the darkness of eternal night.

A man who could drink and not get drunk said to me: "I have no
patience with, nor sympathy for a drunkard. If I couldn't eat what I
want and quit when I choose, I wouldn't claim to be a man." Whether he
could or not, depends on conditions. Let my arm represent the scale of
life, with will on one side and appetite on the other. When a man is
healthy his will stands at eighty, his appetite at fifty. That man
eats when he likes, or lets it alone as he chooses. But let this
healthy, strong man take typhoid fever, and after six or eight weeks
be reduced to almost a skeleton. At this stage, the fever having
subsided, let the doctor say to the once strong man: "The fever is
broken; be careful about your diet, no solid food, only chicken broth
and gruel." Place by the bed of this once strong man a table and on
this table a roast turkey, stuffed with oysters. On the floor place a
coffin and say to the patient: "You see that turkey and that coffin.
If you eat the turkey today, you'll be in the coffin tomorrow." Go out
and leave the man alone with the turkey. Will he eat it? I don't care
if he's a preacher or a doctor he will, regardless of the advice of
doctor or terror of the waiting coffin. Why will he eat when he knows
it means death? Because his will has gone down to twenty and his
appetite up to one hundred.

My father had typhoid fever and when the time of convalescing came my
mother left him alone while she was in the yard with her flowers. I
went into the house and found father had left his bed, crawled to the
cupboard and had hold of what was left of a chicken. I called to
mother; she came running, and taking the chicken from him said: "Don't
you know to eat solid food will kill you?" Father replied: "I know if
you hadn't come in I would have had one square meal."

Did I say too much when I said the preacher would eat the turkey?
Years ago Saint John's pulpit in Louisville, Kentucky, was filled by a
preacher so gifted that strangers in the city were attracted by his
fame as an orator. He had an invalid mother, who in her wheel chair
would attend every service, and was made happy in her affliction by
the sermons of her eloquent son. He married a wealthy widow and had
everything wealth and refinement could suggest. He saw no wrong in the
wine glass and kept a supply in his cellar. Gradually appetite
demanded stronger drinks and one morning his wife said: "Husband, you
were drunk last nig