TRY WHISKEY ON YOUR FRIEND'S EYEBALL
Your friend drinks too much, or drinks temperately but unwisely.
You may entreat, or argue, or abuse, or threaten.
You may show your friend the happy home where rum never enters.
You may lead him through the alcoholic ward at Bellevue.
Such sights may produce an impression. But usually they do not.
The man who possesses, indulges and keenly enjoys an overwhelming passion—for drink or any other vice—is rarely moved by your fine talk, for the reason that he believes in his wily soul that you do not know what you are talking about.
Mr. Lecky, in his history of European morals, page 135, volume
I., observes:
"That which makes it so difficult for a man of strong, vicious passions to unbosom himself to a naturally virtuous man is not so much the virtue as THE IGNORANCE OF THE LATTER."
You are naturally virtuous. Your drinking friend is naturally and proudly bad. He thinks you do not know what you are talking about when you ask him to give up drink. ——