Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
various letters from young friends; these I produced, for I carried
them constantly in my pocket, being, indeed, by this time almost the
only relics of my personal encumbrances (excepting the clothes I wore)
which I had not in one way or other disposed of. Most of these letters
were from the Earl of ——, who was at that time my chief (or rather
only) confidential friend. These letters were dated from Eton. I had
also some from the Marquis of ——, his father, who, though absorbed in
agricultural pursuits, yet having been an Etonian himself, and as good
a scholar as a nobleman needs to be, still retained an affection for
classical studies and for youthful scholars. He had accordingly, from
the time that I was fifteen, corresponded with me; sometimes upon the
great improvements which he had made or was meditating in the counties
of M—— and Sl—— since I had been there, sometimes upon the merits of a
Latin poet, and at other times suggesting subjects to me on which he
wished me to write verses.
On reading the letters, one of my Jewish friends agreed to furnish me
with two or three hundred pounds on my personal security, provided I
could persuade the young Earl —— who was, by the way, not older than
myself—to guarantee the payment on our coming of age; the Jew’s final
object being, as I now suppose, not the trifling profit he could expect
to make by me, but the prospect of establishing a connection with my
noble friend, whose immense expectations were well known to him. In
pursuance of this proposal on the part of the Jew, about eight or nine
days after I had received the £10, I prepared to go down to Eton.
Nearly £3 of the money I had given to my money-lending friend, on his
alleging that the stamps must be bought, in order that the writings
might be preparing whilst I was away from London. I thought in my heart
that he was lying; but I did not wish to give him any excuse for
charging his own delays upon me. A smaller sum I had given to my friend
the attorney (who was connected with the money-lenders as their
lawyer), to which, indeed, he was entitled for his unfurnished
lodgings. About fifteen shillings I had employed in re-establishing
(though in a very humble way) my dress. Of the remainder I gave one
quarter to Ann, meaning on my return to have divided with her whatever
might remain. These arrangements made, soon after six o’clock on a dark
winter evening I set off, accompanied by Ann, towards Piccadilly; for
it was my intention to go down as far as Salthill on the Bath or
Bristol mail. Our course lay through a part of the town which has now
all disappeared, so that I can no longer retrace its ancient
boundaries—Swallow Street, I think it was called. Having time enough
before us, however, we bore away to the left until we came into Golden
Square; there, near the corner of Sherrard Street, we sat down, not
wishing to part in the tumult and blaze of Piccadilly. I had told her
of my plans some time before, and I now assured her again that she
should share in my good fortune, if I met with any, and that I would
never forsake her as soon as I had power to protect her. This I fully
intended, as much from inclination as from a sense of duty; for setting
aside gratitude, which in any case must have made me her debtor for
life, I loved her as affectionately as if she had been my sister; and
at this moment with sevenfold tenderness, from pity at witnessing her
extreme dejection. I had apparently most reason for dejection, because
I was leaving the saviour of my life; yet I, considering the shock my
health had received, was cheerful and full of hope. She, on the
contrary, who was parting with one who had had little means of serving
her, except by kindness and brotherly treatment, was overcome by
sorrow; so that, when I kissed her at our final farewell, she put her
arms about my neck and wept without speaking a word. I hoped to return
in a week at farthest, and I agreed with her that on the fifth night
from that, and every night afterwards, she would wait for me at six
o’clock near the bottom of Great Titchfield Street, which had been our
customary haven, as it were, of rendezvous, to prevent our missing each
other in the great Mediterranean of Oxford Street. This and other
measures of precaution I took; one only I forgot. She had either never
told me, or (as a matter of no great interest) I had forgotten her
surname. It is a general practice, indeed, with girls of humble rank in
her unhappy condition, not (as novel-reading women of higher
pretensions) to style themselves _Miss Douglas_, _Miss Montague_, &c.,
but simply by their Christian names—_Mary_, _Jane_, _Frances_, &c. Her
surname, as the surest means of tracing her hereafter, I ought now to
have inquired; but the truth is, having no reason to think that our
meeting could, in consequence of a short interruption, be more
difficult or uncertain than it had been for so many weeks, I had
scarcely for a moment adverted to it as necessary, or placed it amongst
my memoranda against this parting interview; and my final anxieties
being spent in comforting her with hopes, and in pressing upon her the
necessity of getting some medicines for a violent cough and hoarseness
with which she was troubled, I wholly forgot it until it was too late
to recall her.
