Selected from the Winter 2013 issue of Lapham’s Quarterly.
The question that tempts mankind to the use of substances controlled and uncontrolled is next of kin to Hamlet’s: to be, or not to be, someone or somewhere else.
–Lewis H. Lapham, 2013
With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you please. But get drunk.
—Charles Baudelaire, c. 1867
And certainly it is most absurdly said in popular language of any man that he is disguised in liquor; for, on the contrary, most men are disguised by sobriety, and it is when they are drinking (as some old gentleman says in Athenaeus) that men display themselves in their true complexion of character, which surely is not disguising themselves.
—Thomas De Quincey, 1822
And what are gods that Man may not become As they, participating godlike food? —John Milton, 1667
It was too much for him. He closed his eyes, surrendering himself to her, body and mind, conscious of nothing in the world but the dark pressure of her softly parting lips. They pressed upon his brain as upon his lips as though they were the vehicle of a vague speech; and between them he felt an unknown and timid pressure, darker than the swoon of sin, softer than sound or odor.
–James Joyce, 1916
We tell them, brothers, to fetch us useful things—bring goods that will clothe us, our women, and our children, but not this evil liquor which destroys our reason, that destroys our health, that destroys our lives.
—Little Turtle, 1801
We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you, “Do not drink,” answer him, “I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to.”
—Martin Luther, 1530
The most of us used to drink it down, and the result was just what might be supposed—many of us were led to think that there was little to choose between liberty and slavery. We felt, and very properly too, that we had almost as well be slaves to man as to rum.
—Frederick Douglass, 1833
In the times of the many glorious and victorious battles fought by this nation, there was no word of tobacco.
—King James I, 1604
And what a metamorphosis this was!—that an act as ordinary and blameless as the planting of a handful of common and perfectly legal seeds could somehow transport one into the country of criminality.
—Michael Pollan, 1997
Inebriate of air—am I— And Debauchee of Dew— Reeling—through endless summer days— From inns of molten Blue— When “Landlords” turn the drunken Bee Out of the Foxglove’s door— When Butterflies—renounce their “drams”— I shall but drink the more! —Emily Dickinson, 1861
I never knew a sailor in my life who would not prefer a pot of hot coffee or chocolate in a cold night to all the rum afloat.
—Richard Henry Dana Jr., 1836
O, for a draft of vintage! that hath been Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! –John Keats, 1819
Higher than the topmost pinnacle of Bel’s Babylonish temple—higher than Ararat—on, on forever into the lonely dome of God’s infinite universe we towered ceaselessly.
—Fitz Hugh Ludlow, c. 1855
Every exertion of my will, every attempt to put an end to the disintegration of the outer world and the dissolution of my ego, seemed to be wasted effort. A demon had invaded me, had taken possession of my body, mind, and soul.
–Albert Hofmann, 1943
But he never drank a drop without reason. For if by chance he was vexed, angry, displeased, or peeved, if he stamped, if he wept or if he screamed, they always brought him drink to restore his temper, and immediately he became quiet and happy.
–François Rabelais, 1535
Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That’s all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die. —W.B. Yeats, 1910
Ah, you laugh; you think I’m drunk! Fine, go ahead—I know I’m right anyway.
—Plato, 416 BC
The john was looking worried. Crack isn’t addictive, now, is it? he said. Oh, no, honey, the prostitute smiled. It’s just a psychological thing. –William T. Vollmann, 1992
I believed that there would be no blue sky without the sun and there would be no books without Scotch, no poems without rye.
—Anne Roiphe, 1963
Why do gamblers almost all smoke? Why among women do those who lead a regular life smoke least? Why do prostitutes and madmen all smoke? Habit is habit, but evidently smoking stands in some definite connection with the craving to stifle conscience, and achieves the end required of it.
—Leo Tolstoy, 1890
So kicking is the most insidious thing. It’s a million times worse than they portray it. It’s not an outward, noisy anguish. It’s an inner suffering that only you, and, if there’s any such thing as God, like, maybe you and He know it.
—Art Pepper, 1954
Drunkenness, sexual irregularities, brutality, and disregard for the rights of property are the chief points with which the bourgeois charges the workers. That they drink heavily is to be expected.
—Friedrich Engels, 1844
It’s like a boundless dream here in this world, nothing anywhere to trouble us. I have, therefore, been drunk all day, a shambles of sleep on the front porch. —Li Bai, c. 720
There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice—the demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity.
—Abraham Lincoln, 1842
Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has repressed.
—Samuel Johnson, 1778
Only think of it. To have felt for that long dateless ecstasy of vision the very God, in all purity and tenderness and truth and absolute love, and then to find that I had after all had no revelation, but that I had been tricked by the abnormal excitement of my brain.
—John Addington Symonds, 1873
Lapham’s Quarterly is a project of the American Agora Foundation, which is dedicated to fostering an appreciation of, and acquaintance with, the uses and value of history. Please help us continue our work. Donate today.
INTOXICATION
Winter 2013