You are fond of telling
your hearers what an awful thing it is to die drunken. So it is,
teetotaller. Then take good care that you do not die with smoke
and passion, drunken, and with temperance language on your lips;
that is, abuse and calumny against all those who differ from you.
One word of sense you have been heard to say, which is, that
spirits may be taken as a medicine. Now you are in a fever of
passion, teetotaller; so, pray take this tumbler of brandy; take it
on the homoeopathic principle, that heat is to be expelled by heat.
You are in a temperance fury, so swallow the contents of this
tumbler, and it will, perhaps, cure you. You look at the glass
wistfully--you occasionally take a glass medicinally--and it is
probable you do. Take one now. Consider what a dreadful thing it
would be to die passion drunk; to appear before your Maker with
intemperate language on your lips. That's right! You don't seem
to wince at the brandy. That's right!--well done! All down in two
pulls. Now you look like a reasonable being!
If the conduct of Lavengro with retard to drink is open to little
censure, assuredly the use which he makes of his fists is entitled
to none at all. Because he has a pair of tolerably strong fists,
and knows to a certain extent how to use them, is he a swaggerer or
oppressor? To what ill account does he turn them? Who more quiet,
gentle, and inoffensive than he? He beats off a ruffian who
attacks him in a dingle; has a kind of friendly tuzzle with Mr.
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