The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-11-18

Is uppermost in the public mind through
the efforts of Mr.. Murphy, 1t is good
time to consider what, for lack of better
word, we might call the temperament OF
excess. Given two boys. born OF the same
parents, heirs to exactly the same intlu-
ences at home and abroad, pupils of the
same teachers, with the same playmates
at school. and one of these boys may be
temperate with apparently little effort,
while the other early shows a decided bias
TO intemperance in everything. The in
temperate boy not seldom is loving low
able and charming character in many di-
rections; he is as bright at his books and
in practical life as his temperate brother,
and yet he Is subject to moral alterations I;
he does not steal or lie; he shows decided
moral power and courage in many lines of
action, and yet when he drinks he drinks
to excess; and in indulgence of his ma
tural appetites and passions exhibits small
self-control. Such boys are endowed with
the temperament of excess.
To illustrate. Walter Scott, in accord
ance with the social custom of his day,
was whisky drinker and wine drinker;
like all the literary and professional men
of his time he was convivial person, but
never an incorporate man. Longfellow
and Lowell were by no means abstaIners
from wine, although their habits were
marked by self-restraint. Scott died of
softening of the brain, the consequence of
overwork. The difference betwe en- Byron
and Scott, the difference between Long
fellow and Poe was due chiefly to the fact
that Scott and Longfellow started with
sound minds in sound bodies, while Byron
and Poe were born with the temperament
of excess. To have made these men
change places they would have to have
been born again, or else surrounded in
early youth with sanitary formative infiu-
ences of the most carefully chosen and ju-
dicious character. From the DAYS of
Cbaucer down to the present the ma
jority of literary and professional men
have INDUCED in the use of stimuIants to
the extent at least of the use of wine as
beverage. Rabelais, Parnell, Otway, Saw
age, Steele, Addison. Churchill, Prior,
Dryden, Byron, Goldsmith, Lamb, Camp
bell, and many other men on the roll of
literary fame were incorporate. Rabelais
called his bottle MY true Helicon, my
sole enthusiasm. Drinking I deliberate,
and celebrating l drink" Blackstone
drank as heavily of wine when he COM
posed his commentaries as Addison did
when he wrote the Spectator" Gold.
smith drank Madeira when writing "The
Vicar of Wakefield" and DR.. Johnson took
his bottle away from him. With the
money received for this story Goldsmith
bought some punch and asked his land.
lady to drink with him. DIR. Johnson for
many years drank freely of port, but never
became intoxicated, and finally stopped
his drinking entirely. and never resumed
it until old age and inirmity
made stimulants necessary to keep up his
strength. Boswell, Johnson's famous BIZ
ographer, was drunkard, as was the
famous Greek scholar, Professor Person.
Burns letters are full of pathetlcally ex-
pressed contrition for his drinking bouts
and VOWS of amendment for the future.
Burns when a youth worked as a turf
cutter among q class of coarse laborers
notorious for intemperance even among
the whisky-using Scotch peasantry of his
day, and his early habits of intemperance
became his bane when clouds of disap.
pointment and melancholy began to
darken his latter years. Lamb, in one of
his letters, confesses his shame for having
got drunk in a clergyman's house, and
finally abandoned tobacco because he
thought it stimulated passion for drink
Byron wrote Don Juan" stimulated BY
gin and water Mozart, Heine, Wagner
Weber, Coleridge, De Musett. Sheridan
and Alneri were dissipated men of genius
1t will be observed that the great
majority OF these illustrations do not be
long TO the literary life Of this century
| The instances of iutemperance among
| the famous literary workers OF the nine.
| tenth century are few in number
Campbell. Poe. Lamb. Hazlitt and Byror
were certainly incorporate. Coleridgt
| spoiled his great intellect with opium
| De Quincy was in his early life an opium
| eater. but he must have substantially
| conquered the habit. for he was most
| industrious. voluminous and brilliant
writer and died in his seventy-fourth year
Nine-tenths ofthe famous literary men o.
our century have been temperate in use o.
| stimulants. None of them were incorporate
| save those we have named, unless we
| count Dickens, who in his fss,
| years drank good deal of brandy, and
was not always sober in public; but as
| class the famous literary workers of the
| nineteenth century have been sober men
in good working health 20 old age. Scott,
| Southey, Rogers. Disraed, Landor. Hugo
| Moore. Wordsworth, Carlyle, Goethe
| Schiller. Baiwer, Browning. Tenny.
son. Matthew Arnold, Leigh Hunt
! Horne. Froude. Gro,e. Renan. Gladstone,
T, Darwin, Huxley, Ruskin. Owen, Tyndall
are Illustrations in point. The list could
be easily swelled from our own country,
and Of the famous literary men of our
| century whose lives were comparatively
short. ike Shelley, Keats, Cloueh. Green,
| Macaalay, Buckle and Thackeray, none
were incorporate. Your healthy literary
worker. born with = sound mind in 4
l SQUAD body, Is not intempaTate, nor short