Opium versus Sleep.—Manner of taking Opium.—Different Considerations Relating to the Habit.—A Prophetic Warning.
Opium versus Sleep.—Manner of taking Opium.—Different Considerations Relating to the Habit.—A Prophetic Warning.
Whatthree things does opium especially provoke? As to sleep, like drink in a certain respect, it provokes and it unprovokes;—it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance; therefore, muchopiummay be said to be an equivocator withsleep; it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on (though it does not take him off); it persuades him, and disheartens him; it makes him stand to, and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.—Shakespeare altered.
But, of the three things that drink especially provokes, but one, and that sleep, is concurrently provoked by the extract of poppies. Still, the sleep provoked by opium is not
“Tired Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep,”
but “death’s half-brother, sleep,”—a state in which, with reference to opium eaters, “their drenched natures lie as in a death;” “theirbreath alone showing thattheylive;” “while death and nature do contend about them, whether they live or die.”[5]
The three things which opium especially provokes are,—first, sleep; second, loss of sensibility; and third, loss of sublunary happiness.
Opium puts a man under an influence which must pass away before natural sleep, and in consequence rest, can supervene. Of course, if the opium eater takes an exceedingly moderate quantity of the drug, he may get rest that is refreshing,—that is, if he get any sleep at all; taking too little, defeats the whole object. But in general the opium eater arises in the morning in an inconceivably ill state of feeling. It is almost impossible to arise at all. The heart feels much affected,—and no wonder, lying all night in the embrace of poison sufficient to kill half a dozen of the strongest men. It is a most wretched condition, and the most trying. A man gets up in the morning with no sense of rest, feeling that he has been aroused long before he should have been. Before going to bed he does not feel so; it comes on after having slept about seven hours. His sense of want of rest before going to bed is not to be compared with his misery on getting up in theA. M., though he in fact shrinks from going to bed at all, so painful is the anticipation of the misery of the morning. In the case of De Quincey, it may have been that he had all the time he wished to sleep in. He may have been master of his own time to such a degree that he could go to bed when he desired, and get up when he felt like it. If this was true, he no doubt escaped the miseries others are compelled to endure, whose duties require them to arise at an early hour,—that is, at the hour at which the business portion ofthe world generally arise. It is most probable, not being under the regimen of fixed hours, that he was able to sleep off the effects of opium, and then get all the natural rest his system demanded before arising. If this theory of his case in this regard is the true one, he escaped a great deal of the suffering usually entailed upon the victims of the prince of narcotics. If I could lie two or three hours longer (or rather later) in the morning (which would carry me far beyond the beginning of business hours in theA. M.), I would get up feeling a great deal fresher and better. Going to bed early does not contravene or anticipate the difficulty. It is compulsory upon one to go to bed early, as it is. The proposition, boiled down, is simply this: The effect of opium lasts a specific length of time, and that must be slept by, and passed, before full relaxation sets in, and the overload of opium passes out of the system. Were I master of my own time, I think I could regulate my hours so as to avoidthismisery of opium: at least so modify it that it would be much more tolerable than it now is in my own case. But let us pass on to something else.
It was in the yearA. D.1867 that I was misled into the habit of using morphia, and I have continued its use ever since in greater or less degree: assuming that the essential principle or foundation of all nostrums invented to cure the baneful habit is opium in one of its various forms.
My practice is now to take a dose of so many grains exact weight at ten o’clockA. M., and another at four and a half o’clockP. M.At the latter dose I need not necessarily be so precise in weight. Regularity is absolutely enforced. There is no getting along otherwise. It is essential to preserve any uniformity of feeling, to secure sleep and tolerable digestion. An habituate periodically becomes bilious under the best regulations; frequently so where large quantities are taken, and the system is kept clogged with the drug. By adhering to strict regularity in weight and time, I still derive some stimulation from the drug, and when the stomach is in good condition, and free from lodgments of food, I sometimes feel a momentary touch of pleasurable sensation from the morning dose. In the afternoon there is usually too much food in my stomach for the medicine to take strong hold; often I can scarcely perceive that I have taken a dose, though usually there is a dull feeling of stimulation. By eight o’clockP. M.I begin to get drowsy, and it is best for me to get a doze at that time. I generally take a couple of dozes during the course of the evening, going to bed at ten o’clock, or about that hour. To get sleep enough is a point of the utmost importance. It is obligatory upon one to watch himself closely in this respect. The opium must to a great extent be slept off, and the system thoroughly relaxed, before refreshing sleep can be obtained. Getting up at the usualhours, compels an opium eater to arise before his sleep appears to be more than half out. He feels awful for a time, gradually becoming less wretched. The matter of sleep is one of so great importance, and so prominent a feature in the life of an opium eater, that I have treated the subject specially and at length in the beginning of this chapter. I hope the reader will pardon me for again adverting to the matter, and for what seems little less than a repetition of the same remarks. But I ask his charity on the whole work, with its repetitions and tautology, which I am too much pressed for time to avoid,—writing, as I do, by snatches and in haste.
