a modest writing proposal
And you know very well that coffee makes us severe and grave and philosophical.
What would you give to have the history of Cad — and exactly written, through all its steps, from the beginning to this time? I believe it would do well in verse, and be as long as the other. I hope it will be done. It ought to be an exact chronicle of twelve years, from the time of spilling the coffee to drinking of coffee, from Dunstable to Dublin, with every single passage since. There would be the chapter of the blister ; the chapter of Madam going to Kensington; the chapter of the Colonel’s going to France; the chapter of the wedding, with the adventure of the lost key; of the strain; of the joyful return; two hundred chapters of madness; the chapter of long walks; the Berkshire surprise; fifty chapters of little times; the chapter of Chelsea; the chapter of swallow, and cluster; a hundred whole books of myself and so low; the chapter of hide and whisper; the chapter of who made it so? My sister’s money.
—from a letter by Dean Swift to Vanessa (Hester Vanhomrigh), August 12, 1720
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