And taken generally, I must say that, in this point at
least, the poor are more philosophic than the rich--that they show a more
ready and cheerful submission to what they consider as irremediable evils
or irreparable losses. Whenever I saw occasion, or could do it without
appearing to be intrusive, I joined their parties, and gave my opinion
upon the matter in discussion, which, if not always judicious, was always
received indulgently. If wages were a little higher or expected to be
so, or the quartern loaf a little lower, or it was reported that onions
and butter were expected to fall, I was glad; yet, if the contrary were
true, I drew from opium some means of consoling myself. For opium (like
the bee, that extracts its materials indiscriminately from roses and from
the soot of chimneys) can overrule all feelings into compliance with the
master-key. Some of these rambles led me to great distances, for an
opium-eater is too happy to observe the motion of time; and sometimes in
my attempts to steer homewards, upon nautical principles, by fixing my
eye on the pole-star, and seeking ambitiously for a north-west passage,
instead of circumnavigating all the capes and head-lands I had doubled in
my outward voyage, I came suddenly upon such knotty problems of alleys,
such enigmatical entries, and such sphynx's riddles of streets without
thoroughfares, as must, I conceive, baffle the audacity of porters and
confound the intellects of hackney-coachmen.
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