The story of my life ; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years / by Mary A. Livermore ... with hitherto unrecorded incidents and recollections of three years' experience as an army nurse in the great Civil War, and reminiscences of twenty-five years' experiences on the lecture platform ... to which is added six of her most popular lectures ... with portraits and one hundred and twenty engravings from designs by eminent artists ...

A TEMPERANCE DISCUSSION.,7

279

"Uncle Aaron said they had been drinking too much,"
explained Dick.
" Then they were not to blame," said Mary, "1and that
must be their excuse. They are the first gentlemen of the
county; some of them are members of Congress; and they
would not have -said anything abusive for the world, if they
had not been ' drinking I'"
"tiBut, Mary dear, they are to blame for taking too much
wine. No one should drink until he is intoxicated, and
unable to control himself."
"Almost every man in the South does," was her reply.
"Not all the time, but sometimes; and we always expect
men to get tipsy at a dinner, and nobody ever conmplains of
"Oh, yes, Mary," said Laura; "1Ma dreads a dinner party
just because there is so much drinking, and I heard her
advise Miss Cameron not to marry Dr. Wiltsie, just because
he had to be carried away by the servants, neck and heels,
from every big dinner to which he was invited."
"ItShe evidently didn't mind his drinking very much,
after all," replied Mary, "1for she did marry him, and lives
with him to-day"
"64And just see what an awful sot she's got for a husband! Nobody respects him, and I believe his wife is
ashamed of him. She minds his drunkenness now."
I returned to the point in debate. "1Why should not all
men be as temperate as your father? " I inquired. "1He
never drinks to excess, and nobody ever sees him intoxicated."
"But Pa aint like other men!" said Dick Proudly.