“I again hurried out with daybreak, for I was wretched, and resumed my inquiries; but night came, and I again returned equally successful.  The yearnings of my child were now terrible, and the streaming eyes of his fond mother, as she pressed his head with her cold hand upon her lap, alone distinguished her from death.  The pains of hunger in myself were becoming insupportable; my teeth gnashed against each other, and worms seemed gnawing my heartstrings.  At this moment, my dear wife looked me in the face, and, stretching her hand to me, said, ’Farewell, my love, in a few hours I and our dear child shall be at rest!  Oh! hunger, hunger!’ I could stand no more.  Reason forsook me.  I could have died for them; but I could not beg.  We had nothing to pledge.  Our united wearing apparel would not have brought a shilling.  My wife had a pair of pocket Bibles (I had once given them in a present):  my eyes fell upon them—­I snatched them up unobserved—­rushed from the house, and—­Oh heaven! let the cause forgive the act—­pawned them for eighteenpence.  It saved our lives, it obtained employment, and for a few weeks appeared to overcome my curse.

“I am afraid I grow tedious with particulars, sir; it is an old man’s fault—­though I am not old either; I am scarce fifty-five.  After being three years in London, I was appointed foreman of an extensive establishment in the Strand.  I remained in this situation about four years.  It was one of respectability and trust, demanding, hourly, a vigilant and undivided attention.  To another, it might have been attended with honour and profit; but to me it terminated in disgrace.  Amongst other duties, I had the payment of the journeymen, and the giving out of the work.  They being numerous, and their demands frequent, it would have required a clerk for the proper discharge of that duty alone.  I delayed entering at the moment in my books the materials and cash given to each, until they, multiplying upon my hands, and begetting a consequent confusion, it became impossible for me to make their entry with certainty or correctness.  The workmen were not slow in discovering this, and not a few of the more profligate improved upon it to their advantage.  Thus I frequently found it impossible to make both ends of my account meet; and in repeated instances, where the week’s expenditure exceeded the general average, though satisfied in my own mind of its accuracy, from my inability to state the particulars, in order to conceal my infirmity, I have accounted for the overplus from my own pocket.  Matters went on in this way for a considerable time.  You will admit I was rendered feelingly sensible of my error, and I resolved to correct it.  But my resolutions were always made of paper; they were like a complaisant debtor—­full of promises, praying for grace, and dexterously evading performance.  Thus, day after day, I deferred the adoption of my new system to a future period.  For, sir, you must be aware there is a pleasure in procrastination, of a nature the most alluring and destructive; but it is a pleasure purchased by the sacrifice of judgment:  in its nature and results it resembles the happiness of the drunkard; for, in exact ratio as our spirits are raised above their proper level, in the same proportion, when the ardent effects have evaporated, they sink beneath that level.