Pagina 427 van 1118

Here we have need of all our love of truth to induce us to pursue

faithfully our hero's history; at the same time this same

impartiality leads us to inform the reader, that this was his

first error of a similar character; and precisely because he was

so unaccustomed to merry-making did this prove so fatal. The few

glasses of wine which he swallowed so rapidly, contrary to his

custom, partly to cool his throat, and partly from an exaltation

of spirits, which deprived him of the power of reflection, went

immediately to his head. Upon an habitual drinker it would have

produced no visible effect; our author observes this, that

"temperate and moderate habits have this advantage, that the more

a man practises them, the more he finds a departure from them to

be disagreeable and inconvenient; so that his fault itself serves

as a lesson to him for the future."