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.