s danger. Hard drinking was
the rule in those days. Horace B--had been one of the rare exceptions.
There was a reason for this extra prudence. He had that peculiar
susceptibility to alcoholic excitement which has been the ruin of so
many gifted and noble men. He knew his weakness, and it is strange that
he did not continue to guard against the danger that he so well
understood. Strange? No; this infatuation is so common in everyday life
that we cannot call it strange. There is some sort of fatal fascination
that draws men with their eyes wide open into the very jaws of this hell
of strong drink. The most brilliant physician in San Francisco, in the
prime of his magnificent young manhood, died of delirium tremens, the
victim of a self-inflicted disease, whose horrors no one knew or could
picture so well as himself. Who says man is not a fallen, broken
creature, and that there is not a devil at hand to tempt him? This
devil, under the guise of sociability, false pride, or moral cowardice,
tempted Horace B--, and he yielded. Like tinder touched by flame, he
blazed into drunkenness, and again and again the proud-spirited, manly,
and cultured young lawyer and jurist was seen staggering along the
streets, maudlin or mad with alcohol. When he had slept off his madness,
his humiliation was intense, and he walked the streets with pallid face
and downcast eyes. The coarser-grained men with whom he was thrown in
contact had no conception of the mental tortures he suffered, and their
rude jests stung him to the quick. He despised himself as a weakling and
a coward, but he did not get more than a transient victory over his
enemy. The spark had struck a sensitive organization, and the fire of
hell, smothered for the time, would blaze out again. He was fast
becoming a common drunkard, the accursed appetite growing stronger, and
his will weakening in accordance with that terrible law by which man's
physical and moral nature visits retribution on all who cross its path.
During a term of the court over which he presided, he was taken home one
night drunk. A pistol-shot was heard by persons in the vicinity some
time before daybreak; but pistol-shots, at all hours of the night, were
then too common to excite special attention. Horace B--was found next
morning lying on the floor with a bullet through his head. Many a stout,
heavy-bearded man had, wet eyes when the body of the ill-fated and
brilliant young Virginian was let down into the grave