What idea of the seven deadly sins is not so far out?

Why, Billy, I thought you were dead.

And so I am, and so are you at last, old sport.  

You are dead at last.  I thought we were never going to get you.

You damned liar—I am not dead; I am quite alive, only rather drunk.

Drunk!  Even when drunk you cannot walk through doors.

I knew then that it was true.

Where am I? I cried to my guide.

Where would you like to be?

I want a drink.

Come along.  We have one here who looks after all who thirst.

I do not know where Billy took me, but it was into an awful darkness.  

Soon,  I was aware of a vast crowd of other spirits.  

A being presided over this howling mob.  

How shall I describe him?  

He most closely resembled a drunken man—low, bestial, sodden with drink—foul in every way.

There was nothing grand, or majestic about him, nothing of what Milton describes of ruined splendour. 

The nearest thing you can ever have seen is some drink-sodden wretch thrown out of a pub at closing time.

He leered and we all yelled—

Drink, Drink!  Give us drink!

He seemed to say—

Come with me, but you will have to work first.

Directly, we were in a large, low drinking den, in the east end of London.  It was crowded with low men and women—even children.

I wanted to get hold of a glass of beer, which was standing on the bar.  

I could not hold it.   

The desire for it grew stronger and stronger, and I seemed to contort myself with a kind of mad fury.   

I looked at the drink guide. 

He was laughing and jeering and mocking me.

Work, you lazy brute.

How can I?

Look what the others are doing.

I noticed that many of the others were twining themselves round the men and women who were drinking. 

I cannot exactly describe how they did it,  but they seemed to be insinuating themselves into their carcasses.

I saw a man who was already fairly tipsy drop in a kind of drunken stupor.  

Immediately, a spirit who had been twining round began to fade into him, and soon seemed to be absorbed into him.

The man staggered to his feet, and yelled—

More beer, you—!

The barmaid gave him more, but I could see that it was not the drunk man, but my spirit companion who was shining out of his eyes.  

He drank and drank and grew more and more violent until, finally, the chucker-out seized him by the shoulder.

Straight away, he seized a quart pot and felled the man.

The blow was terrific and split the fellow’s skull.

There was pandemonium.

Many of the drinkers rushed out shouting, and with them went the spirits who had twined themselves round them.  

Others seemed to cast them off.

I noticed for the first time that these spirits were divisible into two groups—

Those who were men, and those who were not. 

The latter had various forms—all bestial.  

I cannot describe them.  

They were foul, misshapen things, not human or animal, sometimes composite, with animal heads, and human bodies, some heads only, some foul monstrosities with no shape or form, things one might see in D. T.

The drunkard who had felled the chucker-out stood waving his beer pot. 

I heard a fierce, wild yell of laughter, and saw our guide laughing and cheering.  

We all began to cheer too—I do not know why.

The companion who had taken possession of the drunkard began to disentangle himself from him, and the man collapsed in a heap.  

The drinking started again.  

I found I could get a sort of satisfaction by twining round a man.  

It was not exactly drinking, being more akin to the satisfaction one used to get from smelling alcoholic spirits. 

It was grand, and yet unsatisfactory, a sort of Dead Sea fruit.  

We hung round that pub for many days and I learnt to take possession.

The idea of the seven deadly sins is not so far out— 

But there are more than seven!

Our drink guide was not an elemental, nor was he the figure conjured up by the thoughts of men.  

He was created by the lust of all who desire drink to excess.  

If the entire world were to cease to desire strong drink tomorrow, he would gradually fade away—not immediately—we would be able to sustain him, for a little, but, as we should no longer be able to gratify, even in the shadowy way I have described our lust for drink, he would fade away, for want of sustenance.

Some parsons do much towards peopling Hell with devils!

 

The demons created by men’s imagination fade, as the men who created them move on.

 Unfortunately, they are always being recreated by other men.