Opium! dread agent of unimaginable pleasure and pain! I had heard of it as I had of manna or of ambrosia, but no further. How unmeaning a sound was i… - Thomas De Quincey

Prophet of evil I ever am to myself: forced for ever into sorrowful auguries that I have no power to hide from my own heart, no, not through one night's solitary dreams.

Every step of my progress was bringing me nearer to the Heath: and it naturally occurred to me that I and the accursed murderer, if he were that night abroad, might at every instant be unconsciously approaching each other through the darkness:

No terrors of impending vengeance, had they been a thousand time stronger than they were, could at this moment have availed to stifle the cry of triumphant pleasure -long, loud, and unfaltering- which indignant sympathy with the oppressed extorted from the crowd.