[PART I]
[SIDE-LIGHTS ON GREAT WRITERS]
To many of us it seems as if an author with an assured reputation must be one of the happiest of men; yet some of the very greatest have suffered almost intolerably.
Bobby Burns was a victim of drink largely because of his brilliant imagination and extreme sensitiveness. He was petted by society and praised as the poet of the future; all England was at his feet. Yet he gave way to his passions, took to drink, and ruined the lives of several of his dearest friends, as well as his own. In almost anyone else this would condemn him absolutely; but the truth is that his poetic powers, the gift of his genius, rendered him too sensitive to moods of the moment, and his will could not hold out under the strain.
A somewhat similar case was that of Coleridge. In his youth he showed extraordinary talent, but he fell a victim to opium and the greater part of his life was wasted in a series of unfinished efforts. No opium was necessary to stimulate his imagination, as his weird ballad of "The Ancient Mariner" plainly shows. Indeed his genius even worked during his sleep, for "Kubla Khan" is but a fragment of a poem which he dreamed and then began to write down as soon as he awoke. If he had not been interrupted by a visitor, a man of no importance, we might have had the whole instead of a scanty portion of this unique masterpiece. Even as it stands it is one of the most picturesque and brilliant compositions ever produced. It seems incredible that it should be the work of a sleeping brain. And yet this is the man who gave himself up to opium, wrecking a career that promised to surpass even that of Byron or Shelley in poetic power.
Thomas De Quincey, the author of the "Confessions of an Opium Eater," drank laudanum by the glassful. He first took to using this liquid form of opium in order to gain relief from the dyspepsia that resulted from his days of privation in the streets of London. Of course he was unable to stop the use of the drug and had to increase the doses to the alarming extent mentioned. When he was living in Edinburgh this almost caused the death of a gentleman who dined with him there; for his visitor picked up a decanter of a rich, dark red liquor, which he thought was port wine, poured out a glass, and had it at his lips, when De Quincey hurriedly seized it and saved the situation. Smoking opium was not the custom then; Coleridge drank it, as De Quincey did, and unknowingly spread the habit; for a poor man who once lived near Coleridge's house admitted that he had obtained laudanum from a boy who worked for Coleridge and smuggled it out to his friend by the bottleful.
As we all know, our great American short story writer, Edgar Allan Poe, was the prey of alcohol and also of opium, as well as a genius. The combination seems to have been more unavoidable in his case than in any other we know of. His imagination could only bring forth those extraordinarily gruesome tales of mystery and horror when stimulated by wines and brandy or opium. His whole life was spent in the shadow of despondency and irritation; and although we are indebted to him for priceless literary gems, he paid the penalty with misery which we cannot imagine.