memory of
which would have been a blessing instead of a remorse.

I have no recollection of a time when I had not an appetite for liquor. My
parents and friends of course knew that if it was taken in excess it would
lead to destruction, but in our quiet neighborhood, where little was known
of its excesses, no one dreamed of the fearful curse which slumbered in it
for me to awake. Had they had the least dread, fear, or anticipation of it
they would have left nothing undone that being done might have saved me. My
appetite for it was born with me, and was as much a part of myself as the
air I breathed. There are three kinds of inheritances, some of money and
lands, some of superior or great talents, and others of misfortunes. For
myself this misfortune was my inheritance. It came not to me directly from
my father or mother, but from my mother's father, and seemed to lie waiting
for me for three or four generations, and the mistakes and passion of long
dead great grandparents reappeared in me, thus fulfilling, with terrible
truth, the words of the divine book. It has been gathering strength until
when it broke forth its force has become wide-sweeping, irresistible and
rushing--a consuming power, devouring and sweeping away whatever dares to
arrest its onward progress. Never, never, in those long gone and innocent
years of my childhood did my father or mother dream that I, their
much-loved child, would ever become a drunkard. If there is anything good,
manly, noble or true, that is a part of me, I am indebted to them for it.
They loved me, and I worshiped them. The consciousness that I have caused
them to suffer so much has been the keenest sorrow of my life. My mother
(blessed be the name!) is now in heaven. When she died the light went out
from my soul. A pang more poignant than any known before pierced me through
and through. My father is living still, and I verily believe there is not a
son on earth who more truly and devotedly honors and loves his father than
I mine. But I desire to show that I am not wholly responsible for my
present unhappy condition. It is natural for every man to wish to excuse,
or at least try to soften the lines of his mistakes with palliating
reasons, and this I think right so long as the truth is adhered to, and
injustice is not done any one. I hope no one will think that I have
willfully trod the road to ruin, or sunk myself so low when I have desired
the opposite with my whole heart. I was a vi