I
became alarmed at my state, and for a time was deterred from drinking, or,
if I drank at all, the quantity was small. But fresh air and the little
work which I did on the farm, soon restored me. As the summer wore away I
attended pleasure parties, and found, not happiness, but a moment's
forgetfulness among the merry picnic parties in the woods. I had also the
distinguished honor of actually superintending and presiding over two of
these festivities, both of which were held in Horace Elwell's woods, on the
unsung, but classically rustic banks of Tom. Hall's mill-dam, near the
village which bears the historic and great name of Raleigh. I succeeded in
tiding myself through the first picnic without getting drunk. I mean more
particularly that I remained sober during the day--that is, sober enough to
keep it from being known that I had drank more than once or twice; but that
night at the ball at Louisville, I bit the dust, or, to get at the truth
more literally and unrhetorically, I fell down stairs and came within a
point of breaking my neck. Had I been sober the fall would have put an end
then and there to my miserable and worthless existence; but lest any one
should argue from this that after all whisky sometimes saves life, I would
have them bear in mind that if I had been sober the chances are I would not
have fallen.
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