f the judicious reader will not attach itself
chiefly to the subject of the fascinating spells, but to the fascinating
power. Not the Opium-eater, but the opium, is the true hero of the tale,
and the legitimate centre on which the interest revolves. The object was
to display the marvellous agency of opium, whether for pleasure or for
pain: if that is done, the action of the piece has closed.

However, as some people, in spite of all laws to the contrary, will
persist in asking what became of the Opium-eater, and in what state he
now is, I answer for him thus: The reader is aware that opium had long
ceased to found its empire on spells of pleasure; it was solely by the
tortures connected with the attempt to abjure it that it kept its hold.
Yet, as other tortures, no less it may be thought, attended the
non-abjuration of such a tyrant, a choice only of evils was left; and
_that_ might as well have been adopted which, however terrific in itself,
held out a prospect of final restoration to happiness. This appears
true; but good logic gave the author no strength to act upon it. However,
a crisis arrived for the author's life, and a crisis for other objects
still dearer to him--and which will always be far dearer to him than his
life, even now that it is again a happy one. I saw that I must die if I
continued the opium. I determined, therefore, if that should be
required, to die in throwing it off. How much I was at that time taking
I cannot say, for the opium which I used had been purchased for me by a
friend, who afterwards refused to let me pay him; so that I could not
ascertain even what quantity I had used within the year. I apprehend,
however, that I took it very irregularly, and that I varied from about
fifty or sixty grains to 150 a day. My first task was to reduce it to
forty, to thirty, and as fast as I could to twelve grains.

I triumphed. But think not, reader, that therefore my sufferings were
ended, nor think of me as of one sitting in a _dejected_ state. Think of
me as one, even when four months had passed, still agitated, writhing,
throbbing, palpitating, shattered, and much perhaps in the situation of
him who has been racked, as I collect the torments of that state from the
affecting account of them left by a most innocent sufferer {20} of the
times of James I. Meantime, I derived no benefit from any medicine,
except one prescribed to me by an Edinburgh surgeon of great eminence,
viz., ammoniated