se, my spirits became
sensibly excited; the pleasure of the sensation seemed to depend on a
universal expansion of mind and matter. My faculties appeared enlarged;
every thing I looked on seemed increased in volume; I had no longer the
same pleasure when I closed my eyes which I had when they were open; it
appeared to me as if it was only external objects, which were acted on
by the imagination, and magnified into images of pleasure; in short, it
was 'the faint exquisite music of a dream' in a waking moment. I made my
way home as fast as possible, dreading, at every step, that I should
commit some extravagance. In walking, I was hardly sensible of my feet
touching the ground, it seemed as if I slid along the street, impelled
by some invisible agent, and that my blood was composed of some ethereal
fluid, which rendered my body lighter than air. I got to bed the moment
I reached home. The most extraordinary visions of delight filled my
brain all night. In the morning I rose, pale and dispirited; my head
ached; my body was so debilitated that I was obliged to remain on the
sofa all the day, dearly paying for my first essay at opium eating."

* * * * *

Old Poets.

* * * * *

FRIENDSHIP.

I had a friend that lov'd me;
I was his soul; he liv'd not but in me;
We were so close within each other's breast,
The rivets were not found that join'd us first.
That does not reach us yet; we were so mix'd,
As meeting streams, both to ourselves were lost.
We were one mass, we could not give or take,
But from the same: for He was I; I He;
Return my better half, and give me all myself,
For thou art all!
If I have any joy when thou art absent,
I grudge it to myself; methinks I rob
Thee of thy part.

DRYDEN.

* * * * *

MARRIAGE.

As good and wise; so she be fit for me,
That is, to will, and not to will the same;
My wife is my adopted self, and she
As me, to what I love, to love must frame.
And when by marriage both in one concur,
Woman converts to man, not man to her.

SIR T. OVERBURY.

* * * * *

What do you think of marriage?
I take't, as those that deny purgatory;
It locally contains or heaven or hell;
There's no third place in it.

WEBSTER.

* * * * *

GENTILITY.

Nor stand so much o