nee. So much for
playing the peacemaker in a shower of rain. Nothing for it but patience,
cataplasm of camomile, and labour in my own room the whole day till
dinner-time--then company and reading in the evening.

_January_ 11.--Ditto repeated. I should have thought I would have made
more of these solitary days than I find I can do. A morning, or two or
three hours before dinner, have often done more efficient work than six
or seven of these hours of languor, I cannot say of illness, can
produce. A bow that is slackly strung will never send an arrow very far.
Heavy snow. We are engaged at Mr. Scrope's, but I think I shall not be
able to go. I remained at home accordingly, and, having nothing else to
do, worked hard and effectively. I believe my sluggishness was partly
owing to the gnawing rheumatic pain in my knee, for after all I am of
opinion pain is an evil, let Stoics say what they will. Thank God, it is
an evil which is mending with me.

_January_ 12.--All this day occupied with camomile poultices and pen and
ink. It is now four o'clock, and I have written yesterday and to-day ten
of my pages--that is, one-tenth of one of these large volumes--moreover,
I have corrected three proof-sheets. I wish it may not prove fool's
haste, yet I take as much pains too as is in my nature.

_January_ 13.--The Fergusons, with my neighbours Mr. Scrope and Mr.
Bainbridge and young Hume, eat a haunch of venison from Drummond Castle,
and seemed happy. We had music and a little dancing, and enjoyed in
others the buoyancy of spirit that we no longer possess ourselves. Yet I
do not think the young people of this age so gay as we were. There is a
turn for persiflage, a fear of ridicule among them, which stifles the
honest emotions of gaiety and lightness of spirit; and people, when they
give in the least to the expansion of their natural feelings, are always
kept under by the fear of becoming ludicrous. To restrain your feelings
and check your enthusiasm in the cause even of pleasure is now a rule
among people of fashion, as much as it used to be among philosophers.

_January_ 14.--Well--my holidays are out--and I may count my gains and
losses as honest Robinson Crusoe used to balance his accounts of good
and evil.

I have not been able, during three weeks, to stir above once or twice
from the house. But then I have executed a great deal of work, which
would be otherwise unfinished.

Again I have sustained long and sleepless nights an