Opium Use
As Alice was suffering from breast cancer, her brother, William James, wrote her a letter explaining how much he pitied her. He advised her to "look for the little good in each day as if life were to last a hundred years." He wanted her to save herself from suffering the torment of physical pain. "Take all the morphia (or other forms of opium if that disagrees) you want, and don't be afraid of becoming an opium-drunkard. What was opium created for except for such times as this?" While opium was a freely available panacea at this time, it is unknown if Alice James used it prior to her cancer, late in life.
Read more about this topic: Alice James
Famous quotes containing the word opium:
““A man,” said Oliver Cromwell, “never rises so high as when he knows not whither he is going.” Dreams and drunkenness, the use of opium and alcohol are the semblance and counterfeit of this oracular genius, and hence their dangerous attraction for men. For the like reason they ask the aid of wild passions, as in gaming and war, to ape in some manner these flames and generosities of the heart.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is not opium which makes me work but its absence, and in order for me to feel its absence it must from time to time be present.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)