T. S. Arthur

“ His breath, loaded with the fumes of a recent glass of whisky, was filling the clergyman's nostrils. Mr. Elliott was confounded by this denial. What was to be done with such a man?
"Not a drop, sir," repeated Mr. Ridley. "The vile stuff is killing me. I must give it up."
"It is your only hope," said the clergyman. "You must give up the vile stuff, as you call it, or it will indeed kill you."
"That's just why I've come to you, Mr. Elliott. You understand this matter better than most people. I've heard you talk."
"Heard me talk?"
"Yes, sir. It's pure wine that the people want. ”

“ Yes, I say drinking-saloon, Doctor Angier. What matters it in the dispensation whether you give away or sell the liquor, whether it be done over a bar or set out free to every guest in a merchant's elegant banqueting-room? The one is as much a liquor-saloon as the other. Men go away from one, as from the other, with heads confused and steps unsteady and good resolutions wrecked by indulgence. Knowing that such things must follow; that from every fashionable entertainment some men, and women too, go away weaker and in more danger than when they came ”

“ Birtwell, in a voice out of which she could hardly keep the contempt she felt for her husband's weak rejoinder, "don't confuse the head, dethrone the reason, brutalize, debase and ruin men in soul and body as do wine and brandy. The difference lies there, and all men see and feel it, make what excuses they will for self-indulgence and deference to custom. The curse of drink is too widely felt. There is scarcely a family in the land on which its blight does not lie. The best, the noblest, the purest, the bravest, have fallen. It is breaking hopes and hearts and fortunes every day. ”

“ Young maidens with glasses of sparkling champagne or rich brown and amber sherry in their hands were calling young men and boys to drink with them, and showing a freedom and abandon of manner that marked the degree of their exhilaration. Wine does not act in one way on the brain of a young man and in another way on the brain of a young woman. Girls of eighteen or twenty will become as wild and free and forgetful of propriety as young men of the same age if you bring them together at a feast and give them wine freely. ”

“ Birtwell was the separation from Blanche, whose daily visits were a poor substitute for the old constant and close companionship. If there had not been a cloud in the sky of her child's future, with its shadow already dimming the brightness of her young life, the mother's heart would have still felt an aching and a void, would have been a mourner for love's lost delights and possessions that could nevermore return. ”

“ But what hope is there for a young man in any danger of acquiring a love of liquor as things now are in our best society? He cannot always be on guard. Wine is poured for him everywhere. He may go unharmed in his daily walks through the city though thousands of drinking-saloons crowd its busy streets. They may hold out their enticements for him in vain. But he is too weak to refuse the tempting glass when a fair hostess offers it, or when, in the midst of a gay company wine is in every hand and at every lip. One glass taken, and caution and restraint are too often forgotten. ”

“ The prescription of Mr. Elliott failed. Either the wine was not pure or his theory was at fault. It was but little over an hour from the fatal moment when Mr. Ridley put a glass of wine to his lips ere he went out alone into the storm of a long-to-be-remembered night in a state of almost helpless intoxication, and staggered off in the blinding snow that soon covered his garments like a winding sheet. ”

“ Responsibilities from which women of matured years and long experience might well shrink were now at the feet of this tender girl, and there was no escape for her. She must stoop, and with fragile form and hands scarce stronger than a child's lift and bear them up from the ground. Love gave her strength and courage. The woman hidden in the child came forth, and with a self-denial and self-devotion that touches me to tears when I think of it took up the new life and new burdens, and has borne them ever since with a patience that is truly heroic. ”

“ Birtwell's to-night. Young and old, men and women, all are partakers, but I stand aloof—I, of all the guests, refuse the hospitality I have pretended to accept. Can I do this without attracting attention or occasioning remark? No; and what will be said? Simply this—that I know my danger and am afraid; that there is in my blood the hereditary taint of drunkenness, and that I dare not touch a glass of wine. Mother, I am not strong enough to brave society on such an issue, and a false one at that. To fear and fly does not belong to my nature. A coward I despise. ”

