152 The Diary of a Drug Fiend Every drop of the river Of blood aflame and a-quiver With poison secret and sour— With a sudden twitch at the last — Like certain jagged daggers. (With bloodshot eyes dull-glassed The screaming Malay staggers Through his village aghast). So blood wrenches its pain Sardonic through heart and brain. Every separate nerve Awake and alert, on a curve Whose asymptote’s name is “ In a hyperbolic “ for ever!” A bitten and burning snake Striking its venom within it, As if it might serve to slake The pain for the tithe of a …

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1922 · PDF PAGE 108

Diary of a Drug Fiend

94 The Diary of a Drug Fiend It’s stupid to hang back. If you start to do a thing, you'd much better do it. What’s that fellow say? “T do not set my life at a pin’s fee.” That’s the right spirit. ‘‘ Unhand me, gentlemen, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me.” That’s the Pendragon spirit, and that’s the flying man’s spirit. Get to the top and stay at the top and shoot the other man down |!

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1922 · PDF PAGE 248

Diary of a Drug Fiend

234 The Diary of a Drug Fiend that my ordeal is over. He stands smiling and points downwards. I think he wants me to go back to the billiard-room. Perhaps there is some one waiting for me; some one to take me away to fulfil my destiny. I know now what it was that I thought was a shot, or a door closing. It was really both of these things in a mystical sense ; for I know now who the old man is, and that he is the father of the Messiah. ...

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1922 · PDF PAGE 188

Diary of a Drug Fiend

174 The Diary of a Drug Fiend We sent out a boy and got in three dozen small bottles. September § The world is a pig. It keeps on putting its nose where it isn’t wanted. We are overdrawn at the bank. Cockie had to write to Mr. Wolfe. “It ought to be stopped,” he cried, “ it amounts to brawling in church |” A flash of the old Peter Pan! September 8 The woman says it’s Tuesday, and we're running awfully short. Why can’t people keep their promises ? I’m sure Mabel said Sunday.

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1922 · PDF PAGE 310

Diary of a Drug Fiend

296 The Diary of a Drug Fiend in a brilliant synthesis. ‘ You must go at once with Miss Jacobs, Sir Peter. I needn’t say how terribly anxious I feel; but I hope there is nothing really wrong. I’ll look in late this afternoon with Mr. Platt for news; and if everything Is all right—I won’t allow myself to think that it can be otherwise—we can make an appointment for the morning over our business affairs. Don’t let’s lose any time.” I shook hands hastily and slipped my hand into Maisie’s arm. She ran downstairs with me, leaving the others to wait …

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Diary of a Drug Fiend

330 The Diary of a Drug Fiend Object of familiarising the mind with ideas which normally excited. The whole system of King Lamus was to enable people to take no notice, that is, no emotional notice, of anything soever in life. A great deal of the fascination of drugs arises from the fuss that is made about them; the focusing of the attention upon them. Absinthe, forbidden in France, Switzerland, and Italy, is still sold freely in England, and no one ever met an English absinthe fiend. If any one took it into his head to start a newspaper campai…

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1922 · PDF PAGE 364

Diary of a Drug Fiend

350 The Diary of a Drug Fiend warehouse for other people’s wives. If I might hazard a guess, however, your wife’s discovered what her own will is, and has gone off to do it.” “Qh, damnation,” said I. “‘ Here, you know, I say I can’t allow that sort of thing!” The Big Lion turned his sternest gaze upon me. “Now, Sir Peter,” he said incisively, ‘ pull yourself together. You've only just discovered your own will, and you naturally want to be let alone to do it. And yet, at the very first opportunity, you butt in and want to interfere with your own…

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1922 · PDF PAGE 50

Diary of a Drug Fiend

36 The Diary of a Drug Fiend “Look here, Mr. Lamus,” I said, speaking very quickly, “I can drive any kind of car. Let me take Miss Hallaj home.” The Arab girl was on her feet behind me. “Yes, yes,’ she said, in a faint, yet excited voice. “That will be much the best thing. Thanks awfully.” They were the first words she had spoken. “Yes, yes,” chimed in Lou. “I want to drive in the moonlight.” The little group was huddled in the open doorway. On one side the dark crimson tides of electricity; on the other, the stainless splendour of our satellit…

