I am reading the Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb, and just read this in the essay Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading:
How beautiful to a genuine lover of reading are the sullied leaves, and worn out appearance, nay, the very odour (beyond Russia), if we would not forget kind feelings in fastidiousness, of an old "Circulating Library" Tom Jones, or Vicar of Wakefield! How they speak of the thousand thumbs, that have turned over their pages with delight!—of the lone sempstress, whom they may have cheered (milliner, or harder-working mantua-maker) after her long day's needle-toil, running far into midnight, when she has snatched an hour, ill spared from sleep, to steep her cares, as in some Lethean cup, in spelling out their enchanting contents! Who would have them a whit less soiled? What better condition could we desire to see them in?
and realised I am that lone sempstress now, snatching an hour from sleep to steep my cares in a cup of tea.
It is always nice to find a good friend you did not know you had, but who knows you well, as a true friend should.