“ Ridley went alone. It was a cold and stormy night. The wind blew fiercely, wailing about the roofs and chimneys and dashing the fast-falling snow in its wild passion against the windows of the room in which his sick wife lay. Rest of body and mind was impossible, freedom from anxiety impossible. There was everything to fear, everything to lose. The peril of a soldier going into the hottest of the battle was not greater than the peril that her husband would encounter on that night ”

“ Birtwell's that night, and the cold, snow-laden air struck into my face on crossing the pavement to my carriage, cooling my blood and clearing my brain, I thought of Mrs. Carlton and the life that had been placed in my hands, and a feeling of concern dropped into my heart. A night's indulgence in wine-drinking was a poor preparation for the work before me, in which a clear head and steady nerves were absolutely essential. How would I be in the morning? ”

“ There are few families of any note in our city," she added, after a slight pause, "in which sorrow has not entered through the door of intemperance. Ah! is not the name of the evil that comes in through this door Legion? and we throw it wide open and invite both young and old to enter. We draw them by various allurements. We make the way of this door broad and smooth and flowery, full of pleasantness and enticement. We hold out our hands, we smile with encouragement, we step inside of the door to show them the way." ”

“ Birtwell was silent.
"Is it not made up of individuals?"
"Of course."
"And is not each of the individuals responsible, in his degree, for the conduct of society?"
"In a certain sense, yes."
"Society, as a whole, cannot determine a question of right and wrong. Only individuals can do this. Certain of these, more independent than the rest, pass now and then from the beaten track of custom, and the great mass follow them. Because they do this or that, it is right or in good taste and becomes fashionable. The many are always led by the few. ”

“ Ridley was still a handsome woman, and her husband felt the old pride warming his bosom when he saw her again among brilliant and attractive women and noted the impression she made. He watched her with something of the proud interest a mother feels for a beautiful daughter who makes her appearance in society for the first time, and his heart beat with liveliest pleasure as he noticed the many instances in which she attracted and held people by the grace of her manner and the charm of her conversation. ”

“ You shall go among lions and they will have no power to harm you, and stand in the very furnace flame of temptation without even the smell of fire being left upon your garments."
"Ah, ma'am, you are doubtless right in what you say," Mr. Ridley answered, all the enthusiasm dying out of his countenance. "But I am not a religious man. I have never trusted in God."
"That is no reason why you should not trust in him now," she answered, quickly. "All other hope for you is vain, but in God there is safety. ”

“ Birtwell started to his feet and walked the floor with considerable excitement.
"If we had a son just coming to manhood—and I sometimes thank God that we have not—would you feel wholly at ease about him, wholly satisfied that he was in no danger in the houses of your friends? May not a young man as readily acquire a taste for liquors in a gentleman's dining-room as in a drinking-saloon—nay, more readily, if in the former the wine is free and bright eyes and laughing lips press him with invitations?" ”

“ The common mass of men and women are absorbed into or controlled by its subtle power. They can no more set themselves against it, if they would, than against the rush of a swiftly-flowing river. To the young it is irresistible.
As Ellis Whitford, with Blanche leaning on his arm, gained the supper-room, he met the eyes of his mother, who was on the opposite side of the table, and read in them a sign of warning. ”

“ Elliott said:
"That will do, Richard."
The servant shut the door, and he was alone with Mr. Ridley. Of the man's sad story he was not altogether ignorant. His fall from the high position to which he had risen in two years and utter abandonment of himself to drink were matters of too much notoriety to have escaped his knowledge. But that he was in the slightest degree responsible for this wreck of a human soul was so far from his imagination as that of his responsibility for the last notorious murder or bank-robbery.
The man who now stood before him was a pitiable-looking object indeed. ”

“ The curse of more than one member of both her own and husband's family had been intemperance. While still a young man her father had lost his self-control, and her memory of him was a shadow of pain and sorrow. He died at an early age, the victim of an insatiable and consuming desire for drink. Her husband's father had been what is called a "free liver"—that is, a man who gave free indulgence to his appetites, eating and drinking to excess, and being at all times more or less under the influence of wine or spirits. ”

