It is difficult with both to say what the lack precisely is; but with both it includes an absolute insensibility to the shortcoming." Mr.Simeon could not help wondering if this applied to poor men who abstained of necessity.

He thought not; being, for his part, conscious of a number of shortcomings.
"Spirits," went on the Master, wheeling half-about in his revolving-chair and crossing one shapely gaitered leg over another, "Spirits--and especially whisky--eat out the health of a man and leave him a sodden pulp.

Beer is honest, but brutalising.
Wine--certainly any good wine that can trace its origin back beyond the Reformation--is one with all good literature, and indeed with civilisation.

_Antiquam exquirite matrem_: all three come from the Mediterranean basin or from around it, and it is only the ill-born who contemn descent." "Brother Copas--" began Mr.Simeon, and came to a halt.
He lived sparely; he had fasted for many hours; and standing there he could feel the generous liquor coursing through him--nay could almost have reported its progress from ganglion to ganglion.

He blessed it, and at the same moment breathed a prayer that it might not affect his head.
"Brother Copas-- ?" Mr.Simeon wished now that he had not begun his sentence.
The invigorating _Chateau Neuf du Pape_ seemed to overtake and chase away all uncharitable thoughts.