d his very curious and absurd "Spiritual
Diary and Soliloquies." Boswell describes Johnson as being much amused
with the Quaker doctor's minute confessions. See the Life of Johnson
_sub anno_ 1777.--J.G.L.

[104] _Woodstock_--contracted for in 1823.

[105] _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act III. Sc. 1.

[106] George Huntly Gordon, amanuensis to Scott.

1826

1826.--JANUARY.

_January_ 1.--A year has passed--another has commenced. These solemn
divisions of time influence our feelings as they recur. Yet there is
nothing in it; for every day in the year closes a twelvemonth as well as
the 31st December. The latter is only the solemn pause, as when a guide,
showing a wild and mountainous road, calls on a party to pause and look
back at the scenes which they have just passed. To me this new year
opens sadly. There are these troublesome pecuniary difficulties, which
however, I think, this week should end. There is the absence of all my
children, Anne excepted, from our little family festival. There is,
besides, that ugly report of the 15th Hussars going to India. Walter, I
suppose, will have some step in view, and will go, and I fear Jane will
not dissuade him.

A hard, frosty day--cold, but dry and pleasant under foot. Walked into
the plantations with Anne and Anne Russell. A thought strikes me,
alluding to this period of the year. People say that the whole human
frame in all its parts and divisions is gradually in the act of decaying
and renewing. What a curious timepiece it would be that could indicate
to us the moment this gradual and insensible change had so completely
taken place, that no atom was left of the original person who had
existed at a certain period, but there existed in his stead another
person having the same limbs, thews, and sinews, the same face and
lineaments, the same consciousness--a new ship built on an old plank--a
pair of transmigrated stockings, like those of Sir John Cutler,[107]
all green silk, without one thread of the original black silk left!
Singular--to be at once another and the same.

_January_ 2.--Weather clearing up in Edinburgh once more, and all will,
I believe, do well. I am pressed to get on with _Woodstock_, and must
try. I wish I could open a good vein of interest which would breathe
freely. I must take my old way, and write myself into good-humour with
my task. It is only when I dally with what I am about, look back, and
aside, instead of keeping my eyes str