May 10.—­To-morrow I leave my home.  To what scene I may suddenly be recalled, it wrings my heart to think.  If she would but be guided by the medical people, and attend rigidly to their orders, something might be hoped, but she is impatient with the protracted suffering, and no wonder.  Anne has a severe task to perform, but the assistance of her cousin is a great comfort.  Baron Weber, the great composer, wants me (through Lockhart) to compose something to be set to music by him, and sung by Miss Stephens—­as if I cared who set or who sung any lines of mine.  I have recommended instead Beaumont and Fletcher’s unrivalled song in the Nice Valour: 

    “Hence, all ye vain delights,” etc.

[Edinburgh],[265] May 11.—­

    “Der Abschiedstag ist da,
    Schwer liegt er auf den Herzen—­schwer."[266]

Charlotte was unable to take leave of me, being in a sound sleep, after a very indifferent night.  Perhaps it was as well.  Emotion might have hurt her; and nothing I could have expressed would have been worth the risk.  I have foreseen, for two years and more, that this menaced event could not be far distant.  I have seen plainly, within the last two months, that recovery was hopeless.  And yet to part with the companion of twenty-nine years when so very ill—­that I did not, could not foresee.[267] It withers my heart to think of it, and to recollect that I can hardly hope again to seek confidence and counsel from that ear to which all might be safely confided.  But in her present lethargic state, what would my attentions have availed? and Anne has promised close and constant intelligence.  I must dine with James Ballantyne to-day en famille.  I cannot help it; but would rather be at home and alone.  However, I can go out too.  I will not yield to the barren sense of hopelessness which struggles to invade me.  I passed a pleasant day with honest J.B., which was a great relief from the black dog which would have worried me at home.  We were quite alone.

[Edinburgh,] May 12.—­Well, here I am in Arden.  And I may say with Touchstone, “When I was at home I was in a better place,"[268] and yet this is not by any means to be complained of.  Good apartments, the people civil and apparently attentive.  No appearance of smoke, and absolute warrandice against my dreaded enemies, bugs.  I must, when there is occasion, draw to my own Bailie Nicol Jarvie’s consolation, “One cannot carry the comforts of the Saut-Market about with one.”  Were I at ease in mind, I think the body is very well cared for.  I have two steady servants, a man and woman, and they seem to set out sensibly enough.  Only one lodger in the house, a Mr. Shandy, a clergyman; and despite his name, said to be a quiet one.

May 13.—­The projected measure against the Scottish bank-notes has been abandoned, the resistance being general. Malachi might clap his wings upon this, but, alas! domestic anxiety has cut his comb.