I was so happy.I had won through my long sickness to the satisfying love of woman.I earned more money with less endeavour.I glowed with health.I slept like a babe.Icontinued to write successful books,and in sociological controversy I saw my opponents confuted with the facts of the times that daily reared new buttresses to my intellectual position.From day's end to day's end I never knew sorrow,disappointment,nor regret.I was happy all the time.Life was one unending song.I begrudged the very hours of blessed sleep because by that much was I robbed of the joy that would have been mine had I remained awake.And yet I drank.And John Barleycorn,all unguessed by me,was setting the stage for a sickness all his own.
The more I drank the more I was required to drink to get an equivalent effect.When I left the Valley of the Moon,and went to the city,and dined out,a cocktail served at table was a wan and worthless thing.There was no pre-dinner kick in it.On my way to dinner I was compelled to accumulate the kick--two cocktails,three,and,if I met some fellows,four or five,or six,it didn't matter within several.Once,I was in a rush.Ihad no time decently to accumulate the several drinks.Abrilliant idea came to me.I told the barkeeper to mix me a double cocktail.Thereafter,whenever I was in a hurry,I ordered double cocktails.It saved time.
One result of this regular heavy drinking was to jade me.My mind grew so accustomed to spring and liven by artificial means that without artificial means it refused to spring and liven.Alcohol became more and more imperative in order to meet people,in order to become sociably fit.I had to get the kick and the hit of the stuff,the crawl of the maggots,the genial brain glow,the laughter tickle,the touch of devilishness and sting,the smile over the face of things,ere I could join my fellows and make one with them.
Another result was that John Barleycorn was beginning to trip me up.He was thrusting my long sickness back upon me,inveigling me into again pursuing Truth and snatching her veils away from her,tricking me into looking reality stark in the face.But this came on gradually.My thoughts were growing harsh again,though they grew harsh slowly.
Sometimes warning thoughts crossed my mind.Where was this steady drinking leading?But trust John Barleycorn to silence such questions."Come on and have a drink and I'll tell you all about it,"is his way.And it works.For instance,the following is a case in point,and one which John Barleycorn never wearied of reminding me:
I had suffered an accident which required a ticklish operation.
One morning,a week after I had come off the table,I lay on my hospital bed,weak and weary.The sunburn of my face,what little of it could be seen through a scraggly growth of beard,had faded to a sickly yellow.My doctor stood at my bedside on the verge of departure.He glared disapprovingly at the cigarette I was smoking.
"That's what you ought to quit,"he lectured."It will get you in the end.Look at me."I looked.He was about my own age,broad-shouldered,deep-chested,eyes sparkling,and ruddy-cheeked with health.A finer specimen of manhood one would not ask.
"I used to smoke,"he went on."Cigars.But I gave even them up.
And look at me."
The man was arrogant,and rightly arrogant,with conscious well-being.And within a month he was dead.It was no accident.Half a dozen different bugs of long scientific names had attacked and destroyed him.The complications were astonishing and painful,and for days before he died the screams of agony of that splendid manhood could be heard for a block around.He died screaming.
"You see,"said John Barleycorn."He took care of himself.He even stopped smoking cigars.And that's what he got for it.
Pretty rotten,eh?But the bugs will jump.There's no forefending them.Your magnificent doctor took every precaution,yet they got him.When the bug jumps you can't tell where it will land.It may be you.Look what he missed.Will you miss all I can give you,only to have a bug jump on you and drag you down?There is no equity in life.It's all a lottery.But I put the lying smile on the face of life and laugh at the facts.Smile with me and laugh.
You'll get yours in the end,but in the meantime laugh.It's a pretty dark world.I illuminate it for you.It's a rotten world,when things can happen such as happened to your doctor.There's only one thing to do:take another drink and forget it."And,of course,I took another drink for the inhibition that accompanied it.I took another drink every time John Barleycorn reminded me of what had happened.Yet I drank rationally,intelligently.I saw to it that the quality of the stuff was of the best.I sought the kick and the inhibition,and avoided the penalties of poor quality and of drunkenness.It is to be remarked,in passing,that when a man begins to drink rationally and intelligently that he betrays a grave symptom of how far along the road he has travelled.
But I continued to observe my rule of never taking my first drink of the day until the last word of my thousand words was written.
On occasion,however,I took a day's vacation from my writing.At such times,since it was no violation of my rule,I didn't mind how early in the day I took that first drink.And persons who have never been through the drinking game wonder how the drinking habit grows!
