letters from the madhouse (clare, harrison)

March 8 1860

DEAR SIR

I am in a Madhouse and quite forget your Name or who you are. You must excuse me for I have nothing to communicate or tell of and why I am shut up I don't know I have nothing to say so I conclude.

Yours respectfully
JOHN CLARE

RPH's response: His response..., utterly lucid and utterly mad at once, reveals that only the name "John Clare" was left to communicate itself to the world. (His essence having left.)

- from Forests: The Shadow of Civilization by Robert Pogue Harrison, pg 216