ne to the smithy to be roughshod in this snowy weather. So we stayed
dinner, and Peter, coming up with his horses, bowled us into town about
eight. Walter came and supped with us, which diverted some heavy
thoughts. It is impossible not to compare this return to Edinburgh with
others in more happy times. But we should rather recollect under what
distress of mind I took up my lodgings in Mrs. Brown's last summer, and
then the balance weighs deeply on the favourable side. This house is
comfortable and convenient.[419]

[_Edinburgh_,] _November_ 28.--Went to Court and resumed old habits.
Dined with Walter and Jane at Mrs. Jobson's. When we returned were
astonished at the news of ----'s death, and the manner of it; a quieter,
more inoffensive, mild, and staid mind I never knew. He was free from
all these sinkings of the imagination which render those who are liable
to them the victims of occasional low spirits. All belonging to this
gifted, as it is called, but often unhappy, class, must have felt at
times that, but for the dictates of religion, or the natural recoil of
the mind from the idea of dissolution, there have been times when they
would have been willing to throw away life as a child does a broken toy.
But poor ------ was none of these: he was happy in his domestic
relations; and on the very day on which the rash deed was committed was
to have embarked for rejoining his wife and child, whom I so lately saw
anxious to impart to him their improved prospects.

O Lord, what are we--lords of nature? Why, a tile drops from a housetop,
which an elephant would not feel more than the fall of a sheet of
pasteboard, and there lies his lordship. Or something of inconceivably
minute origin, the pressure of a bone, or the inflammation of a particle
of the brain takes place, and the emblem of the Deity destroys himself
or some one else. We hold our health and our reason on terms slighter
than one would desire were it in their choice to hold an Irish cabin.

_November_ 29.--Awaked from horrid dreams to reconsideration of the sad
reality; he was such a kind, obliging, assiduous creature. I thought he
came to my bedside to expostulate with me how I could believe such a
scandal, and I thought I detected that it was but a spirit who spoke, by
the paleness of his look and the blood flowing from his cravat. I had
the nightmare in short, and no wonder.

I felt stupefied all this day, but wrote the necessary letters
notwithstanding. Wa