Excerpted from Christopher Morley’s A Book of Days: Being a Briefcase packed for his own Pleasure
DECEMBER 9, WED. 1931
Take especial care that thou delight not in wine; for there never was any man that came to honour or preferment that loved it; for it transformeth a man into a beast, decayeth health, poisoneth the breath, destroyeth natural heat, brings a man stomach to an artificial heat, deformeth the face, rotteth the teeth, and maketh a man contemptible.
— SIR WALTER RALEIGH, Instructions to Posterity
Too late, bro.
Damn. I wonder what he would say about whiskey.
Oh dear. Well, explains my deformities of face and when I’m in a bad mood I can blame it on the wine too. That being said, where is that bottle of Dao I opened last night?
Ted, yeah, and you are very ‘contemptible’ – I have often said it to myself after one of our evenings together: “I wonder why I like Ted so much when he is so contemptible’??”
I imagine Sir Walter spoke from personal experience, and instructed posterity to profit from his own tardy judgement.