listen. He was still a monomaniac. Had he substituted the word
thought or theory or conception or notion or belief or opinion or
supposition or hypothesis or syllogism or tentative conjecture, I
would have returned. But as I still heard only the idea of the great
idea, I went to bed.
In the morning his countenance was ashen, which formed a marked
contrast to its extreme redness the evening before. He should have
slept longer, but I thought of the duties to be performed for Judge
Butts, and determined to arouse him, altho I knew my touch would
cast him down from the glorious Halley’s comet to the measly little
flea-bite of an earth, besides jarring the idea of the great idea.
So I shook him, but instead of manifesting anger, he smiled and
extended his hand cordially, as if he had not seen me for a long
time. The effects of the drug had not entirely disappeared, and his
friends at work thought him drunk, and asked with whom he had been
out all night. Mr. Demuth was in first-class spirits, he bubbled over
with idealism, and felt a contempt for all commercial transactions.
He was the American Bernard Shaw, and looked upon the universe
as a joke of the gods. While adding some figures of considerable
importance--as salaries depended upon the results--a superintendent
passed. Mr. Demuth pointed to the column that needed balancing, and
asked, “This is all a joke, isn’t it?” Not appreciating the etiology
of the query, the superintendent nodded and passed on.
* * * * *
One midnight, while preparing to retire, it occurred to Courtenay
Lemon that this was a good time for him to try hasheesh. As I did
not discourage him in the slightest degree, 30 minims were forthwith
swallowed, with the result that the Socialist dramatic critic spent
an unusual night. It must be remarked that over the bed on which
he lay hangs a portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson. For an hour and a
quarter we discussed various topics of mutual interest, such as
decadent poetry, and Marx’s influence on the revolutionary youth of
Russia. The conversation was cut short by the hasheesh-laugh.
It had begun: the flood of laughter was loose, the deluge of mirth
poured forth, the cascade of cachinnation rushed on till it swelled
into a torrent of humor while the waves of snickering and tittering
mingled with the freshets of hilarity and jollity till the whole
flowed into a marvelous Niagara of merriment. What a pity the
audience was so small! What a shame the old humorists could not be
present! How the belly of Aristophanes would have thundered a loud
_papapappax_, how Scarron would have grinned, how Sydney Smith would
have enjoyed it, how Tom Moore would have held his aching sides,
how Rabelais would have raised the rafters with his loud ho-ho-hos!
But as these gentlemen were unavoidably detained elsewhere, I must
testify that it was the funniest show on earth,--so here’s to you,
Courtenay Lemon, you Leyden jar of laughter, charged to the limit.
Never having been a disciple of good old Isaac Pitman, I could
not record all that was said, but here are my notes: “I feel
a satisfaction,” he says, “in seeing Emerson’s picture, as I
always felt like laughing at him.” Rolls on the bed and laughs
uncontrollably. “It makes my face tired,” he explains. In reply to
my question, he answers that he enjoys laughing. Begins to expound
something, but is stopped by a laughing fit. Says he would like to
have his photo taken now, and then laughs immoderately. Says it
doesn’t seem so much like laughing as like letting wind out of a
bag. Says it is worth while staying up to see such a show. Giggles
terrifically. Says “Open the window, as I am using up all the air.”
Laughs loud and long. Strangely enough his laughter begins to sound
exactly like a negro’s, as represented on the stage. He recognizes
this and says “I’se laughin’ now jes’ like a niggah.” He is
extraordinarily comical. From top to bottom his body is shaking with
laughter. He twirls his arms, kicks his feet, and for the first time
I understand what Milton meant when he wrote “the light fantastic
toe.”
“I feel as if any way I put my leg I have to keep it. If I stuck it
in the air and kept it there--wouldn’t that be funny?” Loud laughing.
Imitates the music of a military band. His eyes glisten with
pleasure, his whole countenance is beaming, and he seems infinitely
delighted with himself. “Forward march!” he exclaims. He plays a fife
and beats a drum: Boom! Boom! Boom! Says sternly, “I don’t want this
band to play any patriotic air, not even in my sleep.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, I tell you a story. You think I’m a damn fool,
don’t you?” Laughter. “This reminds me of a story.” Laughter. “O
what a damn fool am I!” Laughter. “I’m going to tell that story,”
he says determinedly. Makes several attempts, but it is a difficult
feat, on account of the frequent outbursts of laughter, and because
it is next to impossible for him to concentrate his thoughts. At last
he gets this out: “A man said he hadn’t laughed so much since his
mother-in-law died. Oh, how funny!”
