+“MASH ALLAH!”—THE GIFT+.
“Farewell ye odours of earth that die,
Passing away like a lover’s sigh;
My feast is now of the Tooba tree,[19]
Whose scent is the breath of eternity.”
MOORE’S _Lalla Rookh_.
That opium is the milky juice of the capsules of a species of poppy,
evaporated by exposure to light and air, is a fact so well known, as
scarce to require repetition. This species of poppy contains two well
marked varieties, the _black_ and the _white_, a circumstance noticed
by Hippocrates long enough ago. The black variety derives its name from
the colour of its seeds. The original home of the poppy is Asia and
Egypt. But it is extensively cultivated for the sake of its juice in
British India, Persia, Egypt, and Asia Minor, and might be cultivated,
were it more remunerative, in England, France, and Germany, where good
samples of opium have been obtained experimentally. Dr. Royle states
that the black variety is cultivated in the Himalayas, but generally
the white is preferred. The poppy is grown in Europe for the sake of
the capsules and seed: from the latter a mild oil is extracted.
The cultivation of the poppy in British India is confined chiefly to
the large Gangetic tract, about six hundred miles in length, and two
hundred miles in depth, extending from Goruckpore in the north to
Hazareebaugh in the South; and from Dingepore in the East, to Agra in
the West. This extent of country contains the two agencies of Behar and
Benares, the former sending to the market about treble the quantity of
the latter. In the Benares agency, there are about 21,500 cultivators,
and the total number of under cultivators of the opium poppy 106,147.
After all the preliminaries of preparing the land, sowing, and
cultivating the plant, all of which are much more interesting to the
parties concerned than ourselves, if all goes well, the whole field of
poppies presents a sheet of white bloom, which generally occurs about
the month of February. When nearly ready to fall, the white petals are
gathered, and made into circular cakes; these are preserved to form
the outer coverings of the balls of opium. In a few days after the
“leaves” of the flower are collected, the capsules or poppy heads are
ready for operation. At from three to four o’clock in the afternoon,
individuals go into the fields and scratch or cut the poppy heads with
iron instruments called “nushturs.” This instrument consists of three
or four thin narrow strips of iron, about six inches in length, and
about the thickness and width of a penknife at one end, but extending
in width to nearly an inch at the opposite extremity, where it is
deeply notched. These plates are bound together by means of thread,
each plate being kept a little distance from its neighbour by means of
thread passed between them. Thus completed, it has the appearance of a
scarificator with four parallel blades. This instrument, which has the
angles sharpened, has one of its sets of points drawn down the poppy
capsule from top to bottom, or rather upwards from the base to the
summit, making three or four parallel incisions, corresponding to the
number of blades in the poppy head. These only pass through the outer
coating or pericarp. Each capsule is scarified from two to six times,
according to its size, two or three days intervening between each
operation. In Asia Minor, a different course is pursued. One horizontal
incision is made nearly round the capsule, with a single blade. After
the scarification of the capsules, the juice exudes and thickens on
them during the night, which is collected early the next morning, by
means of little iron instruments called “seetooahs,” and which resemble
small concave trowels. When sufficient is collected into the trowel, it
is emptied into an earthen pot which the collector carries at his side.
When all the opium is collected which the plants will yield, the
capsules are gathered and broken, and the seed preserved for the
extraction of their oil. Of these seeds comfits are also made
resembling carraway comfits, and, without doubt, great comforts they
are to naked little squalling Hindoos whenever they can be obtained.
After the extraction of the oil, the dry cake, called Khari, is either
made into unleavened cakes for the very indigent, or cattle are fed
upon them, or when necessity requires, it is converted into poultices
after the manner of linseed meal.
In poor districts, where the people cannot afford the luxury of opium,
the broken capsules are made into a decoction and drank instead, says
Mr. Impey. This liquid is termed “post,” from the Persian name of the
capsule. There is also another use for the capsules. They are ground
into fine powder, and sold under the name of “boosa,” and sprinkled
over the _buttees_ of opium to prevent their adhesion. In the Benares
agency, the stems and leaves, when perfectly dry, are collected and
crushed into a coarse powder called “poppy trash” which is employed in
packing the opium cakes.
