mpanied with so
violent a thirst that I have drank as many as fifteen bottles of
soda-water in one night, after going to bed, and been still
thirsty--calculating, however, some lost from the bursting out and
effervescence and over-flowing of the soda-water, in drawing the corks,
or striking off the necks of the bottles from mere thirsty impatience.
At present, I have _not_ the thirst; but the depression of spirits is no
less violent.

"I read in Edgeworth's Memoirs of something similar (except that his
thirst expended itself on _small beer_) in the case of Sir F.B.
Delaval;--but then he was, at least, twenty years older. What is
it?--liver? In England, Le Man (the apothecary) cured me of the thirst
in three days, and it had lasted as many years. I suppose that it is all
hypochondria.

"What I feel most growing upon me are laziness, and a disrelish more
powerful than indifference. It I rouse, it is into fury. I presume that
I shall end (if not earlier by accident, or some such termination) like
Swift--'dying at top.' I confess I do not contemplate this with so much
horror as he apparently did for some years before it happened. But Swift
had hardly _begun life_ at the very period (thirty-three) when I feel
quite an _old sort_ of feel.

"Oh! there is an organ playing in the street--a waltz, too! I must leave
off to listen. They are playing a waltz which I have heard ten thousand
times at the balls in London, between 1812 and 1815. Music is a strange
thing[23].

[Footnote 23: In this little incident of the music in the streets thus
touching so suddenly upon the nerve of memory, and calling away his mind
from its dark bodings to a recollection of years and scenes the
happiest, perhaps, of his whole life, there is something that appears to
me peculiarly affecting.]

"February 5. 1821.

"At last, 'the kiln's in a low.' The Germans are ordered to march, and
Italy is, for the ten thousandth time, to become a field of battle. Last
night the news came.

"This afternoon--Count P.G. came to me to consult upon divers matters.
We rode out together. They have sent off to the C. for orders. To-morrow
the decision ought to arrive, and then something will be done.
Returned--dined--read--went out--talked over matters. Made a purchase of
some arms for the new enrolled Americani, who are all on tiptoe to
march. Gave order for some _harness_ and portmanteaus necessary for the
horses.

"Read some of Bowles's dispute about Pope, w