July 26, 2025 • 26 mins
Discover the untold story of renowned author Jack London, who tragically passed away at just forty years old. In this deeply personal memoir, London shares his life through the lens of his relationship with alcohol, personified as John Barleycorn. Despite the prevailing controversies surrounding his demise, Londons candid exposition of his battles with alcoholism was far ahead of its time, pre-empting modern theories of addiction. With an extraordinary blend of honesty and insight, he unveils his encounters with both the demons and deities of his life, personified by his friend and foe, John Barleycorn. (Summary by Peter Kelleher)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapters twenty nine and thirty of John barleycorn Or Alcoholic
Memoirs by Jack Lundon. This is a LibriVox recording. All
LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
(00:20):
or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org Chapter twenty nine.
After my long sickness, my drinking continued to be convivial.
I drank when others drank, and I was with them.
But imperceptibly my need for alcohol took form and began
(00:45):
to grow. It was not a body need. I boxed, swam,
sailed road horses, lived in the open and arrantly healthful life,
and passed life insurance examinations with lying colors in its inception.
Now that I look back upon it, this need for
(01:06):
alcohol was a mental need, a nerve need, a good
spirit's need. How can I explain? It was something like this? Physiologically,
from the standpoint of palette and stomach, alcohol was as
it had always been, repulsive. It tasted no better than
(01:29):
beer did when I was five, than bitter claret did
when I was seven. When I was alone, writing or studying,
I had no need for it. But I was growing old,
or wise, or both, or senile as an alternative. When
I was in company, I was less pleased, less excited,
(01:52):
with the things said and done, erstwhile worthwhile. Fun and
stunts seemed no longer worthwhile. And it was a torment
to listen to the insipities and stupidities of women, to
the pompous, arrogant sayings of the little half baked men.
(02:13):
It is the penalty one pays for reading the books
too much, or for being oneself a fool. In my case,
it does not matter which was my trouble. The trouble
itself was the fact. The condition of the fact was
mine for me. The life and light and sparkle of
(02:35):
human intercourse were dwindling. I had climbed too high among
the stars, or maybe I had slept too hard. Yet
I was not hysterical, nor in any way over wrought.
My pulse was normal. My heart was an amazement of
excellence to the insurance doctors. My lungs through the said
(03:00):
into ecstasies. I wrote a thousand words every day. I
was punctiliously exact in dealing with all the affairs of
life that fell to my lot. I exercised in joy
and gladness. I slept at night like a babe, but well,
(03:24):
as soon as I got out in the company of others,
I was driven to melancholy and spiritual tears. I could
neither laugh with nor at the solemn utterances of men
I esteemed ponderous asses. Nor could I laugh nor engage
in my old time lightsome persiflage with the silly, superficial
(03:49):
chatterings of women, who, underneath all their silliness and softness,
were as primitive, direct and deadly in their pursuit of
biological destiny as the monkeys women were before they shed
their furry coats and replace them with the furs of
(04:10):
other animals. And I was not pessimistic. I swear I
was not pessimistic. I was merely bored. I had seen
the same show too often, listened too often to the
same songs and the same jokes. I knew too much
(04:31):
about the box office receipts. I knew the cogs of
the machinery behind the scenes so well that the posing
on the stage and the laughter and the song could
not drown the creaking of the wheels behind. It doesn't
pay to go behind the scenes and see the angel
(04:54):
voiced tenor beat his wife. Well, I'd been behind and
I was paying for it, or else I was a fool.
It is immaterial which was my situation. The situation is
what counts, and the situation was that social intercourse for
(05:15):
me was getting painful and difficult. On the other hand,
it must be stated that on rare occasions, on very
rare occasions, I did meet rare souls or fools like me,
with whom I could spend magnificent hours among the stars
(05:36):
or in the paradise of fools. I was married to
a rare soul or a fool, who never bored me,
and who was always a source of new and unending
surprise and delight. But I could not spend all my
hours solely in her company, nor would it have been
(05:57):
fair nor wise to compel her to spend all her
hours in my company. Besides, I had written a string
of successful books, and society demands some portion of the
recreative hours of a fellow that writes books, and any
(06:18):
normal man of himself and his needs demands some hours
of his fellow men. And now we begin to come
to it, how to face the social intercourse game with
the glamour gone. John Barleycorn the ever patient one, had
(06:39):
waited a quarter of a century and more for me
to reach my hand out in need of him. His
thousand tricks had failed, thanks to my constitution and good luck,
but he had more tricks in his bag. A cocktailer
two or I found, cheered me up for the foolishness
(07:04):
of foolish people. A cocktail or several before dinner enabled
me to laugh wholeheartedly at things which had long since
ceased being laughable. The cocktail was a prod, a spur,
a kick to my jaded mind and bored spirits. It
(07:28):
recrudesced the laughter and the song, and put a lilt
into my own imagination, so that I could laugh and
sing and say foolish things with the liveliest of them,
or platitudes with verve and intensity, to the satisfaction of
the pompous, mediocre ones who knew no other way to
(07:50):
talk A poor companion without a cocktail, I became a
very good companion with one. A false exhilaration drugged myself
to merriment, and the thing began so imperceptibly that I
old intimate of John Barleycorn never dreamed whither it was
(08:14):
leading me. I was beginning to call for music and wine.
