I envy those stolid people
who can talk so contemptuously of frailty--I mean I envy them their
self-mastery; I quite understand the temperament of those who can be
content with a slight exhilaration, and who fiercely contemn the
crackbrain who does not know when to stop. No doubt it is a sad thing
for a man to part with his self-control, but I happen to hold a brief
for the crackbrain, and I say that there is not any man living who can
afford to be too contemptuous, for no one knows when his turn may come
to make a disastrous slip.
Most strange it is that a vice which brings instant punishment on him
who harbours it should be first of all encouraged by the very people who
are most merciless in condemning it. The drunkard has not to wait long
for his punishment; it follows hard on his sin, and he is not left to
the justice of another world. And yet, as we have said, this vice, which
entails such scathing disgrace and suffering, is encouraged in many
seductive ways. The talk in good company often runs on wine; the man who
has the deadly taint in his blood is delicately pressed to take that
which brings the taint once more into ill-omened activity; but, so long
as his tissues show no sign of that flabbiness and general
unwholesomeness which mark the excessive drinker, he is left unnoticed.
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