12–18 July 1830

Another wet day, but I walked twice up and down the terrace, and also wrote a handsome scrap of copy, though mystified by the want of my books, and so forth. Dr. and Mrs. Lockhart and Violet came to luncheon and left us to drive on to Peebles. I read and loitered and longed to get my things in order. Got to work, however, at seven in the morning.

Now "what a thing it is to be an ass!" I have a letter from a certain young man, of a sapient family, announcing that his sister had so far mistaken my attentions as to suppose I was only prevented by modesty from stating certain wishes and hopes, etc. The party is a woman of rank: so far my vanity may be satisfied. But to think I would wish to appropriate a grim grenadier made to mount guard at St. James's! The Lord deliver me! I excused myself with little picking upon the terms, and there was no occasion for much delicacy in repelling such an attack.

The Court of Session Bill is now committed in the House of Lords, so it fairly goes on this season, and I have, I suppose, to look for my congé. I can hardly form a notion of the possibility that I am not to return to Edinburgh. My clerk Buchanan came here, and assists me to finish the Demonology Letters, and be d—d to them. But it is done to their hand. Two ladies, Mrs. Latouche of Dublin, and her niece, Miss Boyle, came to spend a day or two. The aunt is a fine old lady; the conversation that of a serious person frightened out of her wits by the violence and superstition of our workers of miracles in the west. Miss Boyle is a pretty young woman, rather quiet for an Irish lass.

We visited at Lessudden yesterday, and took Mrs. Latouche thither. To-day, as they had left us, we went alone to Major John's house of Ravenswood and engaged a large party of cousins to dine to-morrow. In the evening a party of foreigners came around the door, and going out I found Le Comte Ladislaus de Potocki, a great name in Poland, with his lady and brother-in-law, so offered wine, coffee, tea, etc. The lady is strikingly pretty. If such a woman as she had taken an affection for a lame baronet, nigh sixty years old, it would be worth speaking about! I have finished the Demonology.

Another bad day, wet past all efforts to walk, and threatening a very bad harvest. Persecuted with begging letters; an author's Pegasus is like a post-chaise leaving the door of the inn: the number of beggars is uncountable. The language they hold of my character for charity makes my good reputation as troublesome as that of Joseph Surface. A dinner of cousins, the young Laird of Raeburn, so he must be called, though nearly as old as I am, at their head. His brother Robert, who has been in India for forty years, excepting one short visit: a fine manly fellow, who has belled the cat with fortune, and held her at bay as a man of mould may. Being all kinsmen and friends, we made a merry day of our re-union. All left at night.

"Time runs, I know not how, away." Here am I beginning the second week of my vacation—though what needs me note that?—vacation and session will probably be the same to me in the future. The long remove must then be looked to, for the final signal to break up, and that is a serious thought. I have corrected two sets of proofs, one for the mail, another for the Blucher to-morrow.