The Fremont weekly journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio) 1867-1877, 1871-09-22
FREMONT SANDUSKY COUNTY OHIO FRIDAY SEPTEMBER o. 1871

and as Caroline passed in he stop
ped me; and briefly saying that my
visits there would no longer be per
mitted, closed the door in my face,
l tried to obtain an interview soon
after, when he sternly upbraided me
as one that had stolen into the vii
lage and won their confidence on
false pretences, adding that if he and
the trustees had known the full his
tory of my college life 1 should nev-
er have been permitted to teach in
their village or have access to their
families. 1t was in vain to attempt
a defense to a man determined
take the worst view of facts which
did not pretend to deny. 1 knew
that l had been irreproachable as to
my record in the school, that 1 had
been faithful in my duties, that the
majority of parents and pupils were
on my side, but 1 could not deny the
harsh facts which he had been en-
abled to obtain from some secret
enemy, and which ne thought justi-
fed him in saying that he would
rather see his daughter in her grave
than see her my wife. The next
day Caroline did not appear in
school. Her father, with prompt
energy, took her Immediately to an
academy fifty miles away.
did not attempt to follow her OF
write to her; a profound sense of dis
couragement came over me, and
looked on my acquaintance with her
with a sort of remorse. The truth
bitterly told by an enemy with vivid
power of statement is a tonic often
times too strong for ones power of
endurance. l never reflected so
seriously on the responsibility man
assumes, in awakening the slumber-
ing feelings of woman, and fixing
them on himself. Under the re-
proaches of Caroline's father could
but regard this as a wrong l had
done, and which could be expiated
only bd leaving her to peace in for
getfulness.
1 resolved that L would never LET
her hear from me again till 1 had
fully proved myself to be possessed
of such powers of self-control as
would warrant me in offering to be
the guardian of her happiness.
But when l set myself to the work,
l found what many another does.
that 1 had reckoned without my host
The man who has begun to live and
work by artificial stimulant, never
knows where he stands, and can new
er count upon himself with any GER
tainty. He lets into his castle a
servant who becomes the most ty-
rannical of masters. He may re-
solve to turn him out, but will find
himself reduced to the condition in
which he can neither do with nor
without him.
In short, the use of stlmulant to
the brain power brings on a disease,
in whose paroxysms a man is no
more his own master than in the
rawlings of fever, a disease that few
have the knowledge to understand,
and for whose manifestations the
world has no pity.
[ cannot tell you the dire despair
that came upon me when, after re-
peated falls, bringing remorse and
self-upbraiding to me, and drawing
upon me the severest reproaches of
my friends, the idea at last flashed
upon me that I had become the vic
tim of sort of periodical insanity
in which the power of the will was
overwhelmed by a wild unreasoning
impulse. remember, when a boy,
reading an account OF a bridal par
ty sailing gaily on the coast of Nor
way, who were insiduously drawn
into the resistless outer whirl of the
great Maelstrom. The horror of the
was the moment when the
ship no longer obeyed the rudder,
the cruelty of it was the gradual
in which the resistless doom
came upon them. The sun still
shone, the sky was still blue. The
shore, with the great trees and free
birds and blooming flowers, was
near and visible as they went round
and round in dizzy whirls, past the
church with its peaceful spire, past
the home cottage, past the dwellings
of friends and neighbOrs, past par
ents, brothers and sisters who stood
on the shore warning and shrieking
and entreating, helpless, hopeles,
with bitterness in their souls, with
all that made life lovely so near in
sight, and yet cut from it by the
swirl or that tremendous fate!
There have been just such hours
to me, in which 1 have seen the
hopes Of manhood, the love of Wo-
man, the possession of a home, the
for acquisition Of
name, and position, and property,
all within sight, within grasp, yet
all made impossible by my knowl-
edge and consciousness of the dead
" drift and suction of chat invisible
whirlpool.
The more Of manliness there is
yet left in man in these circumstdn-
ces, the more torture. The more
sense of honor, love of reputation,
love of friends, conscience in duty,
the more anguish. I read once a
frightful story of a woman whose
right hand was changed to a ser
pent, which at intervals was reused
by fiendish activity and demanded
of her the blood of her nearest and
friends. The hideous curse
was inappeasable, and the doomed
victim spell-bound, powerless to re-
sist. Even so, the man who has lost
the control of his will is driven to
torture those he loves, while he
shivers with horror and anguish at
the sight.
1 have seen the time when 1 gave
earnest thanks that no woman loved
me, that had no power to poison
the life of a wife with the fear, and
terror, and lingering agony Of
watching the slow fulflment of such
a d
1t is enough to say that with every
friends, patronage,