Quit college--Shattered nerves--Summer and autumn days--Improvement--Picnic parties--A fall--An untimely storm--Crawford's beer and ale--Beer brawls-- County fairs and their influence on my life--My yoke of white oxen--The "red ribbon"--"One McPhillipps"--How I got home and how I found myself in the morning--My mother's agony--A day of teaching under difficulties--Quiet again--Law studies at Connersville--"Out on a spree"--What a spree means.
I left college in the spring of 1866, and returned home to the farm where I spent the summer and autumn months in a very nervous and discontented manner. For over four months my mental condition bordered on that of a maniac, so completely had the use of liquor shattered my nervous system. I became alarmed at my state, and for a time was deterred from drinking, or, if I drank at all, the quantity was small. But fresh air and the little work which I did on the farm, soon restored me. As the summer wore away I attended pleasure parties, and found, not happiness, but a moment's forgetfulness among the merry picnic parties in the woods. I had also the distinguished honor of actually superintending and presiding over two of these festivities, both of which were held in Horace Elwell's woods, on the unsung, but classically rustic banks of Tom. Hall's mill-dam, near the village which bears the historic and great name of Raleigh. I succeeded in tiding myself through the first picnic without getting drunk. I mean more particularly that I remained sober during the day--that is, sober enough to keep it from being known that I had drank more than once or twice; but that night at the ball at Louisville, I bit the dust, or, to get at the truth more literally and unrhetorically, I fell down stairs and came within a point of breaking my neck. Had I been sober the fall would have put an end then and there to my miserable and worthless existence; but lest any one should argue from this that after all whisky sometimes saves life, I would have them bear in mind that if I had been sober the chances are I would not have fallen.
The next picnic was sadly interfered with by a violent storm of wind and rain, which came up the day before the one set apart for it. The water washed the sawdust which had been sprinkled on the ground for the dancers' benefit into Hall's fretful mill-race, and thence down into the turbulent and swollen Flat Rock. This, as well as other creeks, became so high that it was out of the question to ford them. The boys could get to the grounds very well, and many of them did get there, but the girls were not of a mind to risk their lives for a day's doubtful amusement, and so the picnic failed in the beginning. The young men--myself, of course, in the lot-- determined to have what was called "fun" at any rate, and to this end they congregated during the day at Raleigh. Mr. Sam Crawford had an abundant supply of beer and ale, and I wish to say that if there are any persons so innocent as to doubt that beer and ale intoxicate they would change from doubt to faith in the power of these slops to make men drunk, could they experience or see what took place at Raleigh on that day. They would be willing to testify in any court that beer will not only intoxicate, but, taken in sufficient quantities, it will make men beastly drunk and fill them with a spirit of fiendish cruelty. There were on that day as many as four fights, with enough miscellaneous howling, cursing and billingsgate to fill out the natural make-up of a hundred more. I was drunk--so drunk that I did not know at the last whether my name was Benson or Bennington. I suppose I would have sworn to the latter, had the question been raised, but it was not. I did not fight, for, as I have said, I seemed to have an instinctive dread of doing something terrible in the event of my getting engaged in combat with another. Like Falstaff, it may be, I was a coward on instinct. I have always thought, moreover, that the Hudibrastic aphorism is worthy of practice, because nothing can be more evident than the fact that
"—He who runs awayMay live to fight another day."
From that time to the commencement of the season for county fairs, five or six weeks later, I kept in a condition of sobriety. County fairs, I wish to say, and especially the Rush county fairs, did more toward bringing on the disastrous career which has been mine--a career which has befouled the record of my life and marked almost every page of its history--witness this biography--with blots of shame, discord and unholy suffering than any other cause of an external character. I was very young when I first commenced to take stock to the fair to exhibit for premiums. I always went on the first day, and always remained until the fair came to a close, staying on the grounds night and day. There was a vagabond element in my nature which harmonized perfectly with this sort of life. The men with whom I associated were, in general, of that class who like liquor alone or in company, and each had his jug of favorite whisky, which was supposed to be a sure preventive against cold and colds in cold weather, and against heat and fever in hot weather. If invited to drink the rule was to accept immediately and return the courtesy as soon as convenient.
In those days I was the proud possessor of a yoke of white oxen, and I made it a point to exhibit them at every fair within my reach, for they invariably won the Red Ribbon, then a mark of the first prize. Alas, that it did not mean to me what it now does! It meant anything rather than total abstinence; it was an unfailing sign of drunkenness; it told of shameful revels, of days of debauchery and nights of misery when not passed in beastly slumber. That ribbon is now a symbol of holy temperance--it was then a souvenir of days of disorder and evil-doing.
During the winter I was engaged to teach a district school, and for three months managed to keep tolerably sober--that is, I did not get drunk more than three or four times, and then on Saturday nights and Sundays. One Sunday--it was the coldest day that winter--I went to Falmouth and visited a drinking place kept by one McPhillipps. While there I drank eleven glasses of whisky. At nine o'clock in the evening, I can indistinctly remember, I mounted my horse and started home, and from that moment until the next day I knew nothing whatever that took place. From the way I was bruised and battered I judge that I must have struck almost every fence corner between McPhillipps' place and home. My legs were in a woful plight, and having turned black and blue, they were frightful to see. On arriving at the gate which led into the front yard at home, I fell off my horse and tumbled to the ground, a wretched heap of helpless clay. I remained on the ground, lying in the snow, until I froze my hands, feet, and ears. It was about three o'clock in the morning when I got to the house. So they told me, for I have no knowledge of going, and, indeed, I remembered nothing that took place.
When I came to consciousness I found myself wrapped up in a blanket, lying in bed, with hot bricks at my feet. I was in the room occupied by father and mother, and the first object that met my wandering sight was the face of my mother. The look with which she regarded me will never fade from my memory. There was in it the sorrow and anguish of death. She rose from her bed at sight of me, and with streaming eyes and screaming voice called the family up to bid them good-by; she said she was dying--that I had killed her. I sprang from my bed in such a horror of terrible suffering, mental and physical, as never swept over the body and soul of mortal man. I felt my heart thumping and beating as though it would burst forth from my bosom; the hot, hissing blood rushed to my aching, fevered brain, and a torrent of sweat burst forth on my icy forehead. I could not have suffered more physical agony had a thousand swords been driven through my quivering body, nor would my miserable soul have been in more insufferable pain had it been confined in the regions of the damned. It was some time before anything like quiet was restored, but as soon as it was, some of the family went to the gate and found my hat and took charge of the horse which I had ridden. That morning I dragged myself to school with a sad, heavy heart. As my scholars came in, they seemed to understand that something was the matter with me, and often during the day their wondering looks were directed toward me as if they sought some explanation of my appearance. The day was a long and weary one to me--a day, like many another since then, of most intense wretchedness. About noon one of my feet became so swollen that it was necessary for me to take off my boot, and by the time I dismissed school it had got so bad that I could not draw on my boot, so that I had to walk home, a distance of one mile, over the frozen ground with nothing to protect my foot but a woolen sock. On entering the house, my mother burst into tears at sight of me. I must have been a pitiable object, and yet how little did I deserve the wealth of priceless sympathy lavished upon me. That night, and many nights succeeding it, the only way I could get into bed was to put an old-fashioned chair with rounds in the back, beside the bed and crawl up round by round until I got on a level with the bed, and then let go and fall over into the bed.
It is needless for me to say that I firmly resolved and honestly felt that I would never again taste the liquor which leads to madness, misery, and death. For some time I kept my resolution; and would to God that I could here conclude by saying that I never again allowed a drop of it to pass my lips. But I am writing an autobiography, and I have told you that I would not shrink from telling the truth. So it will happen that other and still more desperate and disgraceful episodes of drunkenness will have to be recorded.
