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Page 33
UNDER THE HARVEST MOON
She is at her full, and even as I write rising red and heavy in the
south-west. All night long she will look down upon at least one corner
of the earth satiate with the good things of life. I don't remember
such a September as this has been for many years past. Misty,
gossamered mornings, a day all blue and pale gold, bees in the
ivy bloom, sprawling overblown flowers, red apples, purpling
vine-clusters, clear evenings: then this smouldering moon to go to
bed by! It is all like a great Veronese wall-picture, or the Masque
in _The Tempest_--"Rich scarf to my proud earth!"--and summons from
me more adjectives than I have needed this twelvemonth. It is indeed
adjectival weather; for Nature is still adding, not discarding stores.
The last act of the "maturing sun" is to ingerminate the flowers and
fruit which will bless or tantalise us next year.
Now is the time when maids get up at six and hunt for mushrooms in
the dew; now the good wives of the village make wine of all sorts of
unlikely fruits, blackberries, elderberries, peaches, pears, and, of
all things in the world, parsnips. I have lately been given of this
wine to taste. It is a cordial rather than a wine and on the good
rather than the bad side. The addition of spices is admitted;
nevertheless out of a particularly mawkish vegetable is made a
palatable drink. "Out of the strong come forth sweetness." After it I
shall be prepared to find a potable in the banana, which is favoured
by many people, of whom I am not one. But I don't find it nastier than
the parsnip, and it is evident that fermentation can work miracles.
In such a year as this I, too, shall have a vintage. For the first
time in my life I shall tread my own winepress, vat my own must,
and (I hope) need no sugar for it. I don't know why it is, but I can
conceive no more romantic rural adventure than that of growing and
drinking your own wine. But there are yet many things to happen. The
grapes must get ripe and the wasps be kept off; and then there are
problems connected with vinification which I have not yet solved. The
Marquis of Bute could tell me all about it, and I wish he would.
He has made wine at Castle Coch these many years, and of the most
excellent. Unfortunately I have not his acquaintance, so I invite
advice, and shall be grateful for it. The chief of my perplexities are
concerned with the beginning of fermentation and the end of it. For
the first, should I use yeast? My neighbours here say, yes; the French
tell me that I don't need it, the grapes having enough of their own.
Pass that and consider the second point. Having started your ferment,
how do you stop it?[A] Fermentation in Italy goes on in the barrel,
after the liquor has left the vat. That gives you a peculiar prickly
wine which the Italians call "Frizzante" and profess to like. Our word
for it is "beastly."
[Footnote A: Since that was written I have learned the answer. It
stops itself--why, I don't know, unless by the grace of God.]
My village gossips tell me that fermentation will stop of itself when
I draw the wine off the lye; but the French practice certainly seems
to be to burn sulphur matches in the vat and so kill the vinegar germs
there latent. And then _pl�trage_? You sprinkle the must with plaster
of Paris before fermentation begins. Is that done in England? It is
not done in this part of England at least. Nor do I know why it
is done in France. Probably before I have solved my problems by
stomach-ache and other experiences of a biliary kind, prohibition
will be in the air over here, wafted upon some newspaper breeze from
America. There will be no difficulty in starting a fermentation out of
that sweeping doctrine, that's for certain. I don't say that we need
take prohibition seriously; but we think about it, naturally, and talk
about it out here.
If it were put to the local vote in this village, it would be lost.
We have many total abstainers, yet one of them, I know, and several of
them, I believe, would vote against it. Says the one I am sure of:
"If I abstain from strong drink, as I do, it is my own doing; and if I
were tempted to a fall and withstood it, that is to my credit. But if
the law cuts me off it, and I am a criminal if I drink, it cuts me off
a good part of my credit too--and I am against that." My friend has
there put his finger upon a sharp little dilemma. If alcohol is a bad
thing, then prohibition is a good thing. But if temperance is a good
thing, then prohibition is a bad thing. You cannot be temperate in the
use of alcohol if you have none. Nor is sobriety a virtue in you if
you lock up the wine-cellar and throw the keys down the well. Very
well; then will you do without alcohol or without temperance? There is
the choice; and I have made mine.
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