1903 The Flowing Bowl by Edward Spencer

CHAPTER XI

STRANGE SWALLOWS

" Wormwood ! "—The little green fairy—All right when you know it, but The hour of absinthe—Awful effects— Marie Corelli—St. John the Divine—Arrack and bhang not to be encouraged—Plain water—The original intoxicant— Sacred beverage of the mild Hindu—Chi Chi—Kafta, an Arabian delight—Friends as whisky agents—Effervescent Glenlivet—The peat-reek—American bar-keeper and his best customer—" Like swallerin' a circ'lar saw and pullin' it up again "—Castor-oil anecdote—" Haste to the wedding !" We will now proceed to consider certain weird potations, some of which I have personally tested, others of which not all the wealth of Golconda, Peru, and Throgmorton Street would induce me to sample of my own accord, and all of which bring more or less trouble in their wake. Gall and wormwood have been closely allied from time immemorial; and it is in accordance with the eternal fitness of things that the con sumption of Absinthe should be almost entirely confined to France. And what is absintheMerely alcohol, in