morning, and wore my shirt-cuffs all day long. Continually I had to
think--only fancy, to think--once more; in a very small way, it is
true, but still to think and to act upon my thought, and when
Larkins came in and inquired if anybody had called, he now and then
said 'all right' when I told him what I had done. A clerk from my
old office swaggered in and did not remove his hat. I descended
from my stool and put on my own hat. The next time he came he was
more polite. I have now had two years of it, and have not been
absent for a day. I hope I may go on till I drop. My father died
in a fit; his father died in a fit; and I myself often feel giddy,
and things go round for a few seconds. I should not care to have a
fit here, because there would be a fuss and a muddle, but I should
like, just when everything was QUITE straight, to be able to get
home safely and then go off. To lie in bed for weeks and worry
about my work is what I could not endure.



CONFESSIONS OF A SELF-TORMENTOR



My father was a doctor in a country town. Strictly speaking it was
not a town, and yet it was something more than a village. His
practice extended over a district with a radius of five or six miles
from his house; he drove a gig and dispensed his own medicines. My
mother was the youngest daughter of a poor squire who owned two or
three hundred acres and lived at what was called the Park, which was
really nothing more than two or three fields generally laid for hay,
a small enclosure being reserved for a garden. We were not admitted