My Life as an Author

. For example;-as an undergraduate at Oxford I starved myself in the matter of sugar, by way of somehow discouraging the slave-trade; I don't know that either C?sar o

r two months of part-consumption thereof, reduced my native strength to such utter weakness as quite to endanger h

f only water, my nerve power was so exhausted (I was working hard at the time as editor of "The Anglo-Saxon," a long extinct magazine) that

ages. That one departure from sobriety happened thus. My uncle, Colonel Selwyn, just returned from his nine years' command at Graham's Town, South Africa, gave a grand dinner at the Opera Colonnade to his friends and relatives, resolved (according to the fashion of the time) to fill them all to the full with generous Bacchus by obligatory toasts, he himself pretending to prefer his own bottle of brown sherry,-in fact, dishonest toast and water; but that sort of practical joke was also a fashion of the day. The result, of course, was what he desired; everybody but himself had too much, whilst his mean sobriety, cruel uncle! enjoyed the calm superiority of temperance over tipsiness. However, the lesson to me (though never intended as such) was most timely,-just as I was entering life to be forewarned by having

the States twenty-five years ago, few changes are more remarkable than that in the drinking habits of the people; formerly it was all for spirituous liquors, and now it is "Water, water everywhere, and every drop to drink!" The bars are well-nigh deserted, and the entrance-halls of most houses are ostentatiously furnished with plated beakers and goblets ensuring an icy welcome: in fact, not to be tedious, intemperance has changed f

Yes! true Tem

ll things, the

much'-Greek,

búlus, the Se

lden mean' was sh

self laid it

ermuch' is a

alted is worse

Stagyrite, Pe

tion in all t

better this tr

s strongest of

pressing each

course, but in

all means let n

t none be a g

feed as bec

dulging and whol

self, as an

self, the asce

as been, and wi

temperance, pr

heart (it has

ll means of all

honours, in mea

e most that his

sensual Luc

the starving S

all churches a

he feet of a pr

Rothschild, an

rancis (in all t

arved as a Faqui

attened to lu

d meats, on le

od wine, by w

excessive his

ation that Scr

excess is no f

nd needing a gl

gestion, to qu

tongue for it

yielding one

enting the leas

intolerant

Muse would exc

or tipsy An

chus, the drun

e is the sermon

e as the text

s slyly, that '

andusia, this

often is trou

e monsters the

o muddy, and s

d gases, both f

onnected with

he mind with unpl

e asks, is it

e live anima

cooked with a l

of whisky or

draught of the

warm both the he

rst-fable, the

limax the prais

e read-look it

heart, both of

ghtness, and brig

mperance texts w

drink to the r

rtedness joyi

nd let some Good

kenness, nigh

is nice, warm, p

akes,' and sedu

hot in the mouth'

winks it, in spi

stimulant cu

and opium, and

water and free

we find such a

pure or the wis

tter for all

al of ever

d fools the goo

one vow not to

east rein to a

recklessly burnt

cheats, or the r

logic, the r

o me, cohere

poor sot in hi

my likings, and

her's keeper? H

roof, and no gu

ates, we are not

pothouse, that di

example?-The drun

told of it, scor

children!-No d

always a law

temperance is

and hinder the

abstinence pro

are up because g

ction is string

tremis is sur

m swings with a

om its even le

o has not?-that

gh his fanatic

the night of fre

ks out to the wr

r-fever just n

perish, thou sla

e, and drink mor

wines? Not a tas

is fever a fer

nounce, but its c

o hard and the

ow prices are

society shrew

e, the whole a

upposed sugges

d water is gen

good wine is an

trade is once m

ypocrisy; ma

they practise, th

heir boyhood to

etter on wife, s

some it is mer

the wine, and with

rofess the self

temperance mak

elmsman too quic

ybdis they ste

utter intem

f water consu

he first miracl

ged to water, bu

he Kingdom, th

th every new e

ake glad both

sad, and make

Redeemer was

he sinners and

emperance, ye

d wine, but a

retend to do

Master, as se

, and handle, t

ceive, but all

ue Christian with

ks for the wine

ate of a poor old friend of mine in past days who was fatally a victim to total abstinence. The story goes that a teetotal lecturer, in order to give his audience ocular proof of the poisonous character of alcohol, first magnifies the horrible denizens of stagnant water by his microscope, and then triumphantly kills them all by a drop or two of brandy! As if this did not prove the wholesomeness of eau de vie in such cases. If, for example, my poor friend above, the eminent Dr. Hodgkin of Bedford Square, had followed his companion's example, the still more eminent Moses Montefiore, by mixing water far too full of life with

ly true. I have often smiled at the pious fervour with which the heads of large families with small incomes have embraced teetotalism! I have long thought that the motto 'in vino veritas' contains in it far more of 'veritas' than is dreamt of in most people's philosophy, and that the age of rampant total abstinence is the age of special falseness. Of course, the evils of drunkenness can scarcely be exaggerated,-and yet they can be and are so when they are spoken of as

ement and example of His dear Son. But when we see the present tendency to anathematise open profligacy, and to ignore the hidden Pharisaism (

sorts of perils and trials that might be spoken of as an a