The Opium Habit by Horace B. Day

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In consequence of this unexpected good fortune I was now placed under
the care of the Rev. Thomas Fry, rector of the village of Emberton in
Buckinghamshire, a clergyman of great piety and profound learning,
with whom I remained about fifteen months, pursuing the study of
languages with increased ardor. During the whole of that period I
never allowed myself more than four hours' sleep; and still
unsatisfied, I very generally spent the whole night, twice a week, in
the insane pursuit of those avenues to distinction to which alone my
ambition was confined. I took no exercise, and the income allowed me
was so small that I could not afford a meat dinner more than once a
week, and at the same time set apart the half of that allowance for
the purchase of books, which I had determined to do. I smoked
incessantly; for I now required some stimulus, as my health was much
injured by my unrelaxing industry. My digestion was greatly impaired,
and the constitution of iron which Nature had given me threatened to
break down ere long under the effects of the systematic neglect with
which I treated its repeated warnings. I suffered from constant
headache; my total inactivity caused the digestive organs to become
torpid; and the unnutritious nature of the food which I allowed myself
would not supply me with the strength which my assiduous labor
required. My nerves were dreadfully shaken, and at the age of fourteen
I exhibited the external symptoms of old age. I was feeble and
emaciated; and had this mode of life continued twelve months longer, I
must have sank under it.

I had during these fifteen months thought and read much on the subject
of revealed religion, and had devoted a considerable portion of my
time to an examination of the evidences advanced by the advocates of
Christianity, which resulted in a reluctant conviction of their utter
weakness and inability. No sooner was I aware that so complete a
change of opinion had taken place, than I wrote to my patron, stating
the fact and explaining the process by which I had arrived at such a
conclusion. The reply I received was a peremptory order to return to
my mother's house immediately; and on arriving there, the first time I
had entered it for some years, I was met by the information that I had
nothing more to expect from the countenance of those who had supplied
me with the means of prosecuting my studies to "so bad a purpose." I
was so irritated by what I considered the unjustifiable harshness of
this decision, that at the moment I wrote a haughty and angry letter
to one of the parties, which of course widened the breach and made the
separation between us eternal.

What was I now to do? I was unfit for any business, both by habit,
inclination, and constitution. My health was ruined, and hopeless
poverty stared me in the face; when a distinguished solicitor in my
native town, who by the way has since become celebrated in the
political world, offered to receive me as a clerk. I at once accepted
the offer; but knowing that in my then condition it was impossible for
me to perform the duties required of me, I decided on TAKING OPIUM!
The strange confessions of De Quincey had long been a favorite with
me. The first part of it had in fact been given me both as a model in
English composition and also as an exercise to be rendered into
Patavinian Latin. The latter part, the "Miseries of Opium," I had most
unaccountably always neglected to read. Again and again, when my
increasing debility had threatened to bring my studies to an abrupt
conclusion, I had meditated this experiment, but an undefinable and
shadowy fear had as often stayed my hand. But now that I knew that
unless I could by artificial stimuli obtain a sudden increase of
strength I must STARVE, I no longer hesitated. I was desperate; I
believed that something horrible would result from it; though my
imagination, most vivid, could not conjure up visions of horror half
so terrific as the fearful reality. I knew that for every hour of
comparative ease and comfort its treacherous alliance might confer
upon me _now_, I must endure days of bodily suffering; but I did
not, could not conceive the mental hell into whose fierce, corroding
fires I was about to plunge.

