The spirits behind the writers - Los Angeles Times

The spirits behind the writers - Los Angeles Times: " Why do scribblers make drinking their second art? For one thing, it primes them for their task. In 1714, a young Alexander Pope, in an affectionate letter to a lady, began, "Most Divine! -- 'Tis some proof of my sincerity towards you that I write when I am prepared by drinking to speak truth." Keats, in an 1819 letter, described how "ethereal" claret "mounts into the brain" and makes one "a Hermes," god of, among other things, eloquence. "A good sherris-sack," said Falstaff (speaking, no doubt, for Shakespeare himself) "... ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery and delectable shapes which, delivered o'er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit." Well, perhaps."