"It may safely be affirmed," thinks the
editor of the _Contemporary Review,_ "that no purely conscientious
writing was ever produced under stimulation from alcohol. Harriet
Martineau was one of those workers who could not write a paragraph without
asking herself, 'Is that wholly true? Is it a good thing to say it? Shall
I lead anyone astray by it? Had I better soften it down, or keep it back?
Is it as well as I can say it?' Writing like that of Wilson's 'Noctes,' or
Hoffman's madder stories, may be produced under the influence of wine,
but 'stuff of the conscience', not." The workman himself is injured, as
well as the quality of his work lessened. Mr. Hamerton says he has seen
terrible results from the use of stimulants at work; and anyone who has
read literary history, or who has had any experience of literary life in
London, knows that the rock upon which many men split is--drink.
Whatever journalists may gain from alcohol, other writers who have
tried it say nothing in its favour. Mr. Howells does not take wine at
all, because it weakens his work and his working force. To Mark Twain
wine is a clog to the pen, not an inspiration. "I have," he says,
"never seen the time when I could write to my satisfaction after
drinking even one glass of wine." Dr. Bain finds abstinence from
alcohol and the tea group essential to intellectual effort. They
induce, he says, a false excitement, not compatible with severe
application to problems of difficulty; and the experience of other
workers, whether literary or scientific, is precisely similar.
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