Page 625 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

CHAPTER VIII. EXTRACTED

FROM THE DIARY OF THE

REV. JAMES NORTH.

ctober 21st.—I am safe for another six months if I am
Ocareful, for my last bout lasted longer than I expected.
I suppose one of these days I shall have a paroxysm that will
kill me. I shall not regret it.
I wonder if this familiar of mine—I begin to detest the
expression—will accuse me of endeavouring to make a case
for myself if I say that I believe my madness to be a dis-
ease? I do believe it. I honestly can no more help getting
drunk than a lunatic can help screaming and gibbering.
It would be different with me, perhaps, were I a contented
man, happily married, with children about me, and family
cares to distract me. But as I am—a lonely, gloomy being,
debarred from love, devoured by spleen, and tortured with
repressed desires—I become a living torment to myself. I
think of happier men, with fair wives and clinging children,
of men who are loved and who love, of Frere for instance—
and a hideous wild beast seems to stir within me, a monster,
whose cravings cannot be satisfied, can only be drowned in
stupefying brandy.
Penitent and shattered, I vow to lead a new life; to for-

For the Term of His Natural Life