Unhappily
among my neighbours' and landlord's books were a large number of
medical reviews and magazines. I had always a fondness (a common case,
but most mischievous turn with reading men who are at all dyspeptic)
for dabbling in medical writings; and in one of these reviews I met a
case which I fancied very like my own, in which a cure had been
effected by the Kendal Black Drop. In an evil hour I procured it: it
worked miracles--the swellings disappeared, the pains vanished. I was
all alive, and all around me being as ignorant as myself, nothing
could exceed my triumph. I talked of nothing else, prescribed the
newly-discovered panacea for all complaints, and carried a little
about with me not to lose any opportunity of administering 'instant
relief and speedy cure' to all complainers, stranger or friend, gentle
or simple. Alas! it is with a bitter smile, a laugh of gall and
bitterness, that I recall this period of unsuspecting delusion, and
how I first became aware of the Maelstrom, the fatal whirlpool to
which I was drawing, just when the current was beyond my strength to
stem. The state of my mind is truly portrayed in the following
effusion, for God knows! that from that time I was the victim of pain
and terror, nor had I at any time taken the flattering poison as a
stimulus or for any craving after pleasurable sensation.
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