time. Space also it amplifies, by degrees that are sometimes
terrific. But time it is upon which the exalting and multiplying power
of opium chiefly spends its operation. Time becomes infinitely elastic,
stretching out to such immeasurable and vanishing termini that it seems
ridiculous to compute the sense of it, on waking, by expressions
commensurate to human life. As in starry fields one computes by
diameters of the earth's orbit, or of Jupiter's, so in valuing the
_virtual_ time lived during some dreams, the measurement by generations
is ridiculous--by millennia is ridiculous; by aeons, I should say, if
aeons were more determinate, would be also ridiculous. On this single
occasion, however, in my life, the very inverse phenomenon occurred. But
why speak of it in connection with opium? Could a child of six years old
have been under that influence? No, but simply because it so exactly
reversed the operation of opium. Instead of a short interval expanding
into a vast one, upon this occasion a long one had contracted into a
minute. I have reason to believe that a _very_ long one had elapsed
during this wandering or suspension of my perfect mind. When I returned
to myself, there was a foot (or I fancied so) on the stairs. I was
alarmed; for I believed that if anybody should detect me, means would be
taken to prevent my coming again. Hastily, therefore, I kissed the lips
that I should kiss no more, and slunk like a guilty thing with stealthy
steps from the room. Thus perished the vision, loveliest amongst all the
shows which earth has revealed to me; thus mutilated was the parting
which should have lasted forever; thus tainted with fear was the
farewell sacred to love and grief, to perfect love and perfect grief.

O Ahasuerus, everlasting Jew! fable or not a fable, thou, when first
starting on thy endless pilgrimage of woe,--thou, when first flying
through the gates of Jerusalem and vainly yearning to leave the pursuing
curse behind thee,--couldst not more certainly have read thy doom of
sorrow in the misgivings of thy troubled brain, than I when passing
forever from my sister's room. The worm was at my heart; and confining
myself to that state of life, I may say, the worm that could not die.
For if when standing upon the threshold of manhood, I had ceased to feel
its perpetual gnawings, _that_ was because a vast expansion of
intellect,--it was because new hopes, new necessities, and the frenzy of
youthful blood, had trans