One acre of well-cultivated ground will yield from 70 to 100 lbs.
of “chick” or inspissated juice, the price of which varies from six
shillings to twelve shillings per pound; so that an acre will yield
from twenty to sixty pounds worth of opium at one crop. Three pounds of
chick will produce one pound of opium, from a third to a fifth of the
weight being lost in evaporation.
When freshly collected, the mass of juice is of a pinkish colour. This
is placed in shallow vessels to drain. A coffee-coloured liquid, called
“_pussewah_,” is drained off, which is used to cement the poppy-leaves
round the cakes of opium, under the name of _lewah_. After exposure
to the air in the Benares agency, the opium is made up into balls. In
Turkey it is the custom to beat up the juice with saliva. In Malwa it
is immersed as collected in linseed oil. In Benares it is brought to
the required consistence by exposure in the shade only.
Opium is prepared in different forms, in the various localities for
market. Bengal opium is made into balls of about 3½ lbs. weight, and
packed in chests, each containing forty balls. They are about the size
of a child’s head, coated externally with poppy petals, agglutinated
with _lewah_ to the thickness of about half an inch. Garden Patna
opium is in square cakes, about three inches in diameter, and one
inch thick, wrapped in thin plates of mica. Malwa opium is in round
flattened cakes, of about ten ounces in weight, packed in “boosa,”
or in coarsely-powdered poppy-petals, or in some instances without
any coating at all. Cutch opium is in small cakes, rather more than
an inch in diameter, enclosed in fragments of leaves. Kandeish opium
is imported in round flattened cakes, of about half a pound weight.
Egyptian opium occurs in round flattened cakes, about three inches
in diameter, covered with the vestiges of some leaf. This kind is
very dry, but it is considered inferior in quality to the Turkish
kinds. Persian opium is in the form of sticks, about six inches in
length, and half an inch in diameter, enveloped in smooth shining
paper, and tied with cotton. Smyrna opium occurs in regular rounded
or flattened masses, of various sizes, rarely exceeding two pounds
in weight, sometimes covered with the capsules of a species of dock.
Constantinople opium is either in large irregular cakes, or small,
regular, lenticular-formed cakes, covered with poppy-leaf, and from two
to two and a half inches in diameter.
Formerly the balls of Bengal opium were covered with tobacco-leaves;
but Mr. Flemming introduced the practice of covering them with
poppy-petals, which service the Court of Directors of the East India
Company acknowledged by presenting him with 50,000 rupees. Sometimes
these balls are so soft as to burst their skins, when much of the
liquid opium is lost. The quantity of opium produced annually in Bengal
exceeds five millions of pounds, and the income derived by the Hon.
East India Company from this source is not less than £5,003,162.
The kinds of opium most approved in the English market is the Smyrna,
and in China and the East generally, the preference is given to
the produce of India. Before used by the opium-smoker, the extract
undergoes a course of preparation, the following being the method
pursued in Singapore, as described by Mr. Little.
Between three and four o’clock in the morning the fires are lighted.
A chest is then opened by one of the officers of the establishment of
the opium farmer, and the number of balls delivered to the workmen
proportioned to the demand. The balls are then divided into equal
halves by one man, who scoops out with his fingers the inside or
soft part, and throws it into an earthen dish, frequently during the
operation moistening and washing his hands in another vessel, the
water of which is carefully preserved. When all the soft part is
carefully abstracted from the hardened skins or husks, these are broken
up, split, divided, and torn, and thrown into the earthen vessel,
containing the water already spoken of, saving the extreme outsides,
which are not mixed with the others, but thrown away, or sometimes sold
to adulterate chandu in Johore and the back of the island.
The second operation is to boil the husks with a sufficient quantity
of water in a large, shallow, iron pot, for such a length of time as
may be requisite to break down thoroughly the husks, and dissolve
the opium. This is then strained through folds of China-paper, laid
on a frame of basket-work, and over the paper is placed a cloth. The
strained fluid is then mixed with the opium scooped out in the first
operation, and placed in a large iron pot, when it is boiled down to
the consistence of thickish treacle. In this second operation, the
refuse from the straining of the boiled husk is again boiled in water,
filtered through paper, and the filtered fluid added to the mass, to
be made into chandu. The refuse is thrown outside, and little attended
to. It is dried and sold to the Chinese going to China for from ten to
seventeen shillings the hundredweight, who pound it, and adulterate
good opium with it. The paper that has been used in straining contains
a small quantity of opium, it is carefully dried and used medicinally
by the Chinese.
