ABSTRACT
Sunday night 22 Jan: ’99 My dear Janey. If I do not sit down and write to you at once you will be fi rst in sending me a letter, and I shall be beaten in the race of not doing it. Doubtless you have excellent reason or reasons for accusatory excuse on your side; I have none – save my daily, and daily resulting indolence – a far stretch out towards the land of nowhere on which I shall never land, nor see its well known Castle. You, in the kindness of your heart, will be saying for me, “but your work is so tiresome, only equalled in its wearying labour by your clients’ stupidity, so that you can have no time for indolence”! My answer can but be, that I have found time in which not [to] write to you, and that the rowel of the spur1 of my conscience is only now pricking me on to do so, that the very craziness of my style may stir you to retort in kind. Do so, and forgive me.
