"Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart That's sorry yet for thee."[255] His conduct has not been what I deserved at his hand, but, I believe that, walking blindfold himself, he misled me without _malice prepense_. It is best to think so at least, unless the contrary be demonstrated. To nourish angry passions against a man whom I really liked would be to lay a blister on my own heart. _April_ 25.--Having fallen behind on the 23d, I wrought pretty hard yesterday; but I had so much reading, and so many proofs to correct, that I did not get over the daily task, so am still a little behind, which I shall soon make up. I have got _Nap._, d--n him, into Italy, where with bad eyes and obscure maps, I have a little difficulty in tracing out his victorious chess-play. Lady Scott was better yesterday, certainly better, and was sound asleep when I looked in this morning. Walked in the afternoon. I looked at a hooded crow building in the thicket with great pleasure. It is a shorter date than my neighbour Torwoodlee[256] thought of, when he told me, as I was bragging a little of my plantations, that it would be long ere crows built in them. _April_ 26.--Letters from Walter and Lockharts; all well and doing well. Lady S. continues better, so the clouds are breaking up. I made a good day's work yesterday, and sent off proofs, letters, and copy this morning; so, if this fine day holds good, I will take a drive at one. There is an operation called putting to rights--_Scotticè_, _redding up_--which puts me into a fever. I always leave any attempt at it half executed, and so am worse off than before, and have only embroiled the fray. Then my long back aches with stooping into the low drawers of old cabinets, and my neck is strained with staring up to their attics. Then you are sure never to get the thing you want. I am certain they creep about and hide themselves. Tom Moore[257] gave us the insurrection of the papers. That was open war, but this is a system of privy plot and conspiracy, by which those you seek creep out of the way, and those you are not wanting perk themselves in your face again and again, until at last you throw them into some corner in a passion, and then they are the objects of research in their turn. I have read in a French Eastern tale of an enchanted person called _L'homme qui cherche_, a sort of "Sir Guy the Seeker," always employed in collecting the beads of a chaplet, which, by dint of gramarye, always dispersed themselves when he was about to fix the last upon the string. It was an awful doom; transmogrification into the Laidleyworm of Spindlestaneheugh[258] would have been a blessing in comparison. Now, the explanation of all this is, that I have been all this morning seeking a parcel of sticks of sealing wax which I brought from Edinburgh, and the "_Weel Brandt and Vast houd_"[259] has either melted without the agency of fire or barricaded itself within the drawers of some cabinet, which has declared itself in