The Opium Habit | Page 8

to the manger, next
enabled me easily to push him into a line nearly parallel with it, leaving
me barely space enough to pass between. By lengthening the stirrup
strap I was enabled to get it across his neck, and by much pulling,
finally haul the saddle to its proper place. By a kind of desperation of
will I commonly succeeded, though by no means always. Sometimes
the mortification and rage at a failure so contemptible assured success
on a second trial, with apparently less expenditure of exertion than at
first. Occasionally, however, I was forced to call for assistance from
sheer exhaustion. The bridling was comparatively an easy matter; with
his head so closely tied to the manger little scope was left for dodging.
In the irritable condition I was now in, the most trifling opposition
made me angry, and anger gave me strength; and in this sudden vigor
of mind the issue of our daily struggle was, I believe, with a single
exception, on my side.
When I led him into the yard, the insignificance of his appearance, in
contrast with the labor it had cost me to get him there, was enough to

make any one laugh, excepting perhaps a person suffering the
punishment I was then undergoing. Mounting the animal called for a
final struggle of determination with weakness. A stone next the fence
was the chief reliance in this emergency. It placed me nearly on a level
with the stirrup, while the fence enabled me to steady myself with my
hand and counteract the tremulousness of the knees, which made
mounting so difficult. On one occasion, however, my dread of being
observed induced me to make too great an effort. Hearing some one
approach, I attempted to raise myself in the stirrup without the aid of
stone or fence, but it was more than I could manage. Hardly had I
succeeded in raising myself from the ground when my extreme
feebleness was manifest, and I fell prostrate upon my back. With the
help of the colored woman, the astonished witness of my fall, I finally
succeeded in getting upon the horse. Once seated, however, I felt like
another person. The vigorous application of a whip, heartily repeated
for a few strokes, would arouse the pony into a sullen canter, out of
which he would drop with a demonstrative suddenness that made it
difficult to keep my seat. In this way considerable relief was obtained
for several days from the exasperations produced by the long
continuance of pain. After about a fortnight's use of the animal, and
when I had learned to be content with half a dozen grains of opium
daily, I found myself too weak and helpless to venture on his back, and
thus our acquaintance terminated. As this is the first, and probably the
last appearance of my equine friend in print, I may as well say that he
was sold a short time afterward in the Fifth Street Horse Market, for the
sum of forty-three dollars. This is but a meagre price, but the horse had
not then become historical.
For the week I was dropping from sixteen grains to nine the addition of
new symptoms was slight, but the aggravation of the pain previously
endured was marked. The feeling of bodily and mental wretchedness
was perpetual, while the tedium of life and occasional vague wishes
that it might somehow come to an end were not infrequent. The chief
difficulty was to while away the hours of day-light. My rest at night
had indeed become imperfect and broken, but still it was a kind of sleep
for several hours, though neither very refreshing nor very sound. Those
who were about me say that I was in constant motion, but of this I was
unconscious. I only recollect that wakening was a welcome relief from

the troubled activity of my thoughts. After my morning's ride I usually
walked slowly and hesitatingly to the city, but as this occupied only an
hour the remaining time hung wearily upon my hands. I could not
read--I could hardly sit for five consecutive minutes. Many suffering
hours I passed daily either in a large public library or in the book-stores
of the city, listlessly turning over the leaves of a book and occasionally
reading a few lines, but too impatient to finish, a page, and rarely
apprehending what I was reading. The entire mental energies seemed to
be exhausted in the one consideration--how not to give in to the tumult
of pain from which I was suffering. Up to this time I had from boyhood
made a free use of tobacco. The struggle with opium in which I was
now so seriously engaged had repeatedly suggested the propriety of
including the former also in the contest. While the severity