assistance.

According to Borrow's own account, one morning on getting up he found
that he had only half a crown in the world. It was this
circumstance, coupled with the timely notice that he saw affixed to a
bookseller's window to the effect that "A Novel or Tale is much
wanted," that determined him to endeavour to emulate Dr Johnson and
William Beckford. He had tired of "the Great City," and his thoughts
turned instinctively to the woods and the fields, where he could be
free to meditate and muse in solitude.

When he returned to Milman Street after seeing the bookseller's
advertisement, he found that his resources had been still further
reduced to eighteen-pence. He was too proud to write home for
assistance, he had broken with Sir Richard Phillips, and he had no
reasonable expectation of obtaining employment of any description;
for his accomplishments found no place in the catalogue of everyday
wants. He was a proper man with his hands, and knew some score or
more languages. No matter how he regarded the situation, the facts
were obvious. Between him and actual starvation there was the
inconsiderable sum of eighteen-pence and the bookseller's
advertisement. The gravity of the situation banished the cloud of
despondency that threatened to settle upon him, and also the doubts
that presented themselves as to whether he possessed the requisite
ability to produce what the bookseller required. The all-important
question was, could he exist sufficiently long on eighteen-pence to
complete a story? Sir Richard Phillips had told him to live on bread
and water. He now did so.

For a week he wrote ceaselessly at the Life and Adventures of Joseph