All that occurred during the first day is imperishably engraved upon
my memory. It was about a week previous to the day appointed for my
debut in my new character as an attorney's clerk; and when I arose, I
was depressed in mind, and a racking pain to which I had lately been
subject, was maddening me. I could scarcely manage to crawl into the
breakfast-room. I had previously procured a drachm of opium, and I
took two grains with my coffee. It did not produce any change in my
feelings. I took two more--still without effect; and by six o'clock in
the evening I had taken ten grains. While I was sitting at tea I felt
a strange sensation, totally unlike any thing I had ever felt before;
a gradual _creeping thrill_, which in a few minutes occupied
every part of my body, lulling to sleep the before-mentioned racking
pain, producing a pleasing glow from head to foot, and inducing a
sensation of dreamy exhilaration (if the phrase be intelligible to
others as it is to me), similar in nature but not in degree to the
drowsiness caused by wine, though not inclining me to sleep; in fact
so far from it that I longed to engage in some active exercise--to
sing or leap. I then resolved to go to the theatre--the last place I
should the day before have dreamed of visiting; for the sight of
cheerfulness in others made me doubly gloomy. I went, and so vividly
did I feel my vitality--for in this state of delicious exhilaration
even mere excitement seemed absolute Elysium--that I could not resist
the temptation to break out in the strangest vagaries, until my
companions thought me deranged. As I ran up the stairs I rushed after
and flung back every one who was above me. I escaped numberless
beatings solely through the interference of my friends. After I had
become seated a few minutes, the nature of the excitement was changed,
and a "waking sleep" succeeded. The actors on the stage vanished; the
stage itself lost its ideality; and before my entranced sight
magnificent halls stretched out in endless succession, with gallery
above gallery, while the roof was blazing with gems like stars whose
rays alone illumined the whole building, which was thronged with
strange, gigantic figures--like the wild possessors of a lost globe,
such as Lord Byron has described in "Cain" as beheld by the
fratricide, when, guided by Lucifer, he wandered among the shadowy
existences of those worlds which had been destroyed to make way for
our pigmy earth. I will not attempt further to describe the
magnificent vision which a little pill of "brown gum" had conjured up
from the realm of ideal being. No words that I can command would do
justice to its Titanian splendor and immensity.

At midnight I was roused from my dreamy abstraction; and on my return
home the blood in my veins seemed to "run lightning," and I knocked
down (for I had the strength of a giant at that moment) the first
watchman I met. Of course there was a row, and for some minutes a
battle-royal raged in New Street, the principal thoroughfare of the
town, between my party and the "Charlies," who, although greatly
superior in numbers, were sadly "milled," for we were all somewhat
scientific bruisers--that sublime art or science having been
cultivated with great assiduity at the public school through which I
had, as was customary, fought my way. I reached home at two in the
morning with a pair of "Oxford spectacles" which confined me to the
house for a week. I slept disturbedly, haunted by terrific dreams, and
oppressed by the nightmare and her nine-fold, and awoke with a
dreadful headache; stiff in every joint, and with deadly sickness of
the stomach which lasted for two or three days; my throat contracted
and parched, my tongue furred, my eyes bloodshot, and the whole
surface of my body burning hot. I did not have recourse to opium again
for three days; for the strength it had excited did not till then fail
me. When partially recovered from the nausea the first dose had
caused, my spirits were good, though not exuberant, but I could eat
nothing and was annoyed by an insatiable thirst. I went to the office,
and for six months performed the services required of me without
lassitude or depression of spirits, though never again did I
experience the same delicious sensations as on that memorable night
which is an "oasis in the desert" of my subsequent existence; life I
can not call it, for the "_vivida vis animi et corporis_" was
extinct.

In the seventh month my misery commenced. Burning heat, attended with
constant thirst, then began to torment me from morning till night; my
skin became scurfy; the skin of my feet and hands peeled off; my
tongue was always furred; a feeling of contraction in the bowels was
continual; my eyes were strained and discolored, and I had unceasing
headache. But internal and external heat was the pervading feeling
and appearance. My digestion became still weaker, and my incessant
costiveness was painful in the extreme. The reader must not however
imagine that all these symptoms appeared suddenly and at once; they
came on gradually, though with frightful rapidity, until I became a
"_morborum moles_," as a Roman physician whose lucubrations I met
with and perused with great amusement some years since in a little
country ale-house poetically expresses it. I could not sleep for hours
after I had lain down, and consequently was unable to rise in time to
attend the office in the morning, though as yet no visions of horror
haunted my slumbers. Mr. P., my employer, bore with this for some
months; but at length his patience was wearied, and I was informed
that I must attend at nine in the morning. I could not; for even if I
rose at seven, after two or three hours unhealthy and fitful sleep, I
was unable to walk or exert myself in any way for at least two
hours. I was at this time taking laudanum, and had no appetite for any
thing but coffee and acid fruits. I could and did drink great
quantities of ale, though it would not, as nothing would, quench my
thirst.

