April 1.—­Ex uno die disce omnes. Rose at seven or sooner, studied, and wrote till breakfast with Anne, about a quarter before ten.  Lady Scott seldom able to rise till twelve or one.  Then I write or study again till one.  At that hour to-day I drove to Huntly Burn, and walked home by one of the hundred and one pleasing paths which I have made through the woods I have planted—­now chatting with Tom Purdie, who carries my plaid, and speaks when he pleases, telling long stories of hits and misses in shooting twenty years back—­sometimes chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy—­and sometimes attending to the humours of two curious little terriers of the Dandie Dinmont breed, together with a noble wolf-hound puppy which Glengarry has given me to replace Maida.  This brings me down to the very moment I do tell—­the rest is prophetic.  I will feel sleepy when this book is locked, and perhaps sleep until Dalgleish brings the dinner summons.  Then I will have a chat with Lady S. and Anne; some broth or soup, a slice of plain meat—­and man’s chief business, in Dr. Johnson’s estimation, is briefly despatched.  Half an hour with my family, and half an hour’s coquetting with a cigar, a tumbler of weak whisky and water, and a novel perhaps, lead on to tea, which sometimes consumes another half hour of chat; then write and read in my own room till ten o’clock at night; a little bread and then a glass of porter, and to bed.

And this, very rarely varied by a visit from some one, is the tenor of my daily life—­and a very pleasant one indeed, were it not for apprehensions about Lady S. and poor Johnnie Hugh.  The former will, I think, do well—­for the latter—­I fear—­I fear—­

April 2.—­I am in a wayward mood this morning.  I received yesterday the last proof-sheets of Woodstock, and I ought to correct them.  Now, this ought sounds as like as possible to must, and must I cannot abide.  I would go to Prester John’s country of free good-will, sooner than I would must it to Edinburgh.  Yet this is all folly, and silly folly too; and so must shall be for once obeyed after I have thus written myself out of my aversion to its peremptory sound.  Corrected the said proofs till twelve o’clock—­when I think I will treat resolution, not to a dram, as the drunken fellow said after he had passed the dram-shop, but to a walk, the rather that my eyesight is somewhat uncertain and wavering.  I think it must be from the stomach.  The whole page waltzes before my eyes.  J.B. writes gloomily about Woodstock; but commends the conclusion.  I think he is right.  Besides, my manner is nearly caught, and, like Captain Bobadil[234], I have taught nearly a hundred gentlemen to fence very nearly, if not altogether, as well as myself.  I will strike out something new.