FADS AND FANCIES.
In a recent page I have alluded to sundry "fads and fancies of the day,"
some of greater and others of lesser import, and I have been mixed up in
two or three of them. For example;--as an undergraduate at Oxford I
starved myself in the matter of sugar, by way of somehow discouraging
the slave-trade; I don't know that either Cæsar or Pompey was any the
better for my small self-sacrifice; but as a trifling fact, I may
mention that I then followed some of the more straitlaced fashions of
Clapham. Also, when in lodgings after my degree, I resolved to leave off
meat, bought an immense Cheshire cheese, and, after two months of
part-consumption thereof, reduced my native strength to such utter
weakness as quite to endanger health. So I had to relapse into the old
carnality of mutton chops, like other folk: such extreme virtue doesn't
pay.
Of course abstinence from all stimulant has had its hold on me
heretofore, as it has upon many others,--but, after a persistent six
months of only water, my nerve power was so exhausted (I was working
hard at the time as editor of "The Anglo-Saxon," a long extinct
magazine) that my wise doctor enjoined wine and whisky--of course in
moderation; and so my fluttering heart soon recovered, and I have been
well ever since.
Now about temperance, let me say thus much. Of course, I must approve
the modern very philanthropic movement, but only in its rational aspect
of moderation. In my youth, the pendulum swung towards excess, now its
reaction being exactly opposite; both extremes to my mind are wrong. And
here let me state (_valeat quantum_) that I never exceeded in liquor but
once in my life: that once serving afterwards as a valuable life lesson
all through the wine-parties of Christ Church, the abounding
hospitalities of America, both North and South, through two long
visits--and the genialities of our own Great Britain during my several
Reading Tours. If it had not been for that three days' frightful
headache when I was a youth (in that sense a good providence), I could
not have escaped so many generous hosts and seductive beverages. That
one departure from sobriety happened thus. My uncle, Colonel Selwyn,
just returned from his nine years' command at Graham's Town, South
Africa, gave a grand dinner at the Opera Colonnade to his friends and
relatives, resolved (according to the fashion of the time) to fill them
all to the full with generous Bacchus by obligatory toasts, he himself
pretending to prefer his own bottle of brown sherry,--in fact, dishonest
toast and water; but that sort of practical joke was also a fashion of
the day. The result, of course, was what he desired; everybody but
himself had too much, whilst his mean sobriety, cruel uncle! enjoyed the
calm superiority of temperance over tipsiness. However, the lesson to me
(though never intended as such) was most timely,--just as I was entering
life to be forewarned by having been for only that once overtaken. I
have ever since been thankful for it as a mercy; and few have been so
favoured; how many can truly say, only that once? But I pass on, having
a great deal more to write about temperance. On my first visit to
America in 1851, all that mighty people indulged freely in strong drinks
of the strangest names and most delicious flavours: on my second in
1876,--just a quarter of a century after,--there was almost nothing to
be got but iced water. Accordingly when I was at Charleston I took up my
parable,--and spoke through a local paper as follows: I fear the extract
is somewhat lengthy, but as an exhaustive argument (and the piece,
moreover, being unprinted in any of my books), I choose to give it here
in full, to be skipped if the reader pleases. It is introduced thus by
an editor:--
"In these days of extreme abstinence from wine and spirits, it is
refreshing to see what the strong common-sense of an eminent moral
philosopher has to say about temperance. We make, then, a longish
extract, well-nigh exhaustive of the subject, which occurs in a
lecture, entitled 'America Revisited--1851 and 1877,' from the pen
of Martin Tupper, explaining itself. The author introduces his
poetic essay thus:--'Since my former visit to the States
twenty-five years ago, few changes are more remarkable than that in
the drinking habits of the people; formerly it was all for
spirituous liquors, and now it is "Water, water everywhere, and
every drop to drink!" The bars are well-nigh deserted, and the
entrance-halls of most houses are ostentatiously furnished with
plated beakers and goblets ensuring an icy welcome: in fact, not to
be tedious, intemperance has changed front, and excess in water has
taken the place of excess in wine.'" To an Englishman's judgment
the true "part of Hamlet" in a feast is the more generous fluid,
and the greatest luxuries are simply Barmecidal without some
wholesome stimulant to wash them down; accordingly, my too
outspoken honesty protested thus in print against this form of
folly in extremes, and either pleased or offended, as friends or
foes might choose to take it.
"Temperance? Yes! true Temperance, yes!