Taking a certain large quantity of opium, so binds up one’s nerves that it is difficult to sleep at all. The narcotic effect then seems lost. One must relax this tension, by taking less of the drug, before he can rest easily either day or night. This effect comes from too much opium. Another effect of opium, or more properlyresult, is that after a meal,—I speak only for myself in this, however,—particularly after dinner with me, if one walks about much,—that is, immediately after he has eaten,—what he ate weighs like a chunk of lead in the stomach. I think it used to derange my stomach, and make me miserable till the next day. I avoid it now as much as possible, and very rarely am afflicted with it. Another effect,—but one, however, of which I have spoken heretofore,—I am beginning to feel very gloomy andscary at night again. Oh! I do pray God that I may escape, dodge, or ward this off in some way. There are no other earthly feelings so terrible. It is the valley and shadow of death. One seems to stand upon the verge of the grave, breathing the atmosphere of the dead. There is such a lasting intimacy with, such a constant presence in the mind of, the idea of death. All seems so dark, dreary, and so hopeless; so painfully gloomy and melancholy. A man is completely emasculated. The full development of this condition I must prevent. It shows an alarming state, and that a change in the management of the habit is imperatively required.
The quantity of opium taken by old practitioners varies greatly. A reasonable quantity, after six or eight years’ steady use, would be from twelve to sixteen grains morphia per twenty-four hours, I judge. They might take less, and I have known cases where much more was taken. The quantity, however, depends not so much upon the question of time as upon the temperament and general make-up of the particular victim in every respect. Leaving the question of time out, I have known the quantity to range as high as sixty grains sulphate of morphia per diem. This was awful. One can keep pretty near a certain quantity, by struggling hard and being determined to allow it to make no headway. In doing this, though, more distress and inconvenience are undergone the longer a specified quantity is adheredto. It will not supply a man and sustain him as well, as time wears on, as it did when he first adopted the dose stated. Opium seems to wear away the strength of a person just as the gradual dropping of water wears away a stone. Hence it is usually the case that, as time passes on, the dose is gradually increased.
I was just speaking of a little different matter, by the by. What I meant was this,—that, through a certain course of years, the dose would increase to a certain standard, which, from that time on for a number of years, would remain about the same, and appear to be sufficient, and not need any addition. As in my own case, for instance. After a few years I arrived at the quantity of twelve grains per diem, sixA. M.and sixP. M.This quantity I continued to take for a number of years, with but slight variation.
There is a reason for the writing of this inside history of the opium habit beyond the one people would naturally hit upon. It is this. This is an inquisitive, an experimenting, and a daring age,—an age that has a lively contempt for the constraints and timorous inactivity of ages past. Its quick-thinking and restless humanity are prying into everything. Opium will not pass by untampered with. Even at this time, it is not entirely free from vicious handling. But as yet, in any age, this included, as far as the Caucasian race is concerned, there has been no such a wresting from its legitimate sphereand proper purpose of the drug, as I have great fear there will be in years to come. Will alcohol become unpopular, then be abhorred, and then opium be substituted in its stead? Will it? This is the grave question I am now propounding. In order that I may not be thought to be speculating upon a subject not within the realms of reason or probability, I will just reinforce myself here by stating that a Senatorial committee, of which the late Mr. Charles Sumner was a member, thought it not unworthy their time and the nation’s interest to investigate into this identical question. I have good reason to believe that, even at this day, the number of persons addicted to the habitual use of opium is far beyond the imagination of people generally:—even of persons who have looked into the matter somewhat, but who have never used the drug, or made its use a matter ofspecialobservation for years. I have good reason to believe that even now the use of opium is carried on to such an extent, that a census of the victims would strike the country with terror and alarm. But yet this is trivial in comparison with the opium afflictions of which I prophesy; when liquor will be abandoned and opium resorted to as commonly as liquor now is. Heaven forefend! God, our Father, in mercy avert the day! It will be a time of general effeminacy, sickness, and misery,—should it come. “Should it come!” Ah, there is some solace in that. Let us intercept it, if possible. I believe knowledgeis stronger than ignorance. To know your danger, and yet avoid it, is better than to pass it by through the mere accident of ignorance,—it is safer. Then know, that opium has charms you could not resist did you once feel their influence; that it is like the beautiful woman in Grecian mythology, ravishing to look upon, but poisonous to touch. Knowing your danger, keep out of its reach; for, no matter what its transitory influences may be, its most certain, permanent, and overshadowing results are pain and misery!
Having put forth my hand to warn the world of the miseries inherent in opium, when perverted from its proper medical purpose, I now end this chapter, in order to hasten towards a conclusion of my task.
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.”
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 havepromised 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 greatesteffort 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 thehabituéfortwenty-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 diarrhœa 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 diarrhœa 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, thatto 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 theapparentstationary 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 irresistibledemand 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 thedeepest despair: this ever continues to be the case,—that is, such ismyexperience; 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 abidinggloominess 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 Coleridgefully 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 induceothers 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, todeter, 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. Theappetite 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 thesubjectof 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.”
