250 The Diary of a Drug Fiend
y foetor of the foul breath of the dragon who is on his
_ way.to crunch you.
= If you make up your mind to endure the disgusting
Vsymptoms, the demon soon proceeds to more serious
measures.
u has explained in her diary more or less what
these are. But even with the help of the poet, one
cannot give any idea of what it is like. For example,
the question of cold. The reader thinks at once of the
cold of winter. If he has travelled a little and has some
imagination, he may think of the chill spells of fever.
But neither of these give much idea of the nature of the
cold produced by abstinence.
Our poet, whoever he is (his name is not given in
the magazine) certainly succeeds in conveying to his
reader the truth, that is, provided his reader already
knows it. I can’t imagine how it would strike any one
who had not experienced it. For he conveys his meaning,
so to speak, in spite of the words. This business of
expression is very curious.
How could one describe, say, a love affair to a person
who had never had one or imagined one ? All expression
doesis to wake up in the reader theimpressionsin his
own experience which are otherwise dormant. And
he will interpret what is said or written only in terms
of that experience.
Lamus said the other day that he had given up
trying to communicate the results of his researches to
people. They couldn’t even be trusted to read words
of one syllable, though they might have taken the best
degrees in Humane Letters at Oxford. For example,
he would write, ‘Do what thou wilt” to somebody,
and would be attacked by return of post for having
written “ Do as thou wilt.”
Every one interprets everything in terms of his own
experience. If you say anything which does not touch
a precisely similar spot in another man’s brain, he
either misunderstands you, or doesn’t understand you
at all.