“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity. During these fits of absolute unconsciousness, I drank—God only knows how often or how much. As a matter of course, my enemies referred the insanity to the drink rather than the drink to the insanity. I had, indeed, nearly abandoned all hope of a permanent cure, when I found one in the _death_ of my wife. This I can and do endure as becomes a man. It was the horrible never-ending oscillation between hope and despair which I could _not_ longer have endured, without total loss of reason.”
