Page:Through a Glass Lightly (1897, Greg).djvu/105

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CELLARS

conduct with the true drinker that you shall not vulgarise your wines by so much as suffering them to neighbour with the baser potables. Procul, procul! Hence, far hence, let beer and stout and cider and such hob-nailed minor prophets be removed!

And, then, the bins and the mode of storage—what colossal opportunities are here for error! The shelves should be of stone or of brick, but of wood—never! No thickness of lime can wholly whitewash wood: no fermentable material, no acid, no liquor in a state of acetous agitation may enter the cellars of the blest. Above all, you shall flee from the spell of sawdust, the guide, philosopher, and friend of idiot butlers and ’prentice householders. For sawdust, if you only leave it long enough, breeds the creeping

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