MR. EDMUND O'DONOVAN,
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF THE "DAILY NEWS."


As far as my experience goes, the use of stimulants enables one at
moments of severe bodily exhaustion to make mental efforts of which,
but for them, he would be absolutely incapable. For instance, after a
long day's ride in the burning sun across the dry stony wastes of
Northern Persia, I have arrived in some wretched, mud-built town, and
laid down upon my carpet in the corner of some miserable hovel,
utterly worn out by bodily fatigue, mental anxiety, and the worry
inseparable from constant association with Eastern servants. It would
be necessary to write a long letter to the newspapers before retiring
to rest. A judicious use of stimulants has, under such circumstances,
not only given me sufficient energy to unpack my writing materials,
lie on my face, and propped on both elbows, write for hours by the
light of a smoky lamp; but also produced the flow of ideas that
previously refused to come out of their mental hiding places, or which
presented themselves in a flat and uninteresting form. I consider,
then, the use of alcoholic and other stimulation to be conducive to
literary labours under circumstances of physical and mental
exhaustion; and very often the latter is the normal condition of
writers, especially those employed on the press. Perhaps, too, in
examining into the nature of some metaphysical and psychological
questions the use of alcohol, or some similar stimulant, aids the
appreciation of _nuances_ of thought which might otherwise escape
the cooler and less excited brain. On the other hand, while travelling
in the East during the past few years, and when, as a rule,