登陆注册
15424200000073

第73章 CHAPTER XXXVIII

The foregoing is a sample roaming with the White Logic through the dusk of my soul.

To the best of my power I have striven to give the reader a glimpse of a man's secret dwelling when it is shared with John Barleycorn.And the reader must remember that this mood,which he has read in a quarter of an hour,is but one mood of the myriad moods of John Barleycorn,and that the procession of such moods may well last the clock around through many a day and week and month.

My alcoholic reminiscences draw to a close.I can say,as any strong,chesty drinker can say,that all that leaves me alive to-day on the planet is my unmerited luck--the luck of chest,and shoulders,and constitution.I dare to say that a not large percentage of youths,in the formative stage of fifteen to seventeen,could have survived the stress of heavy drinking that Isurvived between my fifteenth and seventeenth years;that a not large percentage of men could have punished the alcohol I have punished in my manhood years and lived to tell the tale.Isurvived,through no personal virtue,but because I did not have the chemistry of a dipsomaniac and because I possessed an organism unusually resistant to the ravages of John Barleycorn.And,surviving,I have watched the others die,not so lucky,down all the long sad road.

It was my unmitigated and absolute good fortune,good luck,chance,call it what you will,that brought me through the fires of John Barleycorn.My life,my career,my joy in living,have not been destroyed.They have been scorched,it is true;like the survivors of forlorn hopes,they have by unthinkably miraculous ways come through the fight to marvel at the tally of the slain.

And like such a survivor of old red war who cries out,"Let there be no more war!"so I cry out,"Let there be no more poison-fighting by our youths!"The way to stop war is to stop it.The way to stop drinking is to stop it.The way China stopped the general use of opium was by stopping the cultivation and importation of opium.The philosophers,priests,and doctors of China could have preached themselves breathless against opium for a thousand years,and the use of opium,so long as opium was ever accessible and obtainable,would have continued unabated.We are so made,that is all.

We have with great success made a practice of not leaving arsenic and strychnine,and typhoid and tuberculosis germs lying around for our children to be destroyed by.Treat John Barleycorn the same way.Stop him.Don't let him lie around,licensed and legal,to pounce upon our youth.Not of alcoholics nor for alcoholics do I write,but for our youths,for those who possess no more than the adventure-stings and the genial predispositions,the social man-impulses,which are twisted all awry by our barbarian civilisation which feeds them poison on all the corners.

It is the healthy,normal boys,now born or being born,for whom Iwrite.

It was for this reason,more than any other,and more ardently than any other,that I rode down into the Valley of the Moon,all a-jingle,and voted for equal suffrage.I voted that women might vote,because I knew that they,the wives and mothers of the race,would vote John Barleycorn out of existence and back into the historical limbo of our vanished customs of savagery.If I thus seem to cry out as one hurt,please remember that I have been sorely bruised and that I do dislike the thought that any son or daughter of mine or yours should be similarly bruised.

The women are the true conservators of the race.The men are the wastrels,the adventure-lovers and gamblers,and in the end it is by their women that they are saved.About man's first experiment in chemistry was the making of alcohol,and down all the generations to this day man has continued to manufacture and drink it.And there has never been a day when the women have not resented man's use of alcohol,though they have never had the power to give weight to their resentment.The moment women get the vote in any community,the first thing they proceed to do is to close the saloons.In a thousand generations to come men of themselves will not close the saloons.As well expect the morphine victims to legislate the sale of morphine out of existence.

The women know.They have paid an incalculable price of sweat and tears for man's use of alcohol.Ever jealous for the race,they will legislate for the babes of boys yet to be born;and for the babes of girls,too,for they must be the mothers,wives,and sisters of these boys.

And it will be easy.The only ones that will be hurt will be the topers and seasoned drinkers of a single generation.I am one of these,and I make solemn assurance,based upon long traffic with John Barleycorn,that it won't hurt me very much to stop drinking when no one else drinks and when no drink is obtainable.On the other hand,the overwhelming proportion of young men are so normally non-alcoholic,that,never having had access to alcohol,they will never miss it.They will know of the saloon only in the pages of history,and they will think of the saloon as a quaint old custom similar to bull-baiting and the burning of witches.

