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Quote 20 of 32

From Essays in Idleness, by Kenko (c. 1283-1352)

There are many things in this world that are hard to understand.  It
is hard to understand why people take pleasure in pressing wine on
others the first thing on every occasion, and forcing them to drink
against their will.  The drinker's face shows great distress; he kints
his brows, and seeks a chance to throw away the wine, or to escape
unobserved.  But they catch him and hold him back, and recklessly make
him drink; so that an elegant person suddenly becomes a madman,
behaving foolishly, and a healthy person before our very eyes turns
into a man with a grave illness, falls and lies unconscious.  A stupid
way to spend days of rejoicing!  Until the morrow, with aching head,
and eating nothing, a man lies groaning.  As if cut off from life, he
does not know what happened yesterday, he neglects important affairs,
public and private, and the result is calamity.  To treat people like
this is to be lacking in kindnss as well as to offend against
courtesy, while he who meets with such treatment cannot but feel
hatred and regret.  If such things did not happen among ourselves, and
we were told that this was the custom in some foreign country, we
should think it strange and incredible.
		-- #175

Tags: madman drinker wine brows calamity healthyperson pleasure graveillness manythings hatred