Conclusion.
Inthe preceding chapter I have apparently gone out of my way to strike a blow at De Quincey’s “Confessions.” So I have, because it was a part of the purpose of this treatise so to do.
While I seek at every opportunity to commiserate the condition of the man De Quincey, his works are public property, of which every man has a right to express his own opinion. With these remarks, I now conclude this work; hoping, trusting, praying, that it may be the means of warning others, before theytastethe venomous stuff, of the chasm before them; that to touch it is to tread upon “a slumbering volcano,” and that, once into the crater, they are lost for life. I warn them of a reptile more subtle and more charming than the serpent itself, under whose fascination it conceals a sting so deadly, that
“—no cataplasm so rare,Collected from all the simples that have virtue,”
can save its victims from destruction.
I trust I have said nothing that can allure any one into the habit: my whole object has been, professedly and in reality, to do the contrary.
Referring him, if so inclined, to some fragmentary notes on different subjects connected with opium and opium eaters in the Appendix to this work, I now respectfully bid the reader farewell.
NOTE No. 1.—COLERIDGE AND THE CRITICS.
Coleridgewas unfortunate in having lived in an age in which party spirit was bitter in the extreme, and literary criticism, either from this or other causes, was no less malignant and bitter. It seems that Coleridge claimed that the “Edinburgh Review”employedthe venomous Hazlitt to “run him down,” in a criticism on the Lay Sermon—that Hazlitt had been employed by reason of his genius for satire, being a splenetic misanthropist, and for his known hostility to Coleridge. The “Edinburgh Review” denied that he wasemployedfor this purpose. Whether he did the job of his own volition and spontaneous motion or not, he did it, and did it well; he noted him closely to “abuse him scientifically.” All this after Coleridge had received him at his house, and given him advice that proved greatly to his advantage. Hazlitt, in an essay on the poets, acknowledges and explicitly states that Coleridge roused him into a consciousness of his own powers—gave his mind its first impetus to unfolding. It is said that Coleridge encouraged him when every one did not perceive so much in the “rough diamond.”
Jeffrey, editor of the “Edinburgh Review,” in a critique on the Christabel, took occasion to thoroughly personally abuse and villify Wordsworth, Southey, andColeridge. He accorded no merit whatever to the Christabel. This after he had been the recipient of Coleridge’s hospitality, and had acted in a friendly manner.
I copy the following from the memoir of Keats, introductory to a volume of his poetical works, edited by William B. Scott:
“It is not worth while now to analyze the papers that first attracted notice to ‘Blackwood’s Magazine,’ by calling Coleridge’s ‘Biographia Literaria’ a most execrable performance, and the amiable, passive, lotus-eating author, a compound of egotism and malignity....”
I think “respectable gentlemen” did “do things thirty years ago (now, say fifty), which they could not do now without dishonor.” Thank Providence for the march of civilization, genius has now a better recognition, and knowledge and taste being more generally disseminated and cultivated, the masses of the reading people, who are now the true judges and regulators of these matters, would not brook it for a moment. In vulgar phrase, it is “played out.” The genius is valued higher than the malignant hack critic.
From what I read, Hazlitt died miserably as he had lived. “Sacked” by a woman beneath him in station, “and to recline upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor to those of his;”—now one of oblivion’s ghosts.
NOTE No. 2.—COLERIDGE AND PLAGIARISM.
That Coleridge did borrow thelanguageof Shelling is of course indisputable. See that part of the “Biographia Literaria” which treats of the Transcendental Philosophy. But Coleridge plainly, and in a manner that cannot be mistaken, makes over to Shelling anything found in hisworks that resembles that author. He “regarded truth as a divine ventriloquist. He cared not from whose mouth the sounds proceeded, so that the words were audible and intelligible.” He sought not to take anything from Shelling; on the contrary, he pays him a high tribute, and calls him his “predecessor though contemporary.” He said he did not wish to enter into a rivalry with Shelling for what was so unequivocally his right. ’Twould be honor enough for him (Coleridge) to make the system intelligible to his countrymen. But Coleridge made over everything that resembled, or coincided with Shelling, to the latter, on condition that he should not be charged with intentional plagiarism or ungenerous concealment; this because he could not always with accuracy cite passages, or thoughts, actually derived from Shelling. He was not in a situation to do so, hence he makes this general acknowledgment and proclamation beforehand.
He says, indeed, that he never was able to procure but two of Shelling’s books, besides a small pamphlet against Fichte. But the reason why he could not designate citations and thoughts, is, that he and Shelling had studied in the same schools of philosophy, and had taken about the same path in their course of philosophical reading; they were both aiming at the same thing, and although Shelling has seemingly gotten ahead of Coleridge, they would most likely have arrived at about the same conclusions, had the works of each never been known to the other. In short, the ideas of the two men were so similar, that it must have been perplexingly difficult, if not impossible, for Coleridge to tell whether he derived a particular thought from Shelling, or from his own mind.