Matters continued in this state for fifteen months, during which time
the only comfortable hours I spent were in the evening, when freed
from the duties of the office I sat down to study, which it is rather
singular I was able to do with as strong zest and as unwearied
application as ever; as will appear when I mention that in those
fifteen months I read through in the evenings the whole of Cicero,
Tacitus, the Corpus Potarurn (Latinorum), Boethius, Scriptores
Historia Augustina, Homer, Corpus Gracarum Tragediarum, a great part
of Plato, and a large mass of philological works. In fact, in the
evening I generally felt comparatively well, not being troubled with
many of the above symptoms. These evenings were the very happiest of
my life. I had ample means for the purchase of books, for I lived very
cheap on bread, ale, and coffee, and I had access to a library
containing all the Latin classics--Valpy's edition in one hundred and
fifty volumes, octavo, a magnificent publication--and about fifteen
thousand other books. Toward the end of the year 1829 I established at
my own expense, and edited myself, a magazine (there was not one in a
town as large and populous as New York!) by which I lost a
considerable sum; though the pleasure I derived from my monthly labors
amply compensated me. In December of that year my previous sufferings
became light in comparison with those which now seized upon me, never
completely to leave me again. One night, after taking about fifty
grains of opium, I sat down in my arm-chair to read the confession of
a Russian who had murdered his brother because he was the chosen of
her whom both loved. It was recorded by a French priest who visited
him in his last moments, and was powerfully and eloquently written. I
dozed while reading it; and immediately I was present in the
prison-cell of the fratricide. I saw his ghastly and death-dewed
features; his despairing yet defying look; the gloomy and impenetrable
dungeon; the dying lamp, which seemed but to render darkness visible;
and the horror-struck yet pitying expression of the priest's
countenance; but there I lost my identity. Though I was the recipient
of these impressions, yet I was not myself separately and
distinctively existent and sentient; but my entity was confounded with
that of not only the two figures before me, but of the inanimate
objects surrounding them. This state of compound existence I can no
further describe. While in this state I composed the "Fratricide's
Death," or rather it composed itself and forced itself upon my memory
without any activity or volition on my part.

And here again another phenomenon presented itself. The images
reflected (if the expression be allowable) in the verses rose bodily
and with perfect distinctness before me, simultaneously with their
verbal representations; and when I roused myself (I had not been
_sleeping_, but was only _abstracted_) all remained clear
and distinct in my memory. From that night for six months, darkness
always brought the most horrible fancies, and opticular and auricular
or acoustical delusions of a frightful nature, so vivid and real that
instead of a blessing, sleep became a curse, and the hours of darkness
became hours which seemed days of misery. For many consecutive nights
I dared not undress myself nor put out the light, lest the moment I
lay down some _"monstrum horrendum, informfe, ingens"_ should
blast my sight with his hellish aspect! I had a double sense of sight
and sound; one real, the other visionary; both equally strong and
apparently real; so that while I distinctly heard imaginary footsteps
ascending the stairs, the door opening and my curtains drawn, I at the
same time as plainly heard any actual sound in or outside the house,
and could not remark the slightest difference between them; and while
I _saw_ an imaginary assassin standing by my bed, bending over me
with a lamp in one hand and a dagger in the other, I could see any
real tangible object which the degree of light which might be then in
the room made visible. Though these visionary fears and imaginary
objects had presented themselves to me every night for months, yet I
never could convince myself of their non-existence; and every fresh
appearance caused suffering of as intense and as deadly horror as on
the first night! So great was the confusion of the real with the
unreal that I nearly became a convert to Bishop Berkeley's non-reality
doctrines. My health was also rapidly becoming worse; and before I
had taken my opium in the morning I had become unable to move hand or
foot, and of course could not rise from my bed until I had received
strength from the "damnable dirt." I could not attend the office at
all in the morning, and was forced to throw up my articles, and, as
the only chance left me of gaining a livelihood, turn to writing for
magazines for support.