Soon I should be calling for matter, music and more wine.
It was at this time I became aware of waiting
with expectancy for the pre dinner cocktail. I wanted it,
(08:36):
and I was conscious that I wanted it. I remember,
while war corresponding in the far East, of being irresistibly
attracted to a certain home. Besides accepting all invitation to dinner,
I made a point of dropping in almost every afternoon.
(08:56):
Now the hostess was a charming woman, but it was
not for her sake that I was under her roof
so frequently. It happened that she made by far the
finest cocktail procurable. In that large city, where drink mixing
on the part of the foreign population was indeed an art.
(09:20):
Up at the club, down, at the hotels, and in
other private houses, no such cocktails were created. Her cocktails
were subtle, they were masterpieces. They were the least repulsive
to the palate and carried the most kick. And yet
(09:41):
I desired her cocktails only for sociability's sake, to key
myself to sociable moods. When I rode away from that
city across hundreds of miles of rice fields, and mountains,
and through months of campaigning and on with the victorious
(10:02):
Japanese into Manchurier, I did not drink. Several bottles of
whiskey were always to be found on the backs of
my pack horses, Yet I never broached a bottle for myself,
never took a drink by myself, and never knew a
(10:22):
desire to take such a drink. Oh, if a white
man came into my camp, I opened a bottle and
we drank together according to the way of men, just
as he would open a bottle and drink with me
if I came into his camp, I carried that whiskey
(10:44):
for social purposes, and I so charged it up to
my expense account to the newspaper for which I worked.
Only in retrospect, can I mark the almost imperceptible growth
of my desire. There were little hints then that I
(11:04):
did not take, little straws in the wind, that I
did not see, little incidents the gravity of which I
did not realize. For instance, for some years it had
been my practice each winter to cruise for six or
eight weeks on San Francisco Bay my stout sloop yacht.
(11:30):
The Spray, had a comfortable cabin and a coal stove.
A Korean boy did the cooking, and I usually took
a friend or so along to share the joys of
the cruise. Also, I took my machine along and did
my thousand words a day. On the particular trip I
(11:51):
have in mind, Cloudsley and Toddy came along. This was
Totty's first trip. On pre trips, Cloudsley had elected to
drink beer, so I had kept the yacht supplied with
beer and had drunk beer with him. But on this
cruise the situation was different. Toddy was so nicknamed because
(12:17):
of his diabolical cleverness in concocting toddies. So I brought
whiskey along a couple of gallons alas many another gallon
I bought for Cloudsley, and I got into the habit
of drinking a certain hot Toddy that actually tasted delicious
(12:41):
going down, and that carried the most exhilarating kick imaginable.
I liked those Toddies. I grew to look forward to
the making of them. We drank them regularly, one before breakfast,
one before dinner, one before supper, and a final one
(13:04):
when we went to bed. We never got drunk, but
I will say that four times a day. We were
very genial. And when in the middle of the cruise
Toddy was called back to San Francisco on business, Cloudsley
and I saw to it that the Korean boy mixed
(13:27):
Toddies regularly for us according to formula. But that was
only on the boat. Back on the land. In my house,
I took no breakfast eye opener, no bed going nightcap,
and I haven't drunk hot Toddies since, and that was
(13:47):
many a year ago. But the point is I liked
those Toddies. The geniality of which they were provocative was marvelous.