In the spring of 1867 I went to Connersville, and began the study of law with the Hon. John S. Reid. Unfortunately, and I fear designedly, I made my acquaintances among, and selected my companions from, the most dissolute, idle, and intemperate class of young men in the town. Connersville then had and still has among its citizens some very wealthy men, who suffered their boys to grow up without much care, mostly in idleness. As might be expected the indifference of the fathers, joined to the natural inclinations of the sons, has proved the ruin of the latter. I now call to mind several of those young men who are hopeless and complete wrecks. Idleness and dissipation have done their terrible work in every case which I call to mind.
I read a little law, and drank a great deal of whisky, and as a natural consequence the time then passing was for the most part worse than lost. Up to this period the duration of my sprees was not longer than a day and night. They now were not confined to one day, for when I went out on what is called a "regular spree," it was liable to be two or three days, as it has since been two or three weeks, before I got back. Got back! Where from? The reader knows too well.
Out on a spree! These are melancholy and heart-breaking words. Out on a spree! Oh, how much of misery is implied! Out on a spree! Readers, every one, I hope you will never have it said that you are out on a spree. To go out on a spree is to throw away strength, without which the battle of life can not be fought; it is to squander money which you may need badly for the necessaries of life, which had better be thrown into the fire and burnt up than spent in such a way; it is to quench the light of ambition, to crush hope, entomb joy, lay waste the powers of the mind, neglect duty, desert the family, and commit in the end suicide. Arson may have walked by your side while out on a spree, red murder may have grinned, dagger in hand, upon you, and death stalked within your shadow, ready in a thousand ways to strike you down. Don't go out on sprees. Think of the pity of them, the wrong, the disgrace, the remorse, the misery. Going on an occasional spree only will not do. Some men will keep sober for weeks, and even months, but a birthday, or a wedding, or a national holiday, or a fit of the blues, or a streak of good luck, starts them off, and habit, like a smouldering flame, breaks out, and for a time all is over. Such men scotch, but they do not kill the cobra of intemperance, and soon or late the other result will follow, the snake will kill them. The reptile is tenacious of life, and so long as the life remains there is danger from the deadly venom of its tooth. Those who have never formed the habit of drinking had better die at once than live to form it. Those who have formed the habit should subdue it and never enter into a compromise with it. The good effects of months of abstinence may be swept away in an hour. Open the flood-gates of indulgence never so little and the torrent will force its way through and drown every worthy resolution. Its tide is next to resistless. Days of drunkenness succeed, months of self-denial are lost, and deplorable results follow everywhere. Wives are driven to desperation, mothers to despair, children to want. Demoralization, starvation, damnation follow. Friends are separated, homes are desolated, and souls are driven to hell itself, and yet people will talk lightly, and even jokingly of the very thing which leads to these terrible losses and sufferings--out on a spree.
Debauches not only destroy all capacity for usefulness while they last, but they demand the vital strength which has wisely been gathered in the system for days of possible need, when sickness and natural infirmities will lay hands on the mind or body. The debauch of to-day will borrow from to-morrow or from next week, or month, or year, that which can not be restored. The bloated face, the dull, glassy eye, the furtive glance of fear and shame, the trembling gait, all speak of ravages produced by other causes than those of time. Indeed, the flight of years can produce no such effects, for inexorable and wearing as fleeting days and months are, their natural results differ very widely from those which are caused by an abuse of the powers of nature. Besides this, many men who are shattered wrecks are still young in years, and the dew of youth but for dissipation might yet have glistened on their foreheads.
It was at this period that the appetite burst forth in a fearful flame which scorched life itself, and burnt every energy of my being. It was fast getting to be a consuming, craving, devouring passion, subjecting my very soul to its dreadful tyranny. My spells increased in frequency, and their duration was more and more prolonged. I would remain drunk from eight to ten days, until I got so nervous that I could not sleep, and night after night I would be counting the hours and longing for morning, which, when it came with its blessed light, gradually revealing the pattern of the paper on the walls, caused me to hide my face in the bedclothes and wish for black and never-ending night to come and hide me from the world and my misery. From such vigils, feverish and unrefreshed, it may easily be supposed that I sought the open window in anguish, and bathed my aching, throbbing forehead in the cool, pure air. At last my condition became so deplorable that my friends sent my father word to come and take me home, which he did. While at Connersville, in all my dark and desolate trials, William Beck was my friend and helper. He never then forsook me, and he never since has forsaken me, but still remains my faithful and sympathizing friend--a friend whose valuation is beyond gold, and for whom I entertain the deepest feelings of gratitude. I returned home with my father and remained several months, keeping sober all the while. During most of the time I applied myself vigorously to the study of the law, making rapid progress.
I believe I have as yet not stated that, in the intervals long or short between my sprees, I abstained totally from the use of ardent spirits. I never could and never did drink in moderation. One drink would always kindle such a fire in my blood that it was out of my power to prevent its spreading into a conflagration. I have very many times been accused of "drinking on the sly," as they say, but every such accusation is false. I have also been accused of using opium. I know the pitiable wretch that started that lie--for it is a lie--and the poor dupe that repeated it. For five years my appetite has been so fierce at times, that, I repeat, had I touched the point of the finest needle in alcohol and placed it to my tongue, I would have got drunk had I known that that drunk would have plunged my soul into hell and eternal torments. O appetite, cold, cruel, heartless, accursed, consuming, devouring appetite! No other malady like thee ever afflicted man. Would that I could paint thee, in all thy accursed hideousness, in letters of unfading fire, and write them in the vaulted firmament to flame forth to all generations to come their eternal warning.
Law Practice at Rushville--Bright prospects--The blight--From bad to worse- -My mother's death--My solemn promise to her--"Broken, oh, God!"-- Reflection--My remorse--The memory of my mother--A young man's duty-- Blessed are the pure in heart--The grave--Young man, murder not your mother--Rum--A knife which is never red with blood, but which has severed souls and stabbed thousands to death--The desolation and death which are in alcohol.
My next move was to Rushville, where I opened an office and commenced practicing law. For a time I kept sober, and was so successful in my profession that from the very beginning I more than made my expenses. In fact my prospects for a brilliant career as a lawyer seemed most flattering. The predictions were many that an uncommon future lay before me, but, alas, I could stand prosperity no better than adversity. My appetite grew to such a craving for stimulants that it tortured me. It had slumbered for weeks, as it has since, only to make itself manifest in the end with the force of a hurricane. While it had appeared to sleep it was gathering strength. At the time it dragged me down I was boarding with some others at the house of an elderly widow. So completely was I transformed from a man into something debased that I went to her house and fell through the front door on the floor dead drunk. The landlady had me carried back to my office, where I lay like a water-sodden log, wholly unconscious, until the next morning. When I awoke I had no knowledge of anything that had happened. My friends informed me of my fall at the house, and of their bearing me back to the office. I upbraided myself bitterly, but it was days before I had the courage to show my face on the streets, so keen were my shame and sense of disgrace. Time softens the wildest remorse, and in a few weeks I regained a state of quiet feeling. But unfortunately most of my associates were among the class of young men who are never averse to taking a drink, and it was not long before I found myself again visiting the saloons, although I did not give up right away to take a drink with them. But I got to staying in the saloons more than in my office, and began to go down steadily. Good people who felt sorry for me, and who wanted to aid me, would do nothing for me unless I would do something for myself, and this I could not, or did not do.
I moved from office to office, always descending in respectability, because always violating my promises not to drink. Occasionally I would make a desperate effort to reform, gathering about me every element of strength which I could possibly command, and for a while I would be successful, but just as hope would begin to light up my darkened path and my friends begin to feel a new-born confidence in me, an infernal and terrible desire would take possession of me, and in a moment all that I had gained would be swept away by my yielding to the demon that tempted me. A debauch longer and more utterly sickening and vile than the last followed, after which I would settle down into a condition of hopelessness which would appal the bravest and strongest. So deplorable, indeed, was my feeling regarding the matter that then, as since, I kept on drinking for days after the appetite had left me or had been satiated, in order to deaden the horrible agony that I knew would crush me when my reason returned.
