Diary of a Drug Fiend

366 The Diary of a Drug Fiend drug should act instantaneously and brilliantly. When it fails to do so, you know that you shouldn’t have taken it, and you should then call a halt, and analyse the circumstances of the failure. We learn more from our failures than from our successes, and your magical record will tell you by the end of the year so accurately what precise circumstances indicate the propriety of resorting to any drug, that in your second year you must be a great fool if you make even half a dozen mistakes. But, as the Book of the Law says, “Success is your proof.’ When you resort to such potent and dangerous expedients for increasing your natural powers, you must make sure that the end justifies the means. You're a scientific man; stick to the methods of science. Wisdom is justified of her children; and I shall be surprised if you do not discover within the next twelve months that your Great Experiment, despite the unnecessary disasters which arose from your neglecting those words, “to worship me,’ has been the means of developing your highest qualities and putting you among the first thinkers of our generation.”’ The mandolin of Sister Cypris broke into gay triumphant twitterings. It was like a musical comment upon his summary of the situation. The moon sank behind the hill, the peasants finished their wine and went off singing to their cottages; Lou and I found ourselves alone under the stars. The breeze bore the murmur of the sea up the scented slopes. The lights in the town went out. The Pole Star stood above the summit of the rock. Our eyes were fixed on it. We could imagine the precession of the FEquinoxes as identical with our own perpetual travelling through time. Lou pressed my hand. I found myself repeating the words of the creed. ““T confess my life, one, individual, and eternal, that was, and is, and is to come.’ ”’ Her voice murmured in my ear, ‘‘I believe in the communion of Saints.”