tortured nature would collapse under any further effort to bring the
matter to a final issue.

Brandy and bitters after a few day's use had been abandoned, under the
apprehension that they were connected with the tendency to internal
inflammation which I have noticed as possibly affecting the brain. For
a day or two I resorted to ale, but a disagreeable sweetness about it
induced the substitution of Schenck beer, a weak kind of
_lager_. This I found satisfied the craving for a bitter liquid,
and it became for two or three weeks my chief drink. I should have
mentioned that the day subsequent to the disuse of tobacco I had also
given up tea and coffee, partly from a disposition to test the
strength of my resolution, and partly from the belief that they might
have some connection with a constant sensation in the mouth as if
salivated with mercury. I soon learned that the real difficulty lay in
the liver, and that this organ is powerfully affected in persons
abandoning the long-continued use of opium. Had I known this fact at
an earlier day it would have been of service in teaching me to control
the diseased longing for rich and highly-seasoned food which had now
become a passion. Eat as much as I would, however, the sense of hunger
never left me; and this diseased craving, in ignorance of its
injurious effects, was gratified in a way that might have taxed
unimpaired powers of digestion.

At length the long-anticipated New Year's Day, on which I was to be
emancipated forever from the tyranny of opium, arrived. For five weeks
of such steady suffering as the wealth of all the world would not
induce me to encounter a second time, I had kept my eye steadily fixed
upon this day as the beginning of a new life. This was also the day on
which I was to dine with my friend. As the dinner-hour approached it