My dear Mrs. Clarke,—I have no energy whatever, I am very miserable. I loathe domestic hearths. I yearn to be a vagabond. Why can’t I marry 1Mary? Why have I seven children—not engaged at sixpence a-night a-piece, and dismissible for ever, if they tumble down, not taken on for an indefinite time at a vast expense, and never,—no never, never,—wearing lighted candles round their heads.2 I am deeply miserable. A real house like this is insupport-
1 A character in “Used Up.” 2 As fairies in “Merry Wives.” |
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Pray let me divide the little excursional excesses of the journey among the gentlemen, as I have always done before, and pray believe that I have had the sincerest pleasure and gratification in your co-operation and society, valuable and interesting on all public accounts, and personally of no mean worth nor held in slight regard.
You had a sister once, when we were young and happy—I think they called her Emma. If she remember a bright being who once flitted like a vision before her, entreat her to bestow a thought upon the “Gas” of departed joys. I can write no more.