同类推荐
  • 母亲

    母亲

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • Lyrical Poems

    Lyrical Poems

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 闽中理学渊源考

    闽中理学渊源考

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 佛说稻秆经

    佛说稻秆经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 心目论

    心目论

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 凤临天下之倾世傻妃

    凤临天下之倾世傻妃

    “天下与爱情不可兼得,你选择了我,便注定了不能负的事实。否则,就算是死,我也会毁了你最重要的东西。”言家从小口不能语的痴傻小姐竟然开口说话了,一切的一切开始浮出水面,最当初的背叛和陷害,她,要让那些曾经伤害自己人,痛不欲生!幻想着美满梦幻的爱情,最后却发现一切都是一个圈套。。。。。。“告诉我,还有没有再来一次的机会。。。。。。。。。。。”
  • 江流石转

    江流石转

    一个优秀的少年不满世界的平淡无奇,渴望奇遇的到来。而在一个与平常无异的傍晚,一块平淡无奇的石头似乎使得一切都与平常不同了,是上天听到了少年内心的呼唤,还是……
  • 福妻驾到

    福妻驾到

    现代饭店彪悍老板娘魂穿古代。不分是非的极品婆婆?三年未归生死不明的丈夫?心狠手辣的阴毒亲戚?贪婪而好色的地主老财?吃上顿没下顿的贫困宭境?不怕不怕,神仙相助,一技在手,天下我有!且看现代张悦娘,如何身带福气玩转古代,开面馆、收小弟、左纳财富,右傍美男,共绘幸福生活大好蓝图!!!!快本新书《天媒地聘》已经上架开始销售,只要3.99元即可将整本书抱回家,你还等什么哪,赶紧点击下面的直通车,享受乐乐精心为您准备的美食盛宴吧!)
  • 勿忘我之恋

    勿忘我之恋

    勿忘我的花语--代表了永恒的记忆。无论何时何地都能让记忆鲜明地留在脑海间。但是勿忘我还有一个缺点,那就是没有香味。或许上帝是公平的,他给万物很多优点的同时,也不忘让每一样事物有缺陷。我和你之间,既然成不了永远,那就让它成为永恒的记忆……你不要责怪上帝,正如‘勿忘我’一般,上帝给了它一切,但也给了它缺陷,而上帝给了我爱的你,同样的,上帝也给了我痛心的缺陷。只求亲爱的你,不要为了我而哭泣。我只求你记住:我爱你,不仅只存在于过去式,现在时,也存在于——将来时。也许在什么时候,我会再次回来,与你一起执行我们约定下的勿忘我约定。
  • TF凯恋

    TF凯恋

    她,毫无预兆的闯进了他的心里,他们都是爱着彼此的,但没有人先开口,直到她的离开,他才知道她对他有多么重要,当她再回来时,他下定决心,这一次,他一定会留下她,好好的爱她。
  • 双重面

    双重面

    讲述身为间谍混在一帮从小就认识的朋友中的花野翾,她该如何完成自己的使命呢?她的选择,是逃避,还是面对?面对自己的伙伴,她该如何下手,是杀了他们,还是杀了自己?
  • 苇花飘处

    苇花飘处

    在洞庭湖深处,有一些浮出湖水的陆地,当地人称为“湖洲”,人们世代以渔、樵业为生。它们看似与城市相接,其实一直都有它独特固守的地方。忽然有一天,湖洲跟城市距离更近了,洲上的女孩也都想书写不同于她们父辈的人生。而真实的生活,是否是人生的宿命,还是生命的大合唱?
  • 武逆星恒

    武逆星恒

    掌阴阳,握无极,逆转乾坤;斗苍穹,夺生死,武逆星恒。天才强者林宇航,正欲突破圣武境,却被五人围攻,带着深深的遗憾和不甘,重生到八年前。逆天强者的路,唯有靠永不熄灭的斗志去书写!
  • 鹿晗——你是命,不是萌

    鹿晗——你是命,不是萌

    当高冷男神碰上冰山女神,会擦出怎样的火花?
  • 圣枪皇鼎天

    圣枪皇鼎天

    东皇太一收回自己的东皇钟,看了看杨天,暗暗心想:他虽然只有准圣,但他手中的长枪却可以把我的东皇钟给击回来,并毫无损伤,想来他手中的长枪应该不在我东皇钟之下把。于是指着杨天说道:“你是什么人,我和你无冤无仇,你为什么来和我们作对,你现在走开,我们的过节就此了消。”