istening to every
one which is of the [highest consequence] in the management of a public
body; for many men care less to gain their point than they do to play
the orator, and be listened to for a certain time. This done, and due
quantity of personal consideration being gained, the individual orator
is usually satisfied with the reasons of the civil listener, who has
suffered him to enjoy his hour of consequence. I attended the Court, but
there was very little for me to do. The snowy weather has annoyed my
fingers with chilblains, and I have a threatening of rheumatism--which
Heaven avert!

James Ballantyne and Mr. Cadell dined with me to-day and talked me into
a good humour with my present task, which I had laid aside in disgust.
It must, however, be done, though I am loth to begin to it again.

_January_ 16.--Again returned early, and found my way home with some
difficulty. The weather--a black frost powdered with snow, my fingers
suffering much and my knee very stiff. When I came home, I set to work,
but not to the _Chronicles_. I found a less harassing occupation in
correcting a volume or two of _Napoleon_ in a rough way. My indolence,
if I can call it so, is of a capricious kind. It never makes me
absolutely idle, but very often inclines me--as it were from mere
contradiction's sake--to exchange the task of the day for something
which I am not obliged to do at the moment, or perhaps not at all.

_January_ 17.--My knee so swelled and the weather so cold that I stayed
from Court. I nibbled for an hour or two at _Napoleon_, then took
handsomely to my gear, and wrote with great ease and fluency six pages
of the _Chronicles_. If they are but tolerable I shall be satisfied. In
fact, such as they are, they must do, for I shall get warm as I work, as
has happened on former occasions. The fact is, I scarce know what is to
succeed or not; but this is the consequence of writing too much and too
often. I must get some breathing space. But how is that to be managed?
There is the rub.

_January_ 18-19.--Remained still at home, and wrought hard. The fountain
trickles free enough, but God knows whether the waters will be worth
drinking. However, I have finished a good deal of hard work,--that's the
humour of it.

_January_ 20.--Wrought hard in the forenoon. At dinner we had Helen
Erskine,--whom circumstances lead to go to India in search of the
domestic affection which she cannot find here,--Mrs. George Swinton, and
two youn