I lived and worked on my father’s farm until I was eighteen years of age.  As I have already said, even when a child I found myself sad and much depressed at times.  I could not bear the society of my companions, and at such times would wander away alone to meditate and brood over my misery.  At the very threshold of life I was dissatisfied and discontented with my surroundings.  I was ever anxious and uneasy, ever longing for some undefinable, unnamable something—­I knew not what, but, O God, I knew the desolation of feeling which was then mine.  The sorrow of the grave is lighter than that.  My life has always been an active one—­restless, uneasy, and full of action, I naturally wanted to be doing something or going somewhere.  From the time I was seven years old up to the time I was fifteen there was not a calf or colt on the farm that was not thoroughly broken to work or to be ridden.  In this work or pastime of breaking in calves and colts I received sundry kicks, wounds, and bruises quite often, and still upon my person are some of the marks imprinted by untamed animals.  I only speak of these things that the reader may know the character of my temperament, and thus be enabled to judge more correctly of it when influenced and excited by stimulants which will arouse to rash actions the dullest organizations.  I was invariably the last one to go to bed when night came, but not the last to rise, for I always bounded out of bed ahead of the others; and in this connection I can assert with truth that for over twenty years I have not averaged over five hours of sleep out of every twenty-four during that time.  I have never found in all nature one object or occupation that gave me more than a swiftly passing gleam of contentment or pleasure.  That the reader may clearly comprehend my present condition and impartially judge as to my culpability in certain of my acts, I desire that he may know the circumstances and surroundings of my childhood, for I do solemnly aver that my sorrows and miseries were not of my own planting in those days.  While I believe that some men will be drunkards in spite of almost everything that can be done for their relief, others there are, no matter how surrounded, who never will be drunkards, but solely because they abstain from ever tasting the insidious poison.  Temperament has much to do with the matter of drink, and could it be known and properly guarded against, I believe that a majority of those having the strongest predisposition to drink, if steps were taken in time, could be saved from its inevitable end, which is madness and death.  I would here say to parents that it is their solemn duty to study well the disposition and temperament of their children from the hour of their birth.  By proper training and restraint, all wrong impulses might be corrected and the child saved from a life of shameful misery, while they would themselves escape the sorrow which would come to them because of the wrong-doing of the child.  While no person is particularly to blame for my misspent life, yet I can clearly see to-day how its worse than wasted years might have been years of use and honor.  Its every step might have been planted with actions the memory of which would have been a blessing instead of a remorse.