The following is a sampling of Mrs. Silence Dogood's writing, in which the witty and clever widow shares her own wisdom on the art of drinking. "Tis true, drinking does not
improve our faculties, but it enables us to use them; and
therefore I conclude that much study and experience, and
a little liquor, are of absolute necessity for some
tempers, in order to make them accomplished
orators....The moderate use of liquor and a well-placed
and well-regulated anger often produce this same effect;
and some wits who cannot ordinarily talk but in broken
sentences and false grammar do in the heat of passion
express themselves with as much eloquence as
warmth....But after all it must be considered that no
pleasure can give satisfaction or prove advantageous to a
reasonable mind which is not attended with the restraints
of reason....'Tis strange to see men of a regular
conversation become rakish and profane when intoxicated
with drink, and yet more surprising to observe that some
who appear to be the most profligate wretches when sober
become mighty religious in their cups, and will then, and
at no other time, address their Maker but when they are
destitute of reason and actually affronting Him.
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Some shrink in the
wetting, and others swell to such an unusual bulk in
their imaginations that they can in an instant understand
all arts and sciences, by the liberal education of a
little vivifying punch or a sufficient quantity of other
exhilarating liquor....It argues some shame in the
drunkards themselves that they have invented numberless
words and phrases to cover their folly, whose proper
significations are harmless or have no signification at
all. They are seldom known to be drunk, though
they are very often boozy, cogey, tipsy, foxed, merry,
mellow, fuddled, groatable, confoundedly cut, see two
moons; are among the Philistines, in a very good humor,
see the sun, or, the sun has shone upon them; they clip
the King's English, are almost froze, feverish, in their
altitudes, pretty well entered, etc. In short, every
day produces some new word or phrase which might be added
to the vocabulary of the tipplers. But I have chose to
mention these few, because if at any time a man of
sobriety and temperance happens to cut himself
confoundedly, or is almost froze, or feverish, or
accidentally sees the sun, etc., he may escape the
imputation of being drunk, when his misfortune comes to
be related. 