I left B. and proceeded to London, where I engaged with Charles Knight
to supply the chapters on the use of elephants in the wars of the
ancients for the "History of Elephants," then preparing for
publication in the series of the Library of Entertaining
Knowledge. For this purpose I obtained permission to use the library
of the British Museum for six months, and again devoted myself with
renewed ardor to my favorite studies.

"But what a falling off was there!" My memory was impaired, and in
reading I was conscious of a confusion of mind which prevented my
clearly comprehending the full meaning of what I read. Some organ
appeared to be defective. My judgment too was weakened, and I was
frequently guilty of the most absurd actions, which at the time I
considered wise and prudent. THe strong common sense which I had at
one time boasted of, deserted me. I lived in a dreamy, imaginative
state which completely disqualified me for managing my own affairs. I
spent large sums of money in a day, and then starved for a month; and
all this while the "_chateux en Espagne_," which once only
afforded me an idle amusement, now usurped the place of the realities
of life and led me into many errors, and even unjustifiable acts of
immorality, which lowered me in the estimation of my acquaintances and
friends, who saw the effect but never dreamed the cause. Even those
who knew I was an opium-eater, not being aware of the effect which the
habitual use of it produced, attributed my mad conduct to either want
of principle or aberration of intellect, and I thus lost several of my
best friends and temporarily alienated many others. After a month or
two passed in this employment I regained a portion of strength
sufficient to enable me to obtain a livelihood by reporting, on my own
account, in the courts of law in Westminster, any cause which I judged
of importance enough to afford a reasonable chance of selling again;
and by supplying reviews and occasional original articles to the
periodicals, the _Monthly_, the _New Monthly, Metropolitan_,
etc. My health continued to improve, probably in consequence of my
indulging in higher living, and taking much more exercise than I had
done for two or three years; as I had no need of buying books, having
the use of at least five hundred thousand volumes in the Museum. I was
at last fortunate enough to obtain the office of Parliamentary
reporter to a morning paper, which produced about three hundred pounds
a year; but after working on an average fourteen or fifteen hours a
day for a few months, I was obliged to resign the situation and again
depend for support on the irregular employment I had before been
engaged in, and for which I was now alone fit. My constitution now
appeared to have completely sunk under the destroying influence of the
immense quantity of opium I had for some months taken--two hundred,
two hundred and fifty, and three hundred grains a day. I was
frequently obliged to repeat the dose several times a day, as my
stomach had become so weak that the opium would not remain upon it;
and I was besides afflicted with continual vomiting after having eaten
any thing. I really believed that I could not last much
longer. Tic-douloureux was also added to my other suffering; constant
headache, occasional spasms, heart-burn, pains in the legs and back,
and a general irritability of the nerves, which would not allow me to
remain above a few minutes in the same position. My temper became
soured and morose. I was careless of every thing, and drank to excess
in the hope of thus supplying the place of the stimulus which had lost
its power.

