Poor Mr. Pole the harper sent to offer me L500 or L600, probably his all.[131] There is much good in the world, after all.  But I will involve no friend, either rich or poor.  My own right hand shall do it—­else will I be done in the slang language, and undone in common parlance.

I am glad that, beyond my own family, who are, excepting L.S., young and able to bear sorrow, of which this is the first taste to some of them, most of the hearts are past aching which would have once been inconsolable on this occasion.  I do not mean that many will not seriously regret, and some perhaps lament, my misfortunes.  But my dear mother, my almost sister, Christy R[utherfor]d,[132] poor Will Erskine—­these would have been mourners indeed.

Well—­exertion—­exertion.  O Invention, rouse thyself!  May man be kind!  May God be propitious!  The worst is, I never quite know when I am right or wrong; and Ballantyne, who does know in some degree, will fear to tell me.  Lockhart would be worth gold just now, but he too would be too diffident to speak broad out.  All my hope is in the continued indulgence of the public.  I have a funeral-letter to the burial of the Chevalier Yelin, a foreigner of learning and talent, who has died at the Royal Hotel.  He wished to be introduced to me, and was to have read a paper before the Royal Society when this introduction was to have taken place.  I was not at the Society that evening, and the poor gentleman was taken ill at the meeting and unable to proceed.  He went to his bed and never rose again; and now his funeral will be the first public place I shall appear at.  He dead, and I ruined; this is what you call a meeting.[133]

January 23.—­Slept ill, not having been abroad these eight days—­splendida bilis.  Then a dead sleep in the morning, and when the awakening comes, a strong feeling how well I could dispense with it for once and for ever.  This passes away, however, as better and more dutiful thoughts arise in my mind.  I know not if my imagination has flagged; probably it has; but at least my powers of labour have not diminished during the last melancholy week.  On Monday and Tuesday my exertions were suspended.  Since Wednesday inclusive I have written thirty-eight of my close manuscript pages, of which seventy make a volume of the usual Novel size.

Wrote till twelve A.M., finishing half of what I call a good day’s work—­ten pages of print, or rather twelve.  Then walked in Princes Street pleasure-grounds with good Samaritan James Skene, the only one among my numerous friends who can properly be termed amicus curarum mearum, others being too busy or too gay, and several being estranged by habit.[134]

The walks have been conducted on the whole with much taste, though Skene has undergone much criticism, the usual reward of public exertions, on account of his plans.  It is singular to walk close beneath the grim old Castle, and to think what scenes it must have seen, and how many generations of three score and ten have risen and passed away.  It is a place to cure one of too much sensation over earthly subjects of mutation.  My wife and girl’s tongues are chatting in a lively manner in the drawing-room.  It does me good to hear them.