On the other side
were only Pauline and _her_ mother, and, next box to her, three of
inferior note. Now, where lay the difference between _her_ and _mamma_,
and Lady----and daughter? except that the two last may enter Carleton
and any _other house_, and the two first are limited to the opera and
b----house. How I do delight in observing life as it really is!--and
myself, after all, the worst of any. But no matter--I must avoid
egotism, which, just now, would be no vanity.
I have lately written a wild, rambling, unfinished rhapsody, called
"_The Devil's Drive_" the notion of which I took from Person's "_Devil's
Walk_." [2]
Redde some Italian, and wrote two Sonnets on----. I never wrote but one
sonnet before, and that was not in earnest, and many years ago, as an
exercise--and I will never write another. They are the most puling,
petrifying, stupidly platonic compositions. I detest the Petrarch so
much, that I would not be the man even to have obtained his Laura, which
the metaphysical, whining dotard never could.
[Footnote 1: "These names are all left blank in the original" (Moore).]
[Footnote 2: Richard Person did not write 'The Devil's Walk', which was
written by Coleridge and Southey, and published in the 'Morning Post'
for September 6, 1799, under the title of 'The Devil's Thoughts'.]
* * * * *
January 16, 1814.
To-morrow I leave town for a few days. I saw Lewis to-day, who is just
returned from Oatlands, where he has been squabbling with Mad.
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