Phenix gazette. [volume] (Alexandria [D.C.]) 1825-1833, 1830-05-11

N.
fanc;es Conteuted with these, he passes the
dav cu;etly-perhaps attempts something useful.
Rnt he ;s easily fatigued; and that universal pa
nacea. Vine. revives his jaded spirits and re-
wards the constancy of his purpose. He reapses.
his old resolves are laughed at as the offsprinss
Of distempered fancy; and looked upon as VS.
;onary and stupendous as the labOrs of Hercules.
His business becomes deranged. Funds run low,
and duns become importunate. His old friends
seldom call upon him. His orgies are too still,
too deep, too secluded for them. Perhaps they
rally him. He rises; goes out, fights with the
guardians of the night, and is brought home up
on shutter. A weeks indisposltlon is the con-
sequence. But he RECEIVERS. Wine Is the SOW
ereign restorer But it leaves HIM pale, hagggard
and rheumatic. The lowest resorts OF debauch-
erv and vice are now his shelter. Profanity and
inhdelity fill up the measure of his woes. And,
in some lucid interval, when rum is not to be
had, and the narrowing consciousness Of his fall
len estate, break upon his distracted mind, he
curses the hour of his birth, and falls by his own
hands.
The depopuating pestilence that walketh at
noonday. the carnage of cruel and devastating
war, can scarcely exhibit their victims IN more
terrible array. than extsrminating drunkenness.
have seen promising family spring from 'l'e
parent trunk, and stretching abroad Its Popuious
limbs like Towering tree, covered with green
and healthy foliage. / have seen the unnatural
decay beginning upon the yet tender leaf, ana
gnawing like worm IN the unopened bud, whlie
they dropped of one by one, and the scathed anu
ruined shaft, stood alone. until the WINDS ana
rains of many a sorrow laid that too IN the dust
On one of those holy-days, when the patriarch
rich in virtue as in years. gathered about MN ,ne
great and little ones Of his fiock-hls sons with
their sons, and his daughters with their daughters
i, too sat at the festive board. l, too, pledged
them in the social wine cup, and reJoced with
them round the hosptabe hearth; and exPatiated
with delight upon the eventful future; while the
good old man warmed in the genial glow OF our
youtfal enthusiasm, and wiped the tear vi Joy
from his glstnng eve. He was happy. met
with them again, when the rolling year brought
the festive season round. Bat they were not all
there The kind old man sighed as ms suffused
eve dwelt upon the then unoccupled seat.-but
oy came to his relief, and he was happy. A
parents love knows no dmlnution--time, dis
lance, poverty, shame, but give intensity and
strength to that passion before which all others
but dissolve and melt away. Another year e.
lapsed. The board was spread. But the guests
came not The old man cried, "where are my
children" And echo answered, 'chere? His heart
broke-for they were not. Could not heaven
have spared his gray nairs this afflic'ion? Alas.
the demon of drunkenness had been there. lhey
had fallen the victims of his spell. And one short
month sufficed to cast the veil of oblivion over
the old mans sorrow and the young ones shame.
They are all dead!
What dreadful commentary upon intemper-
ance does that mans conduct present, who, con.
sclous of the infamy his practices have entailed
upon his reputation, feeling the eternal scourge
of Nemesis trembling at his back, and finding llie
a drearv cherries waste, without the inebrlatlng
cup, seeks in a violent and suicidal end, re-
fuee from the cravings of that monster passion:
IT'S the hend with whom he has bartered his soul
who reminds him from day 70 day OF the fearful
compact-who holds him with magic potency
within the influence Of that dread hereafter; and
while he flashes in his eyes the horrors that a
wait him. sOOthes him with his dreamy spell, or
maddens him to damning desperation. thus ne
walks the earth with the brand OF the hrst murder
err burning unon his forehead. He is the Danish
ed leper whose touch Is death. the poisonous Upas
which stands alone amid the desert OF his decay
ed hopes. The hearts that loved him. bleed for
him no longer; for disgust has healed them; and
the curtain of existence is drawn between him and
them. for they have wept over him as one al
ready consigned to the crave. Death, death, alone
is his refIye But death attends him only clothed
in his amplest terrors; and pours that anguish in
to his soul, which is his only solace.-He suffers
in his little span Of life all the complicated ills
that inHct hunhrcd deaths daily. while his
greatest fear and only nope are annihlatlon!-
that eternal sleep, to whose dread forgetfulness,
the pains of hell itself are preferable! In vain
shall he seek refuge beneath that fabric of atheism,
through whose shattered roof dart the consuming
fires of heavens anger.
Though Byron drugged his muse with gin,
though racy wine inspired the numbers OF the
Team bard, and Ben Jonson, Savage, Fielding,
sometimes wrote under the influence of a maud
lin muse, it cannot warrant the inference that such
potations are the true Castaly, or that heated
and obfuscated intellect, hesitating between
insanity and madness, when reason lies pros
trate from her throne, and the passions hold
their orgies over her, approaches the spirit
uality of Deity in the same degree that it as
Stimulates to the obscenity of the brute. AS we'll
might we look for flowers from the bighting mil
due, or for springs among the parched sands of
the desert. The efforts of well regulated
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