Conclusion. In the 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 they taste the 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, 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. |