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Updated: May 4, 2025
I had developed no moral theories against drinking, and I disliked as much as ever the taste of the stuff. But I had grown respectfully suspicious of John Barleycorn. I could not forget that trick he had played on me on me who did not want to die. So I continued to drink, and to keep a sharp eye on John Barleycorn, resolved to resist all future suggestions of self-destruction.
It was a purple passage, just as Victor's wrecking of the tea-house in the Bonin Islands and my being looted by the runaway apprentices were purple passages. The point is that the charm of John Barleycorn was still a mystery to me.
And the phrase fitted him with tragic accuracy. "You see? What a merry wedding-guest I'll be! I invite you to join me on the nuptial eve." "Thanks. Who's getting married: when the nuptial eve?" Ray opened the door, and, turning, rolled his eyes fantastically. "Haven't you heard?" he cried. "When Hecate marries John Barleycorn!" He bowed low. "Mr. Midas, adieu."
"Thank you," said the woman, and she gave the fairy twelve shillings, which was the price of the barleycorn. Then she went home and planted it, and immediately there grew up a large handsome flower, something like a tulip in appearance, but with its leaves tightly closed as if it were still a bud.
He became immensely popular among certain of the faster set and all unconsciously found himself pitted against the most relentless foeman of them all John Barleycorn. Gradually the personnel of his friends changed. Less and less frequently did he appear at the various social functions of the Avenue, and more and more did he enter into the spirit of the Great White Way.
This was the trick of John Barleycorn, laying me by the heels of my imagination and in a drug-dream dragging me to death. Oh, he was convincing. I had really experienced all of life, and it didn't amount to much. There were all the broken-down old bums and loafers I had bought drinks for. That was what remained of life. Did I want to become like them?
I insisted on travelling or loafing with the livest, keenest men, and it was just these live, keen ones that did most of the drinking. They were the more comradely men, the more venturous, the more individual. Perhaps it was too much temperament that made them turn from the commonplace and humdrum to find relief in the lying and fantastic sureties of John Barleycorn.
And, of course, I took another drink for the inhibition that accompanied it. I took another drink every time John Barleycorn reminded me of what had happened. Yet I drank rationally, intelligently. I saw to it that the quality of the stuff was of the best. I sought the kick and the inhibition, and avoided the penalties of poor quality and of drunkenness.
I repeated this on subsequent mornings, of course, taking another cocktail just before I ate at twelve-thirty. Soon I found myself, seated at my desk in the midst of my thousand words, looking forward to that eleven-thirty cocktail. At last, now, I was thoroughly conscious that I desired alcohol. But what of it? I wasn't afraid of John Barleycorn. I had associated with him too long.
Addison, in one of his Spectators, commends the judgement of a King, who, as a suitable reward to a man that by long perseverance had attained to the art of throwing a barleycorn through the eye of a needle, gave him a bushel of barley. JOHNSON. 'He must have been a King of Scotland, where barley is scarce. F. 'One of the most remarkable antique figures of an animal is the boar at Florence. JOHNSON. 'The first boar that is well made in marble, should be preserved as a wonder.
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