Moderation in all things, the word is express;
'Nothing too much'--Greek, 'Meden Agan;'
So spake Cleobúlus, the Seventh Wise Man;
And the grand 'golden mean' was shrewd Horace's law,
And Solomon's self laid it down for a saw
That 'good overmuch' is a possible fault,
As meat over-salted is worse for the salt;
And Chilo, the Stagyrite, Peter, and Paul,
Enjoin moderation in all things to all;
The law to make better this trial-scene, earth,
And draw out its strongest of wisdom and worth,
By sagely suppressing each evil excess--
In feasting, of course, but in fasting no less--
In drinking--by all means let no one get drunk--
In eating, let none be a gluttonous monk,
But everyone feed as becometh a saint,
With grateful indulging and wholesome restraint,
Not pampering self, as an epicure might,
Nor famishing self, the ascetic's delight.
"But man ever has been, and will be, it seems,
Given up to intemperance, prone to extremes;
The wish of his heart (it has always been such)
Is, give me by all means of all things too much!
In pleasures and honours, in meats, and in drinks,
He craves for the most that his coveting thinks;
To wallow in sensual Lucullus's sty,
Or stand like the starving Stylités on high,
To be free from all churches and worship alone,
Or chain'd to the feet of a priest on a throne,
To be rich as a Rothschild, and dozens beside,
Or poor as St. Francis (in all things but pride),
With appetite starved as a Faquir's, poor wretch!
Or appetite fattened to luxury's stretch;
Denouncing good meats, on lentils he fares,
Denouncing good wine, by water he swears--
In all things excessive his folly withstands
The wise moderation that Scripture commands.
"This vice of excess is no foible of mine,
Though liking and needing a glass of good wine,
To help the digestion, to quicken the heart,
And loosen the tongue for its eloquent part,
But never once yielding one jot to excess,
Nor weakly consenting the least to transgress.
For let no intolerant bigot pretend
My Temperance Muse would excuse or defend,
As Martial or tipsy Anacreon might,
An orgy of Bacchus, the drunkard's delight:
No! rational use is the sermon I'm preaching,
Eschewing abuse as the text of my teaching.
"Old Pindar says slyly, that 'Water is best;'
When pure as Bandusia, this may be confest.
But water so often is troubled with fleas
And queer little monsters the microscope sees;
Is sometimes so muddy, and sometimes so mixt
With poisons and gases, both fixt and unfixt,
And seems so connected with juvenile pills--
A thought which the mind with unpleasantness fills--
That really one asks, is it safe to imbibe
So freely the live animalcula tribe,
Unkilled and uncooked with a little wine sauce
Poured in, or of whisky or brandy a toss--
And gulp a cold draught of the colic, instead
Of something to warm both the heart and the head?
"That Jotham-first-fable, the bramble and vine,
Piles up to a climax the praise of good wine;
For in Judges we read--look it up, as you can--
'It cheereth the heart, both of God and of man;'
And everywhere lightness, and brightness, and health,
Gild the true temperance texts with their wealth,
Giving strong drink to the ready to perish,
And heavy-heartedness joying to cherish.
"What is wanted--and let some Good Templar invent it,
Damaging drunkenness, nigh to prevent it,
Is a drink that is nice, warm, pleasant, and pale,
Delicious as 'cakes,' and seductive as 'ale,'
Like 'ginger that's hot in the mouth' and won't hurt you,
As old Falstaff winks it, in spite of your virtue;
A temperate stimulant cup, to displace
Pipes, hasheesh, and opium, and all that bad race;
Cheap as pure water and free as fresh air--
Oh, where shall we find such a beverage--where?
"No wine for the pure or the wise--so some teach--
Abstinence utter for all and for each,
Total denial of every right use,
Because some bad fools the good creature abuse!
As well might one vow not to warm at a fire,
Nor give the least rein to a lawful desire,
Because some have recklessly burnt down their houses,
Because the rogue cheats, or the reveller carouses!
I see not the logic, the rational logic,
Conclusive to me, coherent and cogic,
That since some poor sot in his folly exceeds,
I must starve out my likings, and stint out my needs.
"Am I _that_ brother's keeper? He is not an Abel,
Is strange to my roof, and no guest at my table:
I know not his mates, we are not near each other,
He swills in the pothouse, that dissolute brother!--
But there's your example?--The drunkards can't see it,
And if they are told of it, scorn it and flee it;
Example?--Your children!--No doubt it is right
To be to them always a law and a light;
But moderate temperance is the vise way
To form them, and hinder their going astray;
Whereas utter abstinence proves itself vain,
And drunkards flare up because good men abstain.
"The law of reaction is stringent and strong,
A youth _in extremis_ is sure to go wrong,
For the pendulum swings with a multiplied force
When sloped from its even legitimate course.
I have known--who has not?--that a profligate son
Has been through his fanatic father undone;
Restrained till the night of free licence arrives,
And then he breaks out to the wreck of two lives!
"A fierce water-fever just now is red-hot;
Drink water, or perish, thou slave and thou sot!
Drink water alone, and drink more, and drink much--
But, liquors or wines? Not a taste, not a touch!
Yet, is not this fever a fervour of thrift?
