Trollied Tuesday: Grappling With the Monster
IN THE MONSTER’S CLUTCHES
Body and Brain on Fire
One of the wonderful things about the iPhone is that - thanks to this little bit of software - reading Gutenberg e-books suddenly becomes a pleasant experience. I hate reading big blocks of text on a computer screen (well, I hate doing it for fun), but I’m more than happy to curl up in bed with the phone and devour stuff like 1984, Huckleberry Finn, lashings of Wodehouse and more.
Suddenly, lots of esoteric stuff is within my reach. One day I find the Sinks of London Laid Open. The next I’ll stumble on The Lunatic at Large. But the book that I’m presently drinking to is the splendidly named
GRAPPLING WITH THE MONSTER
OR
THE CURSE AND THE CURE OF STRONG DRINK
BY
T.S. ARTHUR
It’s here and it’s cracking stuff. The words are pretty good. Take this for a start.
Dr. John Nugent gives a case which came within his own knowledge, of a lady who had been
A MOST EXEMPLARY NUN
for fifteen or twenty years. In consequence of her devotion to the poor, attending them in fevers, and like cases, it seemed necessary for her to take stimulants; these stimulants grew to be habitual, and she had been compelled, five or six times, to place herself in a private asylum. In three or four weeks after being let out, she would relapse, although she was believed to be under the strongest influences of religion, and of the most virtuous desires.
I’ve always said a whisky and splash induces a sort of heavenly contentment. Then there’s this, which seems to undermine the temperance argument just that little bit more:
His case was immediately taken in hand and money raised to send him to the State Inebriate Asylum. After he had remained there for a year, he began to preach as a supply in a church a few miles distant, going on Saturday evening and returning on Monday morning; but always having an attendant with him, not daring to trust himself alone. This went on for nearly a whole year, when a revival sprang up in the church, which he conducted with great eloquence and fervor. After the second week of this new excitement, he began to lock himself up in his room after returning from the service, and could not be seen until the next morning. In the third week of the revival, the excitement of the meetings grew intense. After this he was only seen in the pulpit, where his air and manner were wild and thrilling. His friends at the asylum knew that he must be drinking, and while hesitating as to their wisest course, waited anxiously for the result. One day he was grandly eloquent. Such power in the pulpit had never been witnessed there before—his appeals were unequalled; but so wild and impassioned that some began to fear for his reason. At the close of this day’s services, the chaplain of the institution of which he was an inmate, returned with him to the asylum, and on the way, told him frankly that he was deceiving the people—that his eloquent appeals came not from the power of the Holy Spirit, but from the excitement of drink; and that all farther conduct of the meetings must be left in other hands. On reaching the asylum he retired, greatly agitated, and soon after died from a stroke of apoplexy. In his room many empty bottles, which had contained brandy, were found; but the people outside remained in ignorance of the true cause of the marvelous eloquence which had so charmed and moved them.
As for choosing your company carefully, this spot of advice holds true today:
Politics, military organizations, etc.—Many a man has been made a drunkard by the war, or by becoming an active politician. Associations of men leading to excitement of any kind stimulate them to invite each other to drink as a social custom. Former inebriates should avoid all forms of excitement. Said a former politician, who has not drank for five years: “If I was to go back to politics, and allow matters to take their natural course, I should soon drift again into drunkenness.”
But it’s the pictures that really make Grappling With The Monster such a delight. Who could resist a sight like this?
Or this?
But I’ll leave you with this final bit of wisdom, which will no doubt appeal to journalist Dornan, the man behind Trollied Tuesday:
CASE NO. 2. A clergyman of fortune, position and education lost his daughter, and began to drink in order to drown his sorrow. It was in vain that his wife and friends opposed, remonstrated, implored and persuaded; he drank on, the appetite steadily increasing, until he became its slave. His congregation dismissed him; his wife died of a broken heart; he squandered his fortune; lost his friends, and, at last, became a street reporter for some of the New York papers, through means of which he picked up a scanty living.
What a horrible fate to befall a man.
Published on 30th September, 2008
A load of old cock
And for once I’m not talking about Nando’s haters.
Apparently the BBC Trust has complained that Top Gear presenters were drinking whilst driving to - erm - the North Pole. I saw the the bloody programme. Clarkson and James May (fine fellow) cracked open some wine, cheese and foie gras whilst the presenter - whatisname, the one who always gets bullied - was busy crossing the Artic by ski and sledge. With a woman he didn’t like at all.
Excellent TV if you ask me. Though I think it’s rather telling that rather fewer people complained about the pictures of frostbitten genitals.
Published on 2nd July, 2008
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