364 The Diary of a Drug Fiend
been doing in the last week, heroin might have helped
you to concentrate your mind, and cocaine to overcome
the effects of fatigue. And the reason you did not use
them was that a burnt child dreads fire. We had the
same trouble with teaching Hermes and Dionysus to
swim. They found themselves in danger of being
drowned and thought the best way was to avoid going
near the water. But that didn’t help them to use their
natural faculties to the best advantage, so I made them
face the sea again and again, until they decided that
the best way to avoid drowning was to learn how to
deal with oceans in every detail. It sounds pretty
obvious when you put it like that, yet while every one
agrees with me about the swimming, I am howled down
on all sides when I apply the same principles to the use
of drugs.”
At this moment, Lala claimed me for a waltz, and
Lou took Basil under her protection. After the dance,
we all four sat down on the wall of the court and I took
up the thread of the conversation. —
“You're quite right, of course, and I imagine you
expected to be shouted at.”
‘““No,” laughed Lamus, ‘‘my love for humanity
makes me an incurably optimistic ass on all such points.
I can’t see the defects in my inamorata. I expect men
to be rational, courageous, and to applaud initiative,
though an elementary reading of history tells one,
with appalling reiteration, how every pioneer has been
persecuted, whether it’s Galileo, Harvey, Gauguin, or
Shelley ; there is a universal outcry against any attempt
to destroy the superstitions which hamper or foster
the progress which helps the development of the race.
Why should I escape the excommunication of Darwin
or the ostracism of Swinburne? As a matter of fact,
I am consoled in my moments of weakness and depression
by the knowledge that I am so bitterly abused and hated.
It proves to me that my work, whether mistaken or
not, is at least worth while. But that’s a digression.
Let’s get back to the words ‘to worship me.’ They