Chapter XVII: Conclusion

In the preceding chapter I have apparently gone out of my way to strike a blow at De Quincey's "Confessions." So I have, because it was a part of the purpose of this treatise so to do.

While I seek at every opportunity to commiserate the condition of the man De Quincey, his works are public property, of which every man has a right to express his own opinion. With these remarks, I now conclude this work; hoping, trusting, praying, that it may be the means of warning others, before they _taste_ the venomous stuff, of the chasm before them; that to touch it is to tread upon "a slumbering volcano," and that, once into the crater, they are lost for life. I warn them of a reptile more subtle and more charming than the serpent itself, under whose fascination it conceals a sting so deadly, that

"--no cataplasm so rare,
Collected from all the simples that have virtue,"

can save its victims from destruction.

I trust I have said nothing that can allure any one into the habit: my whole object has been, professedly and in reality, to do the contrary.

Referring him, if so inclined, to some fragmentary notes on different subjects connected with opium and opium eaters in the Appendix to this work, I now respectfully bid the reader farewell.