ike that for his renewal of the habit. No man quits just to see
whether he can quit. Every man quits because he personally thinks he
ought to quit--for whatever his personal reason may be. And he begins
again because he concludes the game is not worth playing, which means
that he is not able to play it--not that it lacks merit.

When you come to sum it all up general reasons for drinking are as
absurd as general reasons for not drinking. It is entirely an individual
proposition. I concluded it was a bad thing for me to drink. I know now
I was right. But--and here is the point--it may be a good thing for my
neighbor to drink. He must judge of that himself. Personally I cannot
see that it is a good thing for any man to drink; but I am no judge. I
am influenced in my conclusions, not by a broad view of the situation as
it applies to my fellows but by an intensely narrow view as it applies
to myself. Hence what I have concluded in the matter may be
uncharitable--may smack of Puritanism and may not be supported by
general facts; but I am writing about my own experiences, not those of
any other person whatever.

My occupation takes me to all parts of the world and has for twenty-five
years. It has caused me to make friends with all sorts of people in all
sorts of places and in all sorts of circumstances. I early discovered
that, as I was a gregarious person and intent on doing the best for
myself that I possibly could, it was necessary for me to cultivate the
friendship of men of affairs; and it became apparent to me that many men
of affairs take an occasional drink. Naturally I took an occasional
drink with them, having no prejudices in the matter and being of open
mind. I am big and husky, and mix well; and the result was I acquired as
extensive a line of convivial acquaintances, across this country and
across Europe, as any person of your acquaintance. To some extent my
friendship with these men was predicated on having a few drinks with
them. I fell in with their ways or they fell in with mine; and as my
association in almost every city, among the men with whom I worked and
the men I met, is based largely on entertainment of one kind or
another--generally with some alcohol in it--my life was ordered that way
for two decades. And I had a heap of fun. There was no sottishness about
it, no solitary drinking, no drinking for drink's sake, no drunkenness.
It was all jollity and really innocent enough--a case of good fellows
h