This may be true. I would not presume to measure the efforts of other
men by my own. I heartily wish him more energy. I wish him the same
success. Nevertheless, I had motives external to myself which he may
unfortunately want, and these supplied me with conscientious supports
which mere personal interests might fail to supply to a mind debilitated
by opium.
Jeremy Taylor conjectures that it may be as painful to be born as to die.
I think it probable; and during the whole period of diminishing the opium
I had the torments of a man passing out of one mode of existence into
another. The issue was not death, but a sort of physical regeneration;
and I may add that ever since, at intervals, I have had a restoration of
more than youthful spirits, though under the pressure of difficulties
which in a less happy state of mind I should have called misfortunes.
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.
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