The Equinox (Volume I, Number II)

THE EQUINOX of the savage for an unfamiliar shape of bottle, worthless at the worst as the temperance crank’s account of the fatal effects of alcohol, the vegetarian’s account of the dangers of meat- eating, or the missionary’s account of the religion of the people he lives among. The alleged sensuality of hashish—even Baudelaire admits it—simply does not exist for me, perhaps because there is no germ of lasciviousness in my mind. Of course if you excite, by whatever stimulus, a foul imagination, you will get pestilent effects. When Queen Mab tickles the lawyer, he dreams of fees. So the people who associate nudity with debauchery, and see Piccadilly Circus in Monna Lisa, will probably obtain the fullest itching from the use of the drug. I recommend it to them for, slaves and swine as they are, it must inevitably drag them to death by the road of a certi- fiable insanity less dangerous to society than their present subtler moral beastliness. I think, too, that Baudelaire altogether exaggerates the reaction. I never felt the slightest fatigue or lassitude ; but went from the experiments to my other work with accustomed freshness and energy. Probably, however, these effects depend largely on the sample of the drug employed ; some may contain more active or grosser toxic agents than others. Putting aside all these optimistic considerations, one is yet perfectly in accord with Baudelaire’s conclusion, and for the same reason. (We discard his preliminary sophisms.) I have no use for hashish save as a preliminary demon- stration that there exists another world attainable—somehow. Possibly if pharmacists were to concentrate their efforts upon 56