It was past eight o’clock when I reached the Gloucester Coffee-house,
and the Bristol mail being on the point of going off, I mounted on the
outside. The fine fluent motion {5} of this mail soon laid me asleep:
it is somewhat remarkable that the first easy or refreshing sleep which
I had enjoyed for some months, was on the outside of a mail-coach—a bed
which at this day I find rather an uneasy one. Connected with this
sleep was a little incident which served, as hundreds of others did at
that time, to convince me how easily a man who has never been in any
great distress may pass through life without knowing, in his own person
at least, anything of the possible goodness of the human heart—or, as I
must add with a sigh, of its possible vileness. So thick a curtain of
_manners_ is drawn over the features and expression of men’s _natures_,
that to the ordinary observer the two extremities, and the infinite
field of varieties which lie between them, are all confounded; the vast
and multitudinous compass of their several harmonies reduced to the
meagre outline of differences expressed in the gamut or alphabet of
elementary sounds. The case was this: for the first four or five miles
from London I annoyed my fellow-passenger on the roof by occasionally
falling against him when the coach gave a lurch to his side: and
indeed, if the road had been less smooth and level than it is, I should
have fallen off from weakness. Of this annoyance he complained heavily,
as perhaps, in the same circumstances, most people would; he expressed
his complaint, however, more morosely than the occasion seemed to
warrant, and if I had parted with him at that moment I should have
thought of him (if I had considered it worth while to think of him at
all) as a surly and almost brutal fellow. However, I was conscious that
I had given him some cause for complaint, and therefore I apologized to
him, and assured him I would do what I could to avoid falling asleep
for the future; and at the same time, in as few words as possible, I
explained to him that I was ill and in a weak state from long
suffering, and that I could not afford at that time to take an inside
place. This man’s manner changed, upon hearing this explanation, in an
instant; and when I next woke for a minute from the noise and lights of
Hounslow (for in spite of my wishes and efforts I had fallen asleep
again within two minutes from the time I had spoken to him) I found
that he had put his arm round me to protect me from falling off, and
for the rest of my journey he behaved to me with the gentleness of a
woman, so that at length I almost lay in his arms; and this was the
more kind, as he could not have known that I was not going the whole
way to Bath or Bristol. Unfortunately, indeed, I _did_ go rather
farther than I intended, for so genial and so refreshing was my sleep,
that the next time after leaving Hounslow that I fully awoke was upon
the sudden pulling up of the mail (possibly at a post-office), and on
inquiry I found that we had reached Maidenhead—six or seven miles, I
think, ahead of Salthill. Here I alighted, and for the half-minute that
the mail stopped I was entreated by my friendly companion (who, from
the transient glimpse I had had of him in Piccadilly, seemed to me to
be a gentleman’s butler, or person of that rank) to go to bed without
delay. This I promised, though with no intention of doing so; and in
fact I immediately set forward, or rather backward, on foot. It must
then have been nearly midnight, but so slowly did I creep along that I
heard a clock in a cottage strike four before I turned down the lane
from Slough to Eton. The air and the sleep had both refreshed me; but I
was weary nevertheless. I remember a thought (obvious enough, and which
has been prettily expressed by a Roman poet) which gave me some
consolation at that moment under my poverty. There had been some time
before a murder committed on or near Hounslow Heath. I think I cannot
be mistaken when I say that the name of the murdered person was
_Steele_, and that he was the owner of a lavender plantation in that
neighbourhood. Every step of my progress was bringing me nearer to the
Heath, and it naturally occurred to me that I and the accused murderer,
if he were that night abroad, might at every instant be unconsciously
approaching each other through the darkness; in which case, said
I—supposing I, instead of being (as indeed I am) little better than an
outcast—
Lord of my learning, and no land beside—
were, like my friend Lord ——, heir by general repute to £70,000 per
annum, what a panic should I be under at this moment about my throat!
Indeed, it was not likely that Lord —— should ever be in my situation.
But nevertheless, the spirit of the remark remains true—that vast power
and possessions make a man shamefully afraid of dying; and I am
convinced that many of the most intrepid adventurers, who, by
fortunately being poor, enjoy the full use of their natural courage,
would, if at the very instant of going into action news were brought to
them that they had unexpectedly succeeded to an estate in England of
£50,000 a-year, feel their dislike to bullets considerably sharpened,
{6} and their efforts at perfect equanimity and self-possession
proportionably difficult. So true it is, in the language of a wise man
whose own experience had made him acquainted with both fortunes, that
riches are better fitted
To slacken virtue, and abate her edge,
Than tempt her to do ought may merit praise.
_Paradise Regained_.
I dally with my subject because, to myself, the remembrance of these
times is profoundly interesting. But my reader shall not have any
further cause to complain, for I now hasten to its close. In the road
between Slough and Eton I fell asleep, and just as the morning began to
dawn I was awakened by the voice of a man standing over me and
surveying me. I know not what he was: he was an ill-looking fellow, but
not therefore of necessity an ill-meaning fellow; or, if he were, I
suppose he thought that no person sleeping out-of-doors in winter could
be worth robbing. In which conclusion, however, as it regarded myself,
I beg to assure him, if he should be among my readers, that he was
mistaken. After a slight remark he passed on; and I was not sorry at
his disturbance, as it enabled me to pass through Eton before people
were generally up. The night had been heavy and lowering, but towards
the morning it had changed to a slight frost, and the ground and the