But the steady, continued
exercise of the mental powers demanded of professional men is more
often impeded than aided at the time by alcohol."
_Contemporary Review_, vol. 34, p. 343.
THE REV. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, M. A.
"It has been said that moderate doses of alcohol stimulate work into
greater activity, and make life happier and brighter. My experience,
since I became a total abstainer, has been the opposite. I have found
myself able to work better. I have a greater command over any powers I
possess. I can make use of them when I please. When I call upon them,
they answer; and I need not wait for them to be in the humour. It is
all the difference between a machine well oiled and one which has
something, among the wheels which catches and retards the movement at
unexpected times. As to the pleasure of life, it has been also
increased. I enjoy Nature, books, and men more than I did--and my
previous enjoyment of them was not small. Those attacks of depression
which come to every man at times who lives too sedentary a life rarely
visit me now, and when depression does come from any trouble, I can
overcome it far more quickly than before. The fact is, alcohol, even
in the small quantities I took it, while it did not seem to injure
health, injures the fineness of that physical balance which means a
state of health in which all the world is pleasant. That is my
experience after four months of water-drinking, and it is all the more
striking to me, because for the last four or five years I have been a
very moderate drinker.
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