De Quincey, Thomas. Confessions of an English Opium Eater. 1821. Rpt. New York: The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd, 1886. 104 pages.
Selected Passages : Here is the classic "disclaimer" which seems, in some form or another, to have graced the beginning of every literary work dealing with sin up to the 1970s. From Moll Flanders to Naked Lunch, there was always, in the foreword or first chapter, some kind of apology, rationalization, explanation, or, in De Quincey’s case, an attempt to distance himself from the other confessions and then divert the reader’s attention entirely by slamming the French!
"Nothing, indeed, is more revolting to English feelings, than the spectacle of a human being obtruding on our notice his moral ulcers or scars, and tearing away that ‘decent drapery,’ which time, or indulgence to human frailty, may have drawn over them: accordingly, the greater part of our confessions (that is, spontaneous and extra-judicial confessions) proceed from demireps, adventurers, or swindlers: and for any such acts of gratuitous self-humiliation from those who can be supposed in sympathy with the decent and self-respecting part of society, we must look to French literature, or to that part of the German which is tainted with the spurious and defective sensibility of the French." ("To the Reader," p.xxii-xxiv)
De Quincey brings up a very good point here that most people still don’t quite understand: drugs have different effects on different types of people. The literary folks can’t help but read deeper meanings into the whole experience, whereas ‘regular folks" just like the way the drugs make them feel
"If a man ‘whose talk is of oxen,’ should become an Opium-eater, the probability is, that (if he is not too dull to dream at all) - he will dream about oxen : whereas, in the case before him, the reader will find that the Opium-eater boasteth himself to be a philosopher; and accordingly, that the phantasmagoria of his dreams (waking or sleeping, day-dreams or night dreams) is suitable to one who is in that character." ("Preliminary Confessions," p.2)
Like Charles Lamb, De Quincey varies his style by occasionally slipping into anachronistic language (or dropping Latin and Greek) when he feels the urge to wax poetic. Here he bids farewell to his life of poverty.
"So then, Oxford Street, stony-hearted step-mother! thou that listenest to the sighs of orphans, and drinkest the tears of children, at length I was dismissed from thee: the time was come at last that I no more should pace in anguish thy never- ending terraces; no more should dream, and wake in captivity to the pangs of hunger. Successors, too many, to myself and Ann, have, doubtless, since then trodden in our footsteps - inheritors of our calamities : other orphans than Ann have sighed : tears have been shed by other children : and thou, Oxford Street, hast since, doubtless, echoed to the groans of innumerable hearts." ("Preliminary Confessions," p.42)
By the time he finally gets around to really talking about opium, De Quincey delivers the most passionate writing of the entire book. Almost all of that writing is in praise of the drug.
"Oh! just, subtle, and mighty opium! that to the hearts of poor and rich alike, for the wounds that will never heal, and for ‘the pangs that tempt the spirit to rebel,’ bringest an assuaging balm; eloquent opium! that with thy potent rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath; to the guilty man, for one night gives back the hopes of his youth, and hands washed pure from blood; and to the proud man, a brief oblivion for ‘wrongs undressed and insults unaveng'd;’ that summonest to the chancery of dreams, for the triumphs of suffering innocence, false witnesses; and confoundest perjury; and dost reverse the sentences of unrighteous judges; - thou buildest upon the bosom of darkness, out of the fantastic imagery of the brain, cities and temples, beyond the art of Phidias and Praxiteles - beyond the splendour of Babylon and Hekatompylos; and ‘from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,’ callest into sunny light the faces of long- buried beauties, and the blessed household countenances, cleansed from the ‘dishonours of the grave.’ Thou only givest these gifts to man; and thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh, just, subtle, and mighty opium!" ("The Pleasures of Opium," p.62-63)
A chilling portrait of how opium had insinuated itself into his daily routine.
"Whether desperate of not, however, the issue of the struggle in 1813 was what I have mentioned; and from this date, the reader is to consider me as a regular and confirmed opium-eater, of whom to ask whether on any particular day he had or had not taken opium, would be to ask whether his lungs had performed respiration, or the heart fulfilled its functions." ("Introduction to the Pains of Opium," p. 70)
De Quincey delivers some more inspired writing in his description of the happiest days of his life, which consisted of many winter hours spent sitting by the fire, reading, blissed-out on opium.
