The Perfect Gentleman Author:Gentleman Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: good wine. Goldsmith called it " the philosopher which drives away care, and makes us forget whatever is disagreeable." Sir Joshua Reynolds maintained that wine ... more »" improved conversation and benevolence." " I am," said he, " in very good spirits when I get up in the morning ; by dinner-time I am exhausted; wine puts me in the same state as when I got up, and I am sure that wine makes people talk better." The famous solicitor Spotiswoode once declared at a public dinner-party, that " wine makes a man better pleased with himself." Dr. Johnson replied, " and to make a man better pleased with himself, let me tell you, is doing a very great thing." Sir William Forbes wittily remarked, that " a man warmed with wine was like a bottle of beer, which is made brisker by being set before the fire." Burke was a lover of generous wine, and when Dr. Johnson, who was always trying to disagree with everybody, gave the following scale of liquors, " claret for boys—port for men—brandy for heroes "—Burke replied, " Let me have claret, then: I love to be a boy; to have the careless gayety of boyish days again." Wine has, in all ages of the world, been a classic bond of good-fellowship between heroes, philosophers, and great men. Sir Joshua Reynolds declared, that " At first the taste of wine was disagreeable to me ; but I brought myself to drink it that I might be like other people. The pleasure of drinking wine is so connected with pleasing your company, that altogether there is something of social goodness in it." But the highest thing to be said in praise of wine—and one which I know this party will appreciate—is, that it has immemorially been associated with the beauty of women. " Woman and wine " are twin words which go hand-in-hand together, and everywhere warm the coldest hearts with the glow...« less