Year: 1871

|
known the full history of my college
life should never have been permitted
to teach in their village or have access
to their families. It was in vain to at
| tempt defense to a man determined
take the worst view of facts which
did not pretend to deny. 1 knew thai,
| had been irreproachable as to my
record in the school, that had been
faithful in my duties, that the majority
of parents and pupils were on my side,
but | could not deny the harsh facts
which he had been enabled to obtain
| from some secret enemy, and which he
| thought justified 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.


I did not attempt to follow her or
write to her !; profound sense of dis
couragement came over me, and L
looked on my acquaintance with her
with sort of remorse. The truth bit
terly told by an enemy with vivid power
of statement is tonic oftentimes too
strong for ones power of endurance. [
never reflected so seriously on the re-
sponsibility man assumes, in awaken
ing the slumbering feelings of a woman,
and fixing them on himself. Under the
reproaches of Caroline's father I could
but regard this as wrong [ had done,
and which could be expiated only by
leaving her to peace in forgetfulness.
resolved that [ would never let her
hear from me again till [ 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 set myself to the work,
found what many another does, that |
had reckoned without my host. The
man who has begun to live and work
by artificial stimulant, never knows
where he stands, and can never count
upon himself with any certainty. He
lets into his castle a servant who be-
comes the most tyrannical of masters.
He may resolve to turn him out, but
will find himself reduced to the condi-
ton in which he can neither do with
nor without him. t..--
In short, the use of stimulant to the
brain power brings on a disease, IN
whose paroxysms a man is no more his
own master than in the rawlings OF fe-
YER, a disease that few have the
knowledge to understand, and for
whose manifestations the world has no
pity.


I cannot tell you the dire despair that
came upon me when, after repeated
falls, bringing remorse and selfupbraid-
ing to me, and drawing upon me the Sc
verestreproaches of my friends, the idea
at last flashed upon me that had be-
come the victim of sort of periodical
insanity in which the power OF the will
was overwhelmed b. a wild unreasoning
impulse. I remember, when boy,
reading an account of bridal pgrty
sailing gaily on the coast Of Norway,
who were insiduously drawn into the re-
sist' ess outer whirl of the great Mael-
strom. The horror of the situation was
the moment when the shipmaster
learned that the ship no longer obeyed
the rudder, the cruelty of it was the
gradual manner in which the resistless
doom came upon them. The sun still
shone, the sky was still Bile. The
shore, with its 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
cottages, past the dwellings of friends
and neighbors, past parents, brothers
and sisters who stood on the shore
warming and shrieking and entreating,
helpless, hopeless, with bitterness in
their souls, with all that made life
lovely so near in sight, and yet cut
from it by the swirl of that tremendous
fate!


There have been just such hours to
me, in which | have seen the hopes Of
manhood, the love of woman, the pos
session of home, the opportunities for
acquisition of anne, and position, and
property, all within sight, within grasp,
yet all made impossible by my knowl-
edge and consciousness of the deadly
drift and suction of that invisible whirl-
pool. o


The more of manliness there is yet
left in man in these circumstances, the
more torture. The more sense of hon
or, love of reputation, love o. friends,
conscience in duty, the more anguish.
| read once frightful story of wo-
imam whose right hand was ch-nged to
a serpent, which at intervals was reused
by fendish activity and demanded of
| her the blood of her nearest and dearest
| friends. The hideous curse was inap-
| peasable. and the doomed victim spell
bound, powerless to resist. 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 an


guish at the sight.


/ have seen the time when | gave ear
nest 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 doom.


1t is enough to say that with every


advantage-of friends, patronage, posi-
toni lost all.


The world is exigeant. 1t demands
above everything that every man shall
| keep step. He who cannot falls to the
/ rear, and is gradually left behind as the


army moves on.


The only profession left to me was


one which could avail itself of my lucid


intervals.


!, The power of clothing thought with


language is in our day growing to be
species of talent for which men are


willing to pay, and have been able by


this to make myself name and place


in the world; and what is more, hope
[. to do some good in it.


l have reflected upon my own tempt,
| ton, endeayoring to divest myself O
: the horror with which my sense of the
suffering and disappointment have