“ But you can no more disregard the fact than can one born with a hereditary taint of consumption in his blood disregard the loss of health and hope to escape the fatal consequences. There is for every one of us 'a sin that doth easily beset,' a hereditary inclination that must be guarded and denied, or it will grow and strengthen until it becomes a giant to enslave us. Where your danger lies I have said; and if you would be safe, set bars and bolts to the door of appetite, and suffer not your enemy to cross the threshold, of life. ”

“ Is it not fair to conclude, knowing as we do how a glass of wine too much will confuse the brain and obscure the judgment, that society in trusting its great army of moderate drinkers is suffering loss far beyond anything we imagine? A doctor loses his patient, a lawyer his case, an engineer wrecks his ship or train, an agent hurts his principal by a loose or bad bargain, and all because the head had lost for a brief space its normal clearness.
"Men hurt themselves through moderate drinking in thousands of ways," continued Mr. Carlton. ”

“ Ridley, with his old appetite not dead, but only half asleep and lying in wait for an opportunity, goes also to Mr. Birtwell's, and the sparkle and flavor of wine and the invitations that are pressed upon him from all sides prove too much for his good resolutions. He tastes and falls. He goes in his right mind, and comes away so much intoxicated that he cannot find his way home. ”

“ It is no light thing, as I regard it, to put a stumbling-block in another's way or to lead the weak or unwary into temptation."
"Perhaps you are right about it," was the answer, "and I must confess that, though not a temperance man myself, I never feel quite comfortable about it when I see clergymen taking wine freely at public dinners and private parties. It is not a good example, to say the least of it; and if there is a class of men in the community to whom we have some right to look for a good example, it is the class chosen and set apart to the work of saving human souls." ”

“ If, I said to myself, a man uses wine, beer or spirits habitually, is there no danger that at some time when great interests, or even life itself, may be at stake, a glass too much may obscure his clear intellect and make him the instrument of loss or disaster? I pursued the subject, and as I did so was led to this conclusion—that society really suffers more, from what is called moderate drinking than it does from out-and-out drunkenness. ”

“ What great difference is there between a drinking-saloon, where liquor is sold, and a gentleman's dining-room, where it is given away? The harm is great in both—greatest, I fear, in the latter, where the weak and unguarded are allured and their tastes corrupted. There is a ban on the drinking-saloon. Society warns young men not to enter its tempting doors. It is called the way of death and hell. What makes it accursed and our home saloon harmless? It is all wrong, Mr. Birtwell—all wrong, wrong, wrong! ”

“ His mind was a little clouded by the wine he had taken.
"The thirsty man's desire for water is healthy; and if you withhold it, you create a disease that will destroy him," was answered. "Not so the craving for alcohol. With every new supply the craving is increased, and the man becomes more and more helpless in the folds of an enslaving appetite. Is it not true, doctor, that with few exceptions all who have engaged in treating inebriates agree that only in entire abstinence is cure possible?" ”

“ Birtwell sat down again, her countenance more distressed.
"Oh, if it hadn't happened in our house!" she said. "If this awful thing didn't lie at our door!"
"Good Heavens, Margaret! why will you take on so? Any one hearing you talk might think us guilty of murder, or some other dreadful crime. Even if the worst fears are realized, no blame can lie with us. Parties are given every night, and young men, and old men too, go home from them with lighter heads than when they came. No one is compelled to drink more than is good for him. If he takes too much, the sin lies at his own door." ”

“ We must not hope to make her see with our eyes, nor to take our judgment of a case in which her heart is concerned. Love is full of excuses and full of faith. If Ellis Whitford should, unhappily, be overcome by this accursed appetite for drink which is destroying so many of our most promising young men, there is trouble ahead for her and for us."
"Something must be done about it. We cannot let this thing go on," said Mr. Birtwell, in a kind of helpless passion. "A drunkard is a beast. Our Blanche tied to a beast! Ugh! Ellis must be talked to. ”