The Strayed Prohibitionist
1919? What of Herrick's "joy-sops," and "capring wine," and that simple and sincere "Thanksgiving" hymn which takes cognizance of all mercies?
"Lord, I confess too, when I dine,
The pulse is thine.
The worts, the purslane, and the mess
Of water-cress.
'T is Thou that crown'st my glittering hearth
With guiltless mirth,
And giv'st me wassail bowls to drink,
Spiced to the brink."
The lines sound like an echo of Saint Chrysostom's wise warning, spoken twelve hundred years before: "Wine is for mirth, and not for madness."
Biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, diaries, all are set with traps for the unwary, and all are alike unconscious of offence. Here is Dr. Johnson, whose name alone is a tonic for the morally debilitated, saying things about claret, port, and brandy which bring a blush to the cheek of temperance. Here is Scott, that "great good
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