Opium Eater

"Under connecting feelings of tropical heat and vertical sunlight, I brought together all creatures; birds, beasts, reptiles, all trees and plants, usages and appearances, that are found with all tropical regions, and assembled them together in China or Hindostan. I was an idiot; I was a priest, I was worshipped, I was sacrificed ...". Surely this timeless prose flowed from Jorge Luis Borges's hypnotic pen?

Not so. It's the strange fruit of Thomas de Quincey's (1785-1859) opium induced blather, of which, a century later, Borges was to squeeze abundant tangy juice. De Quincey is best now remembered, if at all, for his " Confessions of an English Opium Eater", a book well worth reading.

His addiction started in 1804, when a friend suggested he took opium to alleviate a particularly painful toothache. For a few coppers, druggists in those days sold Laudanum (a solution of crude opium in alcohol) without demanding a prescription. It was supposed to cure anything from diabetes, consumption, syphilis, delirium and an endless range of other aches and ailments. Gonfrey's Cordial, which also contained opium, was renown for it's power to quieten crying babies, though a slug of Gin was believed to be a sound alternative. De Quincey referred to the goodies sold over the counter at the druggist's as "portable ecstasies". The appalling addiction were the only downfall.

Father of eight, De Quincey stumbled through life paying off creditors with sporadic handouts from an uncle, who had made his fortune foisting Indian opium on the Chinese. Fuelled by guilt and self-hate, the writer's Laudanum added mind began to swarm with frightful images of innumerable Chinese ransacking the world civilization. He came to regard all Asians as incurably savage in the moral sense.

When it all boils down, was the Opium War (1839 - 42) any different from the later war in Irag? Portable ecstasies imperial wars.

I stood a corner,

My feet were dripping wet;

I asked every man I met ....

Can't you give me a dollar?

Give me a lousy dime,

Just to feed that hungry man of mine.

 

Tags:Opium,LivingEcstasy