en the human face tyrannised over my dreams,
and the perplexities of my steps in London came back and haunted my
sleep with the feeling of perplexities, moral and intellectual, that
brought confusion to the reason, or anguish and remorse to the
conscience.

_III.--A Fearful Nemesis_

Courteous reader, let me request you to move onwards for about eight
years, to 1812. The years of academic life are now over and gone--almost
forgotten. Am I married? Not yet. And I still take opium? On Saturday
nights. And how do I find my health after all this opium-eating? In
short, how do I do? Why, pretty well, I thank you, reader. In fact,
though, to satisfy the theories of medical men, I _ought_ to be ill, I
never was better in my life than in the spring of 1812. To moderation,
and temperate use of the article I may ascribe it, I suppose, that as
yet, at least, I am unsuspicious of the avenging terrors which opium has
in store for those who abuse its lenity.

But now comes a different era. In 1813 I was attacked by a most
appalling irritation of the stomach, and I could resist no longer. Let
me repeat, that at the time I began to take opium daily, I could not
have done otherwise. Still, I confess it as a besetting infirmity of
mine that I hanker too much after a state of happiness, both for myself
and others. From 1813, the reader is to consider me as a regular and
confirmed opium-eater. Now, reader, from 1813 please walk forward about
three years more, and you shall see me in a new character.

Now, farewell--a long farewell--to happiness, winter or summer! Farewell
to smiles and laughter! Farewell to peace of mind! Farewell to hope and
to tranquil dreams, and to the blessed consolations of sleep. For more
than three years and a half I am summoned away from these. I am now
arrived at an Iliad of woes.

It will occur to you to ask, why did I not release myself from the
horrors of opium by leaving it off or diminishing it? The reader may be
sure that I made attempts innumerable to reduce the quantity. It might
be supposed that I yielded to the fascinations of opium too easily; it
cannot be supposed that any man can be charmed by its terrors.

My studies have now been long interrupted. I cannot read to myself with
any pleasure, hardly with a moment's endurance. This intellectual torpor
applies more or less to every part of the four years during which I was
under the Circean spells of opium. But for misery and suffering, I
mig