I now come to an event in my life which affected me at the time beyond the power of words, and which I can not without tears of choking sorrow even now dwell upon. I refer to the death of my mother, which occurred during the winter after my going to Rushville in 1867. She had been sick a long time, and had suffered very intense pain, but for days before her death I think she forgot her own physical torments in anxiety and solicitude about me. I went home a few days before she died, and remained with her until the last. She talked to me much and often, always begging and pleading with me as only a dying mother can plead, to save myself from the life of a drunkard. I promised her solemnly and honestly that I would never again taste liquor. As I gazed upon her wasted face and read death in every lineament, and heard the dread angel's approach in every breath of pain she drew, and saw above all in her fast dimming eye that the horrors of her approaching dissolution were almost unthought of in her care for me, I resolved deep down in my heart never to taste liquor again, and kneeling by her dying form, I called heaven to witness that no more, oh, never, never more, would I go in the way of the drunkard, or touch, in any form, the unpitying and soul-destroying curse. I looked on her face, which was growing strangely calm and white. She was dead, and it came upon me that she who had loved and suffered most for me, and without a reproach, was never more to look upon me again or speak words of comfort and aid to my ears, so often unheeding. At that moment, looking through scalding tears at her holy face, and afterwards when I heard the grave clods falling with their terrible sound upon her coffin lid, I swore that I would keep my promise, no matter what the temptation to break it might be. She would not be here to see my triumph, but I would conquer for her memory's sake, and all would be well. I swore by earth, sea, and sky, never, never to break the promise made to her in the moment of her dying. That promise I broke within two months from the day it was solemnized by my mother's death. I shudder still, remembering the agony of that fall. Broken, oh God!--the promise has been broken, is what first entered my mind. Never before had I suffered as I then suffered.
My wild revel was protracted for days out of dread of the awful sorrow and remorse that I knew must surely come on my getting sober. My mother appeared to me in my troubled dreams, and talked to me as in life. Many times in my slumber, and in my waking fancies did I see her pale, troubled face, with her pitying eyes looking on me as from that bed of pain and death, and at such times I reached out my hands toward her in mute pleading for forgiveness, forgetting or not knowing that she was dead. But the moment soon came when the truth was flashed through the blackness of night upon me, and then my misery was more than I could bear. For years before her death I had lain in my bed and listened to her moaning in her troubled sleep, to the sighs which escaped from her heart and that of my father, and I promised the God of my hoped-for salvation that if he would only let me live I would no more give them pain. Cold, clammy sweat broke out over my face, and my heart beat so low, and slow, and weak, that in very terror I felt that my eyeballs were bursting from my head. Again and again I begged, and plead, and prayed that God would spare me and let me live until I could convince my father and mother that I never would drink again. But my prayers were not answered. My mother went out from me in fear, and dread, and doubt. My father lives, but for me he has little or no hope. If ever a mortal longed and yearned for one thing more than another in this uncertain existence, I long for a peaceful and quiet evening of life for my beloved father. I implore the Father of all of us to give me grace and strength enough to keep sober until my remaining parent is fully persuaded that I am truly and beyond question saved from the curse which has driven me to an asylum, and well nigh sent him, a broken-hearted man, to his grave. O for a strength which will forever enable me to resist the hell-born and hell- supported power of the fiend Alcohol! Could I do this and have my father know it his dying hour would be full of sweet peace, and a joy so shining that its light would drive afar off the shadows of his death agony. In that knowledge death would be vanquished and heaven would stoop to earth and cover his grave with glory. Oh, God! Grant me this one boon! Give me this one request! In every step of my life I have disappointed him. In the future let all other hopes, and joys, and aspirations die, if needs be, all but this--this one--that I may never in any way touch liquor again. May every man and woman who sees this allow their hearts to go out in an earnest prayer that I may succeed in this one thing. It is now too late for me to reach the bright promises of other years. It is now too late for me to regain all that has been lost, but this I would do, and it will make me feel at the last that I have not lived altogether to be a remorse and shame to those who are bound to me by ties which can not be broken. God may answer your prayers if not mine, so that from the throne of heavenly grace may come the peace and rest for which my weary soul has sought so long in vain.
When I drank after my mother's death, many persons took occasion, on learning of it, to censure me in unsparing terms. It was even said that I did not love my mother in life, that I had no respect for her memory in death, and that I was a heartless wretch. These persons had no knowledge of the power of my appetite. They did not know that the passion for liquor, once developed or firmly established, is stronger in its unholy energy than the love of the heart--of my heart, at least--for mother, father, brother, or sister. But let me beg that I may not be charged with indifference to my mother's memory. She comes before me now; she who was a true wife, a faithful friend, a loving and gentle mother, and I kneel to her and pray her blessing and pardon--I would clasp her to my heart, but alas! when I would touch her, the bitter memory comes that she is gone. But I would not repine, for I know she is with her God. Her life was pure and blameless, and her soul, on leaving its weary earthly tabernacle, passed to its inheritance--a mansion incorruptible, and one that will not fade away. She bore her cross without a murmer of complaint, and she has been crowned where the spirit of the just are made perfect. Blessed are the pure in heart, we read, and I know that I am not misquoting the spirit of the holy book when I say for the same reason, blessed is my mother, for she was pure of heart, and passed from tribulation to peace, from night to day, from sorrow to joy, from weariness to rest--rest in the bosom of God.
It may be that some young man will read these pages whose mother is still among the living. I do not think that such a one will be without love for his mother--a dear, compassionate, doating, gentle mother, who loved him before he knew the name of love; who sang him to sleep in the years that were, and awoke him with kisses on the bright mornings long ago; who bathed his head with a soft hand when it throbbed with pain, and smiled when the glow of health was on his cheek. She wept holy tears when he suffered, and when he was delighted her heart beat with pleasure. It was she who taught him that august prayer which is sacred in its simplicity to childhood. She is aged now; her wealth of brown hair is white with age's winter, her step is no longer quick, her eye has lost its lustre, and her hand is shaken with the palsy of lost vigor. There are wrinkles in her brow and hollows in the cheeks which were once so lovely that his father would have bartered a kingdom for them. She is sitting by the side of the tomb waiting for the mysterious summons which must soon come. Oh, young man, you for whom this mother has suffered, you for whom she cherishes a love which is priceless and deathless, you will not hasten her into eternity by an act, or word, or look, will you? It would kill her to know that you had fallen under sin's destroying stroke. Sometimes she goes to the portrait of your boyish face and looks at it; at other times she takes down some worn and faded garment, that you were wont to wear in those beautiful days of the past, and recalls how you looked when you wore it; then she goes to the room where you used to sleep and looks at the cradle in which she so often rocked you to sleep, and, after all is seen, she returns to her chair--the old easy chair--and waits to hear tidings of you. What would you have her know?
What news of yourself can you send her? Think of it well. Will you put your wayward foot on her tender and feeble heart? Is her breathing so easy that you would impede it with a brutal stab? Oh, if you know no pity for yourself, have some for her. You will not murder her, will you? Yes, you reply, and the laughter of mocking devils floats up from the caves of hell- -"Yes! give me more rum!" Now, hear the truth: The time will come when the grass will seem to wither from your feet, pain will stifle your breath, remorse will gnaw your heart and fill all your days and nights with misery unspeakable; your dreams will torture you in sleep, and your waking thoughts will be torments; your path will lie in gloom, and your bed will be a pillow of thorns. You will cry in vain for that departed mother. You will beg heaven to give her back, but the grave will be silent. The grasses are creeping over her tomb, and the white hands have crumbled upon her faithful breast. But no, you will not kill her. You will not call for rum. I have wronged you, thank God! You will be a man. You are a man. You will lay this book down, and swear that you will never touch the accursed, ruinous drink, and you will keep your oath. By sobriety and good habits you will lengthen your mother's days in the land, and smooth her troubled brow, and give strength to her failing limbs.
