much as any of them can, yet I hold it best, in this free country, to
preserve the exterior of independence, that my loyalty may be the more
impressive, and tell more effectually. Yet I wish sincerely to help poor
Hogg, and have written to Lockhart about it. It may be my own desolate
feelings--it may be the apprehension of evil from this political
hocus-pocus, but I have seldom felt more moody and uncomfortable than
while writing these lines. I have walked, too, but without effect. W.
Laidlaw, whose very ingenious mind is delighted with all novelties,
talked nonsense about the new government, in which men are to resign
principle, I fear, on both sides.

_May_ 12.--Wrote Lockhart on what I think the upright and honest
principle, and am resolved to vex myself no more about it. Walked with
my cousin, Colonel Russell, for three hours in the woods, and enjoyed
the sublime and delectable pleasure of being well,--and listened to on
the subject of my favourite themes of laying out ground and plantation.
Russel seems quite to follow such an excellent authority, and my spirits
mounted while I found I was haranguing to a willing and patient pupil.
To be sure, Ashestiel, planting the high knolls, and drawing woodland
through the pasture, could be made one of the most beautiful forest
things in the world. I have often dreamed of putting it in high order;
and, judging from what I have been able to do here, I think I should
have succeeded. At any rate, my blue devils are flown at the sense of
retaining some sort of consequence. Lord, what fools we are!

_May_ 13.--A most idle and dissipated day. I did not rise till half-past
eight o'clock. Col. and Capt. Ferguson came to breakfast. I walked
half-way home with them, then turned back and spent the day, which was
delightful, wandering from place to place in the woods, sometimes
reading the new and interesting volumes of _Cyril Thornton_,[516]
sometimes chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy which strangely
alternated in my mind, idly stirred by the succession of a thousand
vague thoughts and fears, the gay thoughts strangely mingled with those
of dismal melancholy; tears, which seemed ready to flow unbidden;
smiles, which approached to those of insanity; all that wild variety of
mood which solitude engenders. I scribbled some verses, or rather
composed them in my memory. The contrast at leaving Abbotsford to former
departures is of an agitating and violent description. Assorting paper