Punch or The London charivari (3.1842)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 229

PUNCH'S LETTERS TO HIS SON.

LETTER XIX.—THE PHILOSOPHY OF DRUNKENNESS.-THE GENIUS OF

THE CORK.

My dear Boy.—I know few things that tell so fatally against a
young man. when entering the world, as a weak head and a delicate
stomach. I therefore earnestly entreat you to fortify both by every
means that may present themselves. It is true, that the increasing
effeminacy of the world requires of the ingenuous youth a less
capacity for the bottle than when I was young; nevertheless, there
are occasions, when a man's previous habits and education will be
tested by vintner's measure. Can there be anything more disgusting
than to see a young man after, say, the third bottle, in a maudlin
state of drunkenness ? What tricks be perpetrates ! How he lets
all the world peep through the loop-holes of bis soul; and how they
who spy, grin at him and chuckle over the exhibition ! What, too,
is the end of this ? I have known an otherwise promising young
fellow so forget himself, as to lender back in the most ungracious
manner the hospitality of the host, who—suppressing his indignation
by contempt—has ordered the servants to take off the gentleman's
cravat, and lay him upon the mat for recovery. Then what running
to and fro for vinegar ! what wet towels for the temples ! what hints,
in desperate cases, of the lancet ! until at length the wretched victim
rolls from side to side, and gargles his throat with—" better—better
—m-ueh better !" this is not only disgusting,—it is unprofitable.

No, my son ; never get drunk—that is, in company,—above the
girdle. There is a thermometer of drunkenness which every wise
young man who has to elbow his way through the world would do
well to consider. A man maybe knee-drunk—hip-drunk—shoulder-
drunk—nay, chiu-drunk ; but the wine should be allowed to rise no
higher. Then he sits with a fine fluency of speech—his countenance
brightened, his wit irradiated by what he has swallowed. And,
perhaps, there is no situation in mortal life which so magnificently
vindicates the ethereal nature of man, as that which presents him to
us triumphing with rosy face above the mists and clouds of wine that
roll around him : he is like the peak described by the poet: although
vapours obscure it midway—

" Eternal sunshine settles on its head."
There he sits ! His toes, it is true, may be of clay-—but his head is
of lustrous gold. Like the oracles of the ancient day, he speaks
wisdom through the clouds that circle him !

My son, by all means labour to arrive at this blessed, this most
profitable condition. Then, though you stumble a little on going
away, your stumbling will never be seen ; for the potency of your
head and stomach has survived the observation of your co-drinkers ;
and thus, though you are helped to your hackney-coach, a wine-skin,
a very Silenus up to the shoulders, you have the unclouded head of
Socrates to adorn them! How many a worthy gentleman lives and
dies with an undeniable character for sobriety, from having only kept
his head above the port ! A character is to be saved like a life, by
merely keeping its chin above the fluid it swims in.

To obtain this power requires, I allow it, great practice : therefore,
as a scholar, make your bottle your private companion. Take your
liquor, as you would take your book, in profoundest solitude. " Try
conclusions" with yourself in your own garret, that you may achieve
victories in other men's dining-rooms.

I know that shallow, inexperienced moralists declaim against what
they are pleased to call the vice of solitary drinking. Why, there
is no such thing. A man can no more drink alone, than he can
drink without his shadow.

Pop 1 There—the cork's drawn. Gurgle—gurgle—gurgle—good—
good—good—No ! it is in vain ; there is no type—there are no printed
sounds (alow me the concetto')—to describe the melody, the cadence
of the out-pouring bottle. Well, the bottle has rendered its virgin
soul. You have resolved to sate yourself upon its sweetness. You
think yourself alone. Oh, the vanity of ignorance ! Why, the
cup of what is called a solitary drinker, drawn from the bottle, is an
audible charm that calls up a spirit—(angel or devil according to con-
tending moralists) — to come and sit with the toper. You have,
therefore, only to retire with a full bottle to your own garret to be
sure of company—and of the most profitable sort too ; for your com-
panion carries away no drop of your liquor; but there he sits with
a jocund, leering look, on that three-legged stool ; and there he tells
6tories to yen—and sings to your rapturous spirit—and now hangs
your white-washed walls with Sidonian tapestries—and now fills
your gaping pockets with ideal gold !

What a world are you in ! How your heart grows and grows 1

and with frantic benevolence you rend aside your waistcoat (how

you'll hunt for the two dropt buttons in the morning !) to give the

creature room for its uttermost expansion ! What a figure you

resolve to make in the world ! What woman—nay, what women—■

you will marry ! Now, you are gathering roses with dallying houris,

—and now (with old Ronsard)—

" Peschant ne scay quelles plerres
Aa bord de l'ludique mer."

And whilst you take your flight here and there, how the spirit evoked
by the cork hugs himself, and grins at you !

It is by such discipline, my son, that you will be enabled when in

society to maintain the look and something of the reasoning powers

of a man, when your whole carcase is throbbing with alcohol. You

will akn find a bottle the handmaid (bottles are, evidently, feminine)

of philosophy. After every night's good set in with the genius of the

cork, you will be the better able to judge of the true value of all worldly

endowments. You will also have a finer, a deeper, a more enlarged

comprehension of the weakness of human nature. If, before, you

were not sufficiently impressed with the utility of money ; you will,

shortly after every visit of the genius of the cork, know its increasing

beauty. It may be, too, you have not paid sufficient attention to

that wondrous machinery—that complex simplicity of the human

animal—that you have not essentially considered your immortal

essence to be what it really is—■

" A soul, hung up as 'twere in chains
Of nerves, and arteries, and veins 1"

This inattention will be remedied—this ignorance informed—by fre-
quent appeals to the bottle. You will, in a short time, acknowledge
the exquisite sensibility of the nerves ; for you shall not be able to
lift your morning tea-cup without marvelling at the wondrous
machinery vibrating before you. And the tongue, too,—that delicate
instrument of silver sound—that shall lie like dry dirt in your mouth,
heavy, hot, and voiceless ! And from this you will learn and feel
that man is clay, and be at once raised and humbled by the know-
ledge.

Depend upon it, the bottle is the spring, the true source of all
human inspiration—the fountain from which all philosophers, all
sages, have drunk their wisdom.

What would have been Newton without a bottle ? Do you think
he would ever have made his grand discovery unless he had dined
first. Sitting in his orchard he saw an apple fall (what a part have
apples played in human history !), and as it fell it turned and turned.
Do you imagine that Newton would have been so delicately sus-
ceptible of the turning of a pippin, if he had not that day drawn a cork I
Struck with the nascent idea, he called for another bottle,—and then
for another ; and when the philosopher had pondered upon the apple,
had worked his analogies, and had drunk a third bottle,—he was
convinced, that not only had the apple spun as it fell, but that the
whole world turned round. If you would prove the centre of gravity
—get drunk.

My son, it is well to drink from your own bottle ; but it is still
better to drink from another man's.

" Reveuons a nos moutons," as the wolf said when he went to the shcepfold.
" What do you take rue for ?" as the pickpocket remarked to the policeman.

Vol. 3.

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