Introduction
that would have been gay, if it had not been cast into a dismal prison. I do not mean by that the little room in Clarendon Road, or the poor fare or the poverty. Once on a time I would have said that here lay the trouble; but it was not so. The dismal prison was myself; I lacked the faculty of ordinary human enjoyment, though I desired it. One or two people tried me with the theatre, with mild parties, with a little literary society; but it would not do. I found there was no balm for my soul in paying calls on Sunday afternoon; then a great sport in London. I did not want to talk to anybody about Irving and Ellen Terry; another great game of the day. I wouldn't go near the Fisheries or Healtheries Exhibitions: I should have found them essentially lonelier than a favourite walk of mine, a stroll about the arid waste of Wormwood Scrubbs. No; there was nothing for it but to write "The Anatomy of Tobacco"; and so it was done. I suppose I was somewhat in the case of a man who has a long grim job before him, a job that
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