And if there is any one thing that will
make me hate a man--loathe, abhor, and despise him--it is to have him
accuse me of drinking or using any kind of stimulants regularly and
moderately. I just want to say here, now, and for all time, that they who
thus accuse me, lie in their teeth, mouth, throat, and away down deep in
their dirty, cowardly, craven, black hearts.
I walked from the depot in Richmond--or, rather, almost ran--until I came
to a drug store kept by a young man I have known for five or six years. He
keeps nearly all drugs in barrels, well watered, and drinks them regularly,
and, as he calls it, moderately. That is to say, he has not been sober for
five years. Always full, bloated, imbecile, idiotic--has no idea of quiting
himself, and would suffer as keenly as any brute is capable of suffering,
at the thought of any one else who is in the habit of drinking becoming a
sober man. When I went in, he was leaning back in a chair dozing, dreaming,
drunk, or as drunk as that kind of a man generally gets. I asked him for
whisky. He straightened up, and a more fiendish gleam of joy than lit up
his brutal face never sat upon the hideous countenance of a fiend fresh
from hell.
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