"Surely everybody is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a winter fireside; candles at four o'clock, warm hearth-rugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies on the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without," ("Introduction to the Pains of Opium," p 76)
De Quincey defends his "frankness."; "You will think, perhaps, that I am too confidential and communicative of my own private history. It may be so. But my way of writing is rather to think aloud, and follow my own humours, than much to consider who is listening to me; and, if I stop to consider what is proper to be said to this or that person, I shall soon come to doubt whether any part at all is proper." ("The Pains of Opium," p. 81)
Inexplicably, De Quincey is roused from his extended opium torpor by…a book about political economics?
"At length, in 1819, a friend in Edinburgh sent me down Mr. Ricardo's book : and recurring to my own prophetic anticipation of the advent of some legislator for this science, I said, before I had finished the first chapter, ‘Thou art the man!’ ("The Pains of Opium," p. 85)
When it comes time for De Quincey to detail "The Pains of Opium," he side-steps the issue for the most part, and instead goes into long, detailed descriptions of his dreams and how extended opium use altered their character. Here is one of the insights he gained from these dreams:
"Of this, at least, I feel assured, that there is no such thing as forgetting possible to the mind; a thousand accidents may and will interpose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions of the mind; accidents of the same sort will also rend away this veil; but alike, whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains for ever; just as the stars seem to withdraw before the common light of day, whereas, in fact, we all know that it is the light which is drawn over them as a veil, and that they are waiting to be revealed when the obscuring daylight shall have withdrawn." ("The Pains of Opium," p. 90)
De Quincey describes what it was like to give up drugs in the days before Betty Ford.
"I triumphed : but think not, reader, that therefore my sufferings were ended; nor think of me as one sitting in a dejected state. Think of me as of one, even when four months had passed, still agitated, writhing, throbbing, palpitating, shattered; and much, perhaps, in the situation of him who has been racked, as I collect the torments of that state from the affecting account of them left by a most innocent sufferer." ("The Pains of Opium," p. 103)
In the Book’s final passage, De Quincey discusses some lingering effects of his long period of drug use. (Funny, maybe he was still experiencing these symptoms because he didn’t actually quit. Hmmm.)
"One memorial of my former condition still remains: my dreams are not yet perfectly calm : the dread swell and agitation of the storm have not wholly subsided : the legions that encamped in them are drawing off, but not all departed : my sleep is still tumultuous, and, like the gates of Paradise to our first parents when looking back from afar, it is still (in the tremendous line of Milton)- ‘with dreadful faces throng’d and fiery arms.’" ("The Pains of Opium," p. 104)


De Quincey, Thomas. Confessions of an English Opium Eater. 1821. Rpt. New York: The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd, 1886. 104 pages.
Selected Passages : Here is the classic "disclaimer" which seems, in some form or another, to have graced the beginning of every literary work dealing with sin up to the 1970s. From Moll Flanders to Naked Lunch, there was always, in the foreword or first chapter, some kind of apology, rationalization, explanation, or, in De Quincey’s case, an attempt to distance himself from the other confessions and then divert the reader’s attention entirely by slamming the French!
"Nothing, indeed, is more revolting to English feelings, than the spectacle of a human being obtruding on our notice his moral ulcers or scars, and tearing away that ‘decent drapery,’ which time, or indulgence to human frailty, may have drawn over them: accordingly, the greater part of our confessions (that is, spontaneous and extra-judicial confessions) proceed from demireps, adventurers, or swindlers: and for any such acts of gratuitous self-humiliation from those who can be supposed in sympathy with the decent and self-respecting part of society, we must look to French literature, or to that part of the German which is tainted with the spurious and defective sensibility of the French." ("To the Reader," p.xxii-xxiv)
De Quincey brings up a very good point here that most people still don’t quite understand: drugs have different effects on different types of people. The literary folks can’t help but read deeper meanings into the whole experience, whereas ‘regular folks" just like the way the drugs make them feel
"If a man ‘whose talk is of oxen,’ should become an Opium-eater, the probability is, that (if he is not too dull to dream at all) - he will dream about oxen : whereas, in the case before him, the reader will find that the Opium-eater boasteth himself to be a philosopher; and accordingly, that the phantasmagoria of his dreams (waking or sleeping, day-dreams or night dreams) is suitable to one who is in that character." ("Preliminary Confessions," p.2)
Like Charles Lamb, De Quincey varies his style by occasionally slipping into anachronistic language (or dropping Latin and Greek) when he feels the urge to wax poetic. Here he bids farewell to his life of poverty.
