"At his entrance, his little deal desk mounted on his only table, stood invitingly before him: there was inspiration in the sight; he snatched wildly a cracked ink-horn from a shelf which contained nothing else, but a few mouldy crusts, and a few mouldy books; flourished his pen, looked up a moment with a fixed and raptured eye, then pulled eagerly one of my sheets from its concealment, cried vehemently 'I have it,' and instantly laying me prostrate before him, began to trace in black characters on my body, the ideas that laboured in his mind."
Adventures of a Quire of Paper [from the London Magazine]
Published in three parts in the <u>London Magazine or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer</u>, 48 (August 1779), pp. 355-8, (September 1779), pp. 395-8, and (October 1779), pp. 448-52. Reprinted in <u>Edinburgh Weekly Magazine</u> (1779) and Dublin's <u>Gentleman's and London Magazine</u> (1779).<br>
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Text from <u>British It-Narratives, 1750-1830</u>, vol. 4, ed. Mark Blackwell (Pickering and Chatto, 2012).