A LETTER TO BERNARD BARTON.
By Charles Lamb.
January 9, 1824.
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 anything or to be anything; a total deadness and distaste; a
suspension of vitality; an indifference to locality; a numb, soporifical
good-for-nothingness; an ossification all over; an oyster-like
insensibility to the passing events; a mind-stupor; a brawny de---fiance
to the needles of a thrust-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 Parke's wig when the head is in
it; duller than a country stage when the actors are off it,---a cipher,
an o! I acknowledge life at all only by an occasional convulsional
cough, and a permanent phlegmatic pain in the chest.
Pages:
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207