Rum is a dreadful knife whose edge is never red with blood, but which yet severs throats from ear to ear. It assassinates the peace of families, it cuts away honor from the family name, it lets out the vital spark of life, and is followed by inconsolable death. It pierces hearts, and enters the bosom of trust, goring it with gashes which God alone can heal. Rum is a robber who is deaf to hungry children's cries and famished wives' pleadings. He is a fell destroyer from whom peace and comfort and content fly. No one can afford to be his subject, and it is the duty of every one to rise in arms against him. Let him be cursed everywhere. Let anathemas be hurled against him by the young and old of both sexes. Death is an angel of mercy sometimes--this destroyer never. Death may open the gates of heaven to every victim, but this destroyer can unbar alone the gates of hell. He takes away concord and love and joy, and in their stead leaves the horror and misery of pandemonium!
Blank, black night--Afloat--From place to place--No rest--Struggles--Giving way--One gallon of whisky in twenty-four hours--Plowing corn--Husking corn- -My object--All in vain--Old before my time--A wild, oblivious journey-- Delirium tremens--The horrors of hell--The pains of the damned--Heavenly hosts--My release--New tortures--Insane wanderings--In the woods--At Mr. Hinchman's--Frozen feet--Drive to town in a buggy surrounded by devils-- Fears and sorrows--No rest.
From this time until I tried to break the terrible chain that bound me by lecturing on the miseries and evils of intemperance, my life was one long, hopeless, blank, black night. More than one half of the time for five years I was dead to everything but my own despairing, helpless, pitiable and despicable condition. I was afloat without provision, sail, or compass, on an ocean of darkness, and from one period of deeper gloom to another I expected to go down in the sightless oblivion and so end my accursed existence. I could see no prospect of a rift in the curtain of pitchy cloud which hung over me. I was myself an ever-shifting, restless, uneasy tempest. My unrest and nervous dread of some swift approaching doom too awful to be conceived became so intense and real that I fled from place to place. Not unfrequently I came to myself during these epochs of madness and found that I was a hundred or more miles from home, without friends, respectable or even sufficient clothing, or money--a bloated and beastly wreck. I know not how I ever found my way back, or why I prolonged my life under such circumstances; but it seems the instinct called self- preservation was yet stronger than the ills which assailed me. Days were like weeks to me, and weeks as months, and mouths as years, and in all and through all I managed to crawl forward toward the grave which is still out yonder in the future, finding no pleasure in myself and no delight in anything beautiful and holy. As I lift the dread curtain and glance tremblingly along the path which stretches through the funereal shadows of the past, I feel that it was a thousand years ago when I was a child in my mother's dear protecting arms. Sin may have moments of pleasure, but the pleasure is but a hollow semblance in advance of seemingly never-ending hours of remorse and suffering.
More than once I made desperate efforts to escape from my humiliating thraldom, and, as I was sober during the days of struggle, I sought and found business, and thus managed to secure a little money, although most of my clients were poor and anything but influential. I always did my best for them, however, and seldom lost a case. But at the end of a few days a strange, undefinable, uneasy feeling began to crawl over me and crept into my heart; I became more and more restless, anxious and nervous. I was soon too uneasy to sit still or lie down. Horrible sufferings, agonies untold, woe unspeakable, deprived me of reason, and when I had the inclination I had not the will to guide myself aright. Then all of a sudden, my fierce and unrelenting appetite would sweep, vulture like, down upon me, and I would feel myself on the point of giving way. After this I would rally for a brief season, but only to sink into still deeper misery and desperation. There were days without food, and nights without sleep, but--God pity me!-- not without liquor. I lived on the hellish liquid alone, and such a life! The devils of the lower world could see nothing to envy in it. It was worse than their own torture. The quantity of liquor which I now required was enormous. I have drank, on the closing days of a spree, one gallon of whisky within the duration of twenty-four hours, and when I could not get whisky, I would drink alcohol, vinegar, camphor, liniment, pepper-sauce--in short, anything that would have a tendency to heat my stomach. I would have drank fire could I have done so knowing that it would satisfy the thirst that was consuming me. I left untried no means that would enable me to break away from my appetite. For two or three summers after I began practicing law, I went into the country and engaged myself to plow corn at seventy-five cents per day, in order to keep myself as long as possible from the dangers of the town. In the autumn season, after a debauch of weeks, I have hired out and shucked or husked corn in order to get money with which to buy myself boots and winter clothing. I occasionally taught school in the country, but not for money, for I have made more at my profession, when in a condition to practice it, in a single day than I got for teaching a whole month. My object was to free myself, to break my manacles, to open the door of my prison cell and walk forth in the upright posture of a man. Sadly I write, "in vain!" If I fled, the demon outran me; if I broke a link, the demon moulded another; if I prayed, he put the curse into my mouth. As I look back over my horror-haunted, broken, misspent, and false existence, I realize how worthless I am, and I see that my life is a failure. I am in my thirty-second year, and am prematurely old, without the wisdom, or gray hairs, or goodness, or truth, or respect which should accompany age. My heart is frosty but not my hair.
I will now endeavor to recite some of the scenes through which I passed, that the reader may form for himself an opinion regarding my sufferings. I left Rushville on one of my periodical sprees (I do not remember the exact time, but no matter about that, the fact is burning in my memory), and after three or four weeks of blind, insane, drunken, unpremeditated travel- -heaven only knows where--I found myself again in Rushville, but more dead than alive. I experienced a not unfamiliar but most strange foreboding that some terrible calamity was impending. I was more nervous than ever before, so much so in fact that I became alarmed seriously, and called on Dr. Moffitt for medical advice. He diagnosed my case, and informed me that my condition was dangerous, unnatural and wild. He gave me some medicine and kindly advised me to go into his house and lie down, I remained there two days and nights, and in spite of his able treatment and constant care I grew worse. Do you know what is meant by delirium tremens, reader? If not, I pray God you may never know more than you may learn from these pages. I pray God that you may never experience in any form any of the disease's horrors. It was this, the most terrible malady that ever tortured man, that was laying its ghastly, livid, serpentine hands upon me. All at once, and without further warning, my reason forsook me altogether, and I started from Dr. Moffitt's house to go to my boarding place. The sidewalks were to me one mass of living, moving, howling, and ferocious animals. Bears, lions, tigers, wolves, jaguars, leopards, pumas--all wild beasts of all climes--were frothing at the mouth around me and striving to get to me. Recollect that while all this was hallucination, it was just as real as if it had been an undeniable and awful reality. Above and all around me I heard screams and threatening voices. At every step I fell over or against some furious animal. When I finally reached the door leading to my room and just as I was about to enter, a human corpse sprang into the doorway. It had motion, but I knew that it was a tenant of that dark and windowless abode, the grave. It opened full upon me its dull, glassy, lustreless eyes; stark, cold, and hideous it stood before me. It lifted a stiffened arm and struck me a blow in the face with its icy and almost fleshless hand from which reptiles fell and writhed at my feet. I turned to rush into another room, but the door was bolted. I then thought for a second that I was dreaming, and I awoke and laughed a wild laugh, which ended in a shriek, for I knew that I was awake. I turned again toward my own door, and the form had vanished. I jumped into my room and tore off my clothes, but as I threw aside my garments, each separate piece turned into something miscreated and horrible, with fiendish and burning eyes, that caused my own to start from their sockets. My room was filled with menacing voices, and just then a mighty wind rushed past my window, and out of the wind came cries, and lamentations, and curses, which took shapes unearthly, and ranged about the bed on which I lay shuddering. Die! die! die! they shrieked. I was commanded to hold my breath, and they threatened horrors unimaginable if I did not obey.
