y
exquisite, and highly cultivated by constant exercise. But I can see as
many castles in the clouds as any man, as many genii in the curling
smoke of a steam engine, as perfect a Persepolis in the embers of a
sea-coal fire. My life has been spent in such day-dreams. But I cry no
roast-meat. There are times a man should remember what Rousseau used to
say: _Tais-toi, Jean-Jacques, car on ne t'entend pas_![439]

_January 2_.--I had resolved to mark down no more griefs and groans,
but I must needs briefly state that I am nailed to my chair like the
unhappy Theseus. The rheumatism, exasperated by my sortie of yesterday,
has seized on my only serviceable knee--and I am, by Proserpine,
motionless as an anvil. Leeches and embrocations are all I have for it.
_Diable_! there was a twinge. The Russells and Fergusons here; but I was
fairly driven off the pit after dinner, and compelled to retreat to my
own bed, there to howl till morning like a dog in his solitary cabin.

_January_ 3.--Mending slowly. Two things are comfortable--1_st_, I lose
no good weather out of doors, for the ground is covered with snow; 2_d_,
That, by exerting a little stoicism, I can make my illness promote the
advance of _Nap_. As I can scarcely stand, however, I am terribly
awkward at consulting books, maps, etc. The work grows under my hand,
however; vol. vi. [_Napoleon_] will be finished this week, I believe.
Russells being still with us, I was able by dint of handing and chairing
to get to the dining-room and the drawing-room in the evening.

Talking of Wordsworth, he told Anne and me a story, the object of which
was to show that Crabbe had not imagination. He, Sir George Beaumont,
and Wordsworth were sitting together in Murray the bookseller's
back-room. Sir George, after sealing a letter, blew out the candle,
which had enabled him to do so, and, exchanging a look with Wordsworth,
began to admire in silence the undulating thread of smoke which slowly
arose from the expiring wick, when Crabbe put on the extinguisher. Anne
laughed at the instance, and inquired if the taper was wax, and being
answered in the negative, seemed to think that there was no call on Mr.
Crabbe to sacrifice his sense of smell to their admiration of beautiful
and evanescent forms. In two other men I should have said "this is
affectations,"[440] with Sir Hugh Evans; but Sir George is the man in
the world most void of affectation; and then he is an exquisite painter,
and no doubt