Page:Studies of a Biographer 1.djvu/145

 part in them, and worships the heroes. To his own fancy he was a kind of Hamlet. He explains to Paoli, as he had already explained to Mitchell, that he had 'intensely applied himself to metaphysical research,' and got 'beyond his depth.' He had thus become for ever incapable of taking a part in active life. He was proud, as we know, of his hypochondria; and though he frankly confesses to less refined causes of most of his fits, he always cherishes the belief that they imply a philosophical temperament. He delights in supposing himself to be puzzling over the problems of fate and freewill. But he has not the courage to be a thorough sceptic or pessimist. At bottom, he feels the world to be infinitely too enjoyable to admit of a gloomy solution; and so his real solace is in day-dreaming. He is always in imagination overcoming his difficulties and rising to fame and fortune. In a very characteristic letter (in 1789), he explains all his troubles: Pitt had been 'ill-advised enough' not to patronise a 'man of my popular and pleasant talents.' His wife was dying; his property embarrassed; and he was induced to adopt Johnson's melancholy view of the vanity of human wishes. And yet he is still full of 'projects to