Confessions of an English opium-eater, and Suspiria de profundis. By Thomas De Quincey.

SUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS:
BEING A SEQUEL TO THE
"'CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER.'"
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.
IN 1821, as a contribution to a periodical work, — in
1822, as a separate volume, - appeared the "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater." The object of that
work was to reveal something of the grandeur which
belongs potentially to human dreams. Whatever may
be the number of those in whom this faculty of dreaming splendidly can be supposed to lurk, there are not
perhaps very many in whom it is developed. He
whose talk is of oxen, will probably dream of oxen,
and the condition of human life, which yokes so vast a
majority to a daily experience incompatible with much
elevation of thought, oftentimes neutralizes the tone of
grandeur in the reproductive faculty of dreaming, even
for those whose minds are populous with solemn imagery. Habitually to dream magnificently, a man must
have a constitutional determination to reverie. This in
the first place, and even this, where it exists strongly