The Cotman Letters 1804-1833

(pencil notes) 103 [Norwich]
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Dawson Turner Esq Yarmouth.
Aug: 3. 1826.
Dear Sir,
The sun has set for ever on my career, and all is darkness before me. Each day heaps its share of disappointments and distress upon my head and I faint under the burden. I forbear to wound yo more with what I feel through the distress of my family. Such distress is primarily my own. It is deep & deadly.
Embarrassments are rising on he sale of my Southtown house, and my warning to quit this is not accepted. My pupils diminish to such a degree that it is impossible for me to live in any save a Workhouse or a Prison. Do you see my hand tremble?!!! It did not, I wrote it with firmness. You look for despair from me from the tenor of former letters - I do not despair! - But I find despair to be a calm, when put into comparison to the torture of suspense.
Early in life I chalked out a path I had hoped to have kept & held for ever, and to have left it free from weeds to my children. It was the path of laudable ambitions and honour. Every defence that has been sett up has been carried with a fatality that shows like retributions for having dared to draw so strict a line of circumvallation.
Last night I went to bed at 11 o’clock and awoke at ½ past four, a longer sleep than I have had for months, my usual sleep is about 3 to 4 hours. The remainder of the time till I get up I full of mental agony. The Breakfast, to me once the most joyful meal, how sad. Instead of the kis of gladness, it is one of deep sorrow. The children looking aghast and astounded. They thus separate to different rooms o hide their woes from each other. For myself, I do nothing. I appear o hear, see & feel everything, and a daydream of feeling myself at St Lo, Coutances, Arranches or Granville so true to the reality, makes me humble for any senses – for I am obliged to rise & [dine] the delusion from my view. I ant quiet – a dead silence. The least noise alarm me. But, with all this, my sleep has been totlly free from dreams. I have exacted the tax of the wreched from you.
J.S.C.
Aug 3. 1826.