In the third operation, the dissolved opium being reduced to the
consistence of treacle, is seethed over a fire of charcoal, of a strong
and steady, but not fierce temperature, during which time it is most
carefully worked, then spread out, then worked up again and again by
the superintending workman, so as to expel the water, and, at the same
time, avoid burning it. When it is brought to the proper consistence,
it is divided into half-a-dozen lots, each of which is spread like
a plaister on a nearly flat iron pot, to the depth of from half to
three-quarters of an inch, and then scored in all manner of directions
to allow the heat to be applied equally to every part. One pot after
another is then placed over the fire, turned rapidly round, then
reversed, so as to expose the opium itself to the full heat of the red
fire. This is repeated three times, the length of time requisite, and
the proper heat are judged of by the workman, from the effluvium and
the colour, and here the greatest dexterity is requisite, for a little
more fire, or a little less would destroy the morning’s work, or eighty
or a hundred pounds’ worth of opium. The head workmen are men who have
learned their trade in China, and from their great experience, receive
high wages.
The fourth operation consists in again dissolving this fired opium in
a large quantity of water, and boiling it in copper vessels till it is
reduced to the consistence of the chandu used in the shops. The degree
of tenacity being the index of its complete preparation, which is
judged of by drawing it out with slips of bamboo.
By this long process, many of the impurities in the opium are got rid
of, and are left in the refuse thrown out, such as vegetable matter,
part of the resin and oil, with the extractive matter. By the seething
process, the oil and resin are almost entirely dissipated, so that the
chandu, as compared with the crude opium, is less irritating and more
soporific. The quantity of chandu obtained from the soft opium is about
seventy-five per cent., but from the opium, including the husk, not
more than 50 to 54 per cent.
The heat to be endured by the men during this operation is very great,
and can only be tolerated when custom has inured them to it. One of
these men, Mr. Little graphically describes. He was quite a character
in his way. “From three in the morning till ten in the forenoon he
stands before the boiling cauldron, with a fan in one hand, and a
feather in the other; with the latter he scoops off the scum that
forms, while, with the fan, he prevents the fluid from boiling over. He
never speaks, but is always smiling; nor does he move, except to quench
his thirst, from a bucket of water placed beside him. His trowsers are
his only article of dress, the floor his bed, a little rice his food.
When his labour is finished, his enjoyment is to drink arrack till he
is insensible, from which he is wakened in the morning to his work. He
has but one idea, and that is, the prospect of getting drunk on his
favourite beverage; for his work is mechanically done, and costs him
not a thought, no more than it does the dog that turns the spit. But
he smiles, as he thinks of the revel for the night; and with his whole
soul wrapped up in that fancied bliss, he heeds not the days that go
by. He is a singular being, and in another country, would be the inmate
of a mad-house.”
The method of preparation in China and Hong-Kong, is identical with
that pursued at Singapore. When the chandu or prepared extract of opium
is consumed, it leaves a refuse consisting of charcoal, empyreumatic
oil, some of the salts of the opium, and part of the chandu not
consumed. One ounce of the chandu gives nearly half an ounce of the
refuse called _Tye_ or _Tinco_. This is smoked or swallowed by the
poorer classes, who cannot afford the pure extract, and for this they
only pay half the price of chandu. When smoked, it yields a further
refuse called _Samshing_, which contains a very small quantity of the
narcotic principle. This last is never smoked, as it cannot furnish
any smoke, but is swallowed, and that not unfrequently mixed with
arrack. Samshing is used by the very poorest and most indigent class—by
beggars and outcasts, and those who, from long habit, are unable to
exist without some stimulus from the drug, but are unable to supply
themselves with any but the cheapest form in which any of the effects
of the narcotic can be obtained.
Opium is called in Arabic “Afiyoon,” and the opium-eater “Afiyoonee.”
In the crude state, opium is generally taken by those who have not long
been addicted to its use, in the dose of three or four grains, and the
dose is increased by degrees.
The Egyptians make several conserves composed of hellebore, hemp, and
opium, and several aromatic drugs which are in much more common use
than the simple opium. One of these conserves is called “magoon,” and
the person who makes or sells it, is called “magoongee.” The most
common kind is called “barsh” or “berch.” There is one kind which,
it is said, makes the person who takes it manifest his pleasure by
singing, another which will make him chatter, a third which excites to
dance, a fourth which particularly effects the vision in a pleasurable
manner, and a fifth which is simply of a sedative nature. These are
sold at certain kind of shops called “mahsheshehs,” solely appropriated
to the sale of intoxicating preparations.
