I now seldom see the rising
sun, but to "tell him," with the fallen angel, "how
I hate his beams[m]." I awake from sleep as to languor
or imprisonment, and have no employment for the
first hour but to consider by what art I shall rid
myself of the second. I protract the breakfast as long as
I can, because when it is ended I have no call for
my attention, till I can with some degree of decency
grow impatient for my dinner. If I could dine all my
life, I should be happy; I eat not because I am hungry,
but because I am idle: but, alas! the time quickly
comes when I can eat no longer; and so ill does my
constitution second my inclination, that I cannot bear
strong liquors: seven hours must then be endured
before I shall sup; but supper comes at last, the more
welcome as it is in a short time succeeded by sleep.
[m] Johnson was too apt to destroy the KEEPING of character
in his correspondences. A retired trader might desire a little
more slumber, "a little folding of the hands to sleep;" but the
lofty malignity of a fallen spirit sickening at the beams of day,
would not be among the feelings of an ordinary mind. Some good
remarks on this point may be seen in Miss Talbot's Letters to
Mrs.
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