What was I now to do? I was unfit for any business, both by habit, inclination, and constitution. My health was ruined, and hopeless poverty stared me in the face; when a distinguished solicitor in my native town, who by the way has since become celebrated in the political world, offered to receive me as a clerk. I at once accepted the offer; but knowing that in my then condition it was impossible for me to perform the duties required of me, I decided on TAKING OPIUM! The strange confessions of De Quincey had long been a favorite with me. The first part of it had in fact been given me both as a model in English composition and also as an exercise to be rendered into Patavinian Latin. The latter part, the "Miseries of Opium," I had most unaccountably always neglected to read. Again and again, when my increasing debility had threatened to bring my studies to an abrupt conclusion, I had meditated this experiment, but an undefinable and shadowy fear had as often stayed my hand. But now that I knew that unless I could by artificial stimuli obtain a sudden increase of strength I must STARVE, I no longer hesitated. I was desperate; I believed that something horrible would result from it; though my imagination, most vivid, could not conjure up visions of horror half so terrific as the fearful reality. I knew that for every hour of comparative ease and comfort its treacherous alliance might confer upon me _now_, I must endure days of bodily suffering; but I did not, could not conceive the mental hell into whose fierce, corroding fires I was about to plunge.