I now believed that my time had come to render up the life which had been so much abused. I asked what would become of my soul when my body gave it up, and they told me it would descend to the tortures of an everlasting hell, and that once there, my present sufferings would be as bliss compared with what was in store for me for an endless age. As my eyes wandered about the room--I was afraid to close them--I saw that innumerable devils were crowding into it. They were henceforth to be my companions, and if the Prince of all of them ever allowed me to leave for a brief time the regions of infernal woe, it would be in their company and on missions such as they were now fulfilling. I called aloud for my mother, and a voice more diabolical than any I had yet heard, hissed into my ears that she was chained in hell, but immediately a million devils screamed, "Liar! she is in heaven!" I refused then to hold my breath, and told them to kill me and do their worst. In an instant the spirit of my mother, like a benediction, rested beside me. As she begged for me I knew that it was her voice, natural as in her life on earth. While she was yet imploring for me the room became radiant, and I saw that it was full of angels. I felt a strange joy. My sins were pardoned, and I was told that I should go forth and preach and save souls. I was commanded to get out of bed, put on my clothes, and go down stairs, where I would be told what to do. I obeyed, and on opening the door that led to the street, a man came to me and he bid me follow him. The spirits whispered to me that the man was Christ, and his looks, acts and steps even were such as I had conceived were his when he was once a meek and lowly sufferer on earth. I followed him about sixty rods, when he told me to stop. I did so, and just then the heavens opened with a great blaze of glory, and millions of angels came down. Such music as then broke upon my senses I never heard before, and have never since heard. The angels would approach near me and tell me they were going to take me to heaven with them; then they would disappear for an instant and devils gathered about me. I could hear music and see the heavenly hosts returning. They came and went many times thus, and after they went away the last time, I was again surrounded by fiends who inflicted every torture on me. Christ commanded me to stand in that place, I thought, and there I remained. It was very cold, and I froze my feet and hands. I then felt that the devils were burning off my feet, and I shrieked for liquor. I looked down and saw a bottle at my feet, but when I reached down to get it a lion threw his claws over it, and warned me with a fierce growl not to touch it. The snow melted, the season changed, and I was standing in mud and mire up to my neck. Ropes were tied around me, and horses were hitched to them to drag me from the deeps, but in trying to draw me out the ropes would snap asunder and I was left imbedded in the clay. They could not move me, because Christ had commanded me to stand there. A little while before the break of day the Savior appeared and told me to go. I started to run, but when I got alongside the old depot there burst from it the combined screams of millions of incarnate devils. I can hear in fancy still the avalanche of voices which rolled from those lost myriads. I ran into the first house to which I came. Its saw at a glance what was the nature of my terrible trouble, but he had no power to help me. I beheld the face of a black fiend grinning on me through a window. In the center of his forehead was an enormous and fiery eye, and about his sinister mouth the grin which I at first saw became demoniacal. He called the fiends, and I heard them come as a rushing tornado, and surround the house. Everything I attempted to do was anticipated by them. If I thought of moving my hand I heard them say, "Look! he is going to lift his hand." No matter what I did or thought of doing, they cursed me.
When daylight at last came--and oh, what an age of dying agony lay behind it in the vast hollow darkness of the night!--the horrid objects disappeared, but the voices remained and talked with me all day. You who read, imagine yourselves alone in a room, or walking deserted streets, with voices articulating words to you with as clear distinctness as words were ever spoken to you. Many of the voices were those of friends and acquaintances whom I knew to be in their graves, and yet they--their voices--were conversing with, or talking to me, during the whole of that long, long, terrible day. I was tortured with fears and a dread of something infinitely horrible. I went to my office--the voices were there! I stepped to the window, and on the street were men congregating in front of the building. I could hear their voices, and they were all talking of hanging me. I had committed an appalling crime, they said. I knew not where to go or whither to fly. Now and then I could hear strains of music. The dreaded night came on, and with it the fiends returned. In the excitement of breaking from my office, I forgot to put on my overcoat. The moment I got on the street the freezing wind drove me back, but hundreds of voices gathered around me and threatened me with death if I entered the door again. I went away followed by them, and wandered in a thin coat up and down the streets, and through the woods all night. The wonder was that I did not freeze to death. I could hear crowds of excited people at the court house discussing me, I thought. When I started to go there, every door and window of the building flew open and fiery devils darted out and cursed me away. All the time I was dying for whisky, but the saloon keepers would not give me a drop. They saw and understood what was the matter with me, and refused to finish the work begun in their dens. I started at last in the direction of home. Just outside of the town a man by my side showed me a bottle of whisky. I was dying for it, and begged him for at least one swallow. He opened the bottle and held it to my lips, and I saw that the bottle was full of blood. Again and again did he deceive me. Exhausted at last, I sank down in the snow and begged for death to come and end my life, but instead, a company of citizens of Rushville, whom I knew, gathered around me and a glass of whisky was handed to me. I saw that everyone present held a similar glass in his hand, which, at a given word, was raised to the mouth. I hastened to drink, but while they drained their glasses, I could not get a drop from mine. I looked more closely at the glass and discovered that there were two thicknesses to it, and that the liquor was contained between them. I studied how I could break the glass and not spill the whisky, and begged and plead with the men to have mercy on me. I got out into the woods four or five miles from Rushville, and wandered about in the snow, but all around and above me were the universal and eternal voices threatening me. A thousand visions came and went; a thousand tortures consumed me; a thousand hopes sustained me.
I quit the woods pursued by winged and cloven-footed fiends, and ran to the house of Andy Hinchman. He received and gave me shelter until morning, when he carried me back home in his buggy. I had no more than got into his house when it was surrounded by my tormentors. They raised the windows and commenced throwing lassos at me, in order, as they said, to catch me and drag me out that they might kill me. I sat up in my chair until daylight, fighting them off with both hands. All these terrible torments were, I repeat, realities, intensified over the ordinary realities of life a hundred fold. I had wandered to and fro, as I have described, but the people, the angels and the devils were alike the phantasmagoria of my diseased mind. For one week after the night last mentioned, I had no use of either arm. I had so frozen my feet that I could not put on my boots. Mr. Hinchman kindly loaned me a pair that I succeeded, although with great pain, in drawing on, for they were three sizes larger than I was in the habit of wearing. The devils were still with me, but I had moments of reason when I could banish them from my mind. On our way to town they rode on top of the buggy and clung to the spokes of the wheels, and whirled over and over with dizzy revolutions. How they fought, and cursed, and shrieked! When I got to my room it was the same, and for days I was surrounded the greater part of the time with demons as numberless as those seen in the fancy of the mighty poet of a Lost Paradise marshaled under the infernal ensign of Lucifer on the fiery and blazing plains of hell! For more than one month after the madness left me I was afraid to sleep in a room alone, and the least sound would fill me with fear. I ran when none pursued, and hid when no one was in search of me. My sleep was fitful and full of terrible dreams, and my days were days of unrest and anguish unspeakable.
Wretchedness and degradation--Clothes, credit, and reputation all lost--The prodigal's return to his father's house--Familiar scenes--The beauty of nature--My lack of feeling--A wild horse--I ride him to Raleigh and get drunk--A mixture of vile poison--My ride and fall--The broken stirrups--My father's search--I get home once more--Depart the same day on the wild horse--A week at Lewisville--Sick--Yearnings for sympathy.
