"The crow is lame of a leg--wonder how it happened--some fool trod upon his toe, I suppose. The falcon pretty brisk--the cats large and noisy--the monkeys I have not looked to since the cold weather, as they suffer by being brought up. Horses must be gay--get a ride as soon as weather serves. Deuced muggy still--an Italian winter is a sad thing, but all the other seasons are charming.
"What is the reason that I have been, all my lifetime, more or less _ennuyé?_ and that, if any thing, I am rather less so now than I was at twenty, as far as my recollection serves? I do not know how to answer this, but presume that it is constitutional,--as well as the waking in low spirits, which I have invariably done for many years. Temperance and exercise, which I have practised at times, and for a long time together vigorously and violently, made little or no difference. Violent passions did;--when under their immediate influence--it is odd, but--I was in agitated, but _not_ in depressed, spirits.
"A dose of salts has the effect of a temporary inebriation, like light champagne, upon me. But wine and spirits make me sullen and savage to ferocity--silent, however, and retiring, and not quarrelsome, if not spoken to. Swimming also raises my spirits,--but in general they are low, and get daily lower. That is _hopeless_; for I do not think I am so much _ennuyé_ as I was at nineteen. The proof is, that then I must game, or drink, or be in motion of some kind, or I was miserable. At present, I can mope in quietness; and like being alone better than any company--except the lady's whom I serve. But I feel a something, which makes me think that, if I ever reach near to old age, like Swift, 'I shall die at top' first. Only I do not dread idiotism or madness so much as he did. On the contrary, I think some quieter stages of both must be preferable to much of what men think the possession of their senses.
"Still rain--mist--snow--drizzle--and all the incalculable combinations of a climate where heat and cold struggle for mastery. Head Spence, and turned over Roscoe, to find a passage I have not found. Read the fourth vol. of W. Scott's second series of 'Tales of my Landlord.' Dined. Read the Lugano Gazette. Read--I forget what. At eight went to conversazione. Found there the Countess Geltrude, Betti V. and her husband, and others. Pretty black-eyed woman that--_only_ nineteen--same age as Teresa, who is prettier, though.