My condition now grew worse from day to day. I descended step by step
to the lowest depths of wretchedness and degradation. Often my only
sleeping-place was the pavement, or a stairway, or a hall leading to some
office. I lost my clothes, pawning most of them to the rum-sellers, until I
was unfit to be seen, so few and dirty and ragged were the garments which I
could still call my own. In ten years I have lost, given away, and pawned
over fifty suits of clothes. Within the three years just past I have had
six overcoats that went the way of my reputation and peace of mind.
I left Rushville at the time of which I am writing, but not until it was
out of my power to either buy or beg a drop of liquor--not until my
reputation was destroyed and everything else that a true man would
prize--and then, like the prodigal who had wallowed with swine, I returned
to my father's house--the home of my childhood, around which lay the scenes
which were imprinted on my mind with ineffaceable colors. But I had
destroyed the sense which should have made them comforting to me. I have no
doubt that nature is beautiful--that there are fine souls to whom she is a
glorious book, on whose divine pages they learn wisdom and find the highest
and most exalting charms.
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