Thomas De Quincey and anxiety

[Helga]

I am going to write an essay about 'Confessions of an English Opium-Eater' by De Quincey. When I read this book I got the feeling that he must have suffered from anxiety, at least when he was young. The fact that he tried to see Wordsworth twice before he finally got the courage to go all the way. Also the knot in his stomach that the opium has helped him with.

I can't seem to find anything about this but I doubt that noone has thought of this before.
I wonder if anyone here can see this in his behavior or know of some article I can use.

This is just because I won't see my teacher 'till next week and I'd really like to have something in my hands when I see her about the subject.

[PeterL]

I have never read a biography of de Quincey, but there are some, and he was a prolific writer, so there might be something else by him that would be useful.

I am not surprised that he would have been nervous about seeing Wordsworth when he was young. Wordsworth was famous, and de Quincey was not. I wouldn't be surprised if things were different twenty years later, when de Quincey was an editor and Wordsworth was a fading (or faded) poet.