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Although Louis and Anne established their residence at the King's birthplace, the Château of Blois, the Queen was at Amboise during the spring after her marriage, where her return was celebrated with rejoicings and festivities which were as original as they were picturesque, and well calculated to please a wine-drinking populace.
Strange to say, that was not only my first but my last experience of the kind, and now I imagine that the old customs of the road the wine-drinking, the speech-making, the toasts, and the graces before and after meat are all things of the past. My editorial career at Preston began with a somewhat painful and even dramatic episode.
Flung into life without a friend, governed only by the will of a race born to command, he has struggled through sneers and sarcasm to eminence. Men fear him now, women flatter, nearly all envy; yet he is alone. He knows this; he knows that in all the laughing groups who enjoy this wine-drinking and turkey-eating day his name has not been mentioned once.
In the fierce protests against the peculiar sins which had marked Pagan life, gluttony, wine-drinking, unchastity, ostentatious vanities, and turbulent mirth, monasticism decreed abstinence, perpetual virginity, the humblest dress, the entire disuse of ornaments, silence, and meditation. These were supposed to disarm the demons who led into foul temptation.
New Year's night is also a night of independence, but the greater number of the male community are so "well on" with wine-drinking and excitement, that staying at home is generally deemed advisable. There are two free nights, besides, on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the first moon, and on one of the days at "half-year" in the sixth moon. That is all.
This man was never drunk, and never appeared to be under the influence of liquor, yet he was in reality never actually sober; and he is a type of a large number in the great cities who constitute what is termed the "man about town." The Americans are not a wine-drinking people.
Had his mind been perfectly clear had none of the effects of his wine-drinking at Elbridge's remained, he would have resisted to the end this solicitation, at the hour and under the circumstances. But his mind was not perfectly clear. And so, a few steps being taken by compulsion, he moved on by a sort of constrained volition.
They had a great time at the club, I remember, when he came of age and came into possession of his patrimony a trifle of half a million, I believe. He gave a dinner, and there was such a time as the Hasheesh Club never saw before nor since. I fear there was overmuch wine-drinking, and I am sure there was a fearful amount of punch drunk.
It was early autumn. I chanced to hear some one speak of Naples and only death would have held me back. Truly, I grow aged. I have no longer much delight in wine. But then, no wine ever much rejoiced me save that of Italy. Wine-drinking in England is, after all, only make-believe, a mere playing with an exotic inspiration.
Within three weeks he has started a revolution, beats the government forces at Ceiba, chases Belize from the capital, gets Nicaragua mixed up in the trouble, and draws three French, two German, and two American war-ships to the scene. Six weeks after the wine-drinking he is President of the Republic, en facto. And all of this, Greggy, because of a kiss.
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