Thus, in different countries, we find opium used in different ways.
In Great Britain, for instance, it is either used in the solid state,
made into pills, in which form it is somewhat extensively employed in
certain of our manufacturing districts, where druggists are affirmed
to keep a supply of these pills ready made to meet the demand, or it
is used in the form of tincture in the common state of laudanum, in
which form it is not only used medicinally, but to our knowledge,
somewhat largely as a means of indulgence, or, we should rather say,
with somewhat of qualification, largely for a country in which many are
fain to suppose that it is not used for those purposes at all. It is
also used in the form of Paregoric elixir, and is given insidiously to
children under a variety of quack forms, such as Godfrey’s cordial, &c.
On the authority of a reverend gentleman, it is stated that in the town
of Preston, in 1843, there were upwards of sixteen hundred families in
which Godfrey’s cordial was habitually employed, or some other equally
injurious compound. Professor Johnston has noticed a communication
which appeared in the “Morning Chronicle,” describing the effects
of opium upon the health of children, says—“The child sinks into a
low torpid state, wastes away into a skeleton, except the stomach,
producing what is known as pot-belly. One woman said, ‘The sleeping
stuff made them that they were always dozing, and never cared for food.
They pined away; their heads got big, and they died.’”
In India, the pure opium is either dissolved in water, and so used,
or rolled into pills. It is there a common practice to give it to
children when very young, by mothers who require to work, and cannot at
the same time nurse their offspring. The natives of the western coast
of Africa have a curious mechanical contrivance, by means of which they
get rid of the necessity for opium in these cases. The girls wear a
“kankey,” or artificial hump on their backs as soon as they can walk,
in order to learn betimes to carry their juniors, who ride astride on
the said projections. The usefulness of them consists in enabling the
mothers to work with their infants in this way _on their backs_, while
in England they excuse themselves from work on the plea of an infant
_in arms_, or else the helpless little creatures are drugged with
sleeping stuff, and their heads grow big, and they die.
In China, opium is either swallowed or smoked in the shape of _Tye_. In
Bally it is first adulterated with China paper, and then rolled up with
the fibres of a particular kind of plantain. It is then inserted into a
hole made at the end of a small bamboo and smoked. In Java and Sumatra
it is often mixed with sugar and the ripe fruit of the plantain.
In Turkey it is usually taken in pills, and those who do so, avoid
drinking any water after having swallowed them, as this is said to
produce violent colic; but to make it more palatable, it is sometimes
mixed with syrups or thickened juice; in this form, however, it is less
intoxicating, and resembles mead. It is then taken with a spoon, or is
dried in small cakes, with the words “Mash Allah,” the “Work of God,”
or the “Gift of God” imprinted on them. When the dose of two or three
drams a day no longer produces the beatific intoxication so eagerly
sought, they mix corrosive sublimate with the opium till the quantity
reaches ten grains a day.
In Singapore there are representatives of almost every Eastern nation,
indulging in the luxury according to the fashion of the country of
which he is a native. The Hindoo, fresh from the continent, prefers
the mode there in use, and swallows the soul-soothing pill; while the
Chinese, with a gusto which no worshipper of the meerschaum can compete
with, inhales the smoke, not only into his mouth, but into his lungs,
where it becomes breath of his breath, and where retained, it acts on
the nervous fibres that are spread over the extensive membrane which
lines every cell of the lungs until exhaled through nose and mouth—yea,
even in some cases, through ear and eye, it is replaced by another puff.
