erhaps some explanation of that absence of
irritability which is the safe-guard of the national character, which
makes it faithful in its affections, easy to govern, not easy to excite
to violence.

If I have spoken favorably of beer and wine as having certain
intellectual uses, please remember that I recommend only the habitual
use of them, not mad rites of Bacchus, and even the habitual use only
just so far as it may suit the individual constitution. The liberal
regimen of Scott and Goethe would not answer in every case, and there
are organizations, often very robust, in which intoxicating drinks of
all kinds, even in the most moderate quantity, impede the brain's action
instead of aiding it. Two of the most able men I have ever known could
not drink pure wine of any kind because it sent the blood to the head,
with consequent cerebral oppression. And whilst on this subject I ought
to observe, that the aid which these stimulants afford, even when the
body gratefully accepts them, is often treacherous from its very
acceptability. Men who are over-driven--and the number of such men is
unhappily very great in these days--say that without stimulants they
could not get through their labor; but the stimulants often delude us as
to the limits of our natural powers and encourage us to attempt too
much. The help they give us is not altogether illusory; under certain
limitations it is real, but many have gone farther than the reality of
the assistance warranted. The ally brings to us an increase of forces,
but he comes with appearances of power surpassing the reality, and we
undertake tasks beyond our strength. In drinking, as in eating, the best
rule for the intellectual is moderation in quantity with good quality,
a sound wine, and not enough of it to foster self-delusion.

The use of tobacco has so much extended itself in the present generation
that we are all obliged to make a decision for ourselves on the ancient
controversy between its friends and enemies. We cannot form a reasonable
opinion about tobacco without bearing in mind that it produces,
according to circumstances, one of two entirely distinct and even
opposite classes of effects. In certain states of the body it acts as a
stimulant, in other states as a narcotic. People who have a dislike to
smoking affirm that it stupefies; but this assertion, at least so far as
the temporary consequences are concerned, is not supported by
experience. Most of the really brillia