I hope to sleep better to-night.  If I do not I shall get ill, and then I cannot keep my engagements.  Is it not odd?  I can command my eyes to be awake when toil and weariness sit on my eyelids, but to draw the curtain of oblivion is beyond my power.  I remember some of the wild Buccaneers, in their impiety, succeeded pretty well by shutting hatches and burning brimstone and assafoetida in making a tolerable imitation of hell—­but the pirates’ heaven was a wretched affair.  It is one of the worst things about this system of ours, that it is a hundred times more easy to inflict pain than to create pleasure.

January 27.—­Slept better and less bilious, owing doubtless to the fatigue of the preceding night, and the more comfortable news.  I drew my salaries of various kinds amounting to L300 and upwards and sent, with John Gibson’s consent, L200 to pay off things at Abbotsford which must be paid.  Wrote Laidlaw with the money, directing him to make all preparations for reduction.[138] Anne ill of rheumatism:  I believe caught cold by vexation and exposing herself to bad weather.

The Celtic Society present me with the most splendid broadsword I ever saw; a beautiful piece of art, and a most noble weapon.  Honourable Mr. Stuart (second son of the Earl of Moray), General Graham Stirling, and MacDougal, attended as a committee to present it.  This was very kind of my friends the Celts, with whom I have had so many merry meetings.  It will be a rare legacy to Walter;—­for myself, good lack! it is like Lady Dowager Don’s prize in a lottery of hardware; she—­a venerable lady who always wore a haunch-hoop, silk neglige, and triple ruffles at the elbow—­having the luck to gain a pair of silver spurs and a whip to correspond.

January 28.—­Ballantyne and Cadell wish that Mr. Alex.  Cowan should be Constable’s Trustee instead of J.B.’s.  Gibson is determined to hold by Cowan.  I will not interfere, although I think Cowan’s services might do us more good as Constable’s Trustee than as our own, but I will not begin with thwarting the managers of my affairs, or even exerting strong influence; it is not fair.  These last four or five days I have wrought little; to-day I set on the steam and ply my paddles.

January 29.—­The proofs of vol. i.[139] came so thick in yesterday that much was not done.  But I began to be hard at work to-day, and must not gurnalise much.

Mr. Jollie, who is to be my trustee, in conjunction with Gibson, came to see me:—­a, pleasant and good-humoured man, and has high reputation as a man of business.  I told him, and I will keep my word, that he would at least have no trouble by my interfering and thwarting their management, which is the not unfrequent case of trusters and trustees.[140]

Constable’s business seems unintelligible.  No man thought the house worth less than L150,000.  Constable told me when he was making his will that he was worth L80,000.  Great profits on almost all the adventures.  No bad speculations—­yet neither stock nor debt to show:  Constable might have eaten up his share; but Cadell was very frugal.  No doubt trading almost entirely on accommodation is dreadfully expensive.[141]