Then Night came down like the feathery soot of a smoky lamp, and smutted first the bedquilt, then the hearth-rug, then the window-seat, and then at last the great, stormy, faraway outside world. But sleep did not come. Oh, no! Nothing new came at all except that particularly wretched, itching type of insomnia which seems to rip away from one’s body the whole kind, protecting skin and expose all the raw, ticklish fretwork of nerves to the mercy of a gritty blanket or a wrinkled sheet. Pain came too, in its most brutally high night-tide; and sweat, like the smother of furs in summer; and thirst like the scrape of hot sand-paper; and chill like the clammy horror of raw fish. Then, just as the mawkish cold, gray dawn came nosing over the housetops, and the poor fellow’s mind had reached the point where the slam of a window or the ripping creak of a floorboard would have shattered his brittle nerves into a thousand cursing tortures – then that teasing, tantalizing little friend of all rheumatic invalids – the Morning Nap – came swooping down upon him like a sponge and wiped out of his face every single bit of the sharp, precious evidence of pain which he had been accumulating so laboriously all night long to present to the Doctor as an incontestable argument in favor of an opiate.
– from Molly Make-Believe, by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott, 1911
MetaGrrrl 
Now I didn’t have it near so bad as all that because I did have an opiate: the Internet.
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Quite remarkable: I was 3 lines in, admiring the writing, before it began to remind me of that passage in Molly-Make-Believe, and 5 lines in before I realized it probably was that passage… For a book I’d have guessed I had practically by memory, a surprise. Guess it must be time to read it again!
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I noticed your rss feed dates have changed from 00/00/0000 to Day/Time – is there a reason for it and any way of convincing you to change it back? For me (might be the only one), 07/10/2005 tells me a lot more than Saturday 04:16:30 AM.
Love your writing and glad to get some new posts!
Cheers,
Collin
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(People subscribe to my feed? Who knew!)
I think TypePad must have changed its default. I’ll have to dig into it at some point, but I don’t think I’ve customized anything about it, so it may take me a bit…
Thanks for the kind words!
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I’m a long time reader and huge fan – only subscribed back around in March though. I believe I found your site when I was shopping around for publishing systems and researching Movable Type. I really get a kick out of the pre-1990 posts! Keep up the good work.
Cheers,
Collin
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Wow, Collin, thanks!
I have a whole bunch of pre-1990 stuff to put in at some point, but I’m waiting for an enhancement to TypePad to make setting old dates easier. I know it’s on their list…
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