It throws its jargon into the sweetest harmony. What was it
that silenced Sheridan's voice and shattered the golden sceptre with
which he swayed parliaments and courts? What foul sprite turned the
sweet rhythm of Robert Burns into a tuneless ballad? What brought
down the majestic form of one who awed the American Senate with his
eloquence, and after a while carried him home dead drunk from the
office of Secretary of State? What was it that crippled the noble
spirit of one of the heroes of the last war, until the other night,
in a drunken fit, he reeled from the deck of a Western steamer and was
drowned! There was one whose voice we all loved to hear. He was one of
the most classic orators of the century. People wondered why a man
of so pure a heart and so excellent a life should have such a sad
countenance always. They knew not that his wife was a sot.
"Woe to him that giveth his neighbor drink!" If this curse was
proclaimed about the comparatively harmless drinks of olden times,
what condemnation must rest upon those who tempt their neighbors
when intoxicating liquor means copperas, nux vomica, logwood, opium,
sulphuric acid, vitriol, turpentine, and strychnine! "Pure liquors:"
pure destruction! Nearly all the genuine champagne made is taken by
the courts of Europe.
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