“Mr. Courtenay Lemon: Imitation of laughter. Pretty good, eh?” Makes
a speech, imitates the gestures, and bows as politely as it is
possible for one who is stretched out in bed.
“This would be a good dope to try on a fellow who is accused of
having no sense of humor. Oh, I’m getting funnier every minute.”
“Emerson, O you, you were a kid once too, weren’t you? I don’t
believe you ever were. If I had a rotten egg I’d throw it at you.”
“There’s a blue phosphorescent light in your face,--.”
“I’d rather laugh than vomit any day.” Strikes the bowl which was
placed near him in case the cannabis produced emesis. “But I’m not a
dog and I’ll not return to my vomit. That dog was a damn fool. There
are a lot of things in the Bible that are damn fool things.”
“I’ve been doing all sorts of laughter. Couldn’t you have a system of
prosody, and divide it off into feet like poetry, and have a Laughing
Poet whose contributions would be accepted by the comic papers?”
Whistles and sings and drums rhythmically with his finger-tips on the
bowl.
When I confirm a statement of his by answering “Yes,” he says, “Don’t
be butting in, Victor, this is my show.” Points his finger at me and
laughs. Sensations must be very acute, for while clearing my throat
to say something, but before uttering anything, he hears me and
exclaims. “There you go, butting in again. But don’t be afraid, I’m
not getting pugnacious; it all ends in laughter.” But for a moment
does become quarrelsome.
“I had a good thought, but I don’t know what’s best: to stick to the
thought or stick to the laughter?”
“If Chauncey Depew should be wrecked in the New York Central,
wouldn’t that be funny? Would it be poetic justice? No, it would be
the justice of laughter. Oh, it would be the laughter of the gods!”
He raises himself and swings his arm dramatically. Laughter leaps
from his insides as if it were a geyser spouting up, and rushes from
his lips as if it were a cataract bounding down a boulder.
He theorizes about egoism and Max Stirner, but I can not jot down the
reflection in its entirety.
He says I have no sense of humor to sit there taking notes, instead
of joining him in laughing.
“Of course you understand why I am laughing. But your old cook--if
she hears me, she’ll send for the police.”
“It’s too bad that when I’m having such a good time, I should be
troubled by a dry taste in the mouth. It’s another evidence that the
world was created by a damn fool or a lunatic. There is always some
little thing that interferes.”
Talks sensibly awhile, and then says impatiently: “I want to stop all
this talking, and get to laughing again. I’m not complaining about
the effects from hasheesh, because I consider it worth everything.”
“Oh, tell me, pretty maiden, why can’t a little canary bird whistle
a symphony, for instance, Tchaykovsky’s _Le Pathetique_?” Whistles,
waves his hand fantastically. “As damn little as I know about music,
not having been gifted by nature in that direction”--twists his arms
in a grotesque manner--“I’m able to get a bunch out of Tchaykovsky. I
don’t mean Comrade Tchaykovsky, the revolutionist in Russia, I mean
Peter Ilitch Tchaykovsky. The itch of that Ilitch--it seems like a
personal ailment, it sounds insulting.”
Throws a piece of paper at me, but says, “Don’t be afraid, I’ll break
no bones.”
I ask him to tell the time. He gazes intently at the clock, and says,
“I want to get it exactly on the fraction of a second. But it changes
so quickly, I can’t.” Gives it up in disgust.
Claims a heavy feeling is creeping over him, and wonders if it is due
to increased blood-pressure. “But what am I beginning to talk serious
for? I could keep on laughing for a couple of weeks, except that I
don’t want to keep you up.”
“If Spencer had been more of a sport and had taken some of this
stuff, he would have had material for his essay, _The Physiology
of Laughter_.” To see a man drugged with hasheesh quoting the
profoundest of synthetic philosophers is too much for my gravity, and
for a moment my scream of laughter eclipses even his.
“Ah, I’m beginning to get light again. It’s much nicer to be light
and delicate. To be a filmy butterfly, and float in fancy,”--his face
assumes an expression of poetic beauty, and he speculates whether man
should live a life of beauty or of duty.
“Oh, I’m willing to laugh....” Throws off the blankets and cries,
“Throw off the bonds of all existence!”
