The life of Manton became now a succession of the “to-morrows” of remorse. Each new sun arose upon its succeeding scene of wilful, self-degrading excess, such as we have witnessed. He never permitted himself to grow fully sober, but drank incessantly—morning, noon and night. But that the wines he chose were comparatively light, and less rapidly fatal than the heavier and more dangerous drinks of our country, he must have, undoubtedly, destroyed his life, as he did his business reputation.
He still wrote brilliantly—nay, even with a fierce and poetic dazzle of style that surprised men greatly, and added much to the notoriety, if not to the solidity of his reputation. But everything went wrong with him. His purse was regularly drained by a remorseless hand; his wardrobe fell into neglect, and the marks of excess upon his fine, proud features, were at once rendered conspicuous by their association with almost seedy habiliments.
Before one year had passed he had begun to exhibit himself before men, in the pitiable light of one who had more pride left than self-respect. In a word, he had fallen fully into the toils of the hellish Jezabel.
Remember, in judging of poor Manton, that while he is hoodwinked, through much that is most noble in him, we see this woman through the strong light of day. He looks upon her as a devotee of science, in the holy cause of human progress and social amelioration. A poet and enthusiast, his life is dedicate to both. He regards her as a frail being, whose life hangs by a thread, and that thread held in his own hand—degraded into a false relation to himself—a relation which he loathes, to be sure, and which he feels to be heavily and swiftly dragging him downward, every instant, while it lasts, but which he dare not utterly break, for the fear that that frail thread of life, of which he has so strangely become the holder, should be snapped. He has only seen her, through her representations of herself; and therefore, all that is chivalrous and tender in him has been aroused in her defence, as the white roe, hunted into his strong protection for defence against the demon hounds of New England bigotry, jealousy, and fear. Apart from all other considerations, these were sufficient to compel an utter negation of self, in all that related to her, as well as a hasty dismissal of those suspicions that might thrust themselves upon him.
A house, in the meantime, had been taken for her in Tenth Street, for the rent of which Manton and the benevolent Doctor Weasel were to become jointly responsible. But the woman was far too astute to permit any such entanglements as might lead, prospectively, to mutual explanations between her victims. The Doctor alone ultimately became her endorser for the rent. She had other designs upon the less plethoric purse of Manton.
In entering upon this arrangement, Manton had been induced to believe, by her own representations, that for ten years before the name of Preissnitz had been heard of on this continent, this woman had been practising water-cure among her women patients. Manton had been sufficiently educated in the profession, to understand that its general pretensions were essentially empirical. He was too much an Indian, indeed, and had lived too much among Indians, to regard anything beyond the simplest natural agents as efficiently curative. He therefore recognized what Preissnitz had discovered, as simply confirmatory of his experience of the usages of savage life, and his own observation so far as it went. It contained not to him any more than any other pathy, the essential vis medicatrix of nature; but it seemed good to him, because it was new to the popular sense, and was well worthy to be urged upon its recognition, and thus to find its proper place among the other systems.
He entered upon the project with the fullest enthusiasm, for this woman seemed to him, from her personal habits and untiring energy, to be specially set apart to preach the crusade of physical cleanliness to her sex. The house was therefore occupied by her as proprietress and female physician, while Manton, Doctor Weasel, the fiery Jeannette, and victimised Edmond, of a former scene, occupied respective chambers as boarders, and patrons of the new enterprise.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A DIVERSION.
Never did moon so ebb, or seas so wane,