the abandonment of opium. Men differ very widely both in their
liability to these excesses of temper as well as in their power to
control them; but under the aggravations which necessarily attend an
entire change of habit, this natural tendency, whether it be small or
great, to hastiness of mind is greatly increased. So long as the
disturbing causes remain, whether these be the state of the liver or
the stomach, or a want of sufficient sleep, or the excited condition
of the nervous system, the patient will find himself called upon for
the exercise of all his self-control to keep in check his exaggerated
sensibility to the daily annoyances of life.

Intimately connected with the preceding is the frequent recurrence of
sleepless nights, which seem invariably to attend upon the abandonment
of the habit. Possibly some part of this state of agitated wakefulness
may pertain to the natural temperament of the patient, but this
tendency is greatly aggravated by the condition of the nerves, so
thoroughly shattered by the violent struggle to oblige the system to
dispense with the soothing influence of the drug upon which it has so
long relied. Whatever method others may have found to counteract this
infirmity, I have been able as yet to find no remedy for
it. Especially are those nights made long and weary which
_precede_ any long continuance of wet weather. A moist condition
of the atmosphere still serves the double purpose of setting in play
the nervous sensibilities, and, as a concomitant or a consequence, of
greatly disturbing, if not destroying sleep.

In connection with this matter something should be said on the subject
of dreaming, to which De Quincey has given so marked a prominence in
his "Confessions" and "Suspiris de Profundis." In my own case, neither
when beginning the use of opium, nor while making use of it in the