"There is ice at both poles, north and south--all extremes are the same--misery belongs to the highest and the lowest only,--to the emperor and the beggar, when unsixpenced and unthroned. There is, to be sure, a damned insipid medium--an equinoctial line--no one knows where, except upon maps and measurement. "'And all our _yesterdays_ have lighted fools The way to dusty death.' I will keep no further journal of that same hesternal torch-light; and, to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, I tear out the remaining leaves of this volume, and write, in _Ipecacuanha_,--'that the Bourbons are restored!!!'--'Hang up philosophy.' To be sure, I have long despised myself and man, but I never spat in the face of my species before--'O fool! I shall go mad.'" * * * * * The perusal of this singular Journal having made the reader acquainted with the chief occurrences that marked the present period of his history--the publication of The Corsair, the attacks upon him in the newspapers, &c.--there only remains for me to add his correspondence at the same period, by which the moods and movements of his mind, during these events, will be still further illustrated. * * * * * TO MR. MURRAY. "Sunday, Jan. 2. 1814. "Excuse this dirty paper--it is the _pen_ultimate half-sheet of a quire. Thanks for your book and the Ln. Chron., which I return. The Corsair is copied, and now at Lord Holland's; but I wish Mr. Gifford to have it to-night. "Mr. Dallas is very _perverse_; so that I have offended both him and you, when I really meaned to do good, at least to one, and certainly not to annoy either.[6] But I shall manage him, I hope.--I am pretty confident of the _Tale_ itself; but one cannot be sure. If I get it from Lord Holland, it shall be sent. "Yours," &c.