If I could only taper off on a pint a day,
for a year or so, I think I might come round in time. I know as well
as you do, Bourdon, that sobriety is a good thing, and dissipation a
bad thing; but it's hard to give up all at once."
Lest the instructed reader should wonder at a man's using the term
"dissipation" in a wilderness, it may be well to explain that, in
common American parlance, "dissipation" has got to mean
"drunkenness." Perhaps half of the whole country, if told that a
man, or a woman, might be exceedingly dissipated and never swallow
anything stronger than water, would stoutly deny the justice of
applying the word to such a person. This perversion of the meaning
of a very common term has probably arisen from the circumstance that
there is very little dissipation in the country that is not
connected with hard drinking. A dissipated woman is a person almost
unknown in America; or when the word is applied, it means a very
different degree of misspending of time, from that which is
understood by the use of the same reproach in older and more
sophisticated states of society. The majority rules in this country,
and with the majority excess usually takes this particular aspect;
refinement having very little connection with the dissipation of the
masses, anywhere.
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