OCR Text |
Show Real Handicap to Genius. There has been much sentimental sophistry written about the dissolute habits of brilliant men. It ha's even been 'argued that geniuses achieved their best -work in drink, whn every observant man kiunvs that the intellectual drunkar accomplishes the minimum of deeds in spite, and not because of, his drunkenness. An inherited appetite is -marie the excuse for others, but imostigation has proved , that not one drunkard in ten likes the flavor of whisky. The cowardice of weaklings prompts them to evade worry by getting drunk; idleness invites the search for now- sensations and new impressions, im-pressions, and thousands become the slaves of ;t habit which started as an adventure; dullards be-! be-! come bright for a moment under the influence of alcohol, only to drop below the low level of their normal mentality when their Meak brains are sat-J sat-J ura ted M"ilh the fumes of a debauch, i In these days of materialism the question 'Ts it ! a sin f ' is seldom asked as to drunkenness. "Does it pay?" or "Is it unhealthy are far more popular lines of inquiry, and are. in their answers, perhaps more apt to stem the tide of drunkennncss which is rising from year to year. Drunkards generally know tlie true ansMTrs to these questions. They will tell you that it is less of a sin to be drunk than to steal, and they do not steal: that they have no special use for money, or that they don't care what disease they die of, since they mu-t die anyway. There is nothing curious or mystifying about the development of drunken habits in the individual. There are pathological as M"ell as spiritual reasons for the permanence of the habit, once formed. But there are millions of drunkards in the Avorld who j do not realize the effects upon their own lives brought about by the excessive use of stimulants. In this connection it should be admitted by every drinker of alcoholic beverages that one drink results in incipient drunkenness. The rest is a question of degree. The resultant evils are proportionate propor-tionate to the quantities of liquor consumed. It is, after "all. a matter of comparison; drunk, more drunk, most drunk; the effects keeping step with the degrees, but nature in its perversity or in its logical sequence, always demanding the superlative as the last penalty of the initial positive. There M-as a time when the employer who objected ob-jected to his employe's bibulous habits was regarded as meddlesome and impertinent. Xow he is in the same relative position as the poM-der mill superintendent superin-tendent M"ho objects when his helpers insist " on smoking their pipes in the magazine. To say that it M-as the whisky that "did the talking" may pass for an excuse for the incoherent braggart, but then whisky begins to falsify gools, incapacitate workmen, work-men, and disgust customers, it can hardly be considered con-sidered impertinent or meddlesome for the owner of the business or his conscientious managers to object. In these days, as a matter of cold and concrete fact, the young man must choose between liquor and success. One spells failure first, last 1 and all the time. Tile other is incompatible M"ith drunkenness in any degree. Even the moderate drinker is the, material and making of the abandoned aban-doned sot. There is no middle ground betM-een drunkenness and success; they are like fusel oil and M-ater, antagonistic and unmixablc. L |