describe how happy the thought
made me. I again began the practice of law, and for six months I devoted
myself to my duties. I had a large and paying practice, and not once but
often was I engaged in cases where my fees amounted to from fifty to one
hundred dollars, and once I received two hundred and fifty dollars. I will
further say that my clients felt that they were paying me little enough in
each case, considering the service I rendered them. But during the latter
part of the time I suffered much from low spirits and nervousness, and my
desire for whisky almost drove me wild at times. I fought this appetite
again and again with desperate determination, and how the contest would
have finally ended I can not say had I not been taken down sick. The
physician who was sent for prescribed some brandy, and on his second visit
he brought half of a pint of it, to be taken with other medicine in doses
of one tablespoonful at intervals of two hours. I followed his directions
with care, so far as the first dose was concerned, but if the reader
supposes that I waited two hours for another tablespoonful of that brandy
he does my appetite gross injustice. Neither would I have him suppose that
I confined the second dose to a tablespoon. I waited until my friends
withdrew, making some excuse about wanting to be alone in order to get them
to go out at once, and then I got out of bed and swallowed the remainder of
that brandy at a gulp. A desperate and uncontrollable desire for the poison
had possession of me, and beneath it my resolutions were crushed and my
will helplessly manacled. I slipped out of the room at the first
opportunity, and managed to get a buggy in which I drove off to Falmouth
where I immediately bought a quart of whisky. This I drank in an incredibly
short space of time, and after that--after that--well, you can imagine what
took place after that. Would to God that I could erase the recollection of
it from my mind! Days and weeks of drunkenness; days and weeks of
degradation; money spent; clothes pawned and lost; business neglected;
friends alienated; and peace and happiness annihilated by the fell,
merciless, hell-born fiend--Alcohol! So much for a half pint of brandy
prescribed by an able physician. The vilest and most deadly poison could
scarcely have been worse. Perhaps I was to blame--at least I have blamed
myself--for not imploring the doctor in the name of everything holy not to
prescribe any medicine containin