Tennyson is a regular worker, shuts himself up daily for so many hours.

And we are generally so made that a regular hour is good, even for so uncertain an influence as mesmerism.

But Robert waits for an inclination--works by fits and starts--he can't do otherwise he says.[98] Then reading hurts him.

As long as I have known him he has not been able to read long at a time--he can do it now better than in the beginning of time.

The consequence of which is that he wants occupation and that an active occupation is salvation to him with his irritable nerves, saves him from ruminating bitter cud, and from the process which I call beating his dear head against the wall till it is bruised, simply because he sees a fly there, magnified by his own two eyes almost indefinitely into some Saurian monster.