threads,
and bring the various loose ends of my story together. They are too
many.

_February_ 21.--Last night after dinner I rested from my work, and read
third part of [Theodore Hook's] _Sayings and Doings_, which shows great
knowledge of life in a certain sphere, and very considerable powers of
wit, which somewhat damages the effect of the tragic parts. But he is an
able writer, and so much of his work is well said, that it will carry
through what is _manque_. I hope the same good fortune for other folks.

I am watching and waiting till I hit on some quaint and clever mode of
extricating, but do not see a glimpse of any one. James B., too,
discourages me a good deal by his silence, waiting, I suppose, to be
invited to disgorge a full allowance of his critical bile. But he may
wait long enough, for I am discouraged enough. Now here is the advantage
of Edinburgh. In the country, if a sense of inability once seizes me, it
haunts me from morning to night; but in Edinburgh the time is so
occupied and frittered away by official duties and chance occupation,
that you have not time to play Master Stephen and be gentlemanlike and
melancholy.[136] On the other hand, you never feel in town those
spirit-stirring influences--those glances of sunshine that make amends
for clouds and mist. The country is said to be quieter life; not to me,
I am sure. In the town the business I have to do hardly costs me more
thought than just occupies my mind, and I have as much of gossip and
ladylike chat as consumes the time pleasantly enough. In the country I
am thrown entirely on my own resources, and there is no medium betwixt
happiness and the reverse.

_February_ 22.--Went to Court, and remained there until one o'clock.
Then to Mr. Colvin Smith's and sat to be stared at till three o'clock.
This is a great bore even when you have a companion, sad when you are
alone and can only disturb the painter by your chatter. After dinner I
had proofs to the number of four. J.B. is outrageous about the death of
Oliver Proudfoot, one of the characters; but I have a humour to be
cruel.

"His business 'tis to die."

Received a present from a Mr. Dobie of a candlestick said to be that of
the Rev. Mr. Guthrie, minister of Fenwick in the seventeenth
century,--very civil of a gentleman unknown, if there comes no request
to look over poems, or to get made a gauger, or the like, for I have
seen that kind of compliment made on the principle on which smal