NOTE No. 3.—A MARE’S NEST.
In De Quincey’s article entitled “Coleridge and Opium Eating,” in the concluding part, after making some very just observations in relation to the peculiar temperament most liable to the seductive influences, and “the spells lying couchant in opium,” he proceeds to make a very strange assertion concerning the properties of opium being known in Paradise, and—mark the bull—refers to Milton’s Paradise Lost in proof! We quote as follows: “You know the Paradise Lost? And you remember from the eleventh book, in its earlier part, that laudanum already existed in Eden,—nay, that it was used medicinally by an archangel; for, after Michael had purged with ‘euphrasy and rue’ the eyes of Adam, lest he should be unequal to the meresightof the great visions about to unfold their draperies before him, next he fortifies his fleshly spirits against theafflictionof these visions, of which visions the first was death. And how?
‘He from the well of life three drops instilled.’
“What was their operation?
‘So deep the power of these ingredients pierced,Even to the inmost seat of mental sight,That Adam, now enforced to close his eyes,Sank down, and all his spirits became entranced.But him the gentle angel by the handSoon raised.’
“The second of these lines it is which betrays the presence of laudanum.”
The fundamental error here, and that which vitiates andrenders ridiculous all that follows, is the purblind assumption that Milton’s Paradise Lost is a true account of the transactions of our first parents in the garden of Eden. But it is not, and Adam had no vision of the future or of death. Even if Milton’s were the true account, I would not be inclined to believe that he meant laudanum. If the archangel had power to show visions of the future he would have had power to prepare Adam for the spectacle by far other than earthly means. There was atree of lifein the garden of Eden, but no well of life is recorded in sacred history. But Milton says of the archangel (as De Quincey quotes): “He from the well of life three drops instilled.” A rather small dose to see visions upon; I believe the ordinary dose for an adult is from fifteen to twenty drops. However, a well of life would hardly be the designation for a well of laudanum. Milton undoubtedly derived his idea of a well of life from the tree of life spoken of in holy writ, whose fruit had the power of conferring immortality. “And the Lord God said, behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” Gen. iii. 22-24. Milton is indebted to this hint, and his own imagination, for his well of life, and the powers he ascribes to its waters; and De Quincey is indebted to his imagination solely for his idea that it was laudanum which constitutedthe potent waters of this imaginary well. The whole thing is simply ridiculous. Still, it has an object, which object is, taken in connection with what remains of his essay on Coleridge and opium eating, to give some excuse, or palliation, as he puts it, for writing his (De Quincey’s) opium confessions. We give his own words: “It is in the faculty of mental vision, it is in the increased powers 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 forreportingthe case to the world, which both Coleridge and his biographer have overlooked.”
The idea that laudanum was known and used in Paradise, on the authority of the Paradise Lost of Milton, is as bad as the foolish opinions of some over-wise persons that Shakespeare’s Hamlet was really insane.
NOTE No. 4.—SECOND NOTE ON COLERIDGE AND PLAGIARISM.
De Quincey, in his essay on Samuel Taylor Coleridge, while treating of the subject of Plagiarism, several minor charges of which he had just been firing off in his blind endeavor to do Coleridge good by destroying his good name forever, admits that said minor charges amount to nothing as plagiarism; but says, that “now we come to a case of real and palpable plagiarism.” The case arises in the “Biographia Literaria.” De Quincey says, regarding a certain essay on the esse and the cogitare, that Coleridge had borrowed it from beginning to end from Shelling.But that before doing so, being aware of the coincidence, he remarks that he would willingly give credit to so great a man when the truth would allow him to do so, but that in this instance he had thought out the whole matter himself, before reading the works of the German philosopher. Now the truth is, Coleridge said nothing of the kind. He first warned his readers that an identity of thought or expression, would not always be evidence that the ideas were borrowed from Shelling, or that the conceptions were originally learned from him. They (Coleridge and Shelling) had taken about the same course in their philosophical studies, etc.
He says: “God forbid that I should be suspected of a wish to enter into a rivalry with Shelling for honors so unequivocally his right, not only as a great and original genius, but as the founder of the philosophy of nature, and the most successful improver of the dynamic system,” etc. He then says: “For readers in general, let whatever coincides with or resembles the doctrines of my German predecessor, though contemporary, be wholly attributed to him, provided that the absence of direct references to his works, which I could not always make with truth, as designating thoughts or citations actually derived from him, and which, with this general acknowledgment, I trust would be unnecessary, be not charged on me as intentional plagiarism or ungenerous concealment.” This is what he did say, and a sufficient acknowledgment for anything borrowed from Shelling. He then says that he had been able to procure but two of Shelling’s books, in addition to a small pamphlet against Fichte. The above is from the prefatory remarks to which De Quincey alludes,but his memory must have been gone on a “wool-gathering” at the time.
