ged to be in
a state of absolute "being about to sit down." She seemed a good deal
_genee_ by something of that kind, though remembering with pride she had
been Empress, it might almost be said of the world. The rest for
to-morrow.

_March_ 12.--Resumed _Woodstock_, and wrote my task of six pages. I was
interrupted by a slumberous feeling which made me obliged to stop once
or twice. I shall soon have a remedy in the country, which affords the
pleasanter resource of a walk when such feelings come on. I hope I am
the reverse of the well-known line, "sleepy myself, to give my readers
sleep." I cannot _gurnalise_ at any rate, having wrought my eyes nearly
out.[218]

_March_ 13.--Wrote to the end of a chapter, and knowing no more than the
man in the moon what comes next, I will put down a few of Lord Elgin's
remembrances, and something may occur to me in the meanwhile. When
M[aria] Louise first saw B[onaparte], she was in the carriage with his
representative general, when she saw a horseman ride forward at the
gallop, passing and repassing the carriage in a manner which, joined to
the behaviour of her companion, convinced her who it was, especially as
he endeavoured, with a curiosity which would not have been tolerated in
another, to peep into the windows. When she alighted at the inn at----,
Napoleon presented himself, pulled her by the ear, and kissed her
forehead.

Bonaparte's happiest days passed away when he dismissed from about him
such men as Talleyrand and Fouche, whose questions and objections
compelled him to recur upon, modify, and render practicable the great
plans which his ardent conception struck out at a heat. When he had
Murat and such persons about him, who marvelled and obeyed, his
schemes, equally magnificent, were not so well matured, and ended in the
projector's ruin.

I have hinted in these notes that I am not entirely free from a sort of
gloomy fits, with a fluttering of the heart and depression of spirits,
just as if I knew not what was going to befall me. I can sometimes
resist this successfully, but it is better to evade than to combat it.
The hang-dog spirit may have originated in the confusion and chucking
about of our old furniture, the stripping of walls of pictures, and
rooms of ornaments; the leaving a house we have so long called our home
is altogether melancholy enough. I am glad Lady S. does not mind it, and
yet I wonder, too. She insists on my remaining till Wednesday, not
knowing w