"[51] On the
following day, the 18th January, the day after the blow, he records a bad
night, a wish that the next two days were over, but that "the worst _is_
over," and on the same day he set about making notes for the _magnum
opus_, as he called it--the complete edition of all the novels, with a new
introduction and notes. On the 19th January, two days after the failure,
he calmly resumed the composition of _Woodstock_--the novel on which he
was then engaged--and completed, he says, "about twenty printed pages of
it;" to which he adds that he had "a painful scene after dinner and
another after supper, endeavouring to convince these poor creatures" [his
wife and daughter] "that they must not look for miracles, but consider the
misfortune as certain, and only to be lessened by patience and labour." On
the 21st January, after a number of business details, he quotes from Job,
"Naked we entered the world and naked we leave it; blessed be the name of
the Lord." On the 22nd he says, "I feel neither dishonoured nor broken
down by the bad, now truly bad, news I have received.
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