“Well, but they might have taken the trouble to write”; but so wretched a correspondent as myself has not much to say, so I will just grumble sufficiently to maintain the patriarchal dignity.
I returned in time to work, and to receive a shoal of things from J.B. Among others, a letter from an Irish lady, who, for the beaux yeux, which I shall never look upon, desires I will forthwith send her all the Waverley Novels, which are published, with an order to furnish her with all others in course as they appear, which she assures me will be an era in her life. She may find out some other epocha.
April 7. — Made out my morning’s task; at one drove to Chiefswood, and walked home by the Rhymer’s Glen, Mar’s Lee, and Haxell-Cleugh. Took me three hours. The heath gets somewhat heavier for me every year — but never mind, I like it altogether as well as the day I could tread it best. My plantations are getting all into green leaf, especially the larches, if theirs may be called leaves, which are only a sort of hair, and from the number of birds drawn to these wastes, I may congratulate myself on having literally made the desert to sing. As I returned, there was, in the phraseology of that most precise of prigs in a white collarless coat and chapeau bas, Mister Commissary Ramsay — ”a rather dense inspissation of rain.” Deil care.
“Lord, who would live turmoiled in the Court,
That might enjoy such quiet walks as these?”
Yet misfortune comes our way too. Poor Laidlaw lost a fine prattling child of five years old yesterday.
It is odd enough — Iden, the Kentish Esquire, has just made the ejaculation which I adopted in the last page, when he kills Cade, and posts away up to Court to get the price set upon his head. Here is a letter come from Lockhart, full of Court news, and all sort of news, — best is his wife is well, and thinks the child gains in health.
Lockhart erroneously supposes that I think of applying to Ministers about Charles, and that notwithstanding Croker’s terms of pacification I should find Malachi stick in my way. I would not make such an application for millions; I think if I were to ask patronage it would [not] be through them, for some time at least, and I might have better access.
April 8. — We expect a raid of folks to visit us this morning, whom we must have dined before our misfortunes. Save time, wine, and money, these misfortunes — and so far are convenient things. Besides, there is a dignity about them when they come only like the gout in its mildest shape, to authorise diet and retirement, the nightgown and the velvet shoe; when the one comes to chalkstones, and the other to prison, though, there would be the devil. Or compare the effects of Sieur Gout and absolute poverty upon the stomach — the necessity of a bottle of laudanum in the one case, the want of a morsel of meat in the other.
Laidlaw’s infant, which died on Wednesday, is buried to-day. The people coming to visit prevent my going, and I am glad of it. I hate funerals — always did. There is such a mixture of mummery with real grief — the actual mourner perhaps heart-broken, and all the rest making solemn faces, and whispering observations on the weather and public news, and here and there a greedy fellow enjoying the cake and wine. To me it is a farce full of most tragical mirth, and I am not sorry (like Provost Coulter) but glad that I shall not see my own. This is a most unfilial tendency of mine, for my father absolutely loved a funeral; and as he was a man of a fine presence, and looked the mourner well, he was asked to every interment of distinction. He seemed to preserve the list of a whole bead-roll of cousins, merely for the pleasure of being at their funerals, which he was often asked to superintend, and I suspect had sometimes to pay for. He carried me with him as often as he could to these mortuary ceremonies; but feeling I was not, like him, either useful or ornamental, I escaped as often as I could.
I saw the poor child’s funeral from a distance. Ah, that Distance! What a magician for conjuring up scenes of joy or sorrow, smoothing all asperities, reconciling all incongruities, veiling all absurdness, softening every coarseness, doubling every effect by the influence of the imagination. A Scottish wedding should be seen at a distance; the gay band of the dancers just distinguished amid the elderly group of the spectators, — the glass held high, and the distant cheers as it is swallowed, should be only a sketch, not a finished Dutch picture, when it becomes brutal and boorish. Scotch psalmody, too, should be heard from a distance. The grunt and the snuffle, and the whine and the scream, should be all blended in that deep and distant sound, which, rising and falling like the Eolian harp, may have some title to be called the praise of our Maker. Even so the distant funeral: the few mourners on horseback, with their plaids wrapped around them — the father heading the procession as they enter the river, and pointing out the ford by which his darling is to be carried on the last long road — not one of the subordinate figures in discord with the general tone of the incident — seeming just accessories, and no more — this is affecting.
April 9. — I worked at correcting proofs in the morning, and, what is harder, at correcting manuscript, which fags me excessively. I was dead sick of it by two o’clock, the rather as my hand, O revered “Gurnal,” be it said between ourselves, gets daily worse.
Lockhart’s Review. Don’t like his article on Sheridan’s life. There is no breadth in it, no general views, the whole flung away in smart but party criticism. Now, no man can take more general and liberal views of literature than J.G.L. But he lets himself too easily into that advocatism of style, which is that of a pleader, not a judge or a critic, and is particularly unsatisfactory to the reader. Lieut.-Col. Ferguson dined here.
April 10. — Sent off proofs and copy galore before breakfast, and might be able to give idleness a day if I liked. But it is as well reading for Boney as for anything else, and I have a humour to make my amusement useful. Then the day is changeable, with gusts of wind, and I believe a start to the garden will be my best out-of-doors exercise. No thorough hill-expedition in this gusty weather.
April 11. — Wrought out my task, although I have been much affected this morning by the Morbus, as I call it. Aching pain in the back, rendering one posture intolerable, fluttering of the heart, idle fears, gloomy thoughts and anxieties, which if not unfounded are at least bootless. I have been out once or twice, but am driven in by the rain. Mercy on us, what poor devils we are! I shook this affection off, however. Mr. Scrope and Col. Ferguson came to dinner, and we twaddled away the evening well enough.
April 12. — I have finished my task this morning at halfpast eleven — easily and early — and, I think, not amiss. I hope J.B. will make some great points of admiration!!! — otherwise I will be disappointed. If this work answers — if it but answers, it must set us on our legs; I am sure worse trumpery of mine has had a great run. Well, I will console myself and do my best! But fashion changes, and I am getting old, and may become unpopular, but it is time to cry out when I am hurt. I remember with what great difficulty I was brought to think myself something better than common, — and now I will not in mere faintness of heart give up good hopes. So Fortune protect the bold. I have finished the whole introductory sketch of the Revolution — too long for an introduction. But I think I may now go to my solitary walk.
April 13. — On my return from my walk yesterday I learnt with great concern the death of my old friend, Sir Alexander Don. He cannot have been above six-or seven-and-forty. Without being much together, we had, considering our different habits, lived in much friendship, and I sincerely regret his death. His habits were those of a gay man, much connected with the turf; but he possessed strong natural parts, and in particular few men could speak better in public when he chose. He had tact, wit, power of sarcasm, and that indescribable something which marks the gentleman. His manners in society were extremely pleasing, and as he had a taste for literature and the fine arts, there were few more pleasant companions, besides being a highly-spirited, steady, and honourable man. His indolence prevented his turning these good parts towards acquiring the distinction he might have attained. He was among
