Óh! Pium.
Thomas De Quincey was born in the industrial city of Manchester, Lancashire. His father, who was a wealthy linen merchant, died in 1793. De Quincey was educated at schools in Bath and Winkfield. In Confessions De Quincey says that at the age of thirteen he wrote Greek with ease, and at fifteen he composed Greek verses in lyric metres and conversed in Greek fluently. From Manchester Grammar School he ran away to Wales at the age of 17 - with the knowledge and support of his mother and uncle. Before returning back home, he lived in London in poverty. Later in life he often saw in his dreams "Anne of Oxford Street", a prostitute who showed kindness to a young runaway. To opium De Quincey became addicted in 1804, when he studied at Worcester College, Oxford. He used it first to relieve acute neuralgia pains. He kept a decanter of laudanum by his elbow and steadily increased the dose.
"If opium-eating be a sensual pleasure, and if I am bound to confess that I have indulged in it to an excess, not yet recorded of any other man, it is no less true, that I have struggled against this fascinating enthralment with a religious zeal, and have, at length, accomplished what I never yet heard attributed to any other man - have untwisted, almost to its final links the accursed chain which fettered me." (from Confessions of an English Opium Eater)
Profundo do fundo que vaza pelos ouvidos, quando soubermos realmente a data do Hercóbulus, o meteoro que "eclodirá" com a Terra por volta de 2029, me acordem!
"There can be no progress (real, that is, moral) except in the individual and by the individual himself." (from Mon Coeur Mis À Nu, 1897)
