FOLLOW A WORD THROUGH THE COLLECTION
Search the corpus.
Phrase search ignores case and repeated whitespace. All-words search finds whole words anywhere on the same page. OCR errors can affect results.
67 matching pages
Page 1 of 41922 · PDF PAGE 17
CHAPTER I A KNIGHT OUT Yes, I certainly was feeling depressed. I don’t think that this was altogether the reaction of the day. Of course, there always is a reaction after the excitement of a flight; but the effect is more physical than moral. One doesn’t talk. One lies about and smokes and drinks champagne. No, I was feeling quite a different kind of rotten. I looked at my mind, as the better class of flying man soon learns to do, and I really felt ashamed of myself. Take me for all in all, I was one of the luckiest men alive. War is like a wav…
1922 · PDF PAGE 48
…ght in the face. “It strikes you as pretty good stuff, Sir Peter,” he said, ‘‘and so it is. Tl have a dose myself to show there’s no ill-feeling.”’ He suited the action to the words. I had to admit that the man began to intrigue me. What was his game? “ T hear you're one of our best flying men, Sir Peter,” he went on. “T have flown a bit now and then,” I admitted. “Well, an aeroplane’s a pretty good means of travel, but unless you’re an expert, you're likely to make a pretty sticky finish.” “Thank you very much,” I said, nettled at his tone. “A…
1922 · PDF PAGE 58
…ary of a Drug Fiend sense of mental exhilaration that goes with boundless freedom. Our grandfathers must have known something about this feeling by living in England before the liberty of the country was destroyed by legislation, or rather the delegation of legislation to petty officialdom. About six months ago I imported some tobacco, rolls of black perique, the best and purest in the world. By-and-by I got tired of cutting it up, and sent it to a tobacconist for the purpose. Oh, dear no, quite impossible without a permit from the Custom House…
1922 · PDF PAGE 75
…s to profane her. I had a sudden nauseating sense of the bestiality of marriage. I had no idea at the time that this sudden revulsion of feeling was due to a mysterious premonition of the physiological effects of heroin in destroying love. Definitely stimulating things like alcohol, hashish and cocaine give free range to Cupid. Their destructive effect on him is simply due to the reaction. One is in debt, so to speak, because one has outrun the constable. But what I may call the philosophical types of dope, of which morphine and heroin are the …
1922 · PDF PAGE 43
Over the Top ! 29 can hardly even say that I felt. I was Feeling itself ! I was all the possibilities of Feeling fulfilled to the uttermost. Yet, coincident with this, my body went on automatically with its own private affairs. She was escaping me. Her face eluded mine. “O Thou storm-drunk breath of the winds, that pant in the bosom of the mountains! I adore Thee, Evoe! I adore Thee, I A O!” Her breast sobbed out its song with weird intensity. I understood in a flash that this was her way of resistance. She was trying to insist to herself that …
1922 · PDF PAGE 81
… of what I can only call diabolical beatitude. It occurred to me as a sort of joke that she might have poisoned herself. I was certainly feeling very unwell. That didn’t disturb me either. The waiter brought a bowl of mussels. We ate them dreamily. It was part of the day’s work. We enjoyed them because they were enjoyable; but nothing mattered, not even enjoyment. It struck me as strange that Haidée was simply pretending to eat, but | attributed this to preoccupation. I felt very much better. Feccles talked easily and lightly about various matt…
1922 · PDF PAGE 71
…arm. But at the very moment when you have the most gorgeous ideas, when you build golden palaces of what you are going to do, you have a feeling at the same time that nothing is really worth doing, and that itself gives you a feeling of terrific superiority to every- thing else in the world. And so, from the objective point of view, it comes to nothing. But heroin does all that morphia does. It’s a derivative of morphia, you know—Diacetyl-Morphine is the technical name. Only instead of bathing you in philosophical inertia, you are as keen as mu…
1922 · PDF PAGE 296
…t at the same time, one couldn't shut one’s eyes to the facts, and I knew Lamus would have had no hesitation in giving us a little snow, feeling the way I was. I don’t know why I felt such a disinclination to go back and ask him. It may have been the instinctive dislike of bothering him; and besides, it was rather humiliating to have to admit. There was also a trace of sturdy British feeling that the thing to do was to stick it out and trust a night’s rest to tone up my nerves. Lamus had advised us to take Turkish baths if we felt unduly depres…
1922 · PDF PAGE 218
… making an offering to his goddess. The next thing I remember is that I was walking feverishly, almost running, up Sloane Street. I hada feeling of being pursued. Was it true, that old Greek fable of the Furies? What had I done? What had I done? , My fingers worked spasmodically on the little amber- tinted bottle of poison. I wanted to get away from every one and everything. I didn’t know where I was going. I hated Peter from the depths of my soul. I would have given anything in the world—except the heroin—to be able never to see him again. But…
1922 · PDF PAGE 76
… became more absolute every moment. With cocaine, one is indeed master of everything; but everything matters intensely. With heroin, the feeling of mastery increases to such a point that nothing matters at all. There is not even the disinclination to do what one happens to be doing which keeps the opium smoker inactive. The body 1s left to itself so perfectly that one is not worried by its natural activities. Again, despite our consciousness of infinity, we Maintained, concurrently, a perfect sense of proportion in respect of ordinary matters.
