a deaf ear; and have life only for this one thing,--which also
in general I feel to be one of the pitifulest that ever man went
about possessed with. Have compassion for me! It is really very
miserable: but it will end. Some months more, and it is
_ended;_ and I am done with _French Revolution,_ and with
Revolution and Revolt in general; and look once more with
free eyes over this Earth, where are other things than mean
internecine work of that kind: things fitter for me, under the
bright Sun, on this green Mother's-bosom (though the Devil does
dwell in it)! For the present, really, it is like a Nessus'
shirt, burning you into madness, this wretched Enterprise; nay,
it is also like a kind of Panoply, rendering you invulnerable,
insensible, to all _other_ mischiefs.

I got the fatal First Volume finished (in the miserablest way,
after great efforts) in October last; my head was all in a
whirl; I fled to Scotland and my Mother for a month of rest.
Rest is nowhere for the Son of Adam: all looked so "spectral" to
me in my old-familiar Birthland; Hades itself could not have
seemed stranger; Annandale also was part of the kingdom of TIME.
Since November I have worked again as I could; a second volume
got wrapped up and sealed out of my sight within the last three
days. There is but a Third now: one pull more, and then! It
seems to me, I will fly into some obscurest cranny of the world,
and lie silent there for a twelvemonth. The mind is weary, the
body is very sick; a little black speck dances to and fro in the
left eye (part of the retina protesting against the liver, and
striking work): I cannot help it; it must flutter and dance
there, like a signal of distress, unanswered till I be done. My
familiar friends tell me farther that the Book is all wrong,
style cramp, &c., &c.: my friends, I answer, you are very right;
but this also, Heaven be my witness, I cannot help.--In such sort
do I live here; all this I had to write you, if I wrote at all.

For the rest I cannot say that this huge blind monster of a City
is without some sort of charm for me. It leaves one alone, to go
his own road unmolested. Deep in your soul you take up your
protest against it, defy it, and even despise it; but need not
divide yourself from it for that. Worthy individuals are glad to
hear your thought, if it have any sincerity; they do not
exasperate themselves or you about it; they have not even time
for such a thi