Jane Addams, American Opium-Eater

Surprising anecdote here from Jane Addams from her time at Rockford College during the 1870s:

At one time five of us tried to understand De Quincey's marvelous "Dreams" more sympathetically, by drugging ourselves with opium. We solemnly consumed small white powders at intervals during an entire long holiday, but no mental reorientation took place, and the suspense and excitement did not even permit us to grow sleepy. About four o'clock on the weird afternoon, the young teacher whom we had been obliged to take into our confidence, grew alarmed over the whole performance, took away our De Quincey and all the remaining powders, administrated an emetic to each of the five aspirants for sympathetic understanding of all human experience, and sent us to our separate rooms with a stern command to appear at family worship after supper "whether we were able to or not."

"Weird afternoon", indeed. Hard to believe that the aspiring missionary women at Rockford would have easy access to such a libertine work of literature. Addams is coming across as being much less stodgy than I had expected.