1922 · PDF PAGE 170
…sire ! All that you would, you are— And that is the crown of a craving. You are slaves of the wormwood star. Analysed, reason 1s raving. Feeling, examined, is patn. What heaven were to hope for a doubt of it! Life is anguish, insane; And death is—not a way out of it! “‘ Olya,” too, reminds me of myself. I have a morbid wish to be an impossible monster of cruelty and wickedness. , Lamus had told me that long ago. He said it was the phantasm which summed up my longing to “ revert to type.” La nostalgie de la boue. Cockie lost all his dignity. He …
1922 · PDF PAGE 252
…sire ! All that you would you are— And that is the crown of a craving. You are slaves of the wormwood star. Analysed, reason is Taving.. Feeling, examined, is pain. What heaven were to hope for a doubt of it! Life is anguish, insane; And death is—not a way out of it!”
1922 · PDF PAGE 142
…d glance out of his languid eyes, and bit his thumbnail persis- tently, as if in a state of extreme nervous perplexity. I was swept by a feeling of complete humiliation. It was a transitory feverish flush; and it left me more exhausted than ever. The commissario swung his chair around to our Saviour, and said something which evidently meant, “‘ Please open fire.”’ “‘ I’m the vice-consul here,” he said. ‘‘ I understand that you claim to be Sir Peter and Lady Pendragon.” “ That’s who we are,” I replied, with a pitiful attempt at jauntiness. ‘You'…
1922 · PDF PAGE 276
…morning. Lou, it seemed, was already there; and had fallen asleep again, said Lala, only a few minutes before she left. I could not help feeling a dislike for the way in which everything was being managed for me. I must have shown something of this in my manner. Lala, after bundling me into the automobile which I had driven to Barley Grange on that first tremendous night, began to turn the conversation so as to answer my unspoken resentment. She made a pleasant little excuse for not offering me the steering-wheel. I knew too well that I couldn'…
1922 · PDF PAGE 195
The Grinding of the Brakes 181 were dissolved into one; a giant ghost that enveloped us. I hissed the next lines through my teeth, feeling myself a fire-breathing dragon. ** Horror indeed intense, Seduction ever intenser, Swinging the smoke of sense From the bowl of a smouldering censer ! ”’ We were out of breath. My boy sat on the edge of the bed. I crept up behind him. I shook out my hair all over his face, and dug my nails into his scalp. We were living the heroin life, the life of the world of the soul. We had identified ourselves with the …
1922 · PDF PAGE 34
…if I were already a corpse. It was the limit. But I think the ordeal served to bring up in my mind some inkling of the true nature of my feeling for Lou. The Smoking Dog, now ingloriously extinct, was a night club decorated by a horrible little cad who spent his life pushing himself into art and literature. The dancing room was a ridiculous, meaningless, gaudy, bad imitation of Klimmt. Damn it all, I may not be a great flyer, but I ama fresh-air man. I detest these near-artists with their poses and their humbug and their swank. I hate shams. I …
1922 · PDF PAGE 206
…s running down my face. The edge of his ring had cut the corner of my eye. The sight sent him into fits of hysterical laughter. The only feeling in my mind was that he was ill; that it was my duty to nurse him. I tried to go to the door to get help. He thought I was escaping, and flung me back right across the room on to the bed, howling with rage. “You can get away with it at once,” he said, “ but that’s enough. You wait right here, and see whether Mr. Bloody King Lamus will come to fetch you. Don’t fret ; I expect he will. He likes dirt, the …
1922 · PDF PAGE 325
Out of Harm's Way 311 feeling grew that we had somehow strayed into an enchanted country. At the same time the country was enchanting. Dionysus was all on fire to get us up to the Abbey, and tugged at our arms. | ““ Now Di,” said Hermes, “ you know it’s wrong to pull at people like that. It’s one of the rules,” he explained to Lou, “ not to interfere with people. Big Lion says that every one would get on all right if only he were left alone.” He seemed to think the statement required explana- tion. ‘“‘ Cypris is reading Gibbon to us this week ;…
1922 · PDF PAGE 45
…nd clear :— ‘“‘O Thou scarlet dragon of flame, enmeshed in the web of a spider! I adore Thee, Evoe! I adore Thee, I A O!” A revulsion of feeling rushed over me like a storm ; for in the doorway, with Lou’s arms round his neck, was the tall, black, sinister figure of King Lamus. “I knew you wouldn't mind our dropping in, al- though it is so late,” she was saying. It would have been perfectly simple for him to acquiesce with a few conventional words. Instead, he was pontifical. “There are four gates to one palace; the floor of that palace is of s…
1922 · PDF PAGE 38
…the destruction of Worlds! I adore Thee, ' Evoe! I adore Thee,I A O!” I flushed with rage, understanding enough to know what Lou must be feeling as she rolled forth those passionate, senseless words from her volcanic mouth. Gretel’s suggestion trickled into my brain. “This beastly alcohol brutalises men. Why is Lou so superb? She has breathed the pure snow of Heaven into her nostrils.” **O Thou snow-white chalice of Love, that art