No less was De Quincey _psychologically_ preconformed to opium. The
prodigious mental activity so early awakened in him counteracted the
narcotic despotism of the drug, and made it a sort of ally. The reader
sees from this how much depends upon predispositions as to the effect of
opium. De Quincey himself says that the man whose daily talk is of oxen
will pursue his bovine speculations into dreams. Opium originates
nothing; but, given activity of a certain type and moving in a certain
direction, and there will be perhaps through opium a multiplication of
energies and velocities. What was De Quincey _without_ opium? is,
therefore, the question preliminary to any proper estimate as to what in
him was due to opium. This question has already been answered in the
remarks made concerning his childhood. His meditative tendencies were
especially noticed as most characteristic. There was besides this a
natural leaning toward the mysterious,--the mysterious, I mean, as
depending, not upon the terrible or ghostly, or upon anything which
excites gloom or fear, but upon operations that are simply inscrutable
as moving in darkness.
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