If the Chinese
custom had prevailed among the ancient Hebrew people, think you that
King Solomon in singing of the graces of the Shulamite, who represents
the Church mystically, would ever have exclaimed,--"How beautiful
are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter!" We should have lost,
moreover, much that is noble in art, and the poetic creations of Greek
sculptors would never have delighted the eye nor enchained the fancy.
In our perambulations about Chinatown, we must next visit an
opium-joint. This mysterious place was situated in a long, rambling
building through which we had to move cautiously so as not to stumble
into some pit or dangerous hole or trap-door. Here were no electric
lights to drive away the gloom, here no gas-jets to show us where we
were treading, nothing but an occasional lamp dimly burning. Yet we
went on as if drawn by a magic spell. At last we were ushered into a
room poorly furnished. It was not more than twelve feet square, and in
the corner was an apology for a bed. On this was stretched an old man
whose face was sunken, whose eyes were lusterless, whose hand was long
and thin and bony, and whose voice was attenuated and pitched in a
falsetto key.
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