They are too busy keeping their feet dry, conserving their heart-beats, and making unlovely life-successes of their spirit-mediocrity.
And so I draw the indictment home to John Barleycorn.

It is just those, the good fellows, the worth while, the fellows with the weakness of too much strength, too much spirit, too much fire and flame of fine devilishness, that he solicits and ruins.

Of course, he ruins weaklings; but with them, the worst we breed, I am not here concerned.

My concern is that it is so much of the best we breed whom John Barleycorn destroys.
And the reason why these best are destroyed is because John Barleycorn stands on every highway and byway, accessible, law-protected, saluted by the policeman on the beat, speaking to them, leading them by the hand to the places where the good fellows and daring ones forgather and drink deep.

With John Barleycorn out of the way, these daring ones would still be born, and they would do things instead of perishing.
Always I encountered the camaraderie of drink.