Instead of gaining, Coleridge is the loser by adopting thelanguageof Shelling in his treatise on the transcendental philosophy in the “Biographia Literaria.”
Having made over to Shelling everything that resembled or coincided with the doctrines of the latter, he lost much of the most important labors of his life.
He had studied metaphysics and philosophy for years, and not having “shrank from the toil of thinking,” he must have evolved much original matter; being a man, as De Quincey says, of “most original genius.” Shelling no doubt had gotten ahead of him in publication, but Coleridge had nevertheless undoubtedly thought out the transcendental system before meeting with the works of Shelling. He says himself emphatically, that “all the fundamental ideas were born and matured in my own mind before I ever saw a page of the German philosopher.” However, Coleridge says of the whole system of philosophy—the Dynamic System, as I understand the matter—“that it is his conviction that it is no other than the system of Pythagoras and Plato revived and purified from impure mixtures.”
[The quotations in the above note are from memory, and though not given as exact, they carry the idea intended.]
NOTE No. 5.—ON DE QUINCEY’S STYLE OF WRITING.
As to De Quincey’s style, I think it may be summarized about thus:
Fine writing. Afflicted with ridiculous hyperbole. Too discursive. In his narrative pieces he is too rambling and digressive. I have read but one article of thoseclassed under the title of Literary Reminiscences, namely, the one on Coleridge; it does well enough, but I have read other narrative pieces having the faults mentioned. But then his writings are nearly all of a narrative nature. However, the faults above named are not special to his narrative pieces only—they are general defects in his style. In his shorter pieces, such as his article on Wordsworth’s poetry, on Shelley, and on Hazlitt, and likely some others of the same series which I have not yet read, he is interesting and sufficiently to the point. But in his essay on the works of Walter Savage Landor, is he not a little too inflated, and does he not run his ironical style into the ground? His “Confessions” I have come to regard more as a literary performance than for any benefit to mankind on the subject of opium there is in them, and as a literary performance the work was undoubtedly intended. There is more uniformity of style in it than in any of his other works of that length that I have read. He is more equable, though smooth and fluent. Still there is a break or two of humor in it that may sound harsh, though not the horrible, grisly, blood-curdling humor that he has in some of his pieces in the shape of irony. He oversteps the modesty of nature in his use of the satirical, I think. He seems hard and cruel sometimes, especially in “Coleridge and Opium Eating,” when speaking of Coleridge enticing Gillman into the habit of eating opium, and other places in the same paper. In many instances I think he loses his dignity altogether and becomes very coarse; that is, slangy and common. He ever seems to think that to be smart, to be a success, to be formidable, is to be humorous. He has many brilliant flashes of intellectual humor, but it is all fromthe brain, and lacks the true ring that comes from the healthy overflowing of nature. He has cold, steel-like wit, that comes from the head.
My recollection of his “Antigone of Sophocles,” is as of a man jumping upon horseback and riding the animal to death, unless the journey’s end be reached previously. There is no resting-place—on the reader goes after the idea till the end, and it is a long and barren road to travel. He (De Quincey) seems nervous—highly so; too much so to allow his reader peace and ease in reading this paper and others, and parts of other long ones, I judge. I fear the reader would fain cry out, “What, in the name of Judas Iscariot, is the man after, and when is he going to catch up to it? I am out of breath.” This “Greek Tragedy” paper, as it is called elsewhere,[6]seemed lean and very wordy to me. Still, with all his faults, De Quincey was a brilliant writer, andgenerallyon the right side of questions—humane, and upholding the down-trodden whenever opportunity offered.
NOTE No. 6.—THIRD NOTE ON COLERIDGE AND PLAGIARISM.
De Quincey, in his article entitled “Samuel Taylor Coleridge,” descants as follows: “Coleridge’s essay in particular is prefaced by a few words, in which, aware of his coincidence with Shelling, he declares his willingness to acknowledge himself indebted to so great a man, in any case where the truth would allow him to do so; but, in this particular case, insisting on the impossibility that he could have borrowed arguments which he had firstseen some years after he had thought out the whole hypothesispro pria marte. After this, what was my astonishment, to find that the entire essay, from the first word to the last, is averbatimtranslation from Shelling, with no attempt in a single instance to appropriate the paper, by developing the arguments, or by diversifying the illustrations. Some other obligations to Shelling, of a slighter kind, I have met with in the ‘Biographia Literaria:’ but this was a barefaced plagiarism, which could in prudence have been risked only by relying too much upon the slight knowledge of German literature in this country, and especially of that section of the German literature.” De Quincey goes on to say, in the way of extenuation of his charge of plagiarism against Coleridge, that Coleridge did not do this from poverty of intellect. “Not at all.” He denies that flat. “There lay the wonder,” he says. “He spun daily and at all hours,” proceeds De Quincey, “for mere amusement of his own activities, and from the loom of his own magical brain, theories more gorgeous by far, and supported by a pomp and luxury of images such as Shelling—no, nor any German that ever breathed, not John Paul—could have emulated in his dreams.” There you go again De Quincey—the demon of hyperbole again driving you to extremes; forever denouncing beyond reason or praising beyond desert. No one else ever claimed so much for Coleridge. De Quincey says Shelling was “worthy in some respects to be Coleridge’s assessor.” He accounts for Coleridge’s borrowing on the principle of kleptomania.... “In fact reproduced in a new form, applying itself to intellectual wealth, that maniacal propensity which is sometimes well known to attack enormous proprietors andmillionnairesfor acts of petty larceny.” And cites a case of a Duke having a mania for silver spoons. This is “all bosh,” and the wrong theory of Coleridge’s borrowing from Shelling; and as to his loans from any one else, they were as few as those of any writer. The true theory is, that he was after truth, and had thought out as well as Shelling the doctrines promulgated by the latter. He could claim as much originality as Shelling in a system, “introduced by Bruno,” and advocated by Kant, and of which he (Shelling) was only “the most successful improver.”