As the body becomes accustomed by habit to bear larger doses of opium
than before the habit has been formed, the enormous quantity which
some persons have taken are startling and surprising. Dr. Christison,
in his work on Poisons, refers to some of these cases. “A female who
died of consumption at the age of forty-two, had taken about a dram of
solid opium daily for ten years. A well-known literary character, about
fifty years of age, has taken laudanum for twenty-five years, with
occasional short intermissions, and sometimes an enormous quantity, but
enjoys tolerable bodily health. A lady about fifty-five, who enjoys
good health, has taken opium many years, and at present uses three
ounces of laudanum daily. Lord Mar, after using laudanum for thirty
years, at times to the amount of two or three ounces daily, died at
the age of fifty-seven, of jaundice and dropsy. A woman who had been
in the practice of taking about two ounces of laudanum daily for very
many years, died at the age of sixty or upwards. An eminent literary
character who died lately, about the age of sixty-three, was in the
practice of drinking laudanum to excess from the age of fifteen, and
his daily allowance was sometimes a quart of a mixture consisting of
three parts laudanum and one of alcohol. A lady now alive, at the age
of seventy-four, has taken laudanum in the quantity of half an ounce
daily between thirty and forty years. An old woman died not long ago
at Leith at the age of eighty, who had taken about half an ounce of
laudanum daily for nearly forty years, and enjoyed tolerable health
all the time. Visrajee, a celebrated Cutchee chief mentioned by Dr.
Burnes, had taken opium largely all his life, and was alive at the age
of eighty, with his mind unimpaired.” To these examples we may add
the confession of De Quincey: “I, who have taken happiness both in a
solid and a liquid shape, both boiled and unboiled, both East Indian
and Turkish—who have conducted my experiments upon this interesting
subject with a sort of galvanic battery, and have, for the general
benefit of the world, inoculated myself, as it were, with the poison
of eight thousand drops of laudanum a day—I, it will be admitted, must
surely now know what happiness is, if anybody does. Fifty and two
years’ experience of opium, as a magical resource under all modes of
bodily suffering, I may now claim to have had. According to the modern
slang phrase, I had, in the meridian stage of my opium career, used
‘fabulous’ quantities. Stating the quantities—not in solid opium, but
in the tincture (known to everybody as laudanum)—my daily ration was
eight thousand drops. If you write down that amount in the ordinary
way as 8000, you see at a glance that you may read it into eight
quantities of a thousand, or into eight hundred quantities of ten; or,
lastly, into eighty quantities of one hundred. Now, a single quantity
of one hundred will about fill a very old-fashioned obsolete teaspoon,
of that order which you find still lingering amongst the respectable
poor. Eighty such quantities, therefore, would have filled eighty
of such antediluvian spoons, that is, it would have been the common
hospital dose for three hundred and twenty adult patients.” And he adds
solemnly, that “without opium, thirty-five years ago, beyond all doubt,
I should have been in my grave.”
It is not a very easy task to ascertain the full extent of opium
indulgence at home; but there is more of truth than fiction in that
passage in “Alton Locke,” where the hero, on his way to Cambridge,
meets with a ride in the vehicle of a certain yeoman of the Fen
country, and enters into conversation with him, in the course of which
the following dialogue takes place.
“Love ye, then! they as dinnot tak’ spirits down thor, tak’ their
pennord o’ elevation, then—women folk especial.”
“What’s elevation?”
“Oh! ho! ho! Yow goo into druggist’s shop o’ market day, into
Cambridge, and you’ll see the little boxes, doozens and doozens, a’
ready on the counter; and never a ven-man’s wife goo by, but what calls
in for her pennord o’ elevation, to last her out the week. Oh! ho! ho!
Well, it keeps women folk quiet, it do; and it’s mortal good agin ago
pains.”
“But what is it?”
“Opium, bor’ alive, opium!”
“But doesn’t it ruin their health? I should think it the very worst
sort of drunkenness.”
“Ow, well, yow moi say that—mak’th ‘em cruel thin, then, it do; but
what can bodies do i’ th’ ago? But it’s a bad thing, it is.”
The fact is well known, that in the Fen country, opium is extensively
used under the presumption or excuse that it is good for the ague. In
Wisbeach, as we ascertained from certain official medical documents,
more opium is sold and consumed, in proportion to the population, than
in any other part of the kingdom. In other parts of Cambridgeshire and
Lincolnshire, large quantities of opium are regularly and habitually
sold in small doses amongst the labouring population. In Manchester
some years ago, a similar run upon opium was experienced, but _not_ as
a cure for ague. Several cotton manufacturers stated to our authority,
that their work-people were rapidly getting into the practice of
opium-eating; so much so, that on a Saturday afternoon the counters of
the druggists were strewed with pills of one, two, or three grains, in
preparation for the known demand of the evening. The immediate occasion
of this practice was stated to be the lowness of wages, which, at that
time, would not allow them to indulge in ale or spirits; hence they
adopted opium as a substitute.
