During the seasons of taking too much (that is, per day, and not per dose), that frequently assail the opium eater, and which, as I have before stated, it is almost impossible to break up, the poor unfortunate passes "a weary time," silent, passive, dead, in the day; at night deprived of natural sleep; arising in the morning in a suicidal state of mind, he lives "an unloved, solitary thing;" knowing himself to be miserable, yet dreading other evils from taking less; until at last, nature becoming exhausted, sickness, and consequent distaste for, and failure of effect in, opium come to his relief. O God! O God! believe me, reader, 'tis no chimera: I suffer daily untold misery, and some days my wretched condition is almost intolerable. The inability to take a reasonable quantity is, of course, one of the greatest misfortunes in the habit of opium eating. Jeremy Taylor says that in the regenerate person it sometimes comes to pass that the "old man" is so used to obey that, like the Gibeonites, he is willing to do inferior offices for the simple privilege of abiding in the land. Not so with the opium fiend; he thinks it better to "reign in hell than to serve in heaven;" his reign is absolute wherever he takes up his residence. "There is a medium in all things" except opium eating; there it is up hill and down dale; the poor victim is tossed about like a mariner at sea. But, speaking of mariners, his condition is more like that of the "Ancient Mariner" than is the condition of any one else like his. To him frequently in dreams, both day and night, "Slimy things _do_ crawl with legs upon the slimy sea."