X7

Most abominable & horrible cold! ― & pitch dark! Lamp nearly all day!! Yet in this fearful hell=world the inhabitants are too grossly  fixed in its disgusting terms even to perceive them! So the Sicilian beggar hugs his lice.

I wrote all day ― (except one 10 minutes when C. Fortescue came, kind fellow: ―) & applied to those of the 68 who had not paid their Fives. ― No further news of W.N. At 6 I went over to the Beadons ― & at 7 to dine there. Poor dear W.F. Beadon will not live long. How enraged I was with myself for speaking about ――― who, ―― had said “would not live long ― & that his limbs grew so weak. ―” How sad it is to be an ass, not to think befour won spekes!!

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]