e
Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_.

A medical friend of Jefferies, Dr. Samuel Jones, {153b} has said, when
speaking of his "ecstasies": "His is not the baneful, sensuous De Quincey
opium-deliriation; he felt a purer delight than that which inspired the
visions of Kubla Khan; he saw 'no damsel with a dulcimer,' but thrilled
with yearning unspeakable for the 'fuller soul,' and felt in every
trembling fibre of his frame the consciousness of incarnate immortality."

This attempt to exalt Jefferies at the expense of De Quincey and
Coleridge seems to me unfortunate. Enough has been said already in the
remarks on De Quincey to show that the dreams of De Quincey were no mere
opium dreams. De Quincey was a born dreamer, and from his earliest days
had visions and ecstatic moods. The opium which he took (primarily at
any rate to relieve pain, not, as Dr. Jones suggests, to excite sensuous
imagery) undoubtedly intensified the dream faculty, but it did not
produce it.

I confess that I do not know quite what the Doctor means by preferring
the "purer delight" of the Jefferies exaltation to the vision that
produced _Kubla Khan_. If he implies that opium provoked the one and
that "the pure breath of Nature" (to use his own phrase) inspired the
other, and that the latter consequently is the purer delight, then I
cannot follow his reasoning.

A vision is not the less "pure" because it has been occasioned by a drug.
One of the sublimest spiritual experiences that ever happened to a man
came to John Addington Symonds after a dose of chloroform. Nitrous
oxide, ether, Indian hemp, opium, these things have been the means of
arousing the most wonderful states of ecstatic feeling.

Then why should _Kubla Khan_ be rated as a less "pure" delight than one
of the experiences retailed in _The Story of my Heart_? Is our
imagination so restricted that it cannot enjoy both the subtleties of
Coleridge and the fuller muse of Jefferies?

The healing power of Nature has never found happier expression than in
_The Story of my Heart_. In words of simple eloquence he tells us how he
cured the weariness and bitterness of spirit by a journey to the
seashore.

"The inner nature was faint, all was dry and tasteless; I was weary
for the pure fresh springs of thought. Some instinctive feeling
uncontrollable drove me to the sea. . . . Then alone I went down to
the sea. I stood where the foam came to my feet, and looked out over