“I do not like to sit down and drink
like a gentleman, neither do I like to stop
drinking because I can feel my liquor, as
gentlemen do in England, or anyway in
English books.
I am an American and I drink American.
I do not understand this constant bickering
about drinks and gentlemen. A man who
drinks like a gentleman is, it is popularly
supposed, one who sips his liquor sitting
down, looks straight ahead with dignity,
drinks with all the gusto and expression of
an Indian taking his balsam tea against the
evil spirits, and ends by rising slowly to his
feet and saying, “Well, old fellow, I’ll toddle
up to bed.”
And then he really does toddle up to bed.
This is a waste of time, a waste of liquor,
and a waste of gentleman.
It makes it difficult for the layman to discover
why Englishmen and others who
drink like gentlemen drink at all. Drinking,
throughout America excepting the Harvard
Club, and among non-gentlemen the world
over, is an adventure, not a heathen ritual.
It springs from an understandable and, so
far as I am concerned, a laudable, curiosity
as to what will happen if, just about the
time the gentlemanly drinker is toddling up
to bed, you shake your head vigorously and
start walking in a northeasterly direction.
It is at this point that the spirit of
the pioneers in the American bloodstream
comes bounding to the surface, and the
American steps forth.
He is unafraid.
The
impenetrable night lies just ahead, holding
dangers that are exceeded in magnitude
only by the rewards that are possible. Where
the Englishman knows he’s going to end up
in bed, the American likes to think he may
end up in Bali. Frequently he ends up in jail,
but incredible as it may seem, he often does
get to Bali.
It’s worth trying for…”
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