holiday
this year of a more quiet description than usual, and a sensible degree
of melancholy hangs on the reunion of our party. It was wise, however,
not to omit it, for to slacken your hold on life in any agreeable point
of connection is the sooner to reduce yourself to the indifference and
passive vegetation of old age.

_June_ 25.--Another melting day; thermometer at 78 deg. even here. 80 deg. was
the height yesterday at Edinburgh. If we attempt any active proceeding
we dissolve ourselves into a dew. We have lounged away the morning
creeping about the place, sitting a great deal, and walking as little as
might be on account of the heat.

Blair-Adam has been successively in possession of three generations of
persons attached to and skilled in the art of embellishment, and may be
fairly taken as a place where art and taste have done a great deal to
improve nature. A long ridge of varied ground sloping to the foot of the
hill called Benarty, and which originally was of a bare, mossy, boggy
character, has been clothed by the son, father, and grandfather; while
the undulations and hollows, which seventy or eighty years since must
have looked only like wrinkles in the black morasses, being now drained
and limed, are skirted with deep woods, particularly of spruce, which
thrives wonderfully, and covered with excellent grass. We drove in the
droskie and walked in the evening.

_June_, 26.--Another day of unmitigated heat; thermometer 82; must be
higher in Edinburgh, where I return to-night, when the decline of the
sun makes travelling practicable. It will be well for my work to be
there--not quite so well for me; there is a difference between the
clean, nice arrangement of Blair-Adam and Mrs. Brown's accommodations,
though he who is insured against worse has no right to complain of them.
But the studious neatness of poor Charlotte has perhaps made me
fastidious. She loved to see things clean, even to Oriental
scrupulosity. So oddly do our deep recollections of other kinds
correspond with the most petty occurrences of our life.

Lord Chief-Baron told us a story of the ruling passion strong in death.
A Master in Chancery was on his deathbed--a very wealthy man. Some
occasion of great urgency occurred in which it was necessary to make an
affidavit, and the attorney, missing one or two other Masters, whom he
inquired after, ventured to ask if Mr. ------ would be able to receive
the deposition. The proposal seemed to give h