CHAPTER LII.

AN OPIUM EATER.

Almost at the next door from me was an opium eater. He, like the female whose case was described in the preceding chapter, was not far from three score and ten, and was of industrious and, in many respects, temperate habits. And yet he was one of the most inveterate and abandoned voluntary slaves to the drug opium I have ever seen. He had used it largely thirty years.

His case is the more singular from the fact that he became enslaved to it so very early. To use opium or laudanum at the present day, I grant is no uncommon occurrence. We may often find six, eight, or ten opium takers in a single township, if not a single village, or even a single neighborhood; and the number is rapidly increasing. Opium has not that offensive appearance to many that tobacco has, and a much larger amount of stimulus may be kept in a very small space, perhaps in the very corner of the smallest pocket.

Another circumstance which rendered the case of my opium-taking neighbor somewhat striking, was his usual good health. I say, here, _usual_, for there were exceptions which will appear presently. Yet though he was nearly threescore and ten, this man had, while under the influence of his accustomed stimulus, as much elasticity and nearly as much strength as most men of thirty.

How could this happen, you will naturally ask, if opium is such a deadly narcotic as some medical men proclaim it to be? How can a person, male or female, begin its use at forty and continue it to seventy years of age, and yet be, for the most part, strong and healthy?

In the first place, we must remember the force of habit. We have seen how it is with alcoholic drinks and tobacco. I might tell you how it is with arsenic, which is beginning to be taken, it is said, by men and horses, both in the old world and the new. I might even give you the story of Mithridates, king of Pontus, who is said to have so accustomed himself to hemlock,--the most deadly poison of his time,--that in any ordinary dose, it would not affect him injuriously, or, at least, would not do so immediately.

We must remember, in the second place, the active, industrious habits of this patient--of which, however, I have already spoken. He who is always or almost always in the open air, is less likely to suffer from the use of extra stimulants, and the penalty when it _does_ fall on his head, is much more likely to be deferred, than in the case of the sedentary and inactive. He was so hardy and withal so bold, that in the summer season he sometimes slept in the open air, under a tree.

But, thirdly, he was descended from a very long-lived race or family. His father died at the age of ninety-seven. At the time of his decease he had been the progenitor of nineteen children, one hundred and five grandchildren, one hundred and fifty-five great grandchildren, and four of the fifth generation,--a posterity amounting in all, to two hundred and eighty-three. And what is most marvellous, nearly all of them were at that very moment living. In truth, he had several sons and daughters already between the ages of sixty-five and eighty. There was one of the brotherhood, whom I had seen, nearly eighty, and yet as active and elastic as the opium eater of seventy.

One thing more: The latter, as we have seen, was a man of excellent habits in respect to nearly every thing but opium. He drank no ardent spirits, nor much coffee and tea; he used very little tobacco, and he ate in great moderation. He was an early riser and was in general cheerful. In short, but for his opium taking, he would have enjoyed a green old age.

I have said he was usually healthy. When he was out of opium and could not obtain any, I have seen him sit and writhe in the most intense apparent anguish till the arrival of the accustomed stimulus, when the transformation would be as sudden as it was striking. In fifteen minutes, instead of writhing and groaning and almost dying, he might be found talking, laughing, and telling stories most merrily, to the infinite amusement of all around him.

But he had troubles more abiding than this; at least, occasionally. After taking his opium for a long time, such a degree of costiveness would sometimes supervene, as seemed almost to defy the combined powers of both nature and art. In these circumstances, of course, the aid of the physician was usually invoked. It was on one of these occasions that I first became fully acquainted with his habits and tendencies.

Once, when thus called to his bedside, I began to think he was not very far from the end of his career. The wheels of life seemed so completely obstructed, that I doubted whether they would ever start again. He himself declared, most positively and I doubt not in sincerity that he must die. But he lived on many years longer. He died at about seventy-five years of age--more than twenty years younger than his venerable and more temperate father.

From this distinguished opium eater, and from his family, I learned two things: First, that Solomon was right when he spoke of the certainty of punishment, even though long deferred. Secondly, the certainty of the visitation, so to call it, of human transgression upon subsequent generations no less than on the individual transgressor. The fourth generation from the patriarch of ninety-seven was puny and feeble--exceedingly so; the fifth and sixth not only puny and feeble, but absolutely sickly, not to say dwarfish.

Did I say I learned these important truths from this source? Not at all. I mean only, that I received from it a new confirmation of what I had fully believed long before, and concerning which, till compelled, most men--even some thinking men--appear to me not a little sceptical. They seem to think it reflects dishonor on our Maker. How this is, we shall perhaps see more fully in another place. Let it suffice, for the present, to say that the fact itself is fully established, whatever may be the deductions or its consequences.