"So then, Oxford Street, stony-hearted step-mother! thou that listenest to the sighs of orphans, and drinkest the tears of children, at length I was dismissed from thee: the time was come at last that I no more should pace in anguish thy never- ending terraces; no more should dream, and wake in captivity to the pangs of hunger. Successors, too many, to myself and Ann, have, doubtless, since then trodden in our footsteps - inheritors of our calamities : other orphans than Ann have sighed : tears have been shed by other children : and thou, Oxford Street, hast since, doubtless, echoed to the groans of innumerable hearts." ("Preliminary Confessions," p.42)
By the time he finally gets around to really talking about opium, De Quincey delivers the most passionate writing of the entire book. Almost all of that writing is in praise of the drug.
"Oh! just, subtle, and mighty opium! that to the hearts of poor and rich alike, for the wounds that will never heal, and for ‘the pangs that tempt the spirit to rebel,’ bringest an assuaging balm; eloquent opium! that with thy potent rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath; to the guilty man, for one night gives back the hopes of his youth, and hands washed pure from blood; and to the proud man, a brief oblivion for ‘wrongs undressed and insults unaveng'd;’ that summonest to the chancery of dreams, for the triumphs of suffering innocence, false witnesses; and confoundest perjury; and dost reverse the sentences of unrighteous judges; - thou buildest upon the bosom of darkness, out of the fantastic imagery of the brain, cities and temples, beyond the art of Phidias and Praxiteles - beyond the splendour of Babylon and Hekatompylos; and ‘from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,’ callest into sunny light the faces of long- buried beauties, and the blessed household countenances, cleansed from the ‘dishonours of the grave.’ Thou only givest these gifts to man; and thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh, just, subtle, and mighty opium!" ("The Pleasures of Opium," p.62-63)
A chilling portrait of how opium had insinuated itself into his daily routine.:"Whether desperate of not, however, the issue of the struggle in 1813 was what I have mentioned; and from this date, the reader is to consider me as a regular and confirmed opium-eater, of whom to ask whether on any particular day he had or had not taken opium, would be to ask whether his lungs had performed respiration, or the heart fulfilled its functions." ("Introduction to the Pains of Opium," p. 70)
De Quincey delivers some more inspired writing in his description of the happiest days of his life, which consisted of many winter hours spent sitting by the fire, reading, blissed-out on opium.: "Surely everybody is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a winter fireside; candles at four o'clock, warm hearth-rugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies on the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without," ("Introduction to the Pains of Opium," p 76)
De Quincey defends his "frankness."; "You will think, perhaps, that I am too confidential and communicative of my own private history. It may be so. But my way of writing is rather to think aloud, and follow my own humours, than much to consider who is listening to me; and, if I stop to consider what is proper to be said to this or that person, I shall soon come to doubt whether any part at all is proper." ("The Pains of Opium," p. 81)
Inexplicably, De Quincey is roused from his extended opium torpor by…a book about political economics?:"At length, in 1819, a friend in Edinburgh sent me down Mr. Ricardo's book : and recurring to my own prophetic anticipation of the advent of some legislator for this science, I said, before I had finished the first chapter, ‘Thou art the man!’ ("The Pains of Opium," p. 85)
When it comes time for De Quincey to detail "The Pains of Opium," he side-steps the issue for the most part, and instead goes into long, detailed descriptions of his dreams and how extended opium use altered their character. Here is one of the insights he gained from these dreams:"Of this, at least, I feel assured, that there is no such thing as forgetting possible to the mind; a thousand accidents may and will interpose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions of the mind; accidents of the same sort will also rend away this veil; but alike, whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains for ever; just as the stars seem to withdraw before the common light of day, whereas, in fact, we all know that it is the light which is drawn over them as a veil, and that they are waiting to be revealed when the obscuring daylight shall have withdrawn." ("The Pains of Opium," p. 90)
De Quincey describes what it was like to give up drugs in the days before Betty Ford.:"I triumphed : but think not, reader, that therefore my sufferings were ended; nor think of me as one sitting in a dejected state. Think of me as of one, even when four months had passed, still agitated, writhing, throbbing, palpitating, shattered; and much, perhaps, in the situation of him who has been racked, as I collect the torments of that state from the affecting account of them left by a most innocent sufferer." ("The Pains of Opium," p. 103)
In the Book’s final passage, De Quincey discusses some lingering effects of his long period of drug use. (Funny, maybe he was still experiencing these symptoms because he didn’t actually quit. Hmmm.):"One memorial of my former condition still remains: my dreams are not yet perfectly calm : the dread swell and agitation of the storm have not wholly subsided : the legions that encamped in them are drawing off, but not all departed : my sleep is still tumultuous, and, like the gates of Paradise to our first parents when looking back from afar, it is still (in the tremendous line of Milton)- ‘with dreadful faces throng’d and fiery arms.’" ("The Pains of Opium," p. 104)
FOOTNOTES : {1} "Not yet RECORDED," I say; for there is one celebrated man of the present day, who, if all be true which is reported of him, has greatly exceeded me in quantity.
