In order to account for the delays which so frequently occurred, De Quincey remarks upon one occasion:--“I suffer from a most afflicting derangement of the nervous system, which at times makes it difficult for me to write at all, and always makes me impatient, in a degree not easily understood, of recasting what may seem insufficiently or even incoherently expressed.” But, while suffering under this cause, he laboured under a daily and more formidable bar to progress, as annoying and perplexing to himself as to others. For many years he had been in the habit of correcting manuscript or of jotting down on loose sheets, more frequently on small scraps of paper, any stray thoughts that occurred to him, intending to use them as occasion might afterwards offer. These papers, however, instead of being methodically arranged and preserved, were carelessly laid aside, and were soon mixed up with letters, proofs, old and new copy, newspapers, periodicals, and other confusing litter, and the numerous volumes he received from literary friends and admirers, all huddled together on chairs, tables, or wherever they at the moment might be stowed. Placing a high value on many things in this heterogeneous mass, and feeling assured in his own mind that strange hands would only render confusion worse confounded, he would allow no one to endeavour to put the things in order. Indeed, if anything could have ruffled his gentle nature into the use of an angry word it would have been the attempt to meddle with these papers. They very rapidly increased, and every search after missing copy or proofs made matters worse. When a dead block occurred his invariable practice was to build them up, as they lay, against the wall of the room, and, as a consequence, everything went astray. A few extracts from notes to Mr. Hogg will show the labour, suffering, and worry which this state of chaos entailed:--“My dear Sir,--It is useless to trouble you with the _ins_ and _outs_ of the process--the result is, that, working through most part of the night, I have not yet come to the missing copy. I am going on with the search, yet being walled up in so narrow an area (not larger than a postchaise as regards the free space), I work with difficulty, and the _stooping_ kills me. I greatly fear that the entire day will be spent in the search.” “Yesterday, suddenly, I missed the interleaved volume. I have been unrolling an immense heap of newspapers, &c., ever since six a.m. How so thick a vol. _can_ have hidden itself, I am unable to explain.” “The act of _stooping_ has for many years caused me so much illness, that in this search, all applied to papers lying on the floor, entangled with innumerable newspapers, I have repeatedly been forced to pause. I fear that the seventeen or eighteen missing pages may have been burned suddenly lighting candles; and I am more surprised at finding so many than at missing so few.”