THREE:"Dr. Bronson says he tried to smoke opium the first time he was in China, but it made him very ill, and he did not get through with a single pipe. Some Europeans have learned to like it, and have lost their senses in consequence of giving way to the temptation. It is said to be the most seductive thing in the world, and some who have tried it once say it was so delightful that they would not risk a second time, for fear the habit would be so fixed that they could not shake it off. It is said that when a Chinese has tried it for ten or fifteen days in succession he cannot recover, or but very rarely does so. The effects are worse than those of intoxicating liquors, as they speedily render a man incapable of any kind of business, even when he is temporarily free from the influence of the drug. The habit is an expensive one, as the cost of opium is very great in consequence of the taxes and the high profits to those who deal in it. In a short time a man finds that all his earnings go for opium, and even when he is comfortably[Pg 326] well off he will make a serious inroad on his property by his indulgence in the vice. A gentleman who has lived long in China, and studied the effects of opium on the people, says as follows:Mr Keeling was accustomed to consider the hour or two after lunch on Sunday as the most enjoyable time in the week, for then he gave himself up to the full and uninterrupted pursuit of his hobby. None of his family ever came into his study without invitation, and since he never gave such invitation, he had no fear about being disturbed. Before now he had tried to establish with one or other of them the communication of his joy in his books: he had asked Alice into his sanctuary one Sunday, but when he had shown her an exquisitely tooled binding by Cameron, she had said, ��Oh, what a pretty cover!�� A pretty cover!... somehow Alice��s appreciation was more hopeless than if she had not admired it at all. Then, opening it, she had come across a slightly compromising picture of Bacchus and Ariadne, and had turned over in such a hurry she had crumpled the corner of the page. Her father hardly knew whether her maidenly confusion was not worse than the outrage on his adored volume. Stern moralist and Puritan though he was, this sort of prudery seemed to him an affectation that bordered on imbecility. On another he had asked Hugh to look at his books,{32} and Hugh had been much struck by the type of the capital letters in an edition of Omar Khayyam, wondering if it could be enlarged and used in some advertisement of the approaching summer sale at the stores. ��That��s the sort of type we want,�� he said. ��It hits you in the eye; that does. You can��t help reading what is written in it.�� Very likely that was quite true, for Hugh had an excellent perception in the matter of attractive type and arrangement in the advertising department, but his father had shut up the book with a snap, feeling that it was in the nature of a profanity to let the aroma of business drift into an atmosphere incense-laden with his books. His wife presented an even more hopeless case, for she was apt to tell her friends how fond her husband was of reading, and how many new editions he had ordered for his library. Clearly, if this temple was to retain its sense of consecration he must permit no more of these infidel intruders.