{2} A third exception might perhaps have been added; and my reason for not adding that exception is chiefly because it was only in his juvenile efforts that the writer whom I allude to expressly addressed hints to philosophical themes; his riper powers having been all dedicated (on very excusable and very intelligible grounds, under the present direction of the popular mind in England) to criticism and the Fine Arts. This reason apart, however, I doubt whether he is not rather to be considered an acute thinker than a subtle one. It is, besides, a great drawback on his mastery over philosophical subjects that he has obviously not had the advantage of a regular scholastic education: he has not read Plato in his youth (which most likely was only his misfortune), but neither has he read Kant in his manhood (which is his fault).
{3} I disclaim any allusion to EXISTING professors, of whom indeed I know only one.
{4} To this same Jew, by the way, some eighteen months afterwards, I applied again on the same business; and, dating at that time from a respectable college, I was fortunate enough to gain his serious attention to my proposals. My necessities had not arisen from any extravagance or youthful levities (these my habits and the nature of my pleasures raised me far above), but simply from the vindictive malice of my guardian, who, when he found himself no longer able to prevent me from going to the university, had, as a parting token of his good nature, refused to sign an order for granting me a shilling beyond the allowance made to me at school--viz., 100 pounds per annum. Upon this sum it was in my time barely possible to have lived in college, and not possible to a man who, though above the paltry affectation of ostentatious disregard for money, and without any expensive tastes, confided nevertheless rather too much in servants, and did not delight in the petty details of minute economy. I soon, therefore, became embarrassed, and at length, after a most voluminous negotiation with the Jew (some parts of which, if I had leisure to rehearse them, would greatly amuse my readers), I was put in possession of the sum I asked for, on the "regular" terms of paying the Jew seventeen and a half per cent. by way of annuity on all the money furnished; Israel, on his part, graciously resuming no more than about ninety guineas of the said money, on account of an attorney's bill (for what services, to whom rendered, and when, whether at the siege of Jerusalem, at the building of the second Temple, or on some earlier occasion, I have not yet been able to discover). How many perches this bill measured I really forget; but I still keep it in a cabinet of natural curiosities, and some time or other I believe I shall present it to the British Museum.
{5} The Bristol mail is the best appointed in the Kingdom, owing to the double advantages of an unusually good road and of an extra sum for the expenses subscribed by the Bristol merchants.
{6} It will be objected that many men, of the highest rank and wealth, have in our own day, as well as throughout our history, been amongst the foremost in courting danger in battle. True; but this is not the case supposed; long familiarity with power has to them deadened its effect and its attractions.
{7} (Greek text) / {8} (Greek text). EURIPEDES. Orestes. / {9} (Greek text)
{10} (Greek text). The scholar will know that throughout this passage I refer to the early scenes of the Orestes; one of the most beautiful exhibitions of the domestic affections which even the dramas of Euripides can furnish. To the English reader it may be necessary to say that the situation at the opening of the drama is that of a brother attended only by his sister during the demoniacal possession of a suffering conscience (or, in the mythology of the play, haunted by the Furies), and in circumstances of immediate danger from enemies, and of desertion or cold regard from nominal friends.
{11} EVANESCED: this way of going off the stage of life appears to have been well known in the 17th century, but at that time to have been considered a peculiar privilege of blood-royal, and by no means to be allowed to druggists. For about the year 1686 a poet of rather ominous name (and who, by-the-bye, did ample justice to his name), viz., Mr. FLAT-MAN, in speaking of the death of Charles II. expresses his surprise that any prince should commit so absurd an act as dying, because, says he, "Kings should disdain to die, and only DISAPPEAR." They should ABSCOND, that is, into the other world.
