There is only one end; if the doomed one escapes _delirium tremens_ he
is likely to have cirrhosis, and if he misses both of these, then dropsy
or Bright's disease claims him. Those who once loved him pray for his
death, and greet his last breath with an echoing sigh of thankfulness
and relief: he might have been cheered in his last hour by the graceful
sympathy of troops of friends; but the State-protected vice has such a
withering effect that it scorches up friendship as a fiery breath from a
furnace might scorch a grass blade. If one of my joyous, delightful lads
could just watch the shambling, dirty figure of such a failure as I have
described; if he could see the sneers of amused passers-by, the timid
glances of women, the contemptuous off-hand speech of the children--"Oh!
him! That's old, boozy Blank;" then the youths might well tremble, for
the woebegone beggar that snivels out thanks for a mouthful of gin was
once a brave lad--clever, handsome, generous, the delight of friends,
the joy of his parents, the most brilliantly promising of all his
circle. He began by being jolly; he was well encouraged and abetted; he
found that respectable men drank, and that Society made no demur. But he
forgot that there are drinkers and drinkers, he forgot that the
cool-headed men were not tainted by heredity, nor were their brains so
delicately poised that the least grain of foreign matter introduced in
the form of vapour could cause semi-insanity.
Pages:
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38