and said, "This will enable you to jump off the Monument,"
doubtless he would jump off the Monument, but he would not jump
off the Monument all day long to the delight of the City.
But if we took it to a blind man, saying, "This will enable you to see,"
he would be under a heavier temptation. It would be hard for him
not to rub it on his eyes whenever he heard the hoof of a noble
horse or the birds singing at daybreak. It is easy to deny one's
self festivity; it is difficult to deny one's self normality.
Hence comes the fact which every doctor knows, that it is often
perilous to give alcohol to the sick even when they need it.
I need hardly say that I do not mean that I think the giving
of alcohol to the sick for stimulus is necessarily unjustifiable.
But I do mean that giving it to the healthy for fun is the proper
use of it, and a great deal more consistent with health.

The sound rule in the matter would appear to be like many other
sound rules--a paradox. Drink because you are happy, but never because
you are miserable. Never drink when you are wretched without it,
or you will be like the grey-faced gin-drinker in the slum;
but drink when you would be happy without it, and you will be like
the laughing peasant of Italy. Never drink because you need it,
for this is rational drinking, and the way to death and hell.
But drink because you do not need it, for this is irrational drinking,
and the ancient health of the world.

For more than thirty years the shadow and glory of a great
Eastern figure has lain upon our English literature.
Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam concentrated into an
immortal poignancy all the dark and drifting hedonism of our time.
Of the literary splendour of that work it would be merely banal to speak;