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PRELIMINARY CONFESSIONS
These preliminary confessions, or introductory narrative of the youthful adventures which laid the foundation of the writer's habit of opium-eating in after-life, it has been judged proper to premise, for three several reasons:
- As forestalling that question, and giving it a satisfactory answer, which else would painfully obtrude itself in the course of the Opium Confessions--"How came any reasonable being to subject himself to such a yoke of misery; voluntarily to incur a captivity so servile, and knowingly to fetter himself with such a sevenfold chain?"--a question which, if not somewhere plausibly resolved,
could hardly fail, by the indignation which it would be apt to raise as against an act of wanton folly, to interfere with that degree of sympathy which is necessary in any case to an author's purposes.
- As furnishing a key to some parts of that tremendous scenery which afterwards peopled the dreams of the Opium-eater.
- As creating some previous interest of a personal sort in the confessing subject, apart from the matter of the confessions, which cannot fail to render the confessions themselves more interesting.
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 possession of a superb intellect in its ANALYTIC functions (in which part of the pretensions, however, England can for some generations show but few claimants; at least, he is not aware of any known candidate for this honour who can be styled emphatically A SUBTLE THINKER, with the exception of SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, and in a narrower department of thought with the recent illustrious exception {2} of DAVID RICARDO) but also on such a constitution of the MORAL faculties as shall give him an inner eye and power of intuition for the vision and the mysteries of our human nature:
THAT constitution of faculties, in short, which (amongst all the generations of men that from the beginning of time have deployed into life, as it were, upon this planet) our English poets have possessed in the highest degree, and Scottish professors {3} 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 opium 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
indulgence, in order to renew the pleasurable sensations. 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 article
of daily diet. In the twenty-eighth year of my age a most painful
affection of the stomach, which I had first experienced about ten
years before, attacked me in great strength. This affection had
originally been caused by extremities of hunger, suffered in my
boyish days. During the season of hope and redundant happiness
which succeeded (that is, from eighteen to twenty-four) it had
slumbered; for the three following years it had revived at
intervals; and now, under unfavourable circumstances, from
depression of spirits, it attacked me with a 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 circumstances 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 guardians. I was sent to various schools, great and
small; and was very early distinguished for my classical
attainments, especially for my knowledge of Greek. At thirteen I
wrote Greek with ease; and at fifteen my command of that language
was so great that I not only composed Greek verses in lyric metres,
but could converse in Greek fluently and without embarrassment--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 expressions 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 attention of a stranger to me, "that boy could
harangue an Athenian mob better than you and I could address an
English one." He who honoured me with this eulogy was a scholar,
"and a ripe and a good one," and of all my tutors was the only one
whom I loved or reverenced. Unfortunately for me (and, as I
afterwards learned, to this worthy man's great indignation), 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, 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 favourite master; and beside, 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 to 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 I first entered I remember that we read
Sophocles; and it was a constant matter of triumph to us, the
learned triumvirate of the first form, to see our "Archididascalus"
(as he loved to be called) conning our lessons 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 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
recommendation 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
demanded, and I prepared myself, therefore, for other measures.
Summer was now coming on with hasty steps, and my seventeenth
birthday was fast approaching, after which day I had sworn within
myself that I would no longer be numbered amongst schoolboys. 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 despond, 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 writer was on the sea-coast, and in that way the
delay had arisen; she enclosed double of what I 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 which 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 anything
consciously for the last time (of things, that is, which we have
long been in the habit of doing) 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 schoolroom 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 looked
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 ever 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. I
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 succeeding life has in many important points taken its colouring. I lodged in the head-master's house, and had been allowed from my first entrance the indulgence of a private room, which I used both as a sleeping-room and as a study. At half after
three I 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 hurricane and perfect hail-storm of affliction which soon fell upon me, well might I have been agitated. 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 mid-
night; 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 noonday at other seasons of the year, it seems to differ
from perfect day chiefly because man is not yet abroad; and thus the
peace of nature and of the innocent 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 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 enjoyed 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
yesterday, the lineaments and expression of the object on which I
fixed my parting gaze. It was a picture of the lovely -, which hung
over the mantelpiece, the eyes and mouth of which were so beautiful,
and the whole countenance so radiant with benignity and divine
tranquillity, that I had a thousand times laid down my pen 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 for ever!
