Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/142

118 man's health and strength; when they did not, as yet, know that wine contained a poison always injurious to the health of men; when men did not, as yet, realize the terrible consequences of drunkenness, which are now patent to all eyes.

It was possible to say this when there were not, as yet, these hundreds and thousands of men prematurely dying in cruel torments simply because they had learned to drink intoxicating beverages, and could not, as yet, abstain from the use of them. It was well to say that wine is a harmless pleasure before we had seen those hundreds and thousands of poor tormented women and children suffering because their husbands and fathers had learned to drink wine.

It was well enough to say this before we had witnessed these hundreds and thousands of criminals filling the jails; the exiles, galley-slaves, and ruined women, who had fallen into this condition owing to wine.

It was well enough to say this before we knew that hundreds of thousands of men, who might have lived their lives with delight to themselves and others, have ruined their energies and their intellects and their souls simply because intoxicating beverages existed and they were tempted by them.

And therefore it is no longer possible, in our time, to say that the drinking or non-drinking of wine is a private affair, that we do not consider the moderate use of wine injurious to ourselves, and do not wish to teach any one or be taught by any one, that we did not begin it and it is not for us to end it. It is impossible to say this now; the use of wine or abstinence from it is, in our day, not a private matter, but a public matter.

Now all men—it is all the same whether they wish it or do not wish it—are divided into two camps: those in the one camp are fighting against the employment of a useless poison—intoxicating drinks—both by word and deed, not using wine and not offering it to others; those in the opposite camp uphold both by word and, more powerfully than all else, by force of example the use of this poison, and this contest is going on at the