{20} William Lithgow. His book (Travels, &c.) is ill and pedantically written; but the account of his own sufferings on the rack at Malaga is overpoweringly affecting.
{21} In saying this I mean no disrespect to the individual house, as the reader will understand when I tell him that, with the exception of one or two princely mansions, and some few inferior ones that have been coated with Roman cement, I am not acquainted with any house in this mountainous district which is wholly waterproof. The architecture of books, I flatter myself, is conducted on just principles in this country; but for any other architecture, it is in a barbarous state, and what is worse, in a retrograde state.
{22} On which last notice I would remark that mine was _too_ rapid, and the suffering therefore needlessly aggravated; or rather, perhaps, it was not sufficiently continuous and equably graduated. But that the reader may judge for himself, and above all that the Opium-eater, who is preparing to retire from business, may have every sort of information before him, I subjoin my diary:—
First Week Second Week Drops of Laud. Drops of Laud. Mond. June 24 ... 130 Mond. July 1 ... 80 25 ... 140 2 ... 80 26 ... 130 3 ... 90 27 ... 80 4 ... 100 28 ... 80 5 ... 80 29 ... 80 6 ... 80 30 ... 80 7 ... 80 Third Week Fourth Week Mond. July 8 ... 300 Mond. July 15 ... 76 9 ... 50 16 ... 73.5 10 } 17 ... 73.5 11 } Hiatus in 18 ... 70 12 } MS. 19 ... 240 13 } 20 ... 80 14 ... 76 21 ... 350 Fifth Week Mond. July 22 ... 60 23 ... none. 24 ... none. 25 ... none. 26 ... 200 27 ... none.
What mean these abrupt relapses, the reader will ask perhaps, to such numbers as 300, 350, &c.? The _impulse_ to these relapses was mere infirmity of purpose; the _motive_, where any motive blended with this impulse, was either the principle, of “_reculer pour mieux sauter_;” (for under the torpor of a large dose, which lasted for a day or two, a less quantity satisfied the stomach, which on awakening found itself partly accustomed to this new ration); or else it was this principle—that of sufferings otherwise equal, those will be borne best which meet with a mood of anger. Now, whenever I ascended to my large dose I was furiously incensed on the following day, and could then have borne anything.