Capacity for drunkenness

Ouida, pseud Marie Louise De La Ramée, Puck: his vicissitudes, Adventures, Observations, Conclusions friendships and Philosophies, Londres, Chatto & Windus, 1899.

Of course my own race are all Rechabites , therefore I treat this question from a purely impersonal point of view. No one, I am happy to say, ever saw adog drunk ; inebriety is one of those « superiorities » which you are so naturally proud to claim over us. Men, pigs, ducks, and geese, are the four orders of creatures distinguished by a capacity for drunkenness :-perhaps it is for the reason that they all four make more noise over their own small affairs, a rise in gold, a swill-tub, a caddis worm or a blade of grass,- han any other created thing ever is overheard to do.