behold them again! No chance to take myself too seriously here.

The difficulty of the end is the mass of matter to be attended to, and
the small time left to transact it in. I mean from Alan's danger of
arrest. But I have just seen my way out, I do believe.

_Easter Sunday._--I have now got as far as slip 28, and finished the
chapter of the law technicalities. Well, these seemed to me always of
the essence of the story, which is the story of a _cause celebre_;
moreover, they are the justification of my inventions; if these men went
so far (granting Davie sprung on them) would they not have gone so much
further? But of course I knew they were a difficulty; determined to
carry them through in a conversation; approached this (it seems) with
cowardly anxiety; and filled it with gabble, sir, gabble. I have left
all my facts, but have removed 42 lines. I should not wonder but what
I'll end by re-writing it. It is not the technicalities that shocked
you, it was my bad art. It is very strange that X. should be so good a
chapter and IX. and XI. so uncompromisingly bad. It looks as if XI. also
would have to be re-formed. If X. had not cheered me up, I should be in
doleful dumps, but X. is alive anyway, and life is all in all.

_Thursday, April 5th._--Well, there's no disguise possible; Fanny is not
well, and we are miserably anxious....

_Friday, 7th._--I am thankful to say the new medicine relieved her at
once. A crape has been removed from the day for all of us. To make
things better, the morning is ah! such a morning as you have never seen;
heaven upon earth for sweetness, freshness, depth upon depth of
unimaginable colour, and a huge silence broken at this moment only by
the far-away murmur of the Pacific and the rich piping of a single bird.
You can't conceive what a relief this is; it seems a new world. She has
such extraordinary recuperative power that I do hope for the best. I am
as tired as man can be. This is a great trial to a family, and I thank
God it seems as if ours was going to bear it well. And O! if it only
lets up, it will be but a pleasant memory. We are all seedy, bar Lloyd:
Fanny, as per above; self nearly extinct; Belle, utterly overworked and
bad toothache; Cook, down with a bad foot; Butler, prostrate with a bad
leg. Eh, what a faim'ly!

_Sunday._--Grey heaven, raining torrents of rain; occasional thunder and
lightning. Everything to dispirit; but my invalids are really on the
mend. The rain roars l