{12} Of this, however, the learned appear latterly to have doubted; for in a pirated edition of Buchan's Domestic Medicine, which I once saw in the hands of a farmer's wife, who was studying it for the benefit of her health, the Doctor was made to say--"Be particularly careful never to take above five-and-twenty OUNCES of laudanum at once;" the true reading being probably five-and-twenty DROPS, which are held equal to about one grain of crude opium.
{13} Amongst the great herd of travellers, etc., who show sufficiently by their stupidity that they never held any intercourse with opium, I must caution my readers specially against the brilliant author of Anastasius. This gentleman, whose wit would lead one to presume him an opium-eater, has made it impossible to consider him in that character, from the grievous misrepresentation which he gives of its effects at pp. 215-17 of vol. i. Upon consideration it must appear such to the author himself, for, waiving the errors I have insisted on in the text, which (and others) are adopted in the fullest manner, he will himself admit that an old gentleman "with a snow-white beard," who eats "ample doses of opium," and is yet able to deliver what is meant and received as very weighty counsel on the bad effects of that practice, is but an indifferent evidence that opium either kills people prematurely or sends them into a madhouse. But for my part, I see into this old gentleman and his motives: the fact is, he was enamoured of "the little golden receptacle of the pernicious drug" which Anastasius carried about him; and no way of obtaining it so safe and so feasible occurred as that of frightening its owner out of his wits (which, by the bye, are none of the strongest). This commentary throws a new light upon the case, and greatly improves it as a story; for the old gentleman's speech, considered as a lecture on pharmacy, is highly absurd; but considered as a hoax on Anastasius, it reads excellently.
{14} I have not the book at this moment to consult; but I think the passage begins--"And even that tavern music, which makes one man merry, another mad, in me strikes a deep fit of devotion," etc.
{15} A handsome newsroom, of which I was very politely made free in passing through Manchester by several gentlemen of that place, is called, I think, The Porch; whence I, who am a stranger in Manchester, inferred that the subscribers meant to profess themselves followers of Zeno. But I have been since assured that this is a mistake.
{16} I here reckon twenty-five drops of laudanum as equivalent to one grain of opium, which, I believe, is the common estimate. However, as both may be considered variable quantities (the crude opium varying much in strength, and the tincture still more), I suppose that no infinitesimal accuracy can be had in such a calculation. Teaspoons vary as much in size as opium in strength. Small ones hold about 100 drops; so that 8,000 drops are about eighty times a teaspoonful. The reader sees how much I kept within Dr. Buchan's indulgent allowance.
{17} This, however, is not a necessary conclusion; the varieties of effect produced by opium on different constitutions are infinite. A London magistrate (Harriott's Struggles through Life, vol. iii. p. 391, third edition) has recorded that, on the first occasion of his trying laudanum for the gout he took FORTY drops, the next night SIXTY, and on the fifth night EIGHTY, without any effect whatever; and this at an advanced age. I have an anecdote from a country surgeon, however, which sinks Mr. Harriott's case into a trifle; and in my projected medical treatise on opium, which I will publish provided the College of Surgeons will pay me for enlightening their benighted understandings upon this subject, I will relate it; but it is far too good a story to be published gratis.
{18} See the common accounts in any Eastern traveller or voyager of the frantic excesses committed by Malays who have taken opium, or are reduced to desperation by ill-luck at gambling.
{19} The reader must remember what I here mean by THINKING, because else this would be a very presumptuous expression. England, of late, has been rich to excess in fine thinkers, in the departments of creative and combining thought; but there is a sad dearth of masculine thinkers in any analytic path. A Scotchman of eminent name has lately told us that he is obliged to quit even mathematics for want of encouragement.
{20} William Lithgow. His book (Travels, etc.) is ill and pedantically written; but the account of his own sufferings on the rack at Malaga is overpoweringly affecting.
{21} In saying this I mean no disrespect to the individual house, as the reader will understand when I tell him that, with the exception of one or two princely mansions, and some few inferior ones that have been coated with Roman cement, I am not acquainted with any house in this mountainous district which is wholly waterproof. The architecture of books, I flatter myself, is conducted on just principles in this country; but for any other architecture, it is in a barbarous state, and what is worse, in a retrograde state.
The Romantic Critical Imagination: Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater (part One) looked at for its understanding of and social criticism of drugs and other specific aspects of early nineteenth-century British society. You may wish to read in Siegmund Freud's Opium Papers for a comparative study of two fine minds, one Romantic the other modern, thinking about drugs.