parlance.

I am glad that, beyond my own family, who are, excepting L.S., young and
able to bear sorrow, of which this is the first taste to some of them,
most of the hearts are past aching which would have once been
inconsolable on this occasion. I do not mean that many will not
seriously regret, and some perhaps lament, my misfortunes. But my dear
mother, my almost sister, Christy R[utherfor]d,[132] poor Will
Erskine--these would have been mourners indeed.

Well--exertion--exertion. O Invention, rouse thyself! May man be kind!
May God be propitious! The worst is, I never quite know when I am right
or wrong; and Ballantyne, who does know in some degree, will fear to
tell me. Lockhart would be worth gold just now, but he too would be too
diffident to speak broad out. All my hope is in the continued indulgence
of the public. I have a funeral-letter to the burial of the Chevalier
Yelin, a foreigner of learning and talent, who has died at the Royal
Hotel. He wished to be introduced to me, and was to have read a paper
before the Royal Society when this introduction was to have taken place.
I was not at the Society that evening, and the poor gentleman was taken
ill at the meeting and unable to proceed. He went to his bed and never
rose again; and now his funeral will be the first public place I shall
appear at. He dead, and I ruined; this is what you call a meeting.[133]

_January_ 23.--Slept ill, not having been abroad these eight
days--_splendida bilis_. Then a dead sleep in the morning, and when the
awakening comes, a strong feeling how well I could dispense with it for
once and for ever. This passes away, however, as better and more dutiful
thoughts arise in my mind. I know not if my imagination has flagged;
probably it has; but at least my powers of labour have not diminished
during the last melancholy week. On Monday and Tuesday my exertions were
suspended. Since Wednesday inclusive I have written thirty-eight of my
close manuscript pages, of which seventy make a volume of the usual
Novel size.

Wrote till twelve A.M., finishing half of what I call a good day's
work--ten pages of print, or rather twelve. Then walked in Princes
Street pleasure-grounds with good Samaritan James Skene, the only one
among my numerous friends who can properly be termed _amicus curarum
mearum,_ others being too busy or too gay, and several being estranged
by habit.[134]

The walks have been conducted on the whole with much taste, thoug