The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-01-17
A WOMAN WHO CAME BACK FROM THE LAND OF MORPEU

took my dependent ones with me
and became the manager of a mountain
resort hotel in Western State. The
place, in addition to its regular run
of patronage, was a house OF call for
motor parties. Sometimes there were
three such parties to take care of after
dinner in the evening and sometimes
there were a dozen. looked person.
ally after the comfort of my guests
l saw to every detail. 1 did my own
marketing.
closed the hotel at night after the
last party had gone, perhaps at or
3 o'clock in the morning. At o'clock
of that same morning 1 would be up
and on my way to the market. Month
after month l did this, my strength sus-
tanned by morphine and coffee. The
number of waking hours / spent in
each day and the number of grains
Of morphine took to keep awake and
keep going are both so large that
scruple to set them down.
But there came crisis which stands
out as the supreme moment of horror
in all those ten years OF my sojourn
in Morphia. 1t is an incident OF which
I can hardly bring myself to write.
Well, that you may know the bald
truth, just this much: ] took my own
life! Yes, deliberately widowed my
husband. I orphaned my children.
took morphine enough to kill.
The act was complete and irrevocable
by me. / sank into the stupor from
which l should never wake. But my
faithful sister discovered my act in time
doctor by telephone directed her to
the precipitate action which undid my
own self-murder and restored me to life
and suffering. Now | praise my sister
for that act. Then l reproached her
bitterly.
few days later / realized for a short
time at least the enormity of my sim
but It was something very different
which showed me the thing / was be-
coming. 1t was the sight of myself-ln
the mirror. after another debauch. a
gibbering, shrivelling, eye starting idiot
and back Of my image In the mirror
as they stood back of me in the door
OF the room my two sunny haired chill
dren. On their faces was mingled af-
lection, surprise, pity and terror.
My children whom loved were gaz-
ing at their mother, and at the appari-
tlou VI UtT lace Iney were frightened.
Those startled innocent eyes aroused
me as I think nothing else had up to
that time. Yet that after all was merely
an awakening, nothing more.
But do you think there were no
others? DO you think there were no
remorses, no resolutions, no battllngs.
no nights of sobbing and days Of rawlings
when with all the strength of my
womanS being I resolved tina; the drug
should never again cross my lips? Oh.
yes. there were many Of these.
DO you think my friends never chided
me? That my loved ones never APP
pealed to me? Do you think my con-
science never found me? That the
strength, the sympathy Of good men
and women was not often extended to
me with messages Of counsel and the
command to hope?
l now know there was a reason for
this that it was not within the power
Of my will to eradicate. The drug taken
In such quantities and with such period
lefty for. not including the headache
hypodermlcs twenty-five years had re-
habitated my body. A moderately nor
NAL physiological life was no more pos
sible 10 me without morphine than a
diet without salt would be to any one.
The time came when l could no
longer manage the hotel. 1t went away
from me, or ! went away from IT,
Those things are hazy. | do not care
10 remember them. can only tell
you this: l kept on fighting. l kept
my family together. I kept them
around me. I meant TO try to provide
for them so long as the natural fac
ulties held any sort of place in my
brain. And kept up the battle against
morphine. I actually began to gain
upon the drug.
The wise sympathy and cooperation
of my mother and sisters were very
helpful. They kept my tablets for me.
They helped strengthen my weakening
will. BY cooperation We reduced the
total consumption. which had been very
large; but there was nothing like a
cure. no prospect of overcoming. To
shut off the supply of morphine was
to send me to the madhouse.
For ten years the drug dreams had