16. THE INEBRIATE; Shared Emotions and Concoctions

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An example of the beautiful woodwork in the asylum

Emphatically, this clarifying machine is run by the force necessarily liberated from the impure material to be clarified nor can the experiment of inebriate reform, by communities associated in institutions such as this, be ever other­wise conducted to a satisfactory conclu­sion. It is in the very nature of the case, and a logical result of the progress toward success, that the inebriate in these conditions, as he yields to the process of reconstruction, shall become an agent in that process, and a law of reform unto himself and others. En­gineer the apparatus as they may, the superintendent and trustees must de­rive their motive-power from the multi­plied and concentered magnetism of the patients. Without this, the mech­anism, however complete, must be as insensible and dumb under their hands as a telegraphic key-board without a battery. It is the very merit of their theory of sympathy that this should be so; and this must be the measure of all the genuine, abiding good they can ever hope to do. To their honor, be it said, they claim no more. If I were asked wherein lies the peculiar healing of this place, I should answer in the profound impressions of its sympathet­ic intercourse ; for here my trembling trouble is met with unstudied appeals transcending the eloquence of Gough, and confronted with pictures of pain beyond the eager, tearful utterance of Vine Hall.

THE ABOV FROM “CLICK AMERICANA”

This anxious little world of ours is moved by the moral power of its own public opinion; and that finds expression in the purpose and character of the Ollapod Club.