My condition now grew worse from day to day. I descended step by step to the lowest depths of wretchedness and degradation. Often my only sleeping- place was the pavement, or a stairway, or a hall leading to some office. I lost my clothes, pawning most of them to the rum-sellers, until I was unfit to be seen, so few and dirty and ragged were the garments which I could still call my own. In ten years I have lost, given away, and pawned over fifty suits of clothes. Within the three years just past I have had six overcoats that went the way of my reputation and peace of mind.
I left Rushville at the time of which I am writing, but not until it was out of my power to either buy or beg a drop of liquor--not until my reputation was destroyed and everything else that a true man would prize-- and then, like the prodigal who had wallowed with swine, I returned to my father's house--the home of my childhood, around which lay the scenes which were imprinted on my mind with ineffaceable colors. But I had destroyed the sense which should have made them comforting to me. I have no doubt that nature is beautiful--that there are fine souls to whom she is a glorious book, on whose divine pages they learn wisdom and find the highest and most exalting charms. But I, alas, am dead to her subtle and sacred influences. However, I might have been benefited by my stay at home, had it been difficult for me to find that which my appetite still craved; but it was not so. Falmouth and Raleigh and Lewisville were still within easy reach, and not only at these, but at many other places could liquor be procured, and I got it. The curse was on me. My condition became such that it was unsafe to send me from home on any business. I can recall times when I left horses hitched to the plow or wagon and went on a spree, forgetting all about them, for weeks. I had left home firm in the resolve to not touch a drop of liquor under any circumstances, and so thoroughly did I believe that I would not, that I would have staked my soul on a wager that I would keep sober. But the sight of a saloon, or of some person with whom I had been on a drunk, or even an empty beer keg, would rouse my appetite to such an extent that I gave up all thoughts of sobriety and wanted to get drunk. I always allowed myself to be deceived with the idea that I would only get on a moderate drunk this time, and then quit forever. But the first drink was sure to be followed by a hundred or a thousand more.
Once while in a state of beastly intoxication at Rushville, my father came for me and took me home in a wagon, and for two weeks I scarcely stirred outside of the house. But the house which should have been a paradise to me was made a prison by reason of my desires for the hell-created liberty of entering saloons and associating with men as reckless as myself. I became morose, nervous, and uneasy. I took a horseback ride one morning and would not admit to myself that I cared less for the ride than to feel that I could go where I could get liquor. I did not want to drink, but like the moth which returns by some fatal charm again and again to the flames which eventually consume it, I could not resist the temptation to go where I could lay my hands on the curse. There was on the farm, among the horses, one that was unusually wild, which had hitherto thrown every person that mounted it. The only way it could be managed at all was with a rough curb- bitted bridle, and even then each rein had to be drawn hard. If there was any one thing on which I prided myself at that time it was my proficiency in riding horses. I determined on mastering this horse, and early one morning I mounted his back. I got along without a great amount of difficulty in keeping my seat until I got to Raleigh. Here I dismounted and sat in the corner groceries for an hour or more, talking to acquaintances. Finally, like the dog returning to his vomit, I crossed the street and went into a saloon. Had the door opened into the vermilion lake of fire I would have passed through it if I had been sure of getting a drink, so sudden and uncontrollable was the appetite awakened. Only a few minutes before I had with religious solemnity assured two young men who were keeping a dry goods store there that I had quit drinking forever. To test me, I suppose, one of them had said to me that he had some excellent old whisky, and wanted me to try a little of it, and offered me the jug. I carried it to my mouth, and took a swallow. It was a villainous compound of whisky, alcohol and drugs of various kinds, which he sold in quart bottles under the name of some sort of bitters which were warranted to cure every disease: and I will add that I believe to this day that they would do what he said they would, for I do not think any human being, bird, or beast, unless there is another Quilp living, could drink two bottles of it in that number of days and not be beyond the need of further attention than that required to prepare him for burial. It was the sight of the jug and the taste of the poison slop which it contained that aroused my appetite and scattered my resolves to the tempest. Once in the saloon I drank without regard to consequences, and without caring whether the horse I rode was as jaded and tame as Don Quixote's ill-favored but famous steed, or as wild and unmanageable as the steed to which the ill-starred Mazeppa was lashed. I did not stop to consider that a clear head and steady hand were necessary to guide that horse and protect my life, which would be endangered the moment I again mounted my horse. Ordinarily I would have gone away and left the horse to care for itself, but I remembered the character of the horse, and with a drunken maniac's perversity of feeling I would not abandon it. I designed getting only so drunk, and then I would show the folks what a young man could really do. On leaving the saloon I returned to the jug, which contained the mixture described, and which would have called up apparitions on the blasted heath that would have not only startled the ambitious thane, but frightened the witches themselves out of their senses.
I took one full drink--what is called in the vernacular of the bar room a "square" drink--from the jug, and that, uniting with the saloon slop, made me a howling maniac. I have forgotten to mention that I got a quart of as raw and mean whisky in the saloon as was ever sold for the sum which I gave for it--fifty cents. It was about nine o'clock at night when I bethought me of the horse which I had sworn to ride home that evening. I untied the beast with some difficulty, and led him to a mounting block. I got on the block, and, after putting my foot securely in the stirrup, fell into the saddle, I was too drunk to think further, and so permitted the horse to take whatever course suited it best. It took the road toward home, but not as quietly as a butterfly would have started. He flew with furious speed, onward through the night, bearing me as if I had only been a feather. I did not, for I could not, attempt to control him. It was a race with death, and the chances were in death's favor long before we reached the home stretch. Possibly I might have ridden safely home had the road been a straight one, but it was not, and, on making a short turn, I was thrown from the saddle, but my feet were securely fastened in the stirrups, and so I was dragged onward by the animal, which did not pause in its mad career, but rather sped forward more wildly than ever. I was dragged thus over a quarter of a mile, and would undoubtedly have been killed had not one and then the other stirrup broken. I lay with my feet in the detached stirrups until near morning, wholly unconscious and dead, I presume, to all appearances. It was quite a while after I came to my senses before I could realize what had happened, who, and what, and where I was, and then my knowledge was too vague to enable me to determine anything definitely. I crawled to a house which was near by, fortunately, and remained there during the morning. I was badly, but not dangerously, injured. The skin was torn from one side of my face, and three of my fingers were disjointed. I was bruised all over, and cut slightly in several places. How I escaped death is a miracle, but escape it I did. The horse went on home and was found early in the morning, with the stirrup leathers dangling from the saddle. When the family saw the horse they at once were of the opinion that I had been killed, and my father took the road to Raleigh immediately, thinking to find my dead body on the way. Fearing that they would discover the horse and be frightened about me, I started home, and had not gone far when I met my father. As soon as he saw me walking in the road, he burst into tears. I did not dare look as he rode up to me, but continued walking, and he rode slowly past me. I could hear his sobs, but was too much overcome with shame to speak. I walked on toward home as fast as I could, and my heart-broken but happy father followed slowly in my rear. When I got within sight of the house my sister saw me and ran to meet me, crying: "Oh, we thought you were killed this time--I was sure you were killed. It is so dreadful to think of!" etc. She was crying and laughing in a breath. My feelings were such as words can not describe. I wanted the earth to open and swallow me up. I suffered a thousand deaths. This is only one of a hundred similar debauches, each more deplorable and humiliating in its consequences than the last.
