Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/693



again, and greedily swallowed large goblets of drink, mostly in private. Often he advdsed Boswell to abandon the bottle, but Bozzy loved his potations, and preferred his sottish enjoyments to any other.

Johnson. *'I did not leave off wine because I could not bear it; I have drunk three bottles of port without being the worse for it. University college has witnessed this."

Boswell. "Why, then sir, did you leave it off?"

Johnson. " Why, sir, because it is so much better for a man to be sure that he is never to be intoxicated, never to lose the power over himself I shall not begin to drink wine again till I grow old and Avant it."

Boswell. " I think, sir, you once said to me that not to drink wine was a great deduction from life."

Johnson. "It is a diminution of pleasure, to be sure; but I do not say a diminution of happiness. There is more happiness in being rational."

A Bosw^ell will tell you that benevolence lies at the root of drunkenness. A friend asks you to drink with him, your entertainer begs you to take wine with him, and rather than offend, or seem discourteous, or send a chill round the table, you throw aside your scruples, drink once, then again and again, and soon linow next to nothing;.

The practice of urging persons to drink cannot be too plainly condemned. To some, drink is distasteful, to others hurtful, to others maddening, to not a few—death. It may be pleasure for him who can with ease command his appetite, for him to whom excess in drink has no temptations, by appealing to friendship, good-fellowship, and in the name of hospitality to wrap around those he pretends to love a sheet of flaming^ fire which shall consume them.

Said Sir Joshua Reynolds, *' At first the taste of "V^ine was disagreeable to me, but I brought myself to drink it that I might be like other people. The pleasure of drinking wine is so connected with pleasing