“Thursday, November 26.

“Awoke a little feverish, but no headach—­no dreams neither, thanks to stupor!  Two letters; one from * * * ’s, the other from Lady