[Carlyle tells how he was trying to write a learned exegesis and came to a dead halt] 'One cannot long be idle - you will not wonder that I took up the first book that came in my way - and tho' it was the dullest of all dull books, yet by a fatality attendant on those things, I could not give it up. It purported to be a "history of a lover" - showing how Cecilia (somebody) being poor but honest went to Paris, with some Brandy Irish Dowager (of Tipperary) and was much astounded at their goings on - yet very much liked by the beaux. Shewing how after divers trials and temptations she married with a lord (something) who had been a very great rascal in his early days but was now become a most delectable personage; how the[y] lived in great harmony of souls till the honest man one day riding on som[e] wold and happening to fall from his beast in the presence of this notable lady, she fell into hystericks or convulsions and was taken home in a wo[e]ful plight - where she loitered on till she was "brought to bed", when she took her leave of the good man and all the world - Would you believe me, I read & read this horrid story & might have been reading yet had not a most dolorous ode to Matrimonial - no "Monody on the Death of a beloved" &c compelled me to throw past the book; and set to writing you a letter.'