But, to drop the comparison, I have so much to do with writing, in the way of labour and profession, that it is difficult to me to conceive how anybody can take up a pen but from constraint.

My writing-desk is to me a place of punishment; and, as my penmanship sufficiently testifies.

I always bend over it with some degree of impatience.

All this is said that you may know the real cause of my silence, and not ascribe it in any degree to slight or forgetfulness on my part, or an insensibility to your worth and the value of your friendship....

As to my occupations, they look little at the present age; but I live in hope of leaving something behind me that by some minds will be valued.
I see no new books except by the merest accident.