mine as a purely individual
proposition. Let me get the stage set properly at the beginning of my
remarks. I have no advice to offer and no counsel to give. Most of my
best friends drink and I never have said and never shall say them nay.
It is up to them--not up to me. I have no prejudices in the matter. If
my friends want to drink I am for that--for them.

These things are mentioned to establish my status in the premises. I
have no sermon to preach--no warning to convey. I have no desire to
impress my convictions on the subject of drinking liquor on any person
whatever. That is not my mission. So far as I am concerned, all persons
are hereby given full and free permission to eat, drink and be merry to
such extent as they may prescribe for themselves. I set no limit,
suggest no reforms, urge no cutting down or cutting out. Go to it--and
peace be with you! And for an absolute teetotaler I reckon I buy as many
drinks for others as any one in my class.

Pardon me for inserting these puny details in what I have to say.
Triflingly personal as they are they seem necessary in order to
establish my viewpoint. So far as drinking is concerned I look at it
with a mind that is open and tolerant--except in one instance. That one
instance concerns myself personally and individually. My mind is closed
and intolerant in my own case. I have quit--and quit forever; but that
does not make me go round urging others to quit, or preaching at them,
or trying to reform them. They can reform or not, as they dad-blamed
please. To be sure I have my own interior ideas on what some of them
should do; but I never have and never shall do anything with those ideas
but keep them closely to myself.

Therefore, to resume: In a few minutes it will be three years and a half
since I have taken a drink. There is no more alcohol in my system than
there is in a glass of spring water. The thought of putting alcohol into
my system is as absent from my mind as is the thought of putting benzine
into it, or gasoline, or taking a swig of shoe-polish. It never occurs
to me. The whole thing is out of my psychology. My palate has forgotten
how it tastes. My stomach has forgotten how it feels. My head has
forgotten how it exhilarates. The next-morning fur has forsaken my
tongue. It is all over!

_II: A Backward Glance from a Hillock of Abstinence_

Looking back at the old game from this hillock of abstinence--it is not
an eminence like those occupied by th