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[Every man who imbibes]

About This Item

  • Title: [Every man who imbibes]
  • Date: 10 May 1859
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01070
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 10 May 1859: 3. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Kaylen Michaelis Cassandra Jannel Simms Stefan Schöberlein Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "[Every man who imbibes]." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01070.xml (TEI)
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☞Every man who imbibes spiritous liquors, (even if he could get them pure, which no sensible person believes,) during the ensuing warm months is simply and literally walking a step toward his grave, and driving a nail into his coffin, for every drink he swallows. What is more, every man who persists in dosing himself with brandy or whisky in the dog days must be aware of the injury they inflict upon the system in such a temperature as we now experience. Yet the craving of the stomach prevails over the monitions of the intellect, and the barkeeper continues to fill his drawer with sixpences. Habit is second nature, and it generally succeeds in subuing the instincts of the original nature which one might suppose would revolt against adding superfluous caloric to one's system during the dog days.

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