August 26 + 

In bed with a feverish cold. I am afraid I have very few Nat. His. observations to make. It is hard to observe anything at all when lying in bed in a dull bedroom with one small window. Gulls and Starlings pass, steam engines whistle, horses’ feet clatter down the street, and sometimes the voice of a passerby reaches me, and often the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind. I can also hear my own cough echoing through my head, and, by the evening, the few pages of Lubbock’s Ants, Bees, and Wasps which I struggled to get through during the day rattle through my brain till I am disgusted to find I have them by heart. The clock strikes midnight and I wait for the morning. Oh! what a weary world. + 