" [1]
At least, even here, my hand would tremble to write it. This afternoon I
have burnt the scenes of my commenced comedy. I have some idea of
expectorating a romance, or rather a tale in prose;--but what romance
could equal the events:
"quaeque ipse......vidi,
Et quorum pars magna fui." [2]
To-day Henry Byron [3] called on me with my little cousin Eliza. She
will grow up a beauty and a plague; but, in the mean time, it is the
prettiest child! dark eyes and eyelashes, black and long as the wing of
a raven. I think she is prettier even than my niece, Georgina,--yet I
don't like to think so neither: and though older, she is not so clever.
Dallas called before I was up, so we did not meet. Lewis [4], too,--who
seems out of humour with every thing.
What can be the matter? he is not married--has he lost his own mistress,
or any other person's wife? Hodgson, too, came. He is going to be
married, and he is the kind of man who will be the happier. He has
talent, cheerfulness, every thing that can make him a pleasing
companion; and his intended is handsome and young, and all that. But I
never see any one much improved by matrimony. All my coupled
contemporaries are bald and discontented. W[ordsworth] and S[outhey]
have both lost their hair and good humour; and the last of the two had a
good deal to lose. But it don't much signify what falls _off_ a man's
temples in that state.
Mem. I must get a toy to-morrow for Eliza, and send the device for the
seals of myself and----Mem.
Pages:
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429