Dear Carry! At a moment like this I can’t help thinking ‘The righteous is more excellent than his neighbour.’ Oh, how far, _far_ more excellent than I am and yet I have sometimes almost despised her because perhaps she has less intellectual power, for I do believe God has given me some genius,—surely there is no pride in saying so, remembering His grace, who gave thee all. Jan. 8th. Feel very much as if I had been sentimentalizing last night. I wish I could keep in one frame of mind. Jan. 10th. Sunday. Just been reading the ch. on ‘Happy and Unhappy Women’ in ‘Woman’s Thoughts.’ The Authoress speaks strongly about a sort of repining and melancholy, and about neglected health and almost voluntary sickness,—i.e. voluntary in not taking proper remedies and safe-guards,—and I cannot but feel much she says is not more than truth. She urges action, usefulness. Now I cannot but consider whether it does not become me to attend to her hints, or rather to her arguments. _Well_ I am not. Over mental exertion may have had, and I believe has had, very bad effects, still whether by my own fault directly or indirectly I don’t make matters worse, is another question. And certainly my Father and Mother are getting wretchedly anxious about me ... perhaps, unless I make an effort, I may find life ebbing ere half its purposes are accomplished.... At all events efforts are mine, though results are God’s. Yet tho’ I try to draw brilliant pictures of the future, and to persuade myself life is sweet, I can’t but feel that, if I were once assured of peace with God, I could be well content, nay grateful, to escape the waves of this troublesome world, and flee away and be at rest. Rest! Surely it is hardly natural at my age to be longing for it so....[12] But coward! take God’s benefits and flee His service, His battle? It should be our’s ‘to _act_ and to suffer, to do and to pray.’ No, it cannot be right to flee rather than to overcome. Footnote 12: This longing for rest was something deeper than the ordinary sentimentality of adolescence. She always said that by nature she was lazy, and the saying was not devoid of truth. Well, to return. If I am, and ought, to preserve my health, how? Suppose I make some kind of _plan_ for the day, not rigid but suggestive. Rise, breakfast with the rest of the world. 8½. Have for walk till 11. Then either some master or work for myself,—writing, painting, etc., till dinner. 1. Afternoon will be sure to be taken up with driving. Come in about 4. Then read till tea. After tea write, or read out downstairs. And go to bed with the rest of the world. That would be rather more rational than my present programme: Rise and breakfast at 11 or later. Dawdle till dinner. Drive. Read till tea. Read or write till 2 or 3 a.m. Well, that does sound bad.... * * * * *