The Bed-Book of Happiness
"A GATHERING OF HAPPINESS, A CONCENTRATION AND COMBINATION OF PLEASANT DETAILS, A THRONG OF GLAD FACES, A MUSTER OF ELATED HEARTS." _CHARLOTTE BRONTE_ THE BED-BOOK OF HAPPINESS Being a Colligation or Assemblage of Cheerful Writings brought together from many quarters into this one compass for the diversion, distraction, and delight of those who lie abed,--a friend to the invalid, a companion to the sleepless, an excuse to the tired, by HAROLD BEGBIE HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
"As I have moved among those who are physically stricken with alcohol,
and have detected under the various disguises of name the fatal
diseases, the pains and penalties it imposes on the body, the picture
has been sufficiently cruel. But even that picture pales, as I conjure
up, without any stretch of imagination, the devastations which the same
agent inflicts on the mind. Forty per cent., the learned Superintendent
of Colney Hatch, Dr. Sheppard, tells us, of those who were brought into
that asylum in 1876, were so brought because of the direct or indirect
effects of alcohol. If the facts of all the asylums were collected with
equal care, the same tale would, I fear, be told. What need we further
to show the destructive action on the human mind? The Pandemonium of
drunkards; the grand transformation scene of that pantomime of drink
which commences with, moderation! Let it never more be forgotten by
those who love their fellow-men until, through their efforts, it is
closed forever."
We might go on, adding page after page of evidence, showing how alcohol
curses the souls, as well as the bodies, of men; but enough has been
educed to force conviction on the mind of every reader not already
satisfied of its poisonous and destructive quality.
How light are all evils flowing from intemperance compared with those
which it thus inflicts on man's higher nature. "What," says Dr. W.E.
Channing, "is the great essential evil of intemperance? The reply is
given, when I say, that intemperance is the
"A GATHERING OF HAPPINESS, A CONCENTRATION AND COMBINATION OF PLEASANT DETAILS, A THRONG OF GLAD FACES, A MUSTER OF ELATED HEARTS." _CHARLOTTE BRONTE_ THE BED-BOOK OF HAPPINESS Being a Colligation or Assemblage of Cheerful Writings brought together from many quarters into this one compass for the diversion, distraction, and delight of those who lie abed,--a friend to the invalid, a companion to the sleepless, an excuse to the tired, by HAROLD BEGBIE HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO