A long letter from R.P.  Gillies.  I wonder how even he could ask me to announce myself as the author of Annotations on German Novels which he is to write.

September 27.—­A day of honest labour—­but having much to read, proofs to send off, etc., I was only able to execute my task by three o’clock P.M.  Then I went to direct the cutting of wood along the road in front of the house.  Dined at Chiefswood with Captain and Mrs. Hamilton, Lady Lucy Whitmore, their guest, and neighbours from Gattonside and Huntly Burn.

September 28.—­Another hard brush, and finished four pages by twelve o’clock, then drove out to Cowdenknowes, for a morning visit.  The house is ancient and curious, though modernised by vile improvements of a modern roof and windows.  The inhabited part has over the principal door the letters S.I.H.V.I.H.  The first three indicate probably Sir John Hume, but what are we to make of the rest?  I will look at them more heedfully one day.  There is a large room said to have been built for the reception of Queen Mary; if so, it has been much modernised.  The date on the door is 1576, which would [not] bear out the tradition.  The last two letters probably signify Lady Hume’s name, but what are we to make of the V?  Dr. Hume thinks it means Uxor, but why should that word be in Latin and the rest in Scotch?

Returned to dinner, corrected proofs, and hope still to finish another leaf, being in light working humour.  Finished the same accordingly.

[Abbotsford,] September 29.—–­ A sort of zeal of working has seized me, which I must avail myself of.  No dejection of mind, and no tremor of nerves, for which God be humbly thanked.  My spirits are neither low nor high—­grave, I think, and quiet—­a complete twilight of the mind.

Good news of John Lockhart from Lady Montagu, who most kindly wrote on that interesting topic.

I wrote five pages, nearly a double task, yet wandered for three hours, axe in hand, superintending the thinning of the home planting.  That does good too.  I feel it give steadiness to my mind.  Women, it is said, go mad much seldomer than men.  I fancy, if this be true, it is in some degree owing to the little manual works in which they are constantly employed, which regulate in some degree the current of ideas, as the pendulum regulates the motion of the timepiece.  I do not know if this is sense or nonsense, but I am sensible that if I were in solitary confinement, without either the power of taking exercise or employing myself in study, six months would make me a madman or an idiot.

September 30.—­Wrote four pages.  Honest James Ballantyne came about five.  I had been cutting wood for two hours.  He brought his child, a remarkably fine boy, well-bred, quiet, and amiable.  James and I had a good comfortable chat, the boys being at Gattonside House.  I am glad to see him bear up against misfortune like a man.  “Bread we shall eat, or white or brown,” that’s the moral of it, Master Muggins.