And also, that “he” (Coleridge) “regarded truth as a divine ventriloquist, he cared not from whose mouth the sounds were supposed to proceed if only the words were audible and intelligible.” He borrowed thelanguageof Shelling, but that is all. But De Quincey, after all his flourish of trumpets and initiatory war-whoop, volunteers to say that “Coleridge, he most heartily believes, to have been as entirely original in all his capital pretensions, as any one man that ever has existed as—Archimedes, in ancient days, or as Shakespeare, in modern.”
In estimating the value of Coleridge’s “robberies,” their usefulness to himself, etc., De Quincey draws a parallel between them and the contents of a child’s pocket.
He says: “Did he” (the reader) “ever amuse himself by searching the pocket of a child—three years old, suppose—when buried in slumber, after a long summer’s day of out-a-doors intense activity? I have done this; and, for the amusement of the child’s mother, have analyzed the contents and drawn up a formal register of the whole. Philosophy is puzzled, conjecture and hypothesis are confounded, in the attempt to explain the law of selection whichcanhave presided in the child’s labors:stones, remarkable only for weight, old rusty hinges, nails, crooked skewers stolen when the cook had turned her back, rags, broken glass, tea-cups having the bottom knocked out, and loads of similar jewels, were the prevailing articles in thisproces verbal. Yet, doubtless, much labor had been incurred, some sense of danger, perhaps, had been faced, and the anxieties of a conscious robber endured, in order to amass this splendid treasure. Such, in value, were the robberies of Coleridge; such their usefulness to himself or anybody else; and such the circumstances of uneasiness under which he had committed them. I return to my narrative.” “So much for Buckingham.” Pity he wandered from his “narrative” at all. But he also says, and previous to the foregoing extract, in giving his reason for noticing the subject at all: “Dismissing, however, this subject, which I have at all noticed only that I might anticipate and (in old English) that I mightpreventthe uncandid interpreter of its meaning.”... Then it is that he goes on to state that he believes him to have been as original in his capital pretensions as any man that ever lived, as before noticed. Being such a small matter, it is “really too bad” that he should thus waste his labor of love. Had he read Coleridge more faithfully, he would have found that he had made over to Shelling everything which the reader might think resembled the doctrines of the latter. And this was, perhaps, the best, and about the only thing he could have done, for undoubtedly the ideas of the two men were so similar, having taken the same course in their philosophical studies, that it must have been perplexing, and may have been impossible, for Coleridge to tell “which was whose.”
Coleridge claimed, indeed, that all the main and fundamental ideas were born and matured in his own mind before he ever saw a page of the German philosopher. If Coleridge was capable of spinning from “the loom of his own magical brain theories more gorgeous by far,” and “such as Shelling nor any German that ever breathed could have emulated in his dreams,” it is probable that he was able to think out this bit of philosophy for himself, especially also as we have his word for it besides (which I am rejoiced to say still passes current with some men), and it is most probable that he simply adopted the language of Shelling for convenience. He disputed no claim of Shelling’s, and although he had thought out the system with Shelling, what heclaimedcan be seen in the following: “With the exception of one or two fundamental ideas, which cannot be withheld from Fichte, to Shelling we owe the completion, and the most important victories of this revolution in philosophy. To me it will be happiness and honor enough should I succeed in rendering the system itself intelligible to my countrymen,” etc. Although he thought it out, he denies not that Shelling thought it out; he says in effect that Shelling, by publication, has accomplished the object sought by him (Coleridge), and all the honor and credit he will now claim will be in rendering thesystemintelligible to his countrymen. Although Coleridge had thought out this philosophy, now, however, it is total loss to him in the minds of those who know not what was the truthfulness and dignity of his nature, as they will attribute to Shelling (and give Coleridge no credit whatever, though he may have devoted years to their development) any ideas that are expressed in the language of the German. However, after subtractingall that is expressed in the language of Shelling, he has enough left to embalm his name for ages to come; and that of a kind so unique, characteristic, and eminently original, as to afford no scope for friendship and admiration so incomprehensible as that of De Quincey, or the open attacks of the most malignant of enemies.
