en done, the cocktails reared a wall
of inhibition in my brain between the day's work done and the rest of the
day of fun to come. My work ceased from my consciousness. No thought of
it flickered in my brain till next morning at nine o'clock when I sat at
my desk and began my next thousand words. This was a desirable condition
of mind to achieve. I conserved my energy by means of this alcoholic
inhibition. John Barleycorn was not so black as he was painted. He did
a fellow many a good turn, and this was one of them.

And I turned out work that was healthful, and wholesome, and sincere. It
was never pessimistic. The way to life I had learned in my long
sickness. I knew the illusions were right, and I exalted the illusions.
Oh, I still turn out the same sort of work, stuff that is clean, alive,
optimistic, and that makes toward life. And I am always assured by the
critics of my super-abundant and abounding vitality, and of how
thoroughly I am deluded by these very illusions I exploit.

And while on this digression, let me repeat the question I have repeated
to myself ten thousand times. WHY DID I DRINK? What need was there for
it? I was happy. Was it because I was too happy? I was strong. Was it
because I was too strong? Did I possess too much vitality? I don't know
why I drank. I cannot answer, though I can voice the suspicion that ever
grows in me. I had been in too-familiar contact with John Barleycorn
through too many years. A left-handed man, by long practice, can become
a right-handed man. Had I, a non-alcoholic, by long practice become an
alcoholic?

I was so happy. I had won through my long sickness to the satisfying
love of woman. I earned more money with less endeavour. I glowed with
health. I slept like a babe. I continued to write successful books, and
in sociological controversy I saw my opponents confuted with the facts of
the times that daily reared new buttresses to my intellectual position.
From day's end to day's end I never knew sorrow, disappointment, nor
regret. I was happy all the time. Life was one unending song. I
begrudged the very hours of blessed sleep because by that much was I
robbed of the joy that would have been mine had I remained awake. And
yet I drank. And John Barleycorn, all unguessed by me, was setting the
stage for a sickness all his own.

The more I drank the more I was required to drink to get an equivalent
effect. When I left the Valley of the Moon,