DEAR B. B.—Do
you know what it is to succumb under an insurmountable day mare—a whoreson
lethargy, Falstaff calls it—an
indisposition to do any thing, or to be any thing—a total deadness and
distaste—a suspension of vitality—an indifference to locality—a numb
soporifical goodfornothingness—an ossification all over—an oyster-like
insensibility to the passing events—a mind-stupor,—a brawny defiance to the
needles of a thrusting-in conscience—did you ever have a very bad cold, with a
total irresolution to submit to water gruel processes?—this has been for many
weeks my lot, and my excuse—my fingers drag heavily over this paper, and to my
thinking it is three and twenty furlongs from here to the end of this
demi-sheet—I have not a thing to say—nothing is of more importance than
another—I am flatter than a denial or a pancake—emptier than Judge
Park’s wig when the head is in it—duller than a country
stage when the actors are off it—a cypher—an O—I acknowledge life at all, only
by an occasional convulsional cough, and a permanent phlegmatic pain in the
chest—I am weary of the world—Life is weary of me—My day is gone into Twilight
and I don’t think it worth the expence of candles—my wick hath a thief in
it, but I can’t muster courage to snuff it—I inhale suffocation—I
can’t distinguish veal from mutton—nothing interests me—’tis 12
o’clock and Thurtell is just now
coming out upon the New Drop—Jack Ketch
alertly tucking up his greasy sleeves to do the last office of mortality, yet
cannot I elicit a groan or a moral reflection—if you told me the world will be
at end tomorrow, I should just say, “will it?”—I have not volition
enough to dot my i’s—much less to comb my Eyebrows—my eyes are set in my
head—my brains are gone out to see a poor relation in Moorfields, and they did
not say when they’d come back again—my scull is a Grub street Attic, to
let—not so much as a joint stool or a crackd jordan left in it—my hand writes,
not I, from habit, as chickens run about a little when their heads
| 634 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Jan. |
Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
It is just 15 minutes after 12. Thurtell is by this time a good way on his journey, baiting at Scorpion perhaps, Ketch is bargaining for his cast coat and waistcoat, the Jew demurs at first at three half crowns, but on consideration that he may get somewhat by showing ’em in the Town, finally closes.—