They were eloquent, proselytites for John Barleycorn in their own small,
insidious way. They were tickles of the something destined to
(14:11):
grow into daily and deadly desire. And I didn't know,
never dreamed I who had lived with John Barleycorn for
so many years and laughed at all his unavailing attempts
to win me Chapter thirty. Part of the process of
(14:41):
recovering from my long sickness was to find delight in
little things, in things unconnected with books and problems, in play,
in games of tag, in the swimming pool, in flying kites,
in fooling with horses, in working mechanical puzzles. As a result,
(15:03):
I grew tired of the city. On the ranch in
the Valley of the Moon, I found my paradise. I
gave up living in cities. All the cities held for
me were music, the theater, and Turkish baths, and all
went well with me. I worked hard, played hard, and
(15:27):
was very happy. I read more fiction and less fact.
I did not study a tithe as much as I
had studied in the past. I still took an interest
in the fundamental problems of existence, but it was a
very cautious interest, for I had burned my fingers that time.
(15:49):
I clutched at the veils of truth and wrestled them
from her. There was a bit of lie in this
attitude of mine, a bit of hypocrisy. But the lie
and the hypocrisy were those of a man desiring to live.
I deliberately blinded myself to what I took to be
(16:11):
the savage interpretation of biological fact. After all, I was
merely forswearing a bad habit, foregoing a bad frame of mind.
And I repeat, I was very happy. And I add
that in all my days measuring them with cold, considerative judgment.
(16:36):
This was far and away, beyond all other periods, the
happiest period of my life. But the time was at
hand rimeless and reasonless, so far as I can see,
when I was to begin to pay for my score
of years of dallying with John Barrarllcorn. Occasionally guests journeyed
(17:03):
to the ranch and remained a few days. Some did
not drink, but to those who did drink, the absence
of all alcohol on the ranch was a hardship. I
could not violate my sense of hospitality by compelling them
to endure this hardship. I ordered in a stock for
(17:25):
my guests. I was never interested enough in cocktails to
know how they were made, so I got a barkeeper
in Oakland to make them in bulk and ship them
to me. When I had no guests, I didn't drink,
but I began to notice, when I finished my morning's
(17:47):
work that I was glad if there was a guest
for then I could drink a cocktail with him. Now
I was so clean of alcohol that even a single
cocktail was provocative of pitch. A single cocktail would glow
(18:07):
the mind and tickle a laugh for the few minutes
prior to sitting down to table and starting the delightful
process of eating. On the other hand, such was the
strength of my stomach, of my alcoholic resistance, that the
single cocktail was only the glimmer of a glow, the
(18:32):
faintest tickle of a laugh. One day, a friend frankly
and shamelessly suggested a second cocktail. I drank the second
with him. The glow was appreciably longer and warmer, the
laughter deeper and more resonant. One does not forget such experiences. Sometime.
(19:02):
I almost think that it was because I was so
very happy that I started on my real drinking. I
remember one day Charmian and I took a long ride
over the mountains on our horses. The servants had been
dismissed for the day, and we returned late at night
(19:24):
to a jolly, chafing dish supper. Oh, it was good
to be alive. That night. While the supper was preparing,
the two of us alone in the kitchen, I personally
was at the top of life. Such things as the
books and ultimate truth did not exist. My body was
(19:48):
gloriously healthy and healthily tired from the long ride. It
had been a splendid day. The night was splendid. I
was with the woman who was my mate, picnicking in
gleeful abandoned. I had no troubles. The bills were all paid,
(20:11):
and a surplice of money was rolling in on me.
The future ever widened before me, and right there in
the kitchen, delicious things bubbled in the chafing dish our,
laughter bubbled, and my stomach was keen with a most
(20:33):
delicious edge of appetite. I felt so good that somehow
somewhere in me arose an insatiable greed to feel better.
I was so happy that I wanted to pitch my
(20:53):
happiness even higher. And I knew the way ten thousand
contacts with John Barleycorn had taught me. Several times I
wandered out of the kitchen to the cocktail bottle, and
each time I left it diminished by one man's size cocktail.
(21:18):
The result was splendid. I wasn't jingled, I wasn't lighted up,
but I was warmed. I glowed. My happiness was pyramided.
Munificent as life was to me, I added to that munificence.