So blended and intertwisted in this life are occasions of laughter
and of tears, that I cannot yet recall without smiling an incident
which occurred 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 communicated with this angle of the building was accessible
only by a gallery, which passed the head-master's chamber door. I
was a favourite 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 anything I wished, and when the time arrived went upstairs
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 Plain. Accordingly he
persisted in bringing down the trunk alone, whilst I 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 bedroom 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 I determined to abide the issue. The groom was in the
utmost alarm, both on his own account and on mine, but, in spite of
this, so irresistibly had the sense of the ludicrous in this unhappy
contretemps 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 authority, I could not myself forbear joining in it; subdued 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 matter 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 bedroom. Dr.--had a painful complaint, which, sometimes keeping him awake, made his sleep perhaps, 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 Providence my guide," I set off on foot, carrying a small parcel with some articles of dress under my arm; a favourite 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 country 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 Denbighshire, Merionethshire, and Carnarvonshire, I took lodgings in a small neat house in B-. Here I might have stayed 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 district. An accident,
however, in which perhaps no offence was designed, drove me out to wander 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 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 everywhere a due sense of their claims already established, except among those who are ignorant of the world by virtue of their own obscurity: "Not to know THEM, argues one's self unknown." Their manners take a suitable tone and colouring, and for once they find it necessary to impress a sense of their consequence upon others, they meet with a thousand occasions for moderating and tempering this sense by acts of courteous condescension. With the families of bishops it is otherwise: with them, it is all uphill work to make known their pretensions; 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 become 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, indicative of claims not generally acknowledged, a
sort of noli me tangere manner, nervously apprehensive of too familiar approach, and shrinking with the sensitiveness of a gouty man from all contact with the (Greek text). Doubtless, a powerful understanding, or unusual goodness of nature, 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 manners naturally communicates itself to their domestics and other dependants. Now, my landlady 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 family 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 useful 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 anybody's face, and I could make an ample allowance for the garrulity of an 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 accident, she one day repeated to me a conversation 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 summoned into the dining-room. In giving an account of her
household economy she happened to mention that she had let her
apartments. Thereupon the good bishop (it seemed) had taken
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 certainly was not without reasonable
grounds, but rather fitted to be stored up for Mrs. Betty's private
meditations than specially reported to me. What followed, however,
was somewhat worse. "Oh, my lord," answered my landlady (according
to her own representation of the matter), "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 disposed 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 impossible. I was indeed greatly irritated at the bishop'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 me; and that the same
coarseness of mind which had led Mrs. Betty to repeat the advice at all, might have coloured it in a way more agreeable to her own style of thinking than to the actual expressions of the worthy bishop.
I left the lodgings the very same hour, and this turned out a very
unfortunate occurrence for me, because, living henceforward at inns,
I was drained of my money very rapidly. In a fortnight 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, I 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 afterwards, so long as I remained in Wales,
I subsisted 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 happened to
have relatives in Liverpool or in London; more often I wrote love-
letters to their sweethearts for young women who had lived as
servants at Shrewsbury or other towns on the English border. On all
such occasions I gave great satisfaction to my humble friends, and
was generally treated with hospitality; and once in particular, near
the village of Llan-y-styndw (or some such name), in a sequestered
part of Merionethshire, I was entertained for upwards of three days
by a family of young people with an affectionate and fraternal
kindness that left an impression upon my heart not yet impaired.
The family consisted at that time of four sisters and three
brothers, all grown up, and all 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 before 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 midst of their confusion and blushes,
whilst dictating, 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. I contrived so to temper my expressions as
to reconcile the gratification of both feelings; and they were as
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 discharged 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 little inclination to resist. I slept with the brothers, the
only unoccupied bed standing in the apartment of the young women;
but in all other points they treated me with a respect not usually
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, from the
undiminished kindness which they continued to show me, I believe I
might have stayed with them up to this time, if their power had
corresponded with their wishes. On the last morning, however, I
perceived upon their countenances, as they sate at breakfast, the
expression 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 Carnarvon, 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 affectionate 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 it was "only their way," yet I easily understood that my
talent for writing love-letters would do as little to recommend me
with two grave sexagenarian Welsh Methodists as my Greek sapphics 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 demeanour 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 genial charities of the
human heart.
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