Stories of Achievement, Volume III | Page 8

theatres
frequently, and felt ambitious of strutting my part upon the stage. By
slow but sure degrees I forgot the lessons of wisdom which my mother
had taught me, lost all relish for the great truths of religion, neglected
my devotions, and considered an actor's situation to be the ne plus ultra
of greatness.
During my residence at Newburyport my early serious impressions on
one occasion in a measure revived, and I felt some stinging of
conscience for my neglect of the Sabbath and religious observances. I
recommenced attending a place of worship, and for a short time I
attended the Rev. Mr. Campbell's church, by whom, as well as by
several of his members, I was treated with much Christian kindness. I
was often invited to Mr. Campbell's house, as well as to the house of
some of his hearers, and it seemed as if a favorable turning-point or
crisis in my fortunes had arrived. Mr. Campbell was good enough to
manifest a very great interest in my welfare, and frequently expressed a
hope that I should be enabled, although late in life, to obtain an
education. And this I might have acquired had not my evil genius
prevented my making any efforts to obtain so desirable an end. My
desire for strong liquors and company seemed to present an insuperable
barrier to all improvement; and after a few weeks every aspiration after

better things had ceased; every bud of promised comfort was crushed.
Again I grieved the spirit that had been striving with my spirit, and ere
long became even more addicted to the use of the infernal draughts,
which had already wrought me so much woe, than at any previous
period of my existence.
And now my circumstances began to be desperate indeed. In vain were
all my efforts to obtain work, and at last I became so reduced that at
times I did not know when one meal was ended, where on the face of
the broad earth I should find another. Further mortification awaited me,
and by slow degrees I became aware of it. The young men with whom I
had associated, in barrooms and parlors, and who wore a little better
clothing than I could afford, one after another began to drop my
acquaintance. If I walked in the public streets, I too quickly perceived
the cold look, the averted eye, the half recognition, and to a sensitive
spirit such as I possessed such treatment was almost past endurance. To
add to the mortification caused by such a state of things, it happened
that those who had laughed the loudest at my songs and stories, and
who had been social enough with me in the barroom, were the very
individuals who seemed most ashamed of my acquaintance. I felt that I
was shunned by the respectable portion of the community also; and
once, on asking a lad to accompany me in a walk, he informed me that
his father had cautioned him against associating with me. This was a
cutting reproof, and I felt it more deeply than words can express. And
could I wonder at it? No. Although I may have used bitter words
against that parent, my conscience told me that he had done no more
than his duty in preventing his son being influenced by my dissipated
habits. Oh! how often have I lain down and bitterly remembered many
who had hailed my arrival in their company as a joyous event. Their
plaudits would resound in my ears, and peals of laughter ring again in
my deserted chamber; then would succeed stillness, broken only by the
beatings of my agonized heart, which felt that the gloss of
respectability had worn off and exposed my threadbare condition. To
drown these reflections, I would drink, not from love of the taste of the
liquor, but to become so stupefied by its fumes as to steep my sorrows
in a half oblivion; and from this miserable stupor I would wake to a
fuller consciousness of my situation, and again would I banish my

reflections by liquor.
There lived in Newburyport at that time a Mr. Law, who was a rum
seller, and I had spent many a shilling at his bar; he proposed to me that
he would purchase some tools, and I could start a bindery on my own
account, paying him by installments. He did so; and I thought it an act
of great kindness then, and for some time afterward, till I found he had
received pay from me for tools he had never paid for himself, and I was
dunned for the account he had failed to settle. He even borrowed
seventy-five dollars from me after I signed the pledge, which has never
been repaid. "Such is life."
Despite all that had