"
This was too much even for Ernest. "I heard of an Irishwoman
once," he said, with a smile, "who said she was a martyr to the
drink."
"And so she was," rejoined Pryer with warmth; and he went on to show
that this good woman was an experimentalist whose experiment, though
disastrous in its effects upon herself, was pregnant with
instruction to other people. She was thus a true martyr or witness
to the frightful consequences of intemperance, to the saving,
doubtless, of many who but for her martyrdom would have taken to
drinking. She was one of a forlorn hope whose failure to take a
certain position went to the proving it to be impregnable and
therefore to the abandonment of all attempt to take it. This was
almost as great a gain to mankind as the actual taking of the position
would have been.
"Besides," he added more hurriedly, "the limits of vice and virtue
are wretchedly ill-defined. Half the vices which the world condemns
most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather
than total abstinence."
Ernest asked timidly for an instance.
"No, no," said Pryer, "I will give you no instance, but I will
give you a formula that shall embrace all instances.
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