On Energy and Ambition as Affected by the Opium Habit.

I have devoted a separate chapter to the discussion of these two qualities, because they are more directly operated upon by the curse of opium than any other of the principles in human nature. Coleridge, “though usually described as doing nothing,—‘an idler,’ ‘a dreamer,’ and by many such epithets,—sent forth works which, though they had cost him years of thought, never brought him any suitable return.” So says Gillman, in his unfinished life of Coleridge. It was so common to charge Coleridge with being constitutionally idle, that he at length came to believe the crime charged to be true, and endeavored to extenuate his offence and overcome his “inbred sin.” Before he became an opium eater this offence was not charged.

No one then said he lacked energy or perseverance. His poetical works having been composed in his early manhood, would give the lie to this assertion, were it made. It was not until the fountain of his genius was frozen by the withering frosts of opium, that this charge had any foundation, or supposed foundation, in fact. After that time, after being ensnared in the toils of opium, I think it would be absurd to claim that a mere casual observer might not think there was some foundation for the charge that he was “doing nothing,” etc. His way was obstructed by almost impassable barriers. The fangs of the destroyer left wounds which rendered it impossible for him to work with reasonable facility and success at certain times. What he did accomplish is better done than it would have been had he attempted to write when unfit. At times literary labor must have been entirely out of the question; he must have been too ill to attempt it.

To write at any time required tremendous exertion of the will, and a calm resignation to bear any suffering in order to accomplish something.

It is not fair to measure the result of Coleridge’s labors by that of other men. As De Quincey truthfully says, “what he did in spite of opium,” is the question to be considered.What was true of Coleridge holds good with all subject to the habit, the effect of opium being the same on all.

Opium strikes at the very root of energy, as though it would extirpate that quality altogether. A deadly languor, the opposite of energy, an averseness to activity, pervades the whole system with paralyzing effect. Of course this state of feeling is inimical to the accomplishment of any great ambition. The ambition remains as a quality of remorse, to “prick and sting” one, but the energy to fulfil is frustrated by the enervating spells of opium. That dread inertia known only to opium eaters prevents the doing of everything save that which must be done, that cannot be avoided.

The “potent poison” was never designed for man’s daily use. It is not a thing which the system counteracts by long usage; it is a thing that transforms and deforms the whole physical and mental economy, and the longer its use the more complete the destruction. A man is thrown flat, and instead of a predisposition or a passion to do anything which aids one in the accomplishment of purposes, the whole human nature revolts like a pressed convict; there is no pleasure in the doing or the prospect of doing anything whatever.

No warmth or glow of passion or genial feeling can be aroused. Hence the poetical faculty was annihilated in Coleridge. There is a sort of vitrifying process that chills all sensibility. A man is a stick. To expect that a man could succeed as well under these conditions, even in the little accomplished, is unreasonable.

There are no genial impulses, no strength of fervor, no warmth of feeling of any kind. The man is under a load of poison; the springs of action are clogged with crushing weight. No hope of pleasure in future prospect can excite action. Whatever is done, is done in pale, cold strength of intellect. A man is placed entirely out of sympathy with his fellows or human kind. He cannot judge from his own heart what they would like or prefer. He is as completely cut off and dissevered from the body of mankind, and the interests and feelings of the same, as if he were a visitant from another sphere, and but faintly manifested here. How can he write in this condition? That exquisite feeling that teaches a writer to know when the best word tips the edges of the sensibility, lies buried under the dÉbris of dead tissue. It is a “lost art” to him. Although a man longs to do something worthy the praise of men, and although his ambition may be even higher than it otherwise would be, owing to his being able to take no pleasure in minutiÆ, and having appreciation only for concrete generalities, he has such a contempt for, and so little pleasure in, the procuring processes, the details of the work, that he is overwhelmed with disgust before making an effort.No interest in anything of human production, renders him primarily unable and unfit for the details necessary to be gone through with in the achievement of any great purpose. The pangs of disappointment he feels as deeply as any one. He becomes morbidly sorrowful over his lack of success, his inability to do anything. Unlike Coleridge, but like De Quincey, he may have gotten into the power of opium while his mind was yet undeveloped and immature, thus being deprived of the possibility of enjoying that “blessed interval” which was given to Coleridge, and to which he alludes with such thankfulness. As to poetry, in Coleridge’s case, the beautiful language of Keats was fulfilled:

“As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.”

In the case of De Quincey, cruel winter came on and nipped the flower in the bud ere yet it had time to bloom, so that when it came to flower forth, in a later season, it was found that the stalk itself had been stunted in its growth, and the beauty of the flower impaired. He may have been afflicted with sickness in his early youth which prevented the development of his mind, the pain of which threw him into opium, as in my own case. He may have in this state felt the “stirrings” of genius, without the power of expression, and when at length his pain was so relieved, and his strength so increased, as to allow him to attempt something, the withering blight of opium had blasted his perceptions, exterminated his feelings, and enfeebled his intellect. Verily, the lines of Byron apply with special significance to the state of the opium eater:

“We wither from our youth, we gasp away—
Sick—sick; unfound the boon—unslaked the thirst,
Though to the last, in verge of our decay,
Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first—
But all too late,—so we are doubly curst.”

If anything whatever is done, it must be done through suffering, and by herculean efforts to overcome the distaste and disgust that assail one. It is all against the tide. There is no current to move with. Everything original seems contemptible, at least of little weight; and although he can judge the works of others correctly, they excite but faint interest. But the sickening weight that overpowers one and holds him back, like the hand of a strong man, is the greatest obstacle. He might ignore his lack of interest. A man in health warms with his subject, and takes great pleasure in it. The opium eater remains passive and the same all the way along, and ends feeling that he has not done justice to his natural ability, and chafes with grief, disappointment, and despair at his confined and weakened powers. As a structure, he is riddled “from turret to foundation-stone.” To expect as much from a man in this condition as from one in the healthful enjoyment of all his faculties, shocks the sense of justice,—it is “to reason most absurd.” Would you expect grapes from a hyperborean iceberg?—figs from the Sahara?—palms from Siberia? Would you compare the fettered African with the roving Arabian?—the bond to the free? In sober practice, would you say to the blind, “Copy this writing?”—to the palsied, “Run you this errand,”—to the sick in bed, “Arise, and write a book?” Would you do this? You say it is ridiculous. So was it ridiculous, so was it wrong, to expect from Coleridge constant writing, and more than he accomplished. Why, the human face itself tells the story in a word. The face remains, but the countenance, the expression and divine resemblance, are erased and stricken off. So the body remains, but like a blasted oak, whose hollow trunk contains no sap, and whose withered branches are barren. Coleridge did well,—he did nobly,—and left a legacy the value of which will yet be learned to man’s everlasting gain.

Numbered with the saints in heaven is the sweet-minded, long-suffering Coleridge. Oh, venerated shade! thy spirit living yet upon the earth has kept mine company in this sad ebb and flow of time. Thy nature, so gentle, so tender, and so true; thy heart so pure; thy whole being so perfect and so high, hath been a lighted torch to me in this my dark estate, travelling up the rugged hill of time, and rolling my stone along; hath been balm to my wounds, wine to my spirit, and hope to my o’er-freighted heart! To know thee as thou wert, my own kindred suffering tearing all prejudice away, is at least one solace ungiven the world at large. Thou hast borne thy part and won thy crown; may the humblest of thy friends join thee at last in the realms of peace!