It was a great hour, one of my greatest, But
(21:42):
I paid for it long afterwards. As you will see,
one does not forget such experiences, and inhuman stupidity cannot
be brought to realize that there is no immutable law
which decrees that same things shall produce same results, for
(22:06):
they don't. Else would the thousandth pipe of opium be
provocative of similar delights to the first? Else would one
cocktail instead of several, produce an equivalent glow after a
year of cocktails. One day, just before I ate midday dinner,
(22:31):
after my morning's writing was done, when I had no guest,
I took a cocktail by myself. Thereafter, when there were
no guests, I took this daily pre dinner cocktail, And
right there, John Barleycorn had me. I was beginning to
(22:57):
drink regularly. I was beginning to drink alone, and I
was beginning to drink not for hospitality's sake, not for
the sake of the taste, but for the effect of
the drink. I wanted that daily pre dinner cocktail, and
(23:18):
it never crossed my mind that there was any reason
I should not have it. I paid for it. I
could pay for a thousand cocktails each day if I wanted.
And what was a cocktail. One cocktail to me who had,
on so many occasions, for so many years, had drunk
(23:44):
inordinate quantities of stiffer stuff and been unharmed. The program
of my ranch life was as follows. Each morning, at
eight thirty, having been reading or correcting proofs in bits
since four or five, I went to my desk. Odds
(24:05):
and ends of correspondence and notes occupied me till nine,
and at nine sharp, invariably I began my writing. By eleven,
sometimes a few minutes earlier or later, my thousand words
were finished another half hour at cleaning up my desk,
(24:27):
and my day's work was done, so that eleven thirty
I got into a hammock under the trees with my
mail bag in the morning newspaper. At twelve thirty I
ate dinner, and in the afternoon I swam and rowed.
One morning, at eleven thirty, before I got into the hammock,
(24:51):
I took a cocktail. I repeated this on subsequent mornings,
of course, taking another cocktail just before I ate at
twelve thirty. Soon I found myself seated at my desk
in the midst of my thousand words, looking forward to
(25:14):
that eleven thirty cocktail at last. Now, I was thoroughly
conscious that I desired alcohol, But what of it. I
wasn't afraid of John Barleycorn. I had associated with him
too long. I was wise in the matter of drink.
(25:38):
I was discreet. Never again would I drink to excess.
I knew the dangers and the pitfalls of John Barleycorn,
the various ways by which he had tried to kill
me in the past. But all that was past, long past.
(25:59):
Never again would I drink myself to stupefaction. Never again
would I get drunk. All I wanted and all I
would take, was just enough to glow and warm me,
to kick geniality alive in me, and put laughter in
(26:19):
my throat, and stir the maggots of imagination slightly in
my brain. Oh, I was thoroughly master of myself and
of John Barleycorn. End of Chapter thirty
Chapters twenty nine and thirty of John barleycorn Or Alcoholic
Memoirs by Jack Lundon. This is a LibriVox recording. All
LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
(00:20):
or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org Chapter twenty nine.
After my long sickness, my drinking continued to be convivial.
I drank when others drank, and I was with them.
But imperceptibly my need for alcohol took form and began
(00:45):
to grow. It was not a body need. I boxed, swam,
sailed road horses, lived in the open and arrantly healthful life,
and passed life insurance examinations with lying colors in its inception.
Now that I look back upon it, this need for
(01:06):
alcohol was a mental need, a nerve need, a good
spirit's need. How can I explain? It was something like this? Physiologically,
from the standpoint of palette and stomach, alcohol was as
it had always been, repulsive. It tasted no better than
(01:29):
beer did when I was five, than bitter claret did
when I was seven. When I was alone, writing or studying,
I had no need for it. But I was growing old,
or wise, or both, or senile as an alternative. When
I was in company, I was less pleased, less excited,
(01:52):
with the things said and done, erstwhile worthwhile. Fun and
stunts seemed no longer worthwhile. And it was a torment
to listen to the insipities and stupidities of women, to
the pompous, arrogant sayings of the little half baked men.
(02:13):
It is the penalty one pays for reading the books
too much, or for being oneself a fool. In my case,
it does not matter which was my trouble. The trouble
itself was the fact. The condition of the fact was
mine for me. The life and light and sparkle of
(02:35):
human intercourse were dwindling. I had climbed too high among
the stars, or maybe I had slept too hard. Yet
I was not hysterical, nor in any way over wrought.