I ask him what day it is. “I hope,” says he, with a melodramatic wave
of the hand, “I will express the modest hope, that in accordance
to my wishes, and in conformity to my desires, it is Sunday night!
Sunday night! Sunday night!”
Sits up, looks at me roughishly and laughs.
“I feel a metalliferous touch within me.” “I’d rather have a cramp in
my leg than in my brain. Some people would call this a brain-cramp,
wouldn’t they?” Laughs, kicks up his legs.
“If you got erotic while laughing, wouldn’t it be blasphemy? Worse
than laughing in church.”
“Have no illusions of death yet. I am still in a position to laugh
death in the face, to laugh death in the face, to laugh ...”--and he
proves it. He claps his hands together merrily.
Has a lucid moment, looks at the clock, and says simply and
correctly, “10 to 3.”
Imitates a Frenchman most admirably, accent, gestures, etc.
The door opens, and my father--who has found it impossible to sleep
with a roaring volcano in the house--enters. I ask Mr. Lemon to tell
my father about Chauncey Depew and the Grand Central. Mr. Lemon is
highly pleased, and repeats the story with intense zest. He enlarges
it, and claims Depew has got Elbert Hubbard beat as a hypocrite. He
says all who believe Depew deserves to be killed should signify it
by saying Aye, and then he himself, as if he were a whole assembly,
shouts out, Aye! Aye! Aye! “The Ayes have it,” he announces with the
air of a man who has just won an important victory. My father and I
laugh heartily. There is no limit to Mr. Lemon’s happiness. “That’s
right,” he says, “it’s good, take it down, old man.”
He cannot bear a moment’s abstinence from laughter. “Cast aside
all irrelevant hypotheses, and get to the laughing. I proclaim the
supremacy of the laugh, laughter inextinguishable, laughter eternal,
the divine laughter of the gods.”
My father leaves the room. “Everything has a comic element if you
look at it right. It seemed to me that your father went down into the
cellar because he couldn’t sleep on account of my damn foolishness.”
He wallows in amusement, but at the same time expresses sincere
regret that he is preventing my father and me from sleeping, and says
next time he will take hasheesh in the daytime.
My father re-enters, and desires to feel his pulse. At first Mr.
Lemon objects vehemently to being touched, but then smiles the
sweetest of smiles, and with the demeanor of a martyred Bruno
marching to the stake, stretches forth his hand, saying, “In the
interests of science I am willing.” But after a few seconds Mr. Lemon
pulls his hand impatiently away, and exclaims angrily, “You’ve been
holding it half an hour.” His pulse is about 100.
“Come on in, the hasheesh is fine! You laugh and laugh and laugh and
laugh like an imbecile. Who can laugh in more ways than me? Not any
fellow that I can see.”
Begins to philosophize about savages, but loses the thread of his
thoughts. I remind him what he was talking about; he thinks a moment,
taps his forehead significantly, and says, “There was a laugh there
before, and now I’ve lost it.”
“Every tick of the clock is another instant that you’re wasting time
over this damn foolishness.”
“Laughter is indisputable and for its own sake. I proclaim the laugh
for the laugh’s sake.” The English tongue is insufficient for him; he
coins words of his own: “Laughfinity!” he shouts. “Laughinosity!” he
screams. “The whole world is a blooming joke.”
“Which is best,” he asks innocently, “the Laughing Goddess, or the
Goddess of Laughter?” “The Laughing Goddess,” answers my father.
Exultation shines thru the dilated pupils of the questioner, as he
responds, “I knew I would catch you. The Laughing Goddess reminds you
by the association of ideas of the laughing hyena, and then instead
of being the goddess presiding over the divine function of laughter,
she becomes a laughing stock.”
I ask him something about figures. “Figures,” he answers, “are
intellectually beneath me. In short, I would never be a great
mathematician. Yet I appreciate the metaphysics of mathematics. I
adore, I prostrate myself before mathematics as long as there are no
figures in it.” Hearing our laughter, he explains, “Yet this isn’t so
foolish as it seems. Up to a certain point in geometry there are no
figures.”
“I would have talked more sensibly if Emerson had not been there.”
Bangs his legs against the edge of the bed; my father asks him if he
hurt himself. “Not on a material plane; it was a psychic jar of which
you cannot conceive.”
Speaks in a declamatory tone: “I am all the time on the borderline
between Science and Folly. Which god shall ye follow, young man?”
