Mr. Solly is not alone in his unwillingness to denounce the use of tea, because, whatever maybe said against tea-drinking, its objectors cannot but admit that it is the least harmful of stimulants.[3] What is there to take its place? "Once," remarks Dr. Inman, of Liverpool, "I was an unbeliever in tea, and during the many days of solitary misery which I had to endure in consequence of the delicacy of children and their absence with mamma at the seaside, I tried to do without it. Hot water and cold, milk and cream, soda water and brandy, water and nothing at all, were tried in succession to sweep those cobwebs from the brain, which a dinner and a consequent snooze left behind them. It was all in vain—I was good for nothing, and the evenings intended to be devoted to work were passed in smoking, gossip, or novel-reading. I took to tea, and all was changed; and now I fully believe that a good dinner, 'forty winks,' and a cup of strong tea afterwards will enable a man to 'get through' no end of work, especially of a mental kind."
Replying to the argument that as the lower animals do without tea and coffee, so ought we, Dr. Poore emphasizes the fact that we are not lower animals; that we have minds, as well as bodies; and that since these substances have the property in common of enabling us to forget our worries and fatigues, to make light of misfortunes, and generally to bear "the stings and arrows of outrageous fortune," let us accept them, make rational use of them, and be thankful. The super-dietetic-purists, who caution us against "those poisonous liquids, milk, water, and tea," have furnished Mr. George R. Sims with a congenial topic for his facile pen. From "The Drinker's Dirge" we quote the following lines:—
"In trying from all things our lips to debar,
Hasn't Science just gallop'd his hobby too far?
Let the nervous go thirsting, they shan't frighten me
With this nonsense concerning milk, water, and tea."
Turning from literature to politics, we find that Lord Palmerston resorted to tea to refresh him during the midnight hours he spent at St. Stephen's. Mr. Gladstone confessed a short time ago at Cannes, that he drank more tea between midnight and four in the morning than any other member of the House of Commons; and strange to say, the strongest tea, although taken immediately before going to bed, never interferes with his sleep. M. Clemenceau, the leader of the French Radicals, is also reported to have owned himself an intemperate bibber of tea. Both wondered how, before tea was imported into Europe, our forefathers got on without it.[4] It was remarked that manners had become more polite and nations more humane since the introduction of the Chinese beverage, on hearing which Mr. Gladstone exclaimed, "Oh! there were great and admirable characters in the Middle Ages."
Although Sir Charles Dilke grows wine, he never drinks it, finding in tea a better stimulant. At one time Cobden was an abstainer from intoxicating drinks, which he declared useless for sustaining strength; "for the more work I have had to do, the more I have resorted to the pump and the teapot." The hero of the Anti-Corn-Law League felt more at home drinking tea than dining with great people. The formalities of dinner parties were extremely irksome to him. "I have been obliged," he says, "to mount a white cravat at these dinner-parties much against my will, but I found a black stock was quite out of character." In another letter he writes, "I assure you I would rather find myself taking tea with you than dining with lords and ladies." But as the leader of a great movement, he found it necessary to sacrifice personal tastes and to endure the afflictions of dinner-parties, for the sake of securing the support of the aristocracy.
Turning to the literature of the subject, it is interesting to learn that Hartley Coleridge was in his youth fond of tea. In Blackwood's Magazine (vol. 55, 1857) appears "An Unpublished Poem," by Hartley Coleridge, with the following note by the editor: "This early production of the late Hartley Coleridge may not be without interest, as it describes a state of social manners which is already passing away, in a style of composition which belongs in some measure to the past." The poem commences thus:—