At length I was compelled to keep my bed by a violent attack of
pleurisy, which has since seized me about the same time every year. My
digestion was so thoroughly ruined that I was frequently almost
maddened by the sufferings which indigestion occasioned. I could not
sleep, though I was no longer troubled with visions, which had left me
about three months. At last I became so ill that I was forced to leave
London and visit my mother in Kenilworth, where I stayed; writing
occasionally, and instructing a few pupils in Greek and Hebrew. I was
also now compelled to sell my library, which contained several Arabic
and Persian MSS., a complete collection of Latin authors, nearly a
complete one of Greek, and a large collection of Hebrew and Rabbinic
works, which I had obtained at a great expense and with great
trouble. All went. The only relics of it I was able to retain were the
"Corpus Poetarum, Graecarum et Latinorum," and I have never since been
able to collect another library. Idleness, good living, and constant
exercise revived me; but with returning strength my nocturnal visitors
returned, and again my nights were made dreadful. I was terrified
through visions similar to those which had so alarmed me at first, and
I was obliged to drink deeply at night to enable me to sleep at
all. In this state I continued till June, 1833, when I determined once
more to return to London, and I left Kenilworth without informing any
one of my intention the night before. The curate of the parish called
at my lodging to inform me that he had obtained the gift of six
hundred pounds to enable me to reside at Oxford until I could
graduate. Had I stayed twenty-four hours longer I should not now be
living in hopeless poverty in a foreign country; but pursuing, under
more favorable auspices than ever brightened my path before, those
studies which supported and cheered me in poverty and illness, and
with a fair prospect of obtaining that learned fame for which I had
longed so ardently from my boyhood, and in the vain endeavor to obtain
which I had sacrificed my health and denied myself not only the
pleasures and luxuries but even the necessaries of life. I had while
at the office in B. entered my name on the books of Brazen-nose
College, Oxford, and resided there one term, not being able to afford
the expense attendant on a longer residence. Thus it has been with me
through life. Fortune has again and again thrown the means of success
in my way, but they have always been like the waters of
Tantalus--alluring but to escape from my grasp the moment I approached
to seize them.

I remained in London only a few days, and then proceeded to Amsterdam,
where I stayed a week, and then went to Paris. After completely
exhausting my stock of money I was compelled to walk back to Calais,
which I did with little inconvenience, as I found that money was
unnecessary; the only difficulty I met with being how to escape from
the overflowing hospitality I everywhere experienced from rich and
poor. My health was much improved when I arrived in town, and I
immediately proceeded on foot to Birmingham, where I engaged with
Dr. Palmer, a celebrated physician, to supply the Greek and Latin
synonyms and correct the press for a dictionary of the terms used by
the French in medicine, which he was preparing. The pay I received was
so very small that I was again reduced to the poorest and most meagre
diet, and an attack of pleurisy produced such a state of debility that
I was compelled to leave Birmingham and return to my mother's house in
Kenilworth.