My father tells him he can stop laughing if he wishes. “No, sir,”
comes the emphatic response, “not if you lived in my world. It is a
categorical imperative in the world of hasheesh: Thou shalt laugh.”
It is already four o’clock in the morning. I am loath to leave this
frolicsome dynamo of blithesomeness, this continuous current of
good-cheer, this generator of joyousness, but there is a hard day’s
work before me and I need a little sleep, so with a last look at his
Mirthful Majesty, I leave him alone in his glory and his giggles.
Four hours later I peep in. The intellectual merry-andrew who
criticizes the Concord Transcendentalist and juggles philosophic
conceptions even under the effects of dope, is motionless. Lassitude
has usurped the throne of laughter.
I cannot tell what effect the reading of this case will produce on
others, but in me it awakens such risibility that I hope never to
think of it on an occasion when silence or solemnity is enjoined;
for if I do, there is danger of my being ejected as unceremoniously
as was Washington Irving on the day he laughed at _The Art of Book
Making_, in the grave sanctuary of the British Museum.
There yet remains my own case. On March 4th, 1910, I came home,
feeling very tired. I found that some cannabis indica which I had
expected had arrived. After supper, while finishing up an article, I
began to debate with myself whether I should join the hasheesh-eaters
that night. The argument ended in my taking 20 minims at 9 o’clock.
I was alone in the room, and no one was aware that I had yielded to
temptation. An hour later I wrote in my memoranda book: Absolutely
no effect. At 10.30, I completed my article, and entered this note:
No effect at all from the hemp. By this time I was exhausted, and
being convinced that the hasheesh would not act, I went to bed in
disappointment. I fell asleep immediately.
I hear music. There is something strange about this music. I have
not heard such music before. The anthem is far away, but in its very
faintness there is a lure. In the soft surge and swell of the minor
notes there breathes a harmony that ravishes the sense of sound.
A resonant organ, with a stop of sapphire and a diapason of opal,
diffuses endless octaves from star to star. All the moon-beams form
strings to vibrate the perfect pitch, and this entrancing unison is
poured into my enchanted ears. Under such a spell, who can remain in
a bed? The magic of that melody bewitches my soul. I begin to rise
horizontally from my couch. No walls impede my progress, and I float
into the outside air. Sweeter and sweeter grows the music, it bears
me higher and higher, and I float in tune with the infinite--under
the turquoise heavens where globules of mercury are glittering.
I become an unhindered wanderer thru unending space. No air-ship
can go here, I say. I am astonished at the vastness of infinity. I
always knew it was large, I argue, but I never dreamt it was as huge
as this. I desire to know how fast I am floating thru the air, and I
calculate that it must be about a billion miles a second.
I am transported to wonderland. I walk in streets where gold is dirt,
and I have no desire to gather it. I wonder whether it is worth while
to explore the canals of Mars, or rock myself on the rings of Saturn,
but before I can decide, a thousand other fancies enter my excited
brain.
I wish to see if I can concentrate my mind sufficiently to recite
something, and I succeed in correctly quoting this stanza from a
favorite poem which I am perpetually re-reading:
“Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the rose is blown.”
It occurs to me that it is high honor for Tennyson to have his poetry
quoted in heaven.
I turn, I twist, I twirl. I melt, I fade, I dissolve. No diaphanous
cloud is so light and airy as I. I admire the ease with which I
float. My gracefulness fills me with delight. My body is not subject
to the law of gravitation. I sail dreamily along, lost in exquisite
intoxication.
New scenes of wonder continually unravel themselves before my
astonished eyes. I say to myself that if I could only record one
one-thousandth of the ideas which come to me every second, I would be
considered a greater poet than Milton.
I am on the top of a high mountain-peak. I am alone--only the
romantic night envelops me. From a distant valley I hear the gentle
tinkling of cow-bells. I float downwards, and find immense fields
in which peacock’s tails are growing. They wave slowly, to better
exhibit their dazzling ocelli, and I revel in the gorgeous colors. I
pass over mountains and I sail over seas. I am the monarch of the air.
I hear the songs of women. Thousands of maidens pass near me, they
bend their bodies in the most charming curves, and scatter beautiful
flowers in my fragrant path. Some faces are strange, some I knew on
earth, but all are lovely. They smile, and sing and dance. Their bare
feet glorify the firmament. It is more than flesh can stand. I grow
sensual unto satyriasis. The aphrodisiac effect is astonishing in its
intensity. I enjoy all the women of the world. I pursue countless
maidens thru the confines of heaven. A delicious warmth suffuses my
whole body. Hot and blissful I float thru the universe, consumed
with a resistless passion. And in the midst of this unexampled and
unexpected orgy, I think of the case reported by the German Dr.