This article of De Quincey’s was not approved by Coleridge’s friends and relations; on the contrary, it roused their indignation and incurred their just resentment. “Defective sensibility” is something De Quincey is forever referring to, often to “depraved sensibility.” What madman would not have known he was injuring his friend by hauling into notice and retailing such stuff as this? Aggravating and augmenting it by his terse and vigorous mode of expression! The following passage from De Quincey, is enough to have brought upon himself perpetual infamy as the most traitorous of friends, and sufficient to have caused the outraged feelings of Coleridge’s friends, expressed in indignation, to have persecuted him to the grave; yet it is expressed in such language as exhibits an utter unconsciousness of the injury done, of the poison administered. In fact, the assumed attitude of the writer is that of a panegyrist, while hisrealattitude would be more truthfully compared to that of a venomous reptile, which charms its prey with beautiful visions only that its final attack may be more fatal—it is the song of the siren alluring to deadly rocks.
“Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed.” “Listen to this: “... I will assert finally, that having read for thirty years in the same track as Coleridge—that track in which few in any age will everfollow us, such as German metaphysicians, Latin school men, thaumaturgic Platonists, religious mystics,—and having thus discovered a large variety of trivial thefts, I do nevertheless most heartily believe him to have been as entirely original in all his capital pretensions as Archimedes in ancient days, or as Shakespeare in modern.” Did any one ever before hear such an insane compound of contradictions? “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” ’Tis “the juice of the cursed hebenon,” set forth in a glass of highly colored wine.
“No man can ever be a great enemy but under the garb of a friend. If you are a cuckold, it is your friend that makes you so, for your enemy is not admitted to your house; if you are cheated in your fortune, ’tis your friend that does it, for your enemy is not made your trustee; if your honor or good name is injured, ’tis your friend that does it still, for your enemy is not believed against you.”—Wycherly.
That De Quincey did this maliciously, I do not pretend to state; what I know of its animus I gather from the paper itself. But I can truly say, in the language of Julius Hare, “God save all honest men from such foremost admirers.” Whether he wanted to injure Coleridge or not, the result is the same—hedidinjure him. I am inclined to believe, however, that De Quincey’s article was well intended by him, but from defective sensibility his judgment was corrupted; he thought the honey he would infuse into the gall would annihilate its bitterness and leave the decoction sweet. He was mistaken. After proving Coleridge to be guilty of robbery, he could not convince the ordinary mind that he was an honest man. After having declared him to be guilty of a “large varietyof trivial thefts” in literature, he could not induce people generally to believe him to have been “entirely original.” On De Quincey’s hypothesis, Coleridge was a thief and an honest man, a plagiarist and entirely original, at one and the same instant. This, ordinary readers would naturally have some difficulty in swallowing. But De Quincey might have spared himself this undertaking, and himself and Coleridge its injurious results (as it proved to be a two-edged sword and cut both ways), by making his early reading in the “Biographia Literaria” a trifle more extensive. There he would have seen that the “real and palpable case of plagiarism” was fully met and anticipated—averted, confounded, and explained; having noticed this, he might have thought these “trivial thefts” unworthy of mention. However, as the result stands to-day, Coleridge is a classic, and those who have any interest whatever in his compositions, being persons generally of some literary acquirements and judgment, are capable of judging of the originality and genuineness of his works, as he himself pertinently remarks, “by better evidence than mere reference to dates.”
I subjoin a copy of the prefatory remarks to which De Quincey refers, in stating that Coleridge, “aware of his coincidence with Shelling, declares his willingness to acknowledge himself indebted to so great a man in any case where the truth would allow him to do so,” etc. The reader will perceive that there is no such language in them; but he will see in them a complete refutation of the charge of plagiarism from Shelling, and an honorable acknowledgment of his indebtedness to that author.
“In Shelling’s ‘Natur-Philosophie and System des transcendentalen Idealismus,’ I first found a genial coincidencewith much that I had toiled out for myself, and a powerful assistance in what I had yet to do. I have introduced this statement as appropriate to the narrative nature of this sketch, yet rather in reference to the work which I have announced in a preceding page than to my present subject. It would be a mere act of justice to myself, were I to warn my future readers that an identity of thought, or even similarity of phrase, will not be at all times a certain proof that the passage has been borrowed from Shelling, or that the conceptions were originally learned from him. In this instance, as in the dramatic lectures of Schlegel, to which I have before alluded, from the same motive of self-defence against the charge of plagiarism, many of the most striking resemblances, indeed all the main and fundamental ideas, were born and matured in my own mind before I had ever seen a single page of the German philosopher; and I might indeed affirm, with truth, before the more important works of Shelling had been written, or at least made public. Nor is this coincidence at all to be wondered at. We had studied in the same school, been disciplined by the same preparatory philosophy, namely, the writings of Kant. We had both equal obligations to the polar logic and dynamic philosophy of Giordana Bruno; and Shelling has lately, and as of recent acquisition, avowed the same affectionate reverence for the labors of Behmen and other mystics, which I had formed at a much earlier period. The coincidence of Shelling’s system with certain general ideas of Behmen, he declares to have been mere coincidence, while my obligations have been more direct. He needs to give Behmen only feelings of sympathy, while I owe him a debt of gratitude. God forbid that I should be suspectedof a wish to enter into a rivalry with Shelling for the honors so unequivocally his right, not only as a great and original genius, but as the founder of the philosophy of nature, and the most successful improver of the dynamic system, which, begun by Bruno, was re-introduced (in a more philosophical form, and freed from all its impurities and visionary accompaniments) by Kant; in whom it was the native and necessary growth of his own system.... With the exception of one or two fundamental ideas which cannot be withheld from Fichte, to Shelling we owe the completion and most important victories of this revolution in philosophy. To me it will be happiness and honor enough should I succeed in rendering the system itself intelligible to my countrymen, and in the application of it to the most awful of subjects for the most important of purposes.
