I too caught an ugly cold, and, what is very uncommon with me, a
kind of cough, while down in Hampshire; which, with other
inarticulate matters, has kept me in a very mute abstruse
condition all this while; so that, for many weeks past, I have
properly had no history,--except such as trees in winter, and
other merely passive objects may have. That is not an agreeable
side of the page; but I find it indissolubly attached to the
other: no historical leaf with me but has them _both!_ Reading
does next to nothing for me at present, neither will thinking or
even dreaming rightly prosper; of no province can I be quite
master except of the _silent_ one, in such a case. One feels
there, at last, as if quite annihilated; and takes up arms again
(the poor goose-quill is no great things of a weapon to arm
with!) as if in a kind of sacred despair.
All people are in a sort of joy-dom over the new French Republic,
which has descended suddenly (or shall we say, _ascended_ alas?)
out of the Immensities upon us; showing once again that the
righteous Gods do yet live and reign! It is long years since I
have felt any such deep-seated pious satisfaction at a public
event.
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