There is a moral.  If you fail
To seize it by the tail,
Its import will exhale,

                You must know.

March 19.—­The above was written yesterday before dinner, though appearances are to the contrary.  I only meant that the studious solitude I have sometimes dreamed of, unless practised with rare stoicism and privation, was apt to degenerate into secret sensual indulgences of coarser appetites, which, when the cares and restraints of social life are removed, are apt to make us think, with Dr. Johnson, our dinner the most important event of the day.  So much in the way of explanation—­a humour which I love not.  Go to.

My girls returned from Edinburgh with full news of their bal pare.

March 20.—­We spent this day on the same terms as formerly.  I wrought, walked, dined, drank, and smoked upon the same pattern.

March 21.—­To-day brought Mrs. Dempster and her sister-in-law.  To dinner came Robert Dundas of Arniston from the hunting-field, and with him Mr. Dempster of Skibo, both favourites of mine.  Mr. Stuart, the grand-nephew of my dear friend Lady Louisa, also dined with us, together with the Lyons from Gattonside, and the day passed over in hospitality and social happiness.

March 22.—­Being Sunday, I read prayers to our guests, then went a long walk by the lake to Huntly Burn.  It is somewhat uncomfortable to feel difficulties increase and the strength to meet them diminish.  But why should man fret?  While iron is dissolved by rust, and brass corrodes, can our dreams be of flesh and blood enduring?  But I will not dwell on this depressing subject.  My liking to my two young guests is founded on “things that are long enough ago.”  The first statesman of celebrity whom I personally knew was Mr. Dempster’s grand-uncle, George Dempster of Dunnichen, celebrated in his time, and Dundas’s father was, when Lord Advocate, the first man of influence who showed kindness to me.

March 23.—­Arrived to breakfast one of the Courland nobility, Baron A. von Meyersdorff, a fine, lively, spirited young man, fond of his country and incensed at its degradation under Russia.  He talked much of the orders of chivalry who had been feudal lords of Livonia, especially the order of Porte Glaive, to which his own ancestors had belonged.  If he report correctly, there is a deep principle of action at work in Germany, Poland, Russia, etc., which, if it does “not die in thinking,” will one day make an explosion.  The Germans are a nation, however, apt to exhaust themselves in speculation.  The Baron has enthusiasm, and is well read in English and foreign literature.  I kept my state till one, and wrote notes to Croker upon Boswell’s Scottish tour.  It was an act of friendship, for time is something of a scarce article with me.  But Croker has been at all times personally kind and actively serviceable to me, and he must always command my best assistance.  Then I walked with the Baron as far as the Lake.  Our sportsmen came in good time to dinner, and our afternoon was pleasant.