At times, as the waters of the awful sea called the Past dash over me, I almost die of strangulation. I pant and gasp for breath, and shudder and tremble in my terror. My spree on this occasion was not yet over; my appetite was burning and raging, and notwithstanding my almost miraculous escape from a drunken death, I watched my opportunity, like a man bent on self-destruction, and again mounted the same horse and started for Raleigh. But my father had preceded me, and given orders at the saloon and elsewhere that I should not be allowed more liquor. I was determined to satisfy my appetite, and with this purpose subjugating every other, I went on to Lewisville, where I remained for more than a week, drinking day and night. Finally one of my brothers, hearing of my whereabouts, came after me and took me home. I was so completely exhausted the moment that the liquor began to die out that I had to go to bed, and there I remained for some time. After such debauches the physical suffering is intense and great; but it is little in comparison with the tortures of the mind. After such a spree as the one just mentioned, it has generally been out of my power to sleep for a week or longer after getting sober. I have tossed for hours and nights upon a bed of remorse, and had hell with all its flames burning in my heart and brain. Often have I prayed for death, and as often, when I thought the final hour had come, have I shrunk back from the mysterious shadow in which flesh has no more motion. Often have I felt that I would lose my reason forever, but after a period of madness, nature would be merciful and restore me my lost senses. Often have I pressed my hands tightly over my mouth, fearing that I would scream, and as often would a low groan sound in my blistered throat, the pent up echo of a long maniacal wail. Often have I contemplated suicide, but as often has some benign power held back my desperate hand; once, indeed, I tried to force the gates of death by an attempt to take my own life, but, heaven be forever praised! I did not succeed, for the knife refused to cut as deep as I would have had it. I thought I would be justifiable in throwing off by any means such a load of horror and pain as I was weighed down with. Who would not escape from misery if he could? I argued. If the grave, self-sought, would hide every error, blot out every pang, and shield from every storm, why not seek it?
They have in certain lands of the tropics a game which the people are said to watch with absorbing interest. It is this: A scorpion is caught. With cruel eagerness the boys and girls of the street assemble and place the reptile on a board, surrounded with a rim of tow saturated with some inflammable spirit. This ignited, the torture of the scorpion begins. Maddened by the heat, the detested thing approaches the fiery barrier and attempts to find some passage of escape, but vain the endeavor! It retreats toward the center of the ring, and as the heat increases and it begins to writhe under it, the children cry out with pleasure--a cry in which, I fancy, there is a cadence of the sound which sends a thrill of delight through hell--the sound of exultation which rises from the tongues of bigots when the martyr's soul mounts upward from the flames in which his body is consumed. Again the scorpion attempts to escape, and again it is turned back by that impassable barrier of fire. The shouts of the children deepen. At last, finding that there is no way by which to fly, the hated thing retreats to the center of its flaming prison and stings itself to death. Then it is that the exultation of the crowd of cruel tormentors is most loudly expressed. But do not infer from what I have said that I look with favor on suicide under any circumstances. That I do not do, but I would have you look at society and some of its victims.
See what barriers of flame are often thrown around poor, despairing, miserable men! Listen to that indifference and condemnation, and this wail of agony! Can you wonder that the outcast abandons hope and plunges the knife into his heart? He is driven to madness, and feeling that all is lost, he commits an act which does indeed lose everything for him, for it bars the gates of heaven against him. Before he had nothing on earth; now he has nothing in paradise. Alas for those who triumph over the fall of a fellow creature. God have mercy on those who exult over the wretchedness of a victim of alcohol! Woe to those who ridicule his efforts to escape, and who mock him when he fails. Do they not help to shape for him the dagger of self-destruction? What ingredients of poison do they not mix with the fatal drink which deprives him of breath? With what threads do they strengthen the rope with which he hangs himself! Where should the most blame rest, where does it most rest in the eyes of God--with society which drives him forth a depraved and friendless creature? or with himself no longer accountable for his acts? O the agony of feeling that on the whole face of the earth there is not a face that will look upon you in kindness, nor a heart that will throb with compassion at sight of your misery! I know what this agony is, for in my darkest hours I have looked for pity and strained my ears to catch the tones of a kindly voice in vain. But let me hasten to say, lest I be misunderstood, that since I commenced to lecture, I have had the support and active help of thousands of the very best men and women in the land. I doubt that there was ever a man in calamity trying to escape from terrors worse than those of death who had more aid than has been extended to me. Could prayers and tears lift one out of misfortune and wretchedness I would long ago have stood above all the tribulations of my life. I desire to have every man and woman that has bestowed kindness on me, if only a word or look, know that I remember such kindness, and that I long to prove that it was not thrown away. Every day there rises before me numberless faces I have met from time to time, each beautiful with the love, sympathy, and pity which elevates the human into the divine. There are others, I regret to say, that pass before me with dark looks and scowls. I know them well, for they have sought to discourage and drag me down. Their tongues have been quick to condemn and free to vilify me. I seek no revenge on them. I forgive as wholly and freely as I hope to be forgiven. May God soften their tiger hearts and melt their hyena souls.
The ever-recurring spell--Writing in the sand--Hartford City--In the ditch- -Extricated--Fairly started--A telegram--My brother's death--Sober--A long night--Ride home--Palpitation of the heart--Bluffton--The inevitable-- Delirium again--No friends, money, nor clothes--One hundred miles from home--I take a walk--Clinton county--Engage to teach a school--The lobbies of hell--Arrested--Flight to the country--Open school--A failure--Return home--The beginning of a terrible experience--Two months of uninterrupted drinking--Coatless, hatless, and bootless--The "Blue Goose"--The tremens-- Inflammatory rheumatism--The torments of the damned--Walking on crutches-- Drive to Rushville--Another drunk--Pawn my clothes--At Indianapolis--A cold bath--The consequence--Teaching school--Satisfaction given--The kindness of Daniel Baker and his wife--A paying practice at law.
I was at all times unhappy, and hence I was always restless and discontented. I was continually striving for something that would at least give me contentment, but before I could establish myself in any thing the ever-recurring spell would seize me, and whatever confidence I had succeeded in gaining was swept away. I wrote in sand, and the incoming tide with a single dash annihilated the characters. During one of my uneasy wanderings I went to Hartford City, Indiana. Hartford "City," like all other cities In the land, has a full supply of saloons. With a view of advertising myself I had my friends announce on the second day after my arrival that I would deliver a political speech. This speech was listened to by an immense crowd, and heartily praised by the party whose principles I advocated. I was puffed up with the enthusiasm of the people, and repaired with some of the local leaders to a saloon to take a drink in honor of the occasion. The drink taken by me as usual wrought havoc. I wanted more, as I always do when I take one drink, and I got more. I got more than enough, too, as I always do. On the way home with a gentleman whom I knew, I fell into a ditch, but was extricated with difficulty, and finally carried to the house of a friend. My clothes were wet and covered with mud. After sleeping awhile I got up and stole from the house very much as a thief would have sneaked away. I was fairly started on another spree, and for three weeks I drank heavily and constantly. Sometime during the third week of my debauch I received a telegram stating that my brother was dead. The suddenness and terrible nature of the news caused me to become sober at once. It was just at twilight when I received the telegram, and there was no train until nine o'clock the next morning. That night seemed like an age to me. I never closed my eyes in sleep, but lay in my bed weak and terror-stricken, waiting for the morning. It came at last, for the longest night will end in day. I got on the train and sat down by a window. I was so weak and nervous that I could not hold a cup in my hand. But I wanted no more liquor. The terrible news of the previous day had frightened away all desire for drink. I had not ridden far when I was seized with palpitation of the heart. The sudden cessation from all stimulants had left my system in a condition to resist nothing, and when my heart lost its regular action, the chances were that I could not survive. All day I drew my breath with painful difficulty, and thought that each respiration would be the last. I raised the car window and put out my head so that the rushing air would strike my face, and this revived me. When I got home my brother was buried. I had left him a few days before in good health and proud in his strength. I returned to find him hidden forever from my sight by the remorseless grave. What I felt and suffered no one knew, nor can ever know. Every night for weeks I could see my brother in life, but the cold reality of death came back to me with the light of day. I was stunned and almost crazed by the blow, and yet there were not wanting persons who, incapable of a deep pang of sorrow, said that I did not care. Could they have been made to suffer for one night the agony which I endured for weeks they would learn to feel for the miseries of others, and at the same time have a knowledge of what sufferings the human heart is capable.
