Cakes and Ale by Agnes Repplier

"The Muses smell of wine."

It is with reasonable hesitation that I venture upon a theme which no pleading words of Horace can ever make acceptable to a nineteenth-century conscience. The world at present is full of people to whom drinking-songs are inseparably associated with drinking habits, and drinking habits with downright drunkenness; and it would be hard to persuade them that the sweet Muses have never smiled upon the joyless bestiality which wrecks the lives of men. Even in days long past, when consciences had still to be developed, and poets sang that wine was made to scatter the cares of earth, the crowning grace of self-control was always the prize of youth. When little Aristion, her curls crowned with roses, drained the contents of three golden goblets before beginning her dance, she was probably as careful to avoid unseemly intoxication as is the college athlete of to-day training for the gentle game of football; yet none the less her image is abhorrent to our peculiar morality, which can ill endure such irresponsible gayety of heart. The perpetual intrusion of ethics into art has begotten a haunting anxiety lest perchance for one glad half-hour we should forget that it is our duty to be serious. I had this lesson forcibly impressed upon me a few years ago when I wrote a harmless essay upon war-songs, and a virtuous critic reminded me, with tearful earnestness, that while there was nothing really hurtful in such poetry, it would be better far if I turned my attention to the nobler contest which Lady Somerset was then waging so valiantly against intemperance.