“Whether a work is the offspring of a man’s own spirit, and the product of original thinking, will be discovered by those who are its sole legitimate judges, by better evidence than the mere reference to dates. For readers in general, let whatever in this or any future work of mine that resembles or coincides with the doctrines of my German predecessor, though contemporary, be wholly attributed to him, provided, that in the absence of direct references to his books, which I could not at all times make with truth, as designating citations or thoughts actually derived from him—and which, I trust, would, after this general acknowledgment, be superfluous—be not charged on me as an ungenerous concealment or intentional plagiarism.” (See “Biographia Literaria.”)
Either in forgetfulness or ignorance of this “general acknowledgment,” which goes so far as to make over toShelling anything and everything that may be found to resemble the doctrines of that author, the identical charge which he so honorably provides for, anticipates, and defeats, is brought against him; and by one professing to be a friend, and one of Coleridge’s “foremost admirers.” “Oh, shame, where is thy blush?” Now for the conclusion of this note.
It ismyconviction that Coleridge had worked out, just as stated by him, “all the main and fundamental ideas” embraced in that part of Shelling’s system which appears in the “Biographia Literaria.” I believe that he had thought it out, but that the incubus of opium weighing down and poisoning the very springs of his energies with “all blasting” power, “o’ercrowed” his spirit and prevented his realizing in a palpable form, by publication, the knowledge he had accumulated. Thus Shelling got ahead of him, and being ahead, Coleridge was forestalled and estopped from developing to the world his philosophical acquirements. ’Twas thus he came to recommend Shelling’s system, and when writing the fragment of transcendental philosophy that appears in the “Biographia Literaria,” his and Shelling’s opinions being about the same, he expressed himself in the language of the latter.
He considered the subject as one in which all were interested, and the thought of “rendering the system itself intelligible to his countrymen,” for their benefit, so engrossed his mind as to render him less regardful of other questions involved in the matter than he should have been. “Rest perturbed spirit.”
THE END.
Footnotes:
[1]At that time. For the cause of this depravity, see theory of the “Confessions,” chapter xv.
[2]This was by hypodermie, and in the first stages. Taking it by mouth, it is not somuchdisposed to run off in this way; the stimulation is less evanescent and more stationary; still, one is more or less extremely nervous in the first stages, when under the stimulation of opium, no matter how administered.
[3]That is, after my rupture with the doctor; but about all that I have stated in this chapter must be referred to that period,—(to wit, ensuing after my break with the physician;)—save the remark touching the hypodermic syringe, which was interpolated and stands somewhat out of place, though intended as cumulative as to general suffering.
[4]See note at end of chapter.
[5]A very important incident in the life of an opium eater has been omitted here in the text, namely: the occasional recurrence of an overdose. This event is more likely to arise when one has been drawing rather heavily, than otherwise, upon his supply of opium. He gets clogged up and miserable,—and from too much; butthenis the very hardest time to reduce, and, instead of diminishing the quantity, he, blind in his anxious search of happiness, takes more. He apparently notices no material difference at first, and may add still to this. But the night cometh, and with the shades of night the heavy and increased volume of soporific influence descends upon his brain; frightening him into a sense of the present, at least, if ineffectual as to the past or future. He dare not surrender himself to the pressure of sleep, lest he yield to the embrace of death. And so, in this anomalous condition, he passes the hours that relieve him of his dangerous burden. Never was man so sleepy, yet never sleep so dangerous. Scarce able to resist the temptation, which his stupefaction renders more potent in disarming his faculties and vitiating his judgment to some degree, he sits upon the edge of eternity. Now giving way, now rousing up frantically, he passes a terrible night. When the benumbing effects so torpify the mind that a man no longer appreciates the danger of his situation, he tumbles off into the everlasting. No sounding drum, or “car rattling o’er the stony street,” can awaken him now. No opium can hurt him. He furnishes an item for the morning papers, and an inquest for the coroner, and his affairs earthly are wound up.