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Whether or not Danchin is correct in suggesting that Thompson's resumption of the opium habit also dates from this period is, of course, a matter of conjecture.

Reid simply states, without offering any supporting evidence, that `` after he returned to London, he resumed his draughts of laudanum, and continued this right up to his death ''.

There is every reason to recognize that in the very last years of his life, as we shall see, Thompson did take the drug in carefully rationed doses to ease the pains of his illness, but the exact date at which this began has never been determined.

If, as Reid says, `` nearly all his poetry was produced when he was not taking opium '', there may be some reason to doubt that he was under its influence in the period from 1896 to 1900 when he was writing the poems to Katie King and making plans for another book of verse.

In any event, the critical productivity of that time is abundant proof that if he was taking laudanum, it was never in command of him to the extent that it had been during his vagrant years.