Chapter V: Part 5

So much for the quantity of malt produced, and the revenue derived from it, in a year in the United Kingdom. I have spoken of this malt as being convertible into a form which possesses, among other virtues, the power of quenching our thirst. I wish it did not also quench our thirst for the knowledge we all ought to have of its production and really serviceable qualities; that it would stimulate inquiry after such things, and not smother it, as it is too apt to do; and, in general, prompt us to a wiser study of our social wants, and the means at our command for further social improvement; which we might prosecute with less and less recourse to the stimulant virtues of malt in such forms as whisky. And this we may do, if we limit our indulgence in it to the less potent form of it in beer, which, while it is calculated to quench man's bodily thirst, is equally calculated to quicken his mental. How much it contributes to allay the former, and how many thirsty souls are refreshed by it, we may estimate from the statistics of the sale of it furnished by a single firm in London. I refer to the firm of the Messrs. Foster, Brook Street, who are friends of my own, and to whom I should be glad to refer all who may be in want of a wholesome beer, for theirs is so good and genuine. The Messrs. Foster are among the most extensive bottlers and exporters in the country; and I find from the information they have kindly supplied me, that the beer bottled by them for export purposes during the year 1874 was 6000 butts, of 108 gallons each; that their contracts for the supply of bottles during that period represented 25,000 gross, or 5,040,000 bottles, which, if laid end to end, would extend to about 1000 miles; and that their accounts with Bass & Co. alone for that term amounted to L150,000. All, from the highest to the lowest, drink beer in England; and when unadulterated and taken in moderation, it is one of the most healthful beverages of which the human being, man or woman, can partake.

Though I have only partially gone over the ground contemplated at first, I feel I must now draw to a conclusion, which I am the less indisposed to do, as I think in what I have said I have pretty fairly set before you the wonderful properties latent in a basin of hodge-podge. For it is a habit of mine, which I have sought to indulge on the present occasion, to analyse every subject to which my attention is directed, and in which I feel interest, before I can make up my mind as to the proper significance and importance of the whole compound. Thus, for instance, set a dish of hodge-podge before me; it does not satisfy me to be told that it is only a basin of broth, and that it is wholesome fare; I must, as I have now been doing in a way, resolve the compound into its elements, see these in other and wider relations, and refer them mentally to their rank and standing in the larger world of the economy of nature and of social existence. I am always asking "What's intilt?" and am never satisfied, any more than the English tourist, with a bare enumeration: I must subject the factors included to rational inspection, and watch their play and weigh their worth in connection with interests more general.

And if, in the delivery of this lecture, I have persuaded any one to regard common things in a similar light and from a similar interest, I shall deem the time spent on it not altogether thrown away. Mind, not water, is the ultimate solvent in nature, and everything, when thrown into it, will be found in the end to resolve itself into it, or what in nature is of kin to it. And if a Latin poet could justify his interest in man by a reference to his own humanity, so may we rest content with nature when we find that we and it are parts of each other. It is well to learn to look on nothing as private, but on everything as a part of a great whole, of which we ourselves are units; so shall we feel everywhere at home, and a sense of kinship with the remote as well as near within the round of existence.

FOOTNOTES:

[C] The Highlanders are said to be able to offer it a stout defiance, for they can stand an immense quantity; and I have heard of an innkeeper in the north, who, when remonstrated with on account of his excessive drinking, so far admitted the justice of the charge implied, but pled that he could not be accused of undue indulgence the night before, as, whatever he might have drunk during the day, he had, after supper, had only seventeen glasses!

THE END.

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