I have just finished re-reading a book, which I counsel you above all things NOT to read, as it has made me very ill, and would make you worse - Lockhart's SCOTT. It is worth reading, as all things are from time to time that keep us nose to nose with fact; though I think such reading may be abused, and that a great deal of life is better spent in reading of a light and yet chivalrous strain. Thus, no Waverley novel approaches in power, blackness, bitterness, and moral elevation to the diary and Lockhart's narrative of the end; and yet the Waverley novels are better reading for every day than the Life. You may take a tonic daily, but not phlebotomy.
The great double danger of taking life too easily, and taking it too hard, how difficult it is to balance that! But we are all too little incl
