No human
language can describe it; but its scenes burn in the eyeball so deeply that
they never pass away. During the time, all the dread enginery of hell is
planted in the victim's brain and he subject to its terrible torments. Most
persons laugh at the idea of one having the tremens, and think it a sign of
weakness. But there is more disgrace and shame for the man who can drink
liquor to intoxication for ten years, and escape the drunkard's madness,
than there is for the man who has had the tremens two or three times during
that period. Tremens are brought about by the effects of the liquor upon
the brain and nerves, and the less brain or nerves a man has the less
liable he is to be a subject of the tremens. While in this situation the
victim imagines that everything is real, and thinks and believes every
object he sees actually exists. With this explanation, I will now proceed
to tell what I have seen, felt, and heard, while in that condition.
I had felt the delirium tremens coming on for two or three days. I was just
standing on the verge of a mighty precipice, unable to retrace my steps,
and shuddering as I involuntarily leaned over and looked down into the
vortex which my wild and heated imagination opened before me; and I could
see the lost writhe, and hear them howl in their infernal orgies.
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