My next move was to Bluffton, Wells county, Indiana, where I arranged to go into the practice of the law. But here at Bluffton, as elsewhere, were the devil's recruiting offices--the saloons--and the first night after I reached the town I got drunk. I remained in Bluffton until I got over the debauch, which embraced a siege of the delirium tremens more horrible than that already described. When I came to myself, I determined that I would go home. I was without money; I had no friends in Bluffton, and but few clothes to my back, and it was over one hundred miles to my father's, but I started on foot and walked the whole way. I stayed quietly at home a few days, and then went to Howard and Clinton counties on business, which was to make some collections on notes for other parties. While in Clinton county I engaged to teach a district school, and in order to begin at the time specified by the trustees, I returned home to get ready. I started to return to Clinton county on Friday, so as to be there to open school on the following Monday. I got off the train at Indianapolis, and went into one of the numerous lobbies of hell near the depot. It was a week from that evening before I was sober enough to realize where I was, who I was, where I had come from, and whither I had started. I could hardly believe it possible that I had fallen again, but there was no doubt of the fact. I had been arrested and had pawned my trunk to get money to pay my fine. To this day I don't know why I was arrested, but for being drunk, I suppose. I fled from the city, and walked thirty miles into the country, where I borrowed enough money of a friend to redeem my trunk. I then started for my school. Notwithstanding I was one week behind, the trustees were still expecting me, and on Monday morning, one week later than the time appointed at first, I opened school. But I was so worn out and confused in my faculties that at noon I was forced to dismiss the school. I hurried from the house to a small village in the neighborhood and there I got more liquor. The next morning I left for home. Such a condition of affairs was lamentable and damnable, but I was powerless to make it better. I have often wondered what the people of that neighborhood thought when they found that I had taken a cargo of whisky and disappeared as mysteriously as I came. If the young idea shot forth at all during that season among the children of that district it was directed by other hands than mine. I never sent in a bill for the sixty-two and a half cents due me for that half day's work. If the good people of Clinton will consent to call the matter even, I will here and now relinquish every possible claim, right, or title to the aforesaid amount. They have probably long since forgotten the school which was not taught, and the pedagogue who did not teach. I arrived at home in course of time, and remained there a few days.
It was not long until my restless disposition drove me forth in search of some new adventure, and now comes the brief and imperfect recital of the most terrible experiences of my life. On the first of July I began to drink, and it was not until the first of September that I quit. During this time I went to Cincinnati twice, once to Kentucky, and twice to Lafayette. I traveled nearly all the time, and much of the time I was in an unconscious state. I started from home with two suits of clothes which I pawned for whisky after my money was all gone. I arrived at Knightstown one day without coat, vest or hat. I was also barefooted. A friend supplied me with these necessary articles, and as soon as I put them on I went to a saloon kept by Peter Stoff, and there I staid four days without venturing out on the street. As soon as I was able, I took up my journey homeward. When I got to Raleigh I was so completely worn out that I dropped down in a shoe shop and saloon, both of which were in the same compartment of a building. That night I took the tremens. The next day my father came after me in a spring wagon, and hauled me home. For the most part, during the two months of which I speak, I had slept out doors, without even a dog for company, and I contracted slight cold and fever, which terminated in an attack of inflammatory rheumatism in my left knee. The rheumatism came on in an instant, and without any previous warning. The first intimation I had of it was a keen pain, such as I imagine would follow a knife if thrust through the centre of the knee. When the doctor reached the house my knee had swollen enormously. I was burning up with a violent fever, and was wild with delirium. He at once blistered a hole in each side of my knee, and applied sedatives. My suffering was literally that of the damned. I lay upon my back for days and nights on a small lounge, without sleeping a wink, so great was my suffering. For forty-eight hours my eyes were rolled upward and backward in my head in a set and terrible rigidity. In my delirium, I thought my room was overran by rats. I tried to fight them off as they came toward me, but when I thought they were gone I could detect them stealing under my lounge, and presently they would be gnawing at my knee, and every time one of them touched me, a thrill of unearthly horror shot through me. They tore off pieces of my flesh, and I could see these pieces fall from their bloody jaws. No pen could describe my sickening and revolting sensations of horror and agony. For sixty days did I lie upon my back on that couch, unable to turn on either side, or move in any way, without suffering a thousand deaths. I experienced as much pain as ever was felt by any mortal being, and it is still a wonder to me how I survived. I was, on more than one occasion, believed to be dead by my friends, and they wrapped me in the winding sheet. Even then I was conscious of what they were doing, and yet I was unable to move a muscle, or speak, or groan. A horrible fear came over me that they would bury me alive. I seemed to die at the thought, but, had mountains been heaped upon me, it would have been as easy for me to show that I was not dead. But I would gradually regain the power of articulation, and then again would hope rise in the hearts of those who were watching. At last, but slowly, I recovered sufficiently to be able to leave my room. I procured a pair of crutches, and by their aid I could go about the house. Next I went out riding in a buggy, and after a time got so that I could walk without difficulty, though not without my crutches, for I did not yet dare to bear weight on my afflicted knee.
One day I went to Rushville, and--O, curse of curses!--gave way to my appetite. The moment the whisky began to affect me, I forgot that I had crutches, and set my lame leg down with my whole weight upon it. The sudden and agonizing pain caused me to give a scream, and yet I repeated the step a number of times. But the insufferable pain caused me to return home.
It was now winter. The Legislature was in session at Indianapolis, and I was promised a position, and, with this end in view, packed my trunk and bid good-by to the folks at home. At Shelbyville, at which place I had a little business to attend to, I took a drink. Just how and why I took it has been already told, for the same cause always influenced me. The same result followed, and at Indianapolis I kept up the debauch until I had traded a suit of clothes worth sixty dollars for one worth, at a liberal estimate, about sixty-five cents. I even pawned my crutches, which I still used and still needed. One day I went to a bath-room, and after remaining in the bath for half an hour, with the water just as warm as I could bear it, I resolved to change the programme, and, without further reflection, I turned off the warm and turned on water as cold as ice could make it. It almost caused my death. In an instant every pore of my body was closed, and I was as numb as one would be if frozen. Even my sight was destroyed for a few minutes, but I contrived to get out of the bath and put on my rags. I found my way, with some difficulty, to the Union Depot, and boarded a train, but I did not notice that it was not the train I wanted to travel on until it was too late for me to correct the mistake. I went to Zionsville, and lay there three days under the charge of two physicians. I then started again to go home, expecting to die at any moment. At last I reached Falmouth, and was carried to my father's, where I passed two weeks in suffering only equaled by that which I had already borne.
On again recovering my health, I began to look about for something to do, and hearing of a vacant school east of Falmouth, and about four miles from my father's, I made application and was employed to teach it. It is with pride (which, after the record of so many failures, I trust will readily be pardoned) that I chronicle the fact that from the beginning to the end of the term I never tasted liquor. I look back to those months as the happiest of my life. I did what is seldom done, for in addition to keeping sober (which I believe most teachers do without an effort), I gave complete satisfaction to every parent, and pleased and made friends with every scholar (a thing, I believe, that most teachers do not do). Very bright and vivid in memory are those days, made more radiant by contrast with the darkness and degradation which lie before and after them. As I dwell upon them a ray of their calm light steals into my soul, and the faces of my loved scholars come out of the intervening darkness and smile upon me, until, for a brief moment, I forget my barred window, the mad-house, and my desolation, and fancy that I am again with them. I boarded with Daniel Baker, and can never forget his own and his good wife's kindness.