De Quincey finds that actors are often the worst readers of literary texts. He digresses briefly to compliment the reading skills of his friend William Wordsworth, whom he considers the only poet who is actually good at reading his own work aloud. He occupies his time by reading aloud for the entertainment of others, something he has always been good at. Thirdly, he tried to reduce his opium consumption many times, but was not able to because the withdrawals were extremely painful.ĭe Quincey’s opium use has destroyed his ability to concentrate, so he can no longer study or write. Secondly, he is aware that the content of this section is deeply personal and perhaps inappropriate to discuss in a public forum, but he wants the record of his life to be as complete as possible for posterity. He will shift freely between the past and the present tense (something he has done periodically for the whole memoir, but will do with greater frequency in this final section). Rather, the events will be presented as an impressionistic collage in the order that he remembers them. First, this period of his life has been so confused in his recollection, and he is at present so physically weak, that he has not sorted its events into chronological order. De Quincey prefaces this section with three explanatory points.
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