Judge — May 1, 1920 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Drven by T. 8 Tovaxr After traveling 1200 miles to New York for entertainment the Dobsons find themselves reobserving the same film they saw in Horsford Centre two weeks ago. Is Genius Half-Seas Over? By Bexyasus De Casseres OES alcohol produce genius? Did the poet precede booze, or did booze precede the poet? Is intoxication a pre-established Idea in the Eternal Mind; or is the Eternal Mind itself a delusion produced by intoxication? As the world threatens to go dry, according to the best authorities, these questions had best be settled once and for- ever. They take on the importance of those other two problems —Did the egg precede the hen or the hen the egg; did the circle exist per se before the doughnut, or did the doughnut create the circle? There is a god of alcohol, Bacchus. How did Bacchus distil the first intoxicant? Is he a veritable being, or is he the collective illusion of an aborig- inal booze party of pocts? Wine and intoxicants in some form have been associated with artistic creation from time im- memorial. The sacred books of the world run to metaphors and similes about the vine, the grape and the toby. The Devil can quote Scripture, we are told. But should Scripture keep quoting the Devil and get away with it? “Interview the authorities,” is the first command of every editor. So I rang up the ouija board on the great artists of all time, and put it up to them BACCHUS was first, of course. on my list. His answer was rather enigmatic (he prob- Drawn by Ross Westin ex A New ably was entertaining a large and fermentatious house party in the Café de Raisin). “Tl always be It,” he said. “Amendments may come and amendments may go, but I bubble on forever. My mother was a grape, my father the sun. Keep tabs on Venus and me—all the other gods are selling platers.” -ESCHYLUS: All my great tragedies were written on a hang-over. In fact, they are my hang-overs. BARNUL My secret vice was sherry. NEWTON: Alcohol is onc of the elements. ‘Che comets are the poets of the heavens—and they never can walk a chalk- line. SHAKESPEARE: Wrote some.of my best stuff on gin ane ale. There’s a divinity that shapes our jags, rough-house them as we may. All genius is alcoholic or it is only Baconian. CHESTERFIELD: No gentleman believes in genius. I did not drink. Suppose the lower classes had seen me in my cups! THOMAS JEFFERSON: | hold this truth to be self-evident —that man was created for life, liberty and the pursuit of beer. IBSEN: What the world calls my great dramas came out of thousands of bottles of cognac. Brandy is the master- builder. KEATS: A king that’s boozy is a joy forever. ROBERT BURNS: No one would ever have called me “Bobby” if I had not got lit up. Alcohol was not necessary to me, but I was necessary to alcohol. Omar ard myself put the O. K. on the stuff. LORD BYRON: There is no connection between genius and the bottle. I was a genius before I was born. Burgundy merely rested me from the labors of being a genius. EDGAR ALLAN POE: The imp in the bottle got mc from the first—and when I saw how people became upset about my habits I took a great delight in horrifying them. If alcohol enius, how can we account for the cumulative » of the human race? No, sir; genius is beyond the HORACE: Genius and water are eterral enemies. Source or [Ncome rok THE Farmer