My pulse was normal. My heart was an amazement of
excellence to the insurance doctors. My lungs through the said
(03:00):
into ecstasies. I wrote a thousand words every day. I
was punctiliously exact in dealing with all the affairs of
life that fell to my lot. I exercised in joy
and gladness. I slept at night like a babe, but well,
(03:24):
as soon as I got out in the company of others,
I was driven to melancholy and spiritual tears. I could
neither laugh with nor at the solemn utterances of men
I esteemed ponderous asses. Nor could I laugh nor engage
in my old time lightsome persiflage with the silly, superficial
(03:49):
chatterings of women, who, underneath all their silliness and softness,
were as primitive, direct and deadly in their pursuit of
biological destiny as the monkeys women were before they shed
their furry coats and replace them with the furs of
(04:10):
other animals. And I was not pessimistic. I swear I
was not pessimistic. I was merely bored. I had seen
the same show too often, listened too often to the
same songs and the same jokes. I knew too much
(04:31):
about the box office receipts. I knew the cogs of
the machinery behind the scenes so well that the posing
on the stage and the laughter and the song could
not drown the creaking of the wheels behind. It doesn't
pay to go behind the scenes and see the angel
(04:54):
voiced tenor beat his wife. Well, I'd been behind and
I was paying for it, or else I was a fool.
It is immaterial which was my situation. The situation is
what counts, and the situation was that social intercourse for
(05:15):
me was getting painful and difficult. On the other hand,
it must be stated that on rare occasions, on very
rare occasions, I did meet rare souls or fools like me,
with whom I could spend magnificent hours among the stars
(05:36):
or in the paradise of fools. I was married to
a rare soul or a fool, who never bored me,
and who was always a source of new and unending
surprise and delight. But I could not spend all my
hours solely in her company, nor would it have been
(05:57):
fair nor wise to compel her to spend all her
hours in my company. Besides, I had written a string
of successful books, and society demands some portion of the
recreative hours of a fellow that writes books, and any
(06:18):
normal man of himself and his needs demands some hours
of his fellow men. And now we begin to come
to it, how to face the social intercourse game with
the glamour gone. John Barleycorn the ever patient one, had
(06:39):
waited a quarter of a century and more for me
to reach my hand out in need of him. His
thousand tricks had failed, thanks to my constitution and good luck,
but he had more tricks in his bag. A cocktailer
two or I found, cheered me up for the foolishness
(07:04):
of foolish people. A cocktail or several before dinner enabled
me to laugh wholeheartedly at things which had long since
ceased being laughable. The cocktail was a prod, a spur,
a kick to my jaded mind and bored spirits. It
(07:28):
recrudesced the laughter and the song, and put a lilt
into my own imagination, so that I could laugh and
sing and say foolish things with the liveliest of them,
or platitudes with verve and intensity, to the satisfaction of
the pompous, mediocre ones who knew no other way to
(07:50):
talk A poor companion without a cocktail, I became a
very good companion with one. A false exhilaration drugged myself
to merriment, and the thing began so imperceptibly that I
old intimate of John Barleycorn never dreamed whither it was
(08:14):
leading me. I was beginning to call for music and wine.
Soon I should be calling for matter, music and more wine.
It was at this time I became aware of waiting
with expectancy for the pre dinner cocktail. I wanted it,
(08:36):
and I was conscious that I wanted it. I remember,
while war corresponding in the far East, of being irresistibly
attracted to a certain home. Besides accepting all invitation to dinner,
I made a point of dropping in almost every afternoon.
(08:56):
Now the hostess was a charming woman, but it was
not for her sake that I was under her roof
so frequently. It happened that she made by far the
finest cocktail procurable. In that large city, where drink mixing
on the part of the foreign population was indeed an art.
(09:20):
Up at the club, down, at the hotels, and in
other private houses, no such cocktails were created. Her cocktails
were subtle, they were masterpieces. They were the least repulsive
to the palate and carried the most kick. And yet
(09:41):
I desired her cocktails only for sociability's sake, to key
myself to sociable moods. When I rode away from that
city across hundreds of miles of rice fields, and mountains,
and through months of campaigning and on with the victorious
(10:02):
Japanese into Manchurier, I did not drink. Several bottles of
whiskey were always to be found on the backs of
my pack horses, Yet I never broached a bottle for myself,
never took a drink by myself, and never knew a
(10:22):
desire to take such a drink. Oh, if a white
man came into my camp, I opened a bottle and
we drank together according to the way of men, just
as he would open a bottle and drink with me
if I came into his camp, I carried that whiskey
(10:44):
for social purposes, and I so charged it up to
my expense account to the newspaper for which I worked.
