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 m