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Diary of a Drug Fiend

314 The Diary of a Drug Fiend his turn to answer, and he was terribly afraid of forgetting his words in the presence of strangers. He looked up to Cypris pleadingly, and she whispered into his ear. “What is dy will?” with a sudden burst of con- - fidence and pride. “It is my will to eat and drink,” replied Athena gravely. “To what end?” inquired Dionysus doubtfully. “That my body may be fortified thereby.” The brat looked about him uneasily, as if the answer had taken the wind out of his sails. Cypris pressed his hand, and he brightened up agai…

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1922 · PDF PAGE 168

Diary of a Drug Fiend

154 The Diary of a Drug Fiend Her cranial dome is vaulted, Her mad Mongolian eyes Aslant with the ecstasies Of things immune, exalted Far beyond stars and skies, Slits of amber and jet— Her snout for the quarry set Fleshy and heavy and gross, Bestial, broken across, And below it her mouth that drips Blood from the lips That hide the fangs of a snake, Drips on venomous udders Mountainous flanks that fret, And the spirit sickens and shudders At the hint of a worse thing yet. Olya! the golden bait Barbed with infinite pain, Fatal, fanatical mate O…

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Diary of a Drug Fiend

232 The Diary of a Drug Fiend changes into another to prevent the edge being taken off the suffering. It would be incredibly blissful if one could experience something new, however abominable. The man that wrote that poem has left out nothing. Everything that comes into my mind is no more than an echo of his groans. *““ Body and soul alike Traitors turned black-hearted, Seeking a place to strike In a victim already attuned To one vast chord of wound.” The rhythm of the poem, apart from the words, suggests this moto perpetuo vibration. Yet the n…

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1922 · PDF PAGE 218

Diary of a Drug Fiend

204 The Diary of a Drug Fiend saw that he had taken a little pocket-knife and cut the string of the bottle. He had levered out the cork, and dipped the knife into the powder. He measured out a dose with a queer cunning questioning smile in his eyes. , My breath was coming quickly and shallowly. I gave a hurried little nod. I seemed to hear myself saying, “A little bit more.” At least, he added to the heap. “A little mild stimulant is indicated,” he said, with an imitation of his bedside manner. He was kneeling in front of my chair, and held up …

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1922 · PDF PAGE 76

Diary of a Drug Fiend

62 The Diary of a Drug Fiend moral code has become meaningless for it. A more than Satanic pride swells in one’s soul. As Baudelaire says: “Hast thou not sovereign contempt, which makes the soul so kind?” As we drove up the Butte Montmartre towards the Sacré Coeur, we remained completely silent, lost in our calm beatitude. You must understand that we were already excited to the highest point. The effect of the heroin had been to steady us in that state. Instead of beating passionately up the sky with flaming wings, we were poised aloft in the i…

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Diary of a Drug Fiend

156 The Diary of a Drug Fiend And you, you puritan others, Who have missed the morphia craving, Cry scorn if I call you brothers, Curl lip at my maniac raving, Fools, seven times beguiled, You have not known her? Well! There was never a need she smiled To harry you into hell| Morphia is but one Spark of its secular fire. She is the single sun— Type of all desire ! 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 …

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Diary of a Drug Fiend

238 The Diary of a Drug Fiend Weltschmertz; the universal SOITOW wherein “ Creation groaneth and travaileth until now.’ I understood Basil’s wish that we should undertake the fearful experiment which had brought us to such extremity. My insanity had been the result of my selfish vanity. I was not singled out for a unique destiny. The realisation of my own suffering had led me to understand that every one else was in the same boat. I could see even the false note of the contempt of the poet for those who had not experienced his own sublimity of …

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Diary of a Drug Fiend

228 The Diary of a Drug Fiend - It.is like vitriol being thrownin one’s face. We have no expression of our own. We cannot ‘think. The need is filled by these words... . The impact of light itself is a bodily pain. “When the sun is a living devil Vomiting vats of evil, And the moon and the night but mock The wretch on his barren rock, And the dome of heaven high-arched Like his mouth is arid and parched, And the caves of his heart high-spanned Are choked with alkali sand!” We are living on water. It seems for the moment to quench the thirst, at …

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