Confessions of an English opium-eater / [Thomas De Quincey].

  • Thomas De Quincey
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Confessions of an English opium-eater / [Thomas De Quincey]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    They approach, or recede from, the shades of that dark alliance, in proportion to the probable motives and prospects of the of- fender, and the palliations, known or secret, of the offence: in proportion as the tempta- tions to it were potent from the first, and the resistance to it, in act or in effort, was earnest to the last. For my own part, without breach of truth or modesty, I may affirm, that my life has been, on the whole, the life of a philosopher: from my birth I was made an intellectual creature : and intellectual in the highest sense my pursuits and pleasures have been, even from my school-boy days. If opium-eating be a sensual pleasure, and if I am bound to confess that I have indulged in it to an excess, not.yet recorded* of any other man, it is no less true, that I have struggled against this fascinating enthralment with a religious zeal, and have, at length, accom- * “Not yet recorded, I say: for there is one cele- brated man of the present day, who, if all be true which is reported of him, has greatly exceeded me in quantity.
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