessions," in the doing of which
he makes a most startling blunder, by assuming that Milton's "Paradise
Lost" is the true history of our first parents; and then, on the strength
of that, proving that laudanum was known and used in Paradise!
See a separate note at the end of this work, in which this unlooked for,
though unmistakable, evidence and result of having too freely "eaten on
the insane root that takes the reason prisoner," is fully discussed.
His excuse for writing his "Confessions" I give in his own words:
"It is in the faculty of mental vision; it is in the increased power of
dealing with the shadowy and the dark, that the characteristic virtue of
opium lies. Now, in the original higher sensibility is found some
palliation for the practice of opium eating; in the greater temptation is
a greater excuse; and in this faculty of self-revelation is found some
palliation for reporting the case to the world, which both Coleridge and
his biographer have overlooked."
The world had much better have remained in ignorance, if it was necessary
for the "Confessions" to be written in their present spirit. But there was
no necessity for calling the attention of the public to the "pleasures of
opium," thereby drawing into the vortex of the habit any who might rely
too much upon his statement, that he had used opium periodically for eight
years, without its having become necessary as "an article of daily diet."
"Wanton" is the very word that describes his "Confessions" to my mind. He
has thrown a glamour of enchantment over the subject of opium,
irresistibly tempting to some minds.
Yet I can conceive, I think, the state of mind necessary to produce the
"Confessions" as they are. De Quincey had been for a long time passing
through the fiery ordeal of reducing the quantity of opium taken,
preparatory to its final abandonment. The appetite must have been strong
upon him. He felt free from the oppression of opium, and his spirits were
good. He could only realize in his own mind the "pleasures of opium,"
without its "pains;" he was under the thraldom of the appetite which
perverted his judgment; that is, the appetite would not allow him to give
the pains their due weight, or of course they would have kicked the
pleasures "higher than a kite." His mind, I say, under the influence of
the appetite, dwelt upon the pleasures; he yearned towards them, and
longed to indulge himself to the full. But he had given out that he was
quitting opium; he dared not indecently ignore his own declarations, and
the expectations of his friends, by unceremoniously suspending his efforts
to quit, and plunging at once and unrestrained to his fullest depth into
opium; he must prepare the way, he must break the fall; and this he did in
the "Confessions." That is, this is my theory of the case. I pretend to
have no direct evidence of the fact; I simply derive my opinion from the
work itself, and other of his works. He therein (that is, in the
"Confessions") involves as many as possible, and makes the habit "as
common as any, the most vulgar thing to sense." He gave a dangerous
publicity to opium that it never had before. He gave a fascination to the
drug outside of its own influence; to wit, the drug, when it gets hold of
one, is fascinating enough, but he gave to the _subject_ of opium
allurements to those who had never yet tasted the article itself.
To explain to, and inform the world of, "the marvellous power of opium in
dealing with the shadowy and the dark," did not require him to run riot in
his imagination, in calling up and "doing" over again his opium
debaucheries. I fail utterly to perceive the part "the shadowy and the
dark" play in them. [That section of De Quincey's work relating to his
dreams is not here referred to; neither is there in it anything dangerous
to the public that I recall.] But, lest we "crack the wind of the poor
phrase, wronging it thus," we desist; there is no use in driving a
question to beggary, or in searching for reasons where they never were "as
thick as blackberries."
Poor De Quincey, rest to his shade!--he suffered enough for all purposes.
"No further seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God."