"One day," he wrote, "glides by another in
tranquil uniformity." During the whole period he never stirred ten
miles out of Lausanne. He had nearly completed the fourth volume
before he left England. Then came an interruption of a year--consumed
in the break-up of his London establishment, his journey, the
transport of his library, the delay in getting settled at Lausanne.
Then he sat down in grim earnest to finish his task, and certainly the
speed he used, considering the quality of the work, left nothing to be
desired. He achieved the fifth volume in twenty-one months, and the
sixth in little more than a year. He had hoped to finish sooner, but
it is no wonder that he found his work grow under his hands when he
passed from design to execution. "A long while ago, when I
contemplated the distant prospect of my work," he writes to Lord
Sheffield, "I gave you and myself some hopes of landing in England
last autumn; but alas! when autumn grew near, hills began to rise on
hills, Alps on Alps, and I found my journey far more tedious and
toilsome than I had imagined. When I look back on the length of the
undertaking and the variety of materials, I cannot accuse or suffer
myself to be accused of idleness; yet it appeared that unless I
doubled my diligence, another year, and perhaps more, would elapse
before I could embark with my complete manuscript.
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