It is wine you denounce, but its cost is your drift;
The times are so hard and the wines are so bad
(For good at low prices are not to be had),
That forthwith society shrewdly shouts high
For water alone, the whole abstinence cry!
And, somehow supposed suggestive of heaven,
The cup of cold water is generously given,
But a glass of good wine is an obsolete thing,
And will be till trade is once more in full swing!
I hint not hypocrisy; many are true,
They preach what they practise, they say--and they do,
And used from their boyhood to only cold water,
Enjoin nothing better on wife, son, and daughter;
But surely with some it is merely for thrift,
That they out off the wine, and with water make shift,
Although they profess the self-sacrifice made
As dread of intemperance makes them afraid.
And so, like a helmsman too quick with his tiller,
Eschewing Charybdis they steer upon Scylla,
To perish of utter intemperance--Yes!
The victims of water consumed to excess.
"To conclude: The first miracle, wonder Divine,
Wasn't wine changed to water, but water to wine,
That wine of the Kingdom, the water of life
Transmuted, with every new excellence rife,
The wine to make glad both body and soul,
To cheer up the sad, and make the sick whole.
And when the Redeemer was seen among men,
He drank with the sinners and publicans then,
Exemplar of Temperance, yea, to the sot,
In use of good wine, but abusing it not!
We dare not pretend to do better than He;
But follow the Master, as servants made free
To touch, taste, and handle, to use, not abuse,
All good to receive, but all ill to refuse!
It is thus the true Christian with temperance lives,
Giving God thanks for the wine that He gives."
I once heard Mr. Gough, the temperance lecturer: it was at the Brooklyn
Concert Hall in 1877. A handsome and eloquent man, his life is well
known, and that his domestic experiences have made him the good apostle
he is. I remember how well he turned off the argument against himself as
to the miracle of the marriage-feast in Cana of Galilee: "Yes,
certainly, drink as much wine made of water as you can." It was a witty
quip, but is no reply to that miracle of hospitality. _Apropos_,--I do
not know whether or not the following anecdote can be fathered on Mr.
Gough, but it is too good to be lost, especially as it bears upon the
fate of a poor old friend of mine in past days who was fatally a victim
to total abstinence. The story goes that a teetotal lecturer, in order
to give his audience ocular proof of the poisonous character of alcohol,
first magnifies the horrible denizens of stagnant water by his
microscope, and then triumphantly kills them all by a drop or two of
brandy! As if this did not prove the wholesomeness of _eau de vie_ in
such cases. If, for example, my poor friend above, the eminent Dr.
Hodgkin of Bedford Square, had followed his companion's example, the
still more eminent Moses Montefiore, by mixing water far too full of
life with the brandy that killed them for him, he would not have died
miserably in Palestine, eaten of worms as Herod was! Another such
instance I may here mention. When I visited the cemetery of Savannah,
Florida, in company with an American cousin, I noticed it graven on the
marble slab of a relation of ours, a Confederate officer, to the effect
that "he died faithful to his temperance principles, refusing to the
last the alcohol wherewith the doctor wanted to have saved his life!"
Such obstinate teetotalism, I said at the time, is criminally suicidal.
Whereat my lady cousin was horrified, for she regarded her brother as a
martyr.
I cannot help quoting here part of a letter just received from an
excellent young clergyman, who had been reading my "Temperance," quite,
to the point. After some compliments he says, "I need scarcely say I
entirely agree with the scope and arguments of this vigorous poem.
Nothing is more clear, and increasingly so, to my own perception than
the terrible tendency of modern human nature to run into extremes"
(quoting some lines). "Your reference to 'thrift' is especially true. I
have often smiled at the pious fervour with which the heads of large
families with small incomes have embraced teetotalism! I have long
thought that the motto '_in vino veritas_' contains in it far more of
'_veritas_' than is dreamt of in most people's philosophy, and that the
age of rampant total abstinence is the age of special falseness. Of
course, the evils of drunkenness can scarcely be exaggerated,--and yet
they can be and are so when they are spoken of as equal to the evils of
dishonesty: the former is indeed brutal, but the latter is devilish, and
far more effectually destroys the souls of men than the former.
Nevertheless in our poor money-grubbing land, the creeping paralysis of
tricks of trade, &c., is thought little of; and the shopman who has just
sold a third-rate article for a first-class price goes home with
respectable self-complacency and glances with holy horror at the man who
reels past him in the street.
"I desire to say this with reverence and caution. For we all need the
restraining influences of the blessed Spirit of God, as well as the
atonement and example of His dear Son. But when we see the present
tendency to anathematise open profligacy, and to ignore the hidden
Pharisaism (the very opposite to our Lord's own course), and the subtle
lying of the day, it seems as if those who ponder sadly over it ought to
speak out."
Doubtless, there are many more fads and fancies, many other sorts of
perils and trials that might be spoken of as an author's or any other
man's experiences: but I will pass on.