Chapter 55
"Then you think," said Marshall, after reflecting for a few moments, "that no moral responsibility would attach to me, for instance, if I were to act independently of my pledge?"
"Certainly none could attach," was the general response; "provided, of course, that the end of that pledge was fully attained."
"Of that there can be no doubt," was the a.s.sumption of the reformed man. "The end was, to save me from the influence of an appet.i.te for drink, against which, in my own strength, I could not contend. That end is now accomplished. Two years of total abstinence has made me a new man. I now occupy the same ground that I occupied before I lost my self-control."
"Then I can see no reason why you should be denied the social privilege of a gla.s.s with your friends," urged one of the company.
"Nor can I see it clearly," Marshall said. "Still I feel that a solemn pledge, made more solemn and binding by the subscription of my name, is not a thing to be lightly broken. The thought of doing so troubles me, when I seriously reflect upon it."
"It seems to me that, were I in your place," gravely remarked one of the company, heretofore silent, "I would not break my pledge without fully settling two points--if it is possible for you, or any other man, under like circ.u.mstances, to settle them."
"What are they?" asked Marshall, with interest.
"They are the two most prominent points in your case;--two that have already been introduced here to-night. One involves the question, whether you are really free from the influence of your former habits?"
"I have not a single doubt in regard to that point," was the positive reply.
"I do not see, Mr. Marshall, how it is possible for you to settle it beyond a doubt," urged the friend. "To me, it is not philosophically true that the power of habit is ever entirely destroyed. All subsequent states of body or mind, I fully believe, are affected and modified by what has gone before, and never lose the impression of preceding states,--and more particularly of anything like an overmastering habit--or rather, I should say, in this case, of an overmastering affection. The love, desire, or affection, whichever you may choose to call it, which you once felt for intoxicating drinks, or for the effects produced by them, never could have existed in the degree that they did, without leaving on your mind--which is a something far more real and substantial than this material body, which never loses the marks and scars of former abuse--ineradicable impressions. The forms of old habits, if this be true, and that it so, _I_ fully believe, still remain; and these forms are in the endeavour, if I may so speak, to be filled with the affections that once made them living and active. Rigidly exclude everything that can excite these, and you are safe;--but, to me it seems, that no experiment can be so dangerous, as one which will inevitably produce in these forms a vital activity."
"That, it seems to me," was the reply of one of the company, "is a little too metaphysical--or rather, I should say, transcendental--for, certainly, it transcends my powers of reasoning to be able to see how any permanent forms, as you call them, can be produced in the mind, as in the body--the one being material, and the other immaterial, and, therefore, no more susceptible of lasting impressions, than the air around us."
"You have not, I presume, given much thought to this subject," the previous speaker said, "or you would not doubt, so fully, the truth of my remark. The power of habit, a fact of common observance, which is nothing but a fixed form of the mind, ill.u.s.trates it. And, certainly, if the mind retained impressions no better than the air around us, we should remember but little of what we learned in early years."
"I see," was the reply to this, "that my remark was too broad.
Still, the memory of a thing is very different from a permanent and inordinate desire to do something wrong, remaining as a latent principle in the mind, and ready to spring into activity years afterwards, upon the slightest provocation."
"It certainly is a different thing; and if it be really so, its establishment is a matter of vital importance. In regard to reformed drinkers, there has been much testimony in proof of the position. I have heard several men relate their experiences; and all have said that time and again had they resolved to conquer the habit that was leading them on headlong to destruction; and that they had, on more than one occasion, abstained for months. But that, so soon as they again put liquor to their lips, the old desire came back for it, stronger and more uncontrollable than before."
"That was, I presume," Marshall remarked, "because they had not abstained long enough."
"One man, I remember to have heard say, that he did not at one period of his life use any kind of intoxicating drink for three years. He then ventured to take a gla.s.s of cider, and was drunk and insensible before night! And what was worse, did not again rise superior to his degradation for years."
"I should call that an, extreme case," urged the infatuated man.