I had now firmly resolved to free myself from my fatal habit; and the
very day I reached home I began to diminish the quantity I was then
taking by one grain per day. I received the most careful attention,
and every thing was done that could add to my comfort and alleviate
the sufferings I must inevitably undergo. Until I had arrived at
seventeen and a half grains a day I experienced but little uneasiness,
and my digestive organs acquired or regained strength very
rapidly. All constipation had vanished. My skin became moist and more
healthy, and my spirits instead of being depressed became equable and
cheerful. No visions haunted my sleep. I could not sleep, however,
more than two or three hours at a time, and from about 3 A.M. until
8--when I took my opium--I was restless and troubled with a gnawing,
twitching sensation in the stomach. From seventeen grains downward my
torment (for by that word alone can I characterize the pangs I
endured) commenced. I could not rest, either lying, sitting, or
standing. I was compelled to change my position every moment, and the
only thing that relieved me was walking about the country. My sight
became weak and dim; the gnawing at my stomach was perpetual,
resembling the sensation caused by ravenous hunger; but food, though I
ate voraciously, would not relieve me. I also felt a sinking in the
stomach, and such a pain in the back that I could not straighten
myself up. A dull, constant, aching pain took possession of the calves
of my legs, and there was a continual jerking motion of the nerves
from head to foot. My head ached, my intellect was terribly weakened
and confused, and I could not think, talk, read, nor write. To sleep
was impossible, until by walking from morning till night I had so
thoroughly tired myself that pain could not keep me awake, although I
was so weak that walking was misery to me. And yet under all these
_desagremens_ I did not feel dejected in spirit; although I
became unable to walk, and used to lie on the floor and roll about in
agony for hours together. I should certainly have taken opium again if
the chemist had not, by my mother's instructions, refused to sell
it. I became worse every day, and it was not till I had entirely left
off the drug--two months nearly--that any alleviation of my suffering
was perceptible. I gradually but very slowly recovered my strength
both of mind and body, though it was long before I could read or
write, or even converse. My appetite was too good; for though while an
opium-eater I could not endure to taste the smallest morsel of fat, I
now could eat at dinner a pound of bacon which had not a
hair's-breadth of lean in it. Previously to my arrival in Kenilworth
an intimate friend of mine had been ruined--reduced at once from
affluence to utter penury by the villainy of his partner, to whom he
had entrusted the whole of his business, and who had committed two
forgeries for which he was sentenced to transportation for life. In
consequence of this event, my friend, who was a little older than
myself and had been about twelve months married, determined to leave
his young wife and child and seek to rebuild his broken fortunes in
Canada. When he informed me that such was his plan I resolved to
accompany him, and immediately commenced preparations for my voyage. I
was not however ready, not having been able so soon to collect the sum
necessary, when he was obliged to leave, and as I could not have him
for my companion, I altered my course and took my passage for New
York, in the vain expectation of obtaining a better income here, where
the ground was comparatively unoccupied, than in London, where there
were hundreds of men as well qualified as myself, dependent on
literature for their support. I need not add how lamentably I was
disappointed. The first inquiries I made were met by advice to
endeavor to obtain a livelihood by some other profession than
authorship. I could get no employment as a reporter, and the
applications I addressed to the editors of several of the daily
newspapers received no answer. My prospects appeared as gloomy as they
could well be, and my spirits sunk beneath the pressure of the anxious
cares which now weighed so heavily upon me. I was alone in a strange
country, without an acquaintance into whose ear I might pour the
gathering bitterness of my blighted hopes. I was also much distressed
by the intense heat of July, which kept me from morning till night in
a state much like that occasioned by a vapor bath. I was so melancholy
and hopeless that I really found it necessary to have recourse to
brandy or opium. I preferred the latter, although to ascertain the
difference, merely as a philosophical experiment, I took rather
copious draughts of the former also. But observe; I did not intend
ever again to become the slave of opium. I merely proposed to take
three or four grains a day until I should procure some literary
engagement, and until the weather became more cool. All my efforts to
obtain such engagement were in vain; and I should undoubtedly have
sunk into hopeless despondency had not a gentleman (to whom I had
brought an order for a small sum of money, twice the amount of which
he had insisted on my taking), perceiving how injuriously I was
affected by my repeated disappointments, offered me two hundred
dollars to write "Passages from the Life of an Opium-eater," in two
volumes. I gladly accepted this disinterested offer, but before I had
written more than two or three sheets I became disgusted with the
subject. I attempted to proceed, but found that my former facility in
composition had deserted me; that, in fact, I could not write. I now
discovered that the attempt to leave off opium again would be one of
doubtful result. I had increased my quantum to forty grains. I again
became careless and inert, and I believe that the short time that had
elapsed since I had broken the habit in England had not been
sufficient to allow my system to free itself from the poison which had
been so long undermining its powers. I could not at once leave it off;
and in truth I was not very anxious to do so, as it enabled me to
forget the difficulties of the situation in which I had placed myself;
while I knew that with regained freedom the cares and troubles which
had caused me again to flee to my destroyer for relief, would press
upon my mind with redoubled weight. I remained in Brooklyn until
November. Since then, I have resided in the city, in great poverty,
frequently unable to procure a dinner, as the few dollars I received
from time to time scarcely sufficed to supply me with opium. Whether
I shall now be able to leave off opium, God only knows!

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