"You know very well what I mean! Oh, Beulah! Beulah! it bows my
proud spirit into the dust!" Again she averted her head; there was a
short silence. Beulah leaned her face on her hand, and then Cornelia
continued: "Did you detect it when he first came home?"
"Yes."
"Oh, it is like a hideous nightmare! I cannot realize that Eugene,
so noble, so pure, so refined, could ever have gone to the excesses
he has been guilty of. He left home all that he should be; but five
years abroad have strangely changed him. My parents will not see it;
my mother says 'All young men are wild at first'; and my father
shuts his eyes to his altered habits. Eugene constantly drinks too
much. I have never seen him intoxicated. I don't know that he has
been since he joined us in Italy; but I dread continually lest his
miserable associates lead him further astray. I had hoped that, in
leaving his companions at the university, he had left temptation
too; but the associates he has found here are even worse. I hope I
shall be quiet in my grave before I see him drunk. It would kill me,
I verily believe, to know that he had so utterly degraded himself."
She shaded her face with her hands, and Beulah replied hastily: "He surely cannot fall so low! Eugene will never reel home, an
unconscious drunkard! Oh, no, it is impossible! impossible! The
stars in heaven will fall first!"
"Do you believe what you say?"
"I hope it; and hope engenders faith," answered Beulah.
A bitter smile curled Cornelia's lips, and, sinking back in her
chair, she continued: "Where excessive drinking is not considered a disgrace, young men
indulge without a thought of the consequences. Instead of excluding
them from genteel circles, their dissipation is smoothed over, or
unnoticed; and it has become so prevalent in this city that of all
the gentlemen whom I meet in so-called fashionable society, there
are very few who abstain from the wine-cup. I have seen them at
parties, staggering through a quadrille, or talking the most
disgusting nonsense to girls, who have long since ceased to regard
dissipation as a stigma upon the names and characters of their
friends. I tell you the dissipation of the young men here is
sickening to think of. Since I came home I have been constantly
reminded of it; and oh, Eugene is following in their disgraceful
steps! Beulah, if the wives, and mothers, and sisters did their
duty, all this might be remedied. If they carefully and constantly
strove to shield their sons and brothers from temptation they might
preserve them from the fatal habit, which, once confirmed, it is
almost impossible to eradicate. But alas! they smile as sweetly upon
the reckless, intoxicated beaux as if they were what men should be.
I fancied that I could readily redeem Eugene from his dangerous
lapses, but my efforts are rendered useless by the temptations which
assail him from every quarter. He shuns me; hourly the barriers
between us strengthen. Beulah, I look to you. He loves you, and your
influence might prevail, if properly directed. You must save him!
You must!"