"There must have been with him a hereditary propensity. His father was, doubtless, a drunkard before him."
"As to that, I know nothing, and should not be willing to a.s.sume the fact as a practical principle,"--the friend replied. "But there is another point that ought to be fully settled."
"What is that?"
"No one can, without seriously injuring himself, morally, violate a solemn pledge--particularly, as you have justly said, a pledge made more binding and solemn, by act and deed, in the sign-manual. A man may verbally pledge himself to do or not to do a thing. To violate this pledge deliberately, involves moral consequences to himself that are such as
This unlooked-for and serious turn which the discussion a.s.sumed, had the effect to make Marshall hesitate to do what he had too hastily made his mind up that he might venture upon without the slightest danger. It also furnished reasons to the company why they should not urge him to drink. The result was, that he escaped through all the temptations of the evening, which would have overcome him, inevitably, had his own inclination found a general voice of encouragement.
But none of the strong arguments why he should not again run madly into the way of evil, which had been so opportunely and unexpectedly urged, had the effect to keep his eye off of the decanters and brim-full gla.s.ses that circulated far too freely;--nor to prevent the sight of them from exciting in his mind a strong, almost unconquerable desire, to join with the rest. This very desire ought to have warned him--it should have caused him to tremble and flee away as if a raging wild beast had stood in his path. But it did not. He deceived himself by a.s.suming (sic) hat the desire which he felt to drink with his friends arose from his love of sociality, not of wine.
The evening was lonely and long to Mrs. Marshall, and there was a shadow over her feelings that she endeavoured in vain to dispel. Her husband's knock, which came between ten and eleven o'clock, and for which she had been listening anxiously for at least an hour, made her heart bound and tremble, producing a feeling of weakness and oppression. As she opened the door for him, it was with a vague fear. This was instantly dispelled by his first affectionate word uttered in steady tones. He was still himself! Still as he had been for the blessed two years that had just gone by!
"What is the matter, Jane? You look troubled," the husband remarked, after he had seated himself, and observed his wife's appearance.
"Do I?--If so, it is because I have felt troubled this evening."
"Why were you troubled, Jane?"
"That question I can hardly answer, either to your satisfaction or my own," Mrs. Marshall said. "From some cause or other, my feelings have been strangely depressed this evening; and I have experienced, besides, a consciousness of coming misery, that has cast a shadow over my spirits, even now but half dispelled."
"But why is all this, Jane? There must be some cause for such a change in your feelings."
"I know but one cause, dear husband!" Mrs. Marshall said, in a voice of deep tenderness, laying her hand upon her husband's arm as she spoke, and looking him in the face with an expression of earnest affection.
"Speak out plainly, Jane. What is the cause?"
"Do not be offended, Jonas, when I tell you, that I have not been so overcome by such gloomy feelings since that happy day when you signed the pledge, as I have been this evening. The cause of these feelings lies in the fact of your having become dissatisfied with that pledge. I tremble, lest, in some unguarded moment, under the a.s.surance that old habits are conquered, you may be persuaded to cast aside that impa.s.sable barrier, which has protected your home and little ones for so long and happy a time."
"You are weak and foolish, Jane," her husband said, in a half-offended tone.
"In many things I know that I am," was Mrs. Marshall's reply, "but not in this. A wife who loves her husband and children as tenderly as I do mine, cannot but tremble when fears are suddenly awakened that the footsteps of a deadly enemy are approaching her peaceful dwelling."
"Such an enemy is not drawing nigh to your dwelling, Jane."
"Heaven grant that it may not be so!" was the solemn e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.
"To this, Marshall felt no inclination to reply. He had already said enough in regard to his pledge to awaken the fears of his wife, and to call forth from her expressions of strong opposition to his views of the nature of his obligation. His silence tended, in no degree, to quiet her troubled feelings.
