s it grows. All that in a happier field and purer
air would expand into virtue and germinate into usefulness is converted
into henbane and deadly nightshade. I know how hard it is to get human
society to regard one's acts as other than his deliberate intentions. But
of being a drunkard by choice, and because I have not cared for the
consequences, I am innocent. I can say, and speak the truth, that there is
not a person on earth less capable than myself of recklessly and purposely
plunging himself into shame, suffering and sin. I will never believe that a
man, conscious of innocence, can not make other men perceive that he has
that thought. I have been miserable all my life. I have been harshly
treated by mankind, in being accused of wickedly doing that which I abhor,
and against which I have fought with every energy I possessed. The greatest
aggravation of my life has been that I could not make mankind believe, or
understand, my real and true condition. I can safely affirm that a blasted
character, and the curses that have clung to my name, have all of them been
slight misfortunes compared to this. I have for years endeavored to sustain
myself by the sense of my integrity; but the voice of no man on earth
echoed to the voice of my conscience. I called aloud, but there was none to
answer; there was none that regarded. To me the whole world has been as
unhearing as the tempest, and as cold as the iceberg. Sympathy, the
magnetic virtue, the hidden essence of our life, was extinct. Nor has this
been the whole sum of my misery. The food so essential to an intelligent
existence, seemed perpetually renewing before me in its fairest colors,
only the more effectually to elude my grasp and to attack my hunger. Ten
thousand times I have been prompted to unfold the affections of my soul,
only to be repelled with the greatest anguish, until my reflections
continually center upon and within myself, where wretchedness and sorrow
dwell, undisturbed by one ray of hope and light. It seems to me that any
person but a fool would know that I had not purposely led the life of
misery that has marked my steps for fifteen years. It would have been
merciful in comparison, if I had planted a dagger in my heart, for I have
suffered an anguish a thousand times worse than death. I would have had
liquor that morning at Cincinnati if I had known that one single drink
would have obliterated my body, soul, and spirit. I had no power to resist;
and to prove