Once the joys of Chandu
become perceptible to the neophyte, a great need is felt--a crying need.
One may drink opium or inject morphine; these, and other crude measures,
may satisfy temporarily, but if one would enjoy the delights of that
fairyland, of that enchanted realm which bountiful nature has concealed
in the heart of the poppy, one must retire from the ken of goths
and vandals who do not appreciate such exquisite delights; one must
dedicate, not an hour snatched from grasping society, but successive
days and nights to the goddess"...
Soames, barely understanding this discourse, listened eagerly to every
word of it, whilst Gianapolis, waxing eloquent upon his strange thesis,
seemed to be addressing, not his solitary auditor, but an invisible
concourse.
"In common with the lesser deities," he continued, "our Lady of the
Poppies is exacting. After a protracted sojourn at her shrine, so keen
are the delights which she opens up to her worshipers, that a period of
lassitude, of exhaustion, inevitably ensues. This precludes the proper
worship of the goddess in the home, and necessitates--I say NECESSITATES
the presence, in such a capital as London, of a suitable Temple. You
have the honor, Soames, to be a minor priest of that Temple!"
Soames brushed his dyed hair with his fingers and endeavored to look
intelligent.
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