Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
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I've been wanting to get a nice pipe... But I've become spoiled thanks to some Indian friends, and now I don't want anything besides Indian tobacco, and that can be hard to get your hands on with no smoke shops in the area... Thus making the pipe a waste because I really don't like most other tobaccos any more...
Thinking of it... I've only had store- bought cigarettes a handful of times, and those were ones that one of my Indian friends bought really cheap in India.
I'm happy to say that I'm not a "smoker" in the common sense of the term. The only time I may have had a cigarette with nicotine were the store bought ones... I only ever buy for myself nicotine free rolling tobacco. I can enjoy smoking this way without ever becoming addicted. It works out well for me because whenever I'm in poor financial status (which, being a college student, occurs fairly often), I can stop buying tobacco and not go through any more withdrawal than one might if they give up drawing for a while because they can no longer afford the time.
While I don't condone cocaine or opium, or any other "hard" drug that wasn't that unusual to be used in the Victorian Era, I concider tobacco to be one of those finer things in life, up there with tea. There is something wonderful about sitting out in a garden sipping tea and smoking some nice, light flavoured tobacco while discussing philosophy and literature.
I do have my father's old pipe, but it is a rather bulky wooden one. I might get
this one. I like the slim elegance to it.
On another note, we began reading
The Sign of Four in my Victorian Lit class. It's the second Sherlock Holmes novel, and it opens with a spectacular description of Holmes shooting up on cocaine. I was shocked at the number of people who were taken aback and upset by this. I had to explain to the class about the views of the time, and also the way Doyle makes it so that Holmes has complete control of the habit, which, in my opinion, makes Holmes all the more impressive.
I share his sentiment in that my mind rejects the redundancy of daily life. While I would not pick up such a dangerous habit as cocaine- or morphine, Holmes' other vice, for that matter- I instead busy my mind with logic puzzles and cryptograms. I concede that I am more excitable, like Watson, but I am a rather restless person. I must always have all my faculties engaged, or I grow jittery and nervous.
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I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
-Edgar Allen Poe
