THE LITTLE TEA BOOK 



ful in keeping off water, he was not 

 successful in keeping out tea. All 

 he did accomplish in his essay on the 

 subject was to call forth a reply from 

 Dr. Johnson, who, strange to say, 

 instead of vigorously defending his 

 favorite tipple, rather excuses it as 

 an amiable weakness ; confessing that 

 tea is a barren superfluity, fit only 

 to amuse the idle, relax the studious, 

 and dilute the meals of those who 

 cannot take exercise, and will not 

 practise abstinence. His chief ar- 

 gument in tea's favor is that it is 

 drunk in no great quantity even by 

 those who use it most, and as it 

 neither exhilarates the heart nor 

 stimulates the palate, is, after all, 

 but a nominal entertainment, serving 

 as a pretence for assembling people 

 together, for interrupting business, 



24 



