Diary of a Drug Fiend

214 The Diary of a Drug Fiend And there were rows and rows of old books, mostly Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. There was a big alabaster statue of Ganesha, the elephant god. “This is the place,” I said, “to get hold of the devil.” “ That’s all right,’”’ said Cockie, “‘ but what about a little she-devil for me?” “Oh,” I said, “ if I’m not satisfactory, you’d better give me a week’s salary in lieu of notice.” We laughed like mad. Something in the room made our heads swim. We began kissing and wrestling. It’s all very well to laugh at magic, but after all certain ideas do belong to certain things; and you can get an idea going, if you're reminded of it by a place like this.. (Lady Pendragon’s Dtary ts interrupted by a note written on some later occasion tn the handwriting of Mr. Basil King Lamus. Ed.) Lou means all right, bless her! She makes me think of Anatole France—La Rotisserie de la Reine Pédauque —old Coignard has been warned by the Rosicrucian not to pronounce the word Agla, and the moment he does so, a wheel comes off his carriage, with the result that he gets murdered by Moses. Then, again, all the Rosicructan’s predictions come true ; and he himself goes up in a flame like the Salamander he has been invoking. He looks upon hts own death as the crown of his career—the climax towards whtch he has been working. Anatole France is, in fact, compelled to write as tf the Rosicructan theories were correct, although his conscious self ts busily exposing the absurdity of magic. It looks as if the artist’s true self were convinced of the actuality of magic, and insisted on expressing itself despite every effort of the sceptscal intellect to turn the