Let it--I only wish the _pain_ over. The "leap in the dark" is
the least to be dreaded.
The Duke of----called. I have told them forty times that, except to
half-a-dozen old and specified acquaintances, I am invisible. His Grace
is a good, noble, ducal person; but I am content to think so at a
distance, and so--I was not at home.
Galt called.--Mem.--to ask some one to speak to Raymond in favour of his
play. We are old fellow-travellers, and, with all his eccentricities, he
has much strong sense, experience of the world, and is, as far as I have
seen, a good-natured philosophical fellow. I showed him Sligo's letter
on the reports of the Turkish girl's _aventure_ at Athens soon after it
happened. He and Lord Holland, Lewis, and Moore, and Rogers, and Lady
Melbourne have seen it. Murray has a copy. I thought it had been
_unknown_, and wish it were; but Sligo arrived only some days after, and
the _rumours_ are the subject of his letter. That I shall preserve,--_it
is as well_. Lewis and Gait were both _horrified_; and L. wondered I did
not introduce the situation into _The Giaour_. He _may_ wonder;--he
might wonder more at that production's being written at all. But to
describe the _feelings_ of _that situation_ were impossible--it is _icy_
even to recollect them.
The _Bride of Abydos_ was published on Thursday the second of December;
but how it is liked or disliked, I know not. Whether it succeeds or not
is no fault of the public, against whom I can have no complaint.
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