However, the experience of one man is not that
of another, and mine only goes for what it is worth to those to whom,
as much alcohol as is contained in one glass of sherry, or port,
alters away from the standard of health. I have discovered, since
abstinence, that that is true of me. And I am sure, from inquiries, I
have made, that it is true for a great many other people who do not at
all suspect it. Therefore, I appeal to the young and the old, to try
abstinence for the very reasons they now use alcohol--in order to
increase their power of work and their enjoyment of life. Let the
young make the experiment of working on water only. Alcohol slowly
corrupts and certainly retards the activity of the brain of the
greater number of men. They will be able to do all they have to do
more swiftly. And this swiftness will leave them leisure--the blessing
we want most in this over-worked world. And the leisure, not being led
away by alcohol into idleness, into depression which craves unnatural
excitement, into noisy or slothful company, will be more nobly used
and with greater joy in the usage. And the older men, who find it so
difficult to find leisure, and who when they find it cannot enjoy it
because they have a number of slight ailments which do not allow them
perfect health, or which keep them in over-excitement or
over-depression, let them try--though it will need a struggle--whether
the total abandonment of alcohol will not lessen all their ailments,
and by restoring a better temper to the body--for the body with
alcohol in it is like a house with an irritable man in it--enable them
not only to work better, but to enjoy their leisure.
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