More than once I made desperate efforts to escape from my humiliating thraldom, and, as I was sober during the days of struggle, I sought and found business, and thus managed to secure a little money, although most of my clients were poor and anything but influential.  I always did my best for them, however, and seldom lost a case.  But at the end of a few days a strange, undefinable, uneasy feeling began to crawl over me and crept into my heart; I became more and more restless, anxious and nervous.  I was soon too uneasy to sit still or lie down.  Horrible sufferings, agonies untold, woe unspeakable, deprived me of reason, and when I had the inclination I had not the will to guide myself aright.  Then all of a sudden, my fierce and unrelenting appetite would sweep, vulture like, down upon me, and I would feel myself on the point of giving way.  After this I would rally for a brief season, but only to sink into still deeper misery and desperation.  There were days without food, and nights without sleep, but—­God pity me!—­not without liquor.  I lived on the hellish liquid alone, and such a life!  The devils of the lower world could see nothing to envy in it.  It was worse than their own torture.  The quantity of liquor which I now required was enormous.  I have drank, on the closing days of a spree, one gallon of whisky within the duration of twenty-four hours, and when I could not get whisky, I would drink alcohol, vinegar, camphor, liniment, pepper-sauce—­in short, anything that would have a tendency to heat my stomach.  I would have drank fire could I have done so knowing that it would satisfy the thirst that was consuming me.  I left untried no means that would enable me to break away from my appetite.  For two or three summers after I began practicing law, I went into the country and engaged myself to plow corn at seventy-five cents per day, in order to keep myself as long as possible from the dangers of the town.  In the autumn season, after a debauch of weeks, I have hired out and shucked or husked corn in order to get money with which to buy myself boots and winter clothing.  I occasionally taught school in the country, but not for money, for I have made more at my profession, when in a condition to practice it, in a single day than I got for teaching a whole month.  My object was to free myself, to break my manacles, to open the door of my prison cell and walk forth in the upright posture of a man.  Sadly I write, “in vain!” If I fled, the demon outran me; if I broke a link, the demon moulded another; if I prayed, he put the curse into my mouth.  As I look back over my horror-haunted, broken, misspent, and false existence, I realize how worthless I am, and I see that my life is a failure.  I am in my thirty-second year, and am prematurely old, without the wisdom, or gray hairs, or goodness, or truth, or respect which should accompany age.  My heart is frosty but not my hair.