There was a sin of which we were guilty in the age of Butler, and from
which we are not yet freed; probably, it is somewhat of a universal
one. Whether or no, there are certainly not a few who—
“Compound for sins they are inclined to,
By damning those they have no mind to.”
Opium indulgence is, after all, very un-English, and never has been,
nor ever will be, remarkably popular; and if we smoke our pipes
of tobacco ourselves, while in the midst of the clouds, we cannot
forbear expressing our astonishment at the Chinese and others who
indulge in opium. Pity them we may, perhaps, looking upon them as
miserable wretches the while, but they do not obtain our sympathies.
Philanthropists at crowded assemblies denounce, in no measured
terms, “the iniquities of the opium trade,” and then go home to
their pipe or cigar, thinking them perfectly legitimate, whether
the produce of slave labour or free. It is the same sort of feeling
that the Hashasheens of the East inspire, and indeed all, who have a
predilection for other narcotics than those which Johnny Englishman
delights in, come in for a share of his contempt.
A carrion crow was once indulging in a feast upon the carcase of a
nice fat rat which had just been caught in a neighbouring barn and
thrown out into the road. A wood pigeon, who had finished his meal
in a field of peas hard by, came past at the time and saw his friend
the crow in full enjoyment of his rat. “I cannot imagine,” said the
pigeon, “how you can eat such a disgusting creature as that on which
you are making your breakfast—the sight of it turns my stomach.” “It is
quite a matter of taste,” said the crow, “and I think that I have the
advantage, my food is juicy and sweet, this rat has lived upon the best
of the farmer’s corn, and the farmer would enjoy the treat himself,
I am confident, if he only knew what a delicious breakfast it would
make. You should be welcome to an acre of peas every day, if you would
bring me such a dish as this. Besides, if I did not eat it, it would
soon putrefy, and fill the air with disgusting smells, so that I am,
in myself, a perfect board of health, working for the good of society,
you, no better than a vagabond, stealing from society your daily
bread.” “I have heard it said,” added the pigeon, “that it was you and
your companions that destroyed a whole field of turnips in grubbing
after the worms—I suppose that was a benefit to society.” “Go and eat
your peas,” said the crow, “and leave me to enjoy my rat in peace.”
Calculations as to the number of persons indulging in the use of opium
are necessarily liable to objections; one person asserting that in
China, for instance, not less than twenty millions of people indulge
in opium, whilst others consider that two millions and a half are all
that can be calculated upon. The number which Johnston estimates as
the proportion of the human race using opium is four hundred millions,
or about half the number of those who indulge in tobacco. This is,
perhaps, as near an approximation as can be made, but one which must be
based on the quantity produced, deducing therefrom the number required
to consume it, rather than on any details of consumption, which cannot
be arrived at.
There is one important and well-authenticated fact with regard to the
Chinese consumption of opium, that in the year 1854, the value of opium
imported into China exceeded the value of all the tea and silk exported
from China to Great Britain and her colonies.
As we take farewell of the “gift of God” to pass through the portals
of Paradise, let us do so in the words of that most celebrated of
English opium eaters, Thomas de Quincey:——“O just, subtle, and
all-conquering opium! that, to the hearts of rich and poor alike, for
the wounds that will never heal, and for the pangs of grief that ‘tempt
the spirit to rebel,’ bringest an assuaging balm; eloquent opium! that
with thy potent rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath, pleadest
effectually for relenting pity, and through one night’s heavenly
sleep, callest back to the guilty man the visions of his infancy,
and hands washed pure from blood. O just and righteous opium! that
to the chancery of dreams, summonest for the triumphs of despairing
innocence, false witnesses, and confoundest perjury, and dost reverse
the sentences of unrighteous judges; thou buildest upon the bosom
of darkness, out of the fantastic imagery of the brain, cities and
temples, beyond the art of Phidias and Praxiteles—beyond the splendours
of Babylon and Hekatompylos; and from the ‘anarchy of dreaming sleep,’
callest into sunny light the faces of long-buried beauties, and the
blessed household countenances, cleansed from the ‘dishonours of the
grave.’ Thou only givest these gifts to man, and thou hast the keys of
Paradise, O just, subtle, and mighty opium!”