A single case will sufficiently illustrate the nature of some of these
apparitions. In the absence of sleep, and while engaged as was not
unusual at this period in the perpetration of doggerel verse, the
irritation of the stomach became intolerable. The sensation seemed
similar to what. I had read of the final gnawings of hunger in persons
dying of starvation; a new vitality appeared to be imparted to the
organ, revealing to the consciousness a capacity for suffering
previously unsuspected. In the earlier stages, this feeling, which did
not exhibit itself till somewhat late in the process of leaving off
opium, was marked by an insatiable craving for stimulus of some sort,
and a craving which would hardly take denial. While suffering in this
way intolerably on one occasion, and after having attempted in vain to
find some possible alleviation suggested in the pages of De Quincey,
which lay near me, I threw myself back on the bed with the old
resolution to fight it out. Almost immediately an animal like a weasel
in shape, but with the neck of a crane and covered with brilliant
plumage, appeared to spring from my breast to the floor. A venerable
Dutch market-woman, of whom I had been in the habit of purchasing
celery, seemed to intervene between me and the animal, begging me not
to look at it, and covering it with her apron. Just as I was about to
remonstrate against her interference, something seemed to give way in
the chest and the violence of the pain suddenly abated.

It may aid the reader to form some adequate notion of the dreary
length to which these nights drew themselves along, to mention that on
one occasion, wearied out and disgusted with such illusions, I
resolved neither to look at the clock nor open my eyes for the next
two hours. It then wanted ten minutes to one; at ten minutes to three
my compact with myself would close. For what seemed thousands upon
thousands of times I listened to the clock's steady ticking. I heard