'Tis a melancholy
thing that so young a man, and one whose life has ever been so simple
and self-denying * * *
O, for a peace, and the south of France! I could almost wish for a
Bourbon king, if it were only that Sieyes and Buonaparte might finish
their career in the old orthodox way of hanging. Thank God, "I have my
health perfectly", and I am working hard; yet the present state of human
affairs presses on me for days together, so as to deprive me of all my
cheerfulness. It is probable that a man's private and personal
connexions and interests ought to be uppermost in his daily and hourly
thoughts, and that the dedication of much hope and fear to subjects
which are perhaps disproportionate to our faculties and powers, is a
disease. But I have had this disease so long, and my early education was
so undomestic, that I know not how to get rid of it; or even to wish to
get rid of it. Life were so flat a thing without enthusiasm, that if for
a moment it leaves me, I have a sort of stomach sensation attached to
all my thoughts, "like those which succeed to the pleasurable operations
of a dose of opium".
Now I make up my mind to a sort of heroism in believing the
progressiveness of all nature, during the present melancholy state of
humanity, and on this subject "I am now writing"; and no work on which I
ever employed myself makes me so happy while I am writing.
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