At Shrewsbury seeing no one doing it we thought it
might look singular and kept ours on. My friend Mr. Phillips, the
tailor, was in one carriage, I did not see him, but he saw me and
afterwards told me he had pointed me out to a clergyman who was in
the carriage with him.
"Oh," said the clergyman, "then that's the man who says England owes
all her greatness to intoxication."
This is rather a free translation of what I did say; but it only
shows how impossible it is to please those who do not wish to be
pleased. Tennyson may talk about the slow sad hours that bring us
all things ill and all good things from evil, because this is vague
and indefinite; but I may not say that, in spite of the terrible
consequences of drunkenness, man's intellectual development would not
have reached its present stage without the stimulus of alcohol--which
I believe to be both perfectly true and pretty generally admitted--
because this is definite. I do not think I said more than this and
am sure that no one can detest drunkenness more than I do. {343} It
seems to me it will be wiser in me not to try to make headway at
Shrewsbury.
Hell-Fire
If Vesuvius does not frighten those who live under it, is it likely
that Hell-fire should frighten any reasonable person?
I met a traveller who had returned from Hades where he had conversed
with Tantalus and with others of the shades.
Pages:
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469