"I 'gin to be aweary of the sun, And wish the estate o' the world were now undone." It was my experience straight along that for every stimulation I had a corresponding depression. I confess that the drug did stimulate me, and highly enough, but there was always an attending sickishness, and the general tenor of the stimulation was to produce melancholy rather than a healthy cheerfulness of spirit. This melancholy seemed a _relaxation_, which the mind and feelings could lay back and enjoy sometimes, but the appearance of a mortal and intruder on the scene would throw a person into a deplorable state of irritability and confusion.[2] The stimulation bred nervousness very fast, and the distraction of the intellectual forces was one of the first and worst consequences and devastations experienced. After I had come to take the drug daily, I often passed sleepless nights, the brain in uncontrollable action during the whole night. Having started it, I could not stop it at pleasure, and I was then but a novice in the art of opium taking. Yet I do not know, either, but that, had I taken it at any time during the day then, the result would have been the same, as I was still very susceptible to its influence, which, in its shattering effects on the nervous system, extended over the period of twenty-four hours. After a time, when my body became more benumbed and deadened by opium, and consequently less susceptible to its stimulating influence, I could, and did, so regulate my taking of the drug as to insure sleep at night, and the best digestion possible under the circumstances at meals. But as to sleep, I could not do this in the first stages; the effect was too powerful, and extended over too long a time.