He
died the following year.
LXXXVII.
TO BERNARD BARTON.
_April_ 6, 1825.
Dear B.B.,--My spirits are so tumultuary with the novelty of my recent
emancipation that I have scarce steadiness of hand, much more mind, to
compose a letter. I am free, B.B.,--free as air!
"The little bird that wings the sky
Knows no such liberty." [1]
I was set free on Tuesday in last week at four
o'clock. I came home forever!
I have been describing my feelings as well as I can to Wordsworth in a
long letter, and don't care to repeat. Take it, briefly, that for a few
days I was painfully oppressed by so mighty a change; but it is becoming
daily more natural to me. I went and sat among 'em all at my old
thirty-three-years' desk yester-morning; and, deuce take me, if I had
not yearnings at leaving all my old pen-and-ink fellows, merry, sociable
lads,--at leaving them in the lurch, fag, fag, fag! The comparison of my
own superior felicity gave me anything but pleasure.
B.B., I would not serve another seven years for seven hundred thousand
pounds! I have got L441 net for life, sanctioned by Act of Parliament,
with a provision for Mary if she survives me. I will live another fifty
years; or if I live but ten, they will be thirty, reckoning the quantity
of real time in them,--_i.e._, the time that is a man's own, Tell me how
you like "Barbara S.
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