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The tripod, we are told, stood over a chasm in the rock, from which issued fumes of an inebriating quality. The Pythia became gradually penetrated through every limb with these fumes, till her bosom swelled, her features enlarged, her mouth foamed, her voice seemed supernatural, and she uttered words that could sometimes scarcely be called articulate.

Accordingly the liturgy of holy-thursday bears the impress both of sorrow and of gladness: it is not unlike a fitful day of April in our northern climes, when the sun now bursts from the clouds which had concealed his brilliancy, and now once more the sky is shrouded in murky gloom an apt emblem this of the over-changing state of man, who at one moment quaffs the inebriating cup of earthly joys, and yet a little, and it is dashed from his grasp; and sickness, sorrow and death are his portion.

Imagine that to-day a great European poet should describe and extol in magnificent verses the sensuous delight of smoking opium; should deify, in a mythology rich in imagery, the inebriating virtues of this product. Imagine that the verses of this poet were read in the schools: you may then by comparison picture to yourself the action of the poems of Horace.

For Samoa, from his utter silence hitherto as to aught inebriating on board, I concluded, that, along with his other secrets, the departed captain had very wisely kept his Otard to himself. Nor did I doubt, but that the Upoluan, like all Polynesians, much loved getting high of head; and in that state, would be more intractable than a Black Forest boar.

At the same time he could not forget his own great loss, occasioned by the unlucky spilling of the precious cup. He was sure, that Madam, in the kindness of her heart, would overlook his fault, and consent to bestow on him another cheering, but not inebriating draught. The Antique was overcome by so much condescension. She could not say a word. Tching-whang, too, remained paralyzed.

She seemed, as it were, a draught of redoubtable Nature inebriating morality. But would others be similarly affected? Victor might get his release, to do justice to the mother: it would not cover the child. Would it be satisfied in matching itself with great wealth, a radiant health, and the good looks of a young flower?

So great is the effect of moral causes and habit upon a physical character esteemed the most treacherous and sanguinary. Whether to blunt the edge of painful reflection, or owing to an aversion our natures have to total inaction, most nations have been addicted to the practice of enjoying by mastication or otherwise the flavour of substances possessing an inebriating quality.

Kind reader, who knows how many times in your sitting-room or perhaps in somebody else's even dearer to you honi soit qui mal y pense! you have found yourself in front of a tiger, leopard or panther whose brindled and glossy skin you have admired; who knows how many times you have absently played with its head, still ferocious-looking, in spite of its glass eyes and red cloth tongue; who knows how often you have toyed with its fangs and claws whilst you were persuing a pleasant thought or inebriating your spirit with the soft tones of a certain voice!

At midnight began the modish music of the dance, and groups of beautiful girls moved like the atoms of Chladni on the vibrating crystal, with their partners, to the sound of harps and violins, in pleasing figures or inebriating spirals.

There was, indeed, a frugal and housewifely Muse, that brewed a cup, neither cheering unduly nor inebriating, out of the emptyings of Wordsworth's teapot. How that little busy B. improved each shining hour, how neatly he laid his wax, it gives us a cold shiver to think of, ancora ci raccappriccia!