CHAP. xxin. NOTHING NEW. 399 



killed myself several times by over-exertion ; and after 

 all, I have found nothing new. The days of great things 

 are over for ever with me. And yet I am ' first fiddle,' 

 in all that relates to the Old Fish. If you look at the 

 latest edition of Hugh Miller's Footprints of the Creator, 

 you will see figured there many things of mine, which 

 I never hope to see again. The sea must wash down 

 the rocks for five hundred years first, and by that time 

 we shall all be resolved into dust and ashes. 



"Alas for the old days! They are gone for ever. 

 Well, I will return to my plants. But even there, I 

 fag and limp listlessly. Nothing new! With mosses 

 I still get up the steam. But they are so comparatively 

 trifling, that I sometimes weary of them. 



" To tell you the truth, I am perfectly tired of this 

 insipid, tasteless, dull, motionless kind of existence. I 

 would willingly change, if I only knew where to change 

 for the better. All is dull and tasteless. 



" On going over the old fossil ground again, there is 

 much need for enthusiastic steam. The dreams of old 

 will not return. All is in vain. Yet I will try again, 

 yes, with the aid of spectacles. For my eyesight is not 

 so sharp as it once was." 



He again went out to the hills, to gather more ferns. 

 But he had exhausted the subject. " I have overhauled 

 so much of the county before now, that very likely I 

 may find only a repetition of former things. A county 

 holds comparatively few of the British Flora ; and a 

 Northern county fewer than a Southern one. For, 

 however vain dreamers may blow and puff, heat is 



