The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1924-04-11
Higher Intoxicdtion

i believe in retting drunk. In feast ! be
lieve that our beings end and aim is to get
drunk. -
Only / do not like body drunkenness. 1t i
spiritually drunk ! would be.
Some men take alcohol to the point where
the world changes, takes on glow. the COM
monest things become flooded with laughter
or full of tears.
TITS an excellent condition In which to be.
were it not for the reaction, The morning
after" when existence is hell
want ideas, sights, sounds, memories,
hopes and all such spiritual cups. These
have NO trail of nausea.
1t is possible for person to be so highly
developed that these mindstuffs, which to
the average person seem so thin and neglisi-
BILE, thrill him likejwine.
All culture is merely the ability to become
intoxicated easily / should call cultured
soul one that can weep at musical cadence.
laugh at the purple tint of a cloud shadow;
be. like Kepler, little crazed at the dis
coyery of some truth of science; want to
dance and shout when he sees the sun rising
over a mist on q fair morning or feel phrase
of a poem 60 to his head like whisky.
IT'S dulness that is the curse of the world.
making sin and suicide.
Thrills, tremors, climaxes and bits Of mad
ness are what we want; when there are. no
more, why live?
The best of religion is its drunkenness. So
when the first Christians felt the bemusing
power of their faith they began to act and
speak strangely, and the bystanders declared.
..These men are full of new wine.
Those who advocate a religion OF cold rea-
son and morals do not know the heart OF
man The wine cup, passed at communion.
is the true symbol of any religion that would
grip men.
OF religion, also Of art, Of love, Of friend.
ship and of sport, we ask the same question
"Can you lift us out of ourselvesT'
Men have craved battle because Of the bat
tle.nainess fighting is a kind of drunken
ness. This is why war clings to the nations;
it is the most madly glorious of national
sprees,
All progress consists in substituting nsw
and healthfpl forms Of inebriation for the
old, primal, besotting forms. >
Alcohol, slaughter; fighting, sexuality and
such things are mef's first essays In the
higher life.
The sage, the prophet and the poet come
and teach US better ways; how to be exalted
with an inner vision, ,al
Robertson states the true law OF intoxica-
ton that 1t should come from the spirit to
the body. This elevates, ennohles US. When
spirit, as in all sensuaiities, It imbrutes us.
coYet the susceptibility to thought-intoxi-
cation the poets have. As Keats:
Sudden thought came like full-blown rose,
Flushing his brow.
When at last the best bred man shall APP
pear on earth, he will be continually intoxi-
Gated for he shall live poetry.
I find this splendid passage In Hazlitt Il
tThere are moments in the life of solitary
thinker which are to him what the evening
of some great victory Is to the conqueror."
And this in Douglas Jerrold: "He alone
who has for months and years lived upon
great imaginings, whose subject hath been
part of his blood, hath in his squaiid study
glorified his poverty, hath walked with him
abroad, and by its enrolling presence raised
him above the prejudice, the little spite, the
sturdy wrong that in his outdoor life sneer
and elbow him--he alone can understand the
calm deep. yet serene joy felt"
This is how -covetable drunkenness