326 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



lectual machine is set a-working; and I communicate 

 my ideas as they rise. " You chattering blockhead/ 7 

 says diffidence, the moment I return home, "what right, 

 pray, had you to engross so much of the conversation 

 to-night ? You are a pretty fellow, to be sure, to set 

 up for a Sir Oracle ! Well, you had better take care 

 next time." Next time comes, and I am exceedingly 

 taciturn. " Pray, Mr Block," says diffidence, the instant 

 she catches me alone, " what fiend tempted you to go 

 and eat the lady's bread and butter to-night, when you 

 had determined prepense not to tender her so much as a 

 single idea in return ? A handsome piece of furniture, 

 truly, to be stuck up at the side of a tea-table. Per- 

 haps, however, you were too good for your company, 

 and wished to make them feel that you thought so." 

 But truce with the accusations of the witch ; fifty pages 

 would not contain the whole. Was not Diffidence the 

 wife of that giant Despair, whom Mr Greatheart slew 

 when he demolished Castle Doubting ? She, too, is said 

 to have perished at the same time, but both must since 

 have been resuscitated. I stand, however, in no fear of 

 the husband, giant though he be ; but alas for the iron 

 despotism of his lady ! 



1 Need I say anything more on this head ? Just one 

 other sentence. Some of the concluding lines of my 

 last were written indeed by me, but only as amanuensis 

 to the giantess. And now that I have made a full dis- 

 closure, and constituted you my confessor, what penance 

 are you to impose ? I am just going to ask you whether 

 I shall yet get leave to visit you some time in the leafy 

 end of May; and if you are very, very angry, and intend 

 being very, very severe, it is in your power fully to avenge 

 yourself by forbidding me to come at all. I often think 

 of Forres, not much, indeed, comparatively at least, of 