Only in retrospect, can I mark the almost imperceptible growth
of my desire. There were little hints then that I
(11:04):
did not take, little straws in the wind, that I
did not see, little incidents the gravity of which I
did not realize. For instance, for some years it had
been my practice each winter to cruise for six or
eight weeks on San Francisco Bay my stout sloop yacht.
(11:30):
The Spray, had a comfortable cabin and a coal stove.
A Korean boy did the cooking, and I usually took
a friend or so along to share the joys of
the cruise. Also, I took my machine along and did
my thousand words a day. On the particular trip I
(11:51):
have in mind, Cloudsley and Toddy came along. This was
Totty's first trip. On pre trips, Cloudsley had elected to
drink beer, so I had kept the yacht supplied with
beer and had drunk beer with him. But on this
cruise the situation was different. Toddy was so nicknamed because
(12:17):
of his diabolical cleverness in concocting toddies. So I brought
whiskey along a couple of gallons alas many another gallon
I bought for Cloudsley, and I got into the habit
of drinking a certain hot Toddy that actually tasted delicious
(12:41):
going down, and that carried the most exhilarating kick imaginable.
I liked those Toddies. I grew to look forward to
the making of them. We drank them regularly, one before breakfast,
one before dinner, one before supper, and a final one
(13:04):
when we went to bed. We never got drunk, but
I will say that four times a day. We were
very genial. And when in the middle of the cruise
Toddy was called back to San Francisco on business, Cloudsley
and I saw to it that the Korean boy mixed
(13:27):
Toddies regularly for us according to formula. But that was
only on the boat. Back on the land. In my house,
I took no breakfast eye opener, no bed going nightcap,
and I haven't drunk hot Toddies since, and that was
(13:47):
many a year ago. But the point is I liked
those Toddies. The geniality of which they were provocative was marvelous.
They were eloquent, proselytites for John Barleycorn in their own small,
insidious way. They were tickles of the something destined to
(14:11):
grow into daily and deadly desire. And I didn't know,
never dreamed I who had lived with John Barleycorn for
so many years and laughed at all his unavailing attempts
to win me Chapter thirty. Part of the process of
(14:41):
recovering from my long sickness was to find delight in
little things, in things unconnected with books and problems, in play,
in games of tag, in the swimming pool, in flying kites,
in fooling with horses, in working mechanical puzzles. As a result,
(15:03):
I grew tired of the city. On the ranch in
the Valley of the Moon, I found my paradise. I
gave up living in cities. All the cities held for
me were music, the theater, and Turkish baths, and all
went well with me. I worked hard, played hard, and
(15:27):
was very happy. I read more fiction and less fact.
I did not study a tithe as much as I
had studied in the past. I still took an interest
in the fundamental problems of existence, but it was a
very cautious interest, for I had burned my fingers that time.
(15:49):
I clutched at the veils of truth and wrestled them
from her. There was a bit of lie in this
attitude of mine, a bit of hypocrisy. But the lie
and the hypocrisy were those of a man desiring to live.
I deliberately blinded myself to what I took to be
(16:11):
the savage interpretation of biological fact. After all, I was
merely forswearing a bad habit, foregoing a bad frame of mind.
And I repeat, I was very happy. And I add
that in all my days measuring them with cold, considerative judgment.
(16:36):
This was far and away, beyond all other periods, the
happiest period of my life. But the time was at
hand rimeless and reasonless, so far as I can see,
when I was to begin to pay for my score
of years of dallying with John Barrarllcorn. Occasionally guests journeyed
(17:03):
to the ranch and remained a few days. Some did
not drink, but to those who did drink, the absence
of all alcohol on the ranch was a hardship. I
could not violate my sense of hospitality by compelling them
to endure this hardship. I ordered in a stock for
(17:25):
my guests. I was never interested enough in cocktails to
know how they were made, so I got a barkeeper
in Oakland to make them in bulk and ship them
to me. When I had no guests, I didn't drink,
but I began to notice, when I finished my morning's
(17:47):
work that I was glad if there was a guest
for then I could drink a cocktail with him. Now
I was so clean of alcohol that even a single
cocktail was provocative of pitch. A single cocktail would glow
(18:07):
the mind and tickle a laugh for the few minutes
prior to sitting down to table and starting the delightful
process of eating. On the other hand, such was the
strength of my stomach, of my alcoholic resistance, that the
single cocktail was only the glimmer of a glow, the
(18:32):
faintest tickle of a laugh. One day, a friend frankly
and shamelessly suggested a second cocktail. I drank the second
with him. The glow was appreciably longer and warmer, the
laughter deeper and more resonant. One does not forget such experiences. Sometime.
