ABOUT FRUITS, FLOWERS AND FARMING. 81 



sober Germans ; but by the tastes, habits, and tenden- 

 cies of our own people. In this land CVCTN tiling tends to 

 excitement. Men live upon a higher key, and live faster 

 and live much more full of exhilaration than the same 

 <i:is^es do in foreign lands. Our people drink not for the 

 taste but for the excitement of liquor ; and, so that wine, 

 U-er, or whisky will bring them up to the right key, the 

 question of wholesomeness is quite unimportant. Our peo- 

 \ ',-e are free and therefore have a right to live in the violrv 

 tion of natural laws ; and a right, constantly exercised, of 

 having fevers on account of surfeitings, and of dying early 

 and by thousands by reasons of gross excesses. 



Pleasures and business are esteemed by the volume o*" 

 blood which they can drive, the pulse they can raise, 

 the heat of excitement which they can produce. So long 

 as atfairs are fresh and piquant they are stimulants enough. 

 But in the inequalities and intervals and fatigues of life, 

 something else is required to hold the spirits up to the high 

 level upon which everything proceeds. As soon as a man 

 resorts to alcoholic stimulants to do this, he has embarked 

 upon a course where all experience shows that he 

 will drink deeper and deeper to final downright intem- 

 perance. 



Some people think that cheap and wholesome beverage for 

 the " masses," for laboring people, is desirable. "While it 

 may be well enough for every gentleman of leisure, it is to be 

 the poor man's special blessing, saving him from the swill 

 of the brewery and the fire of the still. Facts will stand 

 on the side of the reverse reasoning. If wine is to be 

 harmless at all, it will be with men who are not prone to 

 enterprising heats; but given to the relishful pleasure of 

 sipping just for the delicate flavors, for the aroma, for the 

 fine bouquet of wine men who need to have their blood 

 up, and kept up, and resort to wine to supply the flagging 

 stimulus of affairs ; such men will not drink for the flavor, 

 but for the feeling. 



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