"Originally his sufferings, and the death within him of all hope--the palsy, as it were, of that which is the life of life and the heart within the heart--came from opium. But two things I must add--one to explain Coleridge's case, and the other to bring it within the indulgent allowance of equitable judges. _First_, the sufferings from morbid derangement, originally produced by opium, had very possibly lost that simple character, and had themselves reacted in producing secondary states of disease and irritation, not any longer dependent upon the opium, so as to disappear with its disuse; hence a more than mortal discouragement to accomplish this disuse when the pains of self-sacrifice were balanced by no gleams of restorative feeling. Yet, _secondly_, Coleridge did make prodigious efforts to deliver himself from this thraldom; and he went so far at one time In Bristol, to my knowledge, as to hire a man for the express purpose, and armed with a power of resolutely interposing between himself and the door of any druggist's shop. It is true that an authority derived only from Coleridge's will could not be valid against Coleridge's own counter-determination: he could resume as easily as he could delegate the power. But the scheme did not entirely fail. A man shrinks from exposing to another that infirmity of will which he might else have but a feeble motive for disguising to himself; and the delegated man, the external conscience as it were of Coleridge, though destined in the final resort, if matters came to absolute rupture--and to an obstinate duel, as it were, between himself and his principal--in that extremity to give way, yet might have long protracted the struggle before coming to that sort of _dignus vindice nodus;_ and, in fact, I know upon absolute proof that before reaching that crisis the man showed fight; and faithful to his trust, and comprehending the reasons for it, he declared that if he must yield he would 'know the reason why.'
"His inducement to such a step [his visit to Malta] must have been merely a desire to see the most interesting regions of the Mediterranean, under the shelter and advantageous introduction of an official station. It was, however, an unfortunate chapter of his life; for being necessarily thrown a good deal upon his own resources in the narrow society of a garrison, he there confirmed and cherished, if he did not there form, his habit of taking opium in large quantities. I am the last person in the world to press conclusions harshly or uncandidly against Coleridge, but I believe it to be notorious that he first began the use of opium not as a relief from any bodily pains or nervous irritations--for his constitution was strong and excellent--but as a source of luxurious sensation. It is a great misfortune, at least it is a great peril, to have tasted the enchanted cup of youthful rapture incident to the poetic temperament. That standard of high-wrought sensibility once made known experimentally, it is rare to see a submission afterward to the sobrieties of daily life. Coleridge, to speak in the words of Cervantes, wanted better bread than was made of wheat; and when youthful blood no longer sustained the riot of his animal spirits, he endeavored to excite them by artificial stimulants.