(19:02):
I almost think that it was because I was so
very happy that I started on my real drinking. I
remember one day Charmian and I took a long ride
over the mountains on our horses. The servants had been
dismissed for the day, and we returned late at night
(19:24):
to a jolly, chafing dish supper. Oh, it was good
to be alive. That night. While the supper was preparing,
the two of us alone in the kitchen, I personally
was at the top of life. Such things as the
books and ultimate truth did not exist. My body was
(19:48):
gloriously healthy and healthily tired from the long ride. It
had been a splendid day. The night was splendid. I
was with the woman who was my mate, picnicking in
gleeful abandoned. I had no troubles. The bills were all paid,
(20:11):
and a surplice of money was rolling in on me.
The future ever widened before me, and right there in
the kitchen, delicious things bubbled in the chafing dish our,
laughter bubbled, and my stomach was keen with a most
(20:33):
delicious edge of appetite. I felt so good that somehow
somewhere in me arose an insatiable greed to feel better.
I was so happy that I wanted to pitch my
(20:53):
happiness even higher. And I knew the way ten thousand
contacts with John Barleycorn had taught me. Several times I
wandered out of the kitchen to the cocktail bottle, and
each time I left it diminished by one man's size cocktail.
(21:18):
The result was splendid. I wasn't jingled, I wasn't lighted up,
but I was warmed. I glowed. My happiness was pyramided.
Munificent as life was to me, I added to that munificence.
It was a great hour, one of my greatest, But
(21:42):
I paid for it long afterwards. As you will see,
one does not forget such experiences, and inhuman stupidity cannot
be brought to realize that there is no immutable law
which decrees that same things shall produce same results, for
(22:06):
they don't. Else would the thousandth pipe of opium be
provocative of similar delights to the first? Else would one
cocktail instead of several, produce an equivalent glow after a
year of cocktails. One day, just before I ate midday dinner,
(22:31):
after my morning's writing was done, when I had no guest,
I took a cocktail by myself. Thereafter, when there were
no guests, I took this daily pre dinner cocktail, And
right there, John Barleycorn had me. I was beginning to
(22:57):
drink regularly. I was beginning to drink alone, and I
was beginning to drink not for hospitality's sake, not for
the sake of the taste, but for the effect of
the drink. I wanted that daily pre dinner cocktail, and
(23:18):
it never crossed my mind that there was any reason
I should not have it. I paid for it. I
could pay for a thousand cocktails each day if I wanted.
And what was a cocktail. One cocktail to me who had,
on so many occasions, for so many years, had drunk
(23:44):
inordinate quantities of stiffer stuff and been unharmed. The program
of my ranch life was as follows. Each morning, at
eight thirty, having been reading or correcting proofs in bits
since four or five, I went to my desk. Odds
(24:05):
and ends of correspondence and notes occupied me till nine,
and at nine sharp, invariably I began my writing. By eleven,
sometimes a few minutes earlier or later, my thousand words
were finished another half hour at cleaning up my desk,
(24:27):
and my day's work was done, so that eleven thirty
I got into a hammock under the trees with my
mail bag in the morning newspaper. At twelve thirty I
ate dinner, and in the afternoon I swam and rowed.
One morning, at eleven thirty, before I got into the hammock,
(24:51):
I took a cocktail. I repeated this on subsequent mornings,
of course, taking another cocktail just before I ate at
twelve thirty. Soon I found myself seated at my desk
in the midst of my thousand words, looking forward to
(25:14):
that eleven thirty cocktail at last. Now, I was thoroughly
conscious that I desired alcohol, But what of it. I
wasn't afraid of John Barleycorn. I had associated with him
too long. I was wise in the matter of drink.
(25:38):
I was discreet. Never again would I drink to excess.
I knew the dangers and the pitfalls of John Barleycorn,
the various ways by which he had tried to kill
me in the past. But all that was past, long past.
(25:59):
Never again would I drink myself to stupefaction. Never again
would I get drunk. All I wanted and all I
would take, was just enough to glow and warm me,
to kick geniality alive in me, and put laughter in
(26:19):
my throat, and stir the maggots of imagination slightly in
my brain. Oh, I was thoroughly master of myself and
of John Barleycorn. End of Chapter thirty
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