Reidel, about a drug-clerk who took a huge dose of hasheesh to enjoy
voluptuous visions, but who heard not even the rustle of Aphrodite’s
garment, and I laugh at him in scorn and derision.
I sigh deeply, open my eyes, and find myself sitting with one foot
in bed, and the other on my desk. I am bathed in warm sweat which is
pleasant. But my head aches, and there is a feeling in my stomach
which I recognize and detest. It is nausea. I pull the basket near
me, and await the inevitable result. At the same time I feel like
begging for mercy, for I have traveled so far and so long, and I am
tired beyond limit, and I need a rest. The fatal moment approaches,
and I lower my head for the easier deposition of the rising burden.
And my head seems monstrously huge, and weighted with lead. At last
the deed is done, and I lean back on the pillow.
I hear my sister come home from the opera. I wish to call her. My
sister’s name is Ellen. I try to say it, but I cannot. The effort
is too much. I sigh in despair. It occurs to me that I may achieve
better results if I compromise on Nell, as this contains one syllable
instead of two. Again I am defeated. I am too weary to exert myself
to any extent, but I am determined. I make up my mind to collect all
my strength, and call out: Nell. The result is a fizzle. No sound
issues from my lips. My lips do not move. I give it up. My head falls
on my breast, utterly exhausted and devoid of all energy.
Again my brain teems. Again I hear that high and heavenly harmony,
again I float to the outposts of the universe and beyond, again I see
the dancing maidens with their soft yielding bodies, white and warm.
I am excited unto ecstasy. I feel myself a brother to the Oriental,
for the same drug which gives him joy is now acting on me. I am
conscious all the time, and I say to myself in a knowing way with
a suspicion of a smile: All these visions because of 20 minims of
cannabis indica. My only regret is that the trances are ceaseless. I
wish respite, but for answer I find myself floating over an immense
ocean. Then the vision grows so wondrous, that body and soul I give
myself up to it, and I taste the fabled joys of paradise. Ah, what
this night is worth!
The music fades, the beauteous girls are gone, and I float no more.
But the black rubber covering of my typewriter glows like a chunk
of yellow phosphorus. By one door stands a skeleton with a luminous
abdomen and brandishes a wooden sword. By the other door a little
red devil keeps guard. I open my eyes wide, I close them tight, but
these spectres will not vanish. I know they are not real, I know I
see them because I took hasheesh, but they annoy me nevertheless. I
become uncomfortable, even frightened. I make a superhuman effort,
and succeed in getting up and lighting the gas. It is two o’clock.
Everything is the way it should be, except that in the basket I
notice the remains of an orange--somewhat the worse for wear.
I feel relieved, and fall asleep. Something is handling me, and I
start in fright. I open my eyes and see my father. He has returned
from a meeting at the Academy of Medicine, and surprised at seeing
a light in my room at such a time, has entered. He surmises what
I have done, and is anxious to know what quantity I have taken. I
should have answered, with a wink, _quantum sufficit_, but I have no
inclination for conversation; on hearing the question repeated, I
answer, “Twenty minims.” He tells me I look as pale as a ghost, and
brings me a glass of water. I drink it, become quite normal, and
thus ends the most wonderful night of my existence.
In the morning my capacity for happiness is considerably increased. I
have an excellent appetite, the coffee I sip is nectar, and the white
bread ambrosia. I take my camera, and walk to Central Park. It is a
glorious day. Everyone I meet is idealized. The lake never looked so
placid before. I enter the hot-houses, and a gaudy-colored insect
buzzing among the lovely flowers fills me with joy. I am too languid
to take any pictures; to set the focus, to use the proper stop, to
locate the image, to press the bulb--all these seem herculean feats
which I dare not even attempt. But I walk and walk, without apparent
effort, and my mind eagerly dwells on the brilliant pageantry of the
night before. I do not wish to forget my frenzied nocturnal revelry
upon the vast dome of the broad blue heavens. I wish to remember
forever, the floating, the mercury-globules, the peacock-feathers,
the colors, the music, the women. In memory I enjoy the carnival all
over again.