# What Samuel Johnson writes when Samuel Johnson Finds he Cannot Speak

Here’s [Samuel Johnson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson) at
age 73, upon waking in the night and discovering that he couldn’t speak
(he’d had a stroke):

> Dear Sir, It hath pleased almighty God this morning to deprive me of
> the powers of speech; and, as I do not know that it may be his farther
> good pleasure to deprive me soon of my senses, I request you will, on
> the receipt of this note, come to me, and act for me, as the
> exigencies of my case may require. (From Oliver Sacks, <cite>The
> Mind’s Eye</cite>.)

(c.f. oh I don’t know, the entirety of Twitter.)