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I was necessarily ignorant of the whole art and mystery of opium-taking, and what I took, I took under every disadvantage. But I took it; and in an hour O heavens! what a revulsion! what an upheaving from its lowest depths of the inner spirit! what an apocalypse of the world within me!
Opium-taking had doubtless begun by this time may conceivably indeed have begun nearly a year before and the mere mood of the poem, the temporary phase of feeling which directed his mind inwards into deeper reflections on its permanent state, is no doubt strongly suggestive, in its excessive depression, of the terrible reaction which is known to follow upon opium-excitement.
So unwillingly would I connect any mortal remembrances with that hour, and place, and creature, that first brought me acquainted with the celestial drug. Arrived at my lodgings, it may be supposed that I lost not a moment in taking the quantity prescribed. I was necessarily ignorant of the whole art and mystery of opium-taking, and what I took I took under every disadvantage.
"Of course not," assented his subtle counsellor; "but, in this country, at least, chronic inebriation, clove-eating, and even opium-taking, are strikingly alike in their aspects, and the same rules may be safely applied to all. My advice to you is what I have given.
But whichever it be, its date is fixed in that year by the statement in the autobiographical note of 1826 that the stanzas referred to in it were written "twenty-three years ago." Thus, then, we have the two facts established, that the opium-taking habit had its origin in a bodily ailment, and that at some time in 1803 that habit had become confirmed.
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