what seemed to be real copper halfpence, taken out of a real wooden
drawer. Nevertheless, in spite of such indications of humanity, he has
ever since existed in my mind as the beatific vision of an immortal
druggist, sent down to earth on a special mission to myself. And it
confirms me in this way of considering him, that when I next came up to
London I sought him near the stately Pantheon, and found him not; and
thus to me, who knew not his name (if indeed he had one), he seemed
rather to have vanished from Oxford Street than to have removed in any
bodily fashion. The reader may choose to think of him as possibly no
more than a sublunary druggist; it may be so, but my faith is better--I
believe him to have evanesced, {11} or evaporated. So unwillingly would
I connect any mortal remembrances with that hour, and place, and
creature, that first brought me acquainted with the celestial drug.

Arrived at my lodgings, it may be supposed that I lost not a moment in
taking the quantity prescribed. I was necessarily ignorant of the whole
art and mystery of opium-taking, and what I took I took under every
disadvantage. But I took it--and in an hour--oh, heavens! what a
revulsion! what an upheaving, from its lowest depths, of inner spirit!
what an apocalypse of the world within me! That my pains had vanished
was now a trifle in my eyes: this negative effect was swallowed up in the
immensity of those positive effects which had opened before me--in the
abyss of divine enjoyment thus suddenly revealed. Here was a panacea, a
[Greek text] for all human woes; here was the secret of happiness, about
which philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once discovered:
happiness might now be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat
pocket; portable ecstacies might be had corked up in a pint bottle, and
peace of mind could be sent down in gallons by the mail-coach. But if I
talk in this way the reader will think I am laughing, and I can assure
him that nobody will laugh long who deals much with opium: its pleasures