On the next morning, Marshall was thoughtful and silent. After breakfast, he went out to attend to business, as usual. As he closed the door after him, his wife heaved a deep sigh, lifted her eyes upwards, and prayed silently, but fervently, that her husband might be kept from evil. And well might she thus pray, for he needed support and sustenance in the conflict that was going on in his bosom--a conflict far more vigorous than was dreamed of by the wife.
He had invited temptation, and now he was in the midst of a struggle, that would end in a more perfect emanc.i.p.ation of himself from the demon-vice that had once ruled him with a rod of iron, or in his being cast down to a lower depth of wretchedness and misery than that out of which he had arisen. In this painful struggle he stood not alone. Good spirits cl.u.s.tered around him, anxiously interested in his fate, and endeavouring to sustain his faltering purposes; and evil spirits were also nigh, infusing into his mind reasons for the abandonment of his useless pledge. It was a period in his history full of painful interest. Heaven was moving forward to aid and rescue him, and h.e.l.l to claim another victim. But neither the one nor the other could act upon him for good or for evil, except through his own volition. It was for him to turn himself to the one, and live, or to the other, and die.
So intense was this struggle, that, after he had entered his place of business, he remained there for only a short time, unable to fix his mind upon anything out of himself, or to bid the tempest in his mind "be still." Going out into the street, he turned his steps he knew not whither. He had moved onwards but a few paces, when the thought of home and his children came up in his mind, accompanied by a strong desire to go back to his dwelling--a feeling that required a strong effort to resist. The moment he had effectually resisted it, and resolved not to go home, his eye fell upon the tempting exposure of liquors in a bar-room, near which he happened to be pa.s.sing. At the same instant, it seemed as if a strong hand were upon him, urging him towards the open door.
"No--no--no!" he said, half aloud, hurrying forward, "I am not prepared for that. And yet, what a fool I am," he continued, "to suffer myself thus to be agitated! Why not come to some decision, and end this uncertain, painful state at once? But what shall I do?
How shall I decide?"
"To keep your pledge," a voice, half audible, seemed to say.
"And be for ever restless under it,--for ever galled by its slavish chains," another voice urged, instantly.
"Yes," he said, "that is the consequence which makes me hesitate.
Fool--fool--not to have taken a pledge for a limited period! I was deceived--tricked into an act that my sober reason condemns! And should I now be held by that act? No!--no!--no! The voice of reason says no! And I will not!"
As he said this, he turned about, and walked with a firm, deliberate step, towards the bar-room he had pa.s.sed but a few moments before, entered it, called for a gla.s.s of wine, and drank it off.
"Now I am a free man!" he said, as he turned away, and proceeded towards his place of business, with an erect bearing.
He had not gone far, however, before he felt a strong desire for another gla.s.s of wine, unaccompanied by any thought or fear of danger. From the moment he had placed the forbidden draught to his lips, the struggle in his mind had ceased, and a great calm succeeded to a wild conflict of opposite principles and influences.
He felt happy, and doubly a.s.sured that he had taken a right step. A second gla.s.s of wine succeeded the first, and then a third, before he returned to his place of business. These gave to the tone of his spirits a very perceptible elevation, but threw over his mind a veil of confusion and obscurity, of which, however, he was not conscious.
An hour only had pa.s.sed after his return to business, before he again went out, and seeking an obscure drinking-house, where his entrance would not probably be observed, he called for a gla.s.s of punch, and then retired into one of the boxes, where it was handed to him. Its fragrance and flavour, as he placed it to his lips, were delightful--so delightful, that it seemed to him a concentration of all exquisite perceptions of the senses.
Another was soon called for, and then another and another, each one stealing away more and more of distinct consciousness, until at last he sunk forward on the table before which he had seated himself, perfectly lost to all consciousness of external things!
Gladly would the writer draw a veil over all that followed that insane violation of a solemn pledge, sealed as it had been by the hand-writing of confirmation. But he cannot do it. The truth, and the whole truth needs to be told,--the beacon-light must be raised on the gloomy sh.o.r.es of destruction, as a warning to the thoughtless or careless navigator.