Epilogue II: The Victorian Hash Eaters ( Click the highlighted image below to see a page excerpt )
The third section includes 7 excerpts taken from rare and in some cases almost unavailable literature written during the Victorian era 1837-1901. These pieces of literature encompass the themes of hashish intoxication.
Due to recent media disinformation and as the debate on the social impact of cannabis escalates, it is of paramount importance that access to these narratives by impartial and early observers of this phenomenon is preserved and made readily available to the public domain once again. The cannabis in every case but one was taken and explored as an intoxicant. These writings represent the earliest printed cannabis experiences.
Some pukka one liners follow:
“Heaven bless hashish, if its dreams end like this!” Louisa May Alcott 1869
“The last experience of which I had been conscious had seemed to satisfy every human want, physical or spiritual.” Fitz Hugh Ludlow 1857
“Words cannot paint the overwhelming sense of the ludicrous which I then experienced.” Bayard Taylor 1854
“Reality only served as an introduction to the splendours of hallucination.” Théophile Gautier 1846 |
