there has a great mischance befallen me: the saddest, I think,
of the kind called Accidents I ever had to front. By dint of
continual endeavor for many weary weeks, I had got the first
volume of that miserable _French Revolution_ rather handsomely
finished: from amid infinite contradictions I felt as if my head
were fairly above water, and I could go on writing my poor Book,
defying the Devil and the World, with a certain degree of
assurance, and even of joy. A Friend borrowed this volume of
Manuscript,--a kind Friend but a careless one,--to write notes on
it, which he was well qualified to do. One evening about two
months ago he came in on us, "distraction (literally) in his
aspect"; the Manuscript, left carelessly out, had been torn up
as waste paper, and all but three or four tatters was clean gone!
I could not complain, or the poor man seemed as if he would have
shot himself: we had to gather ourselves together, and show a
smooth front to it; which happily, though difficult, was not
impossible to do. I began again at the beginning; to such a
wretched paralyzing torpedo of a task as my hand never found to
do: at which I have worn myself these two months to the hue of
saffron, to the humor of incipient desperation; and now, four
days ago, perceiving well that I was like a man swimming in an
element that grew ever rarer, till at last it became vacuum
(think of that!) I with a new effort of self-denial sealed up
all the paper fragments, and said to myself: In this mood thou
makest no way, writest _nothing_ that requires not to be erased
again; lay it by for one complete week! And so it lies, under
lock and key. I have digested the whole misery; I say, if thou
canst _never_ write this thing, why then never do write it:
God's Universe will go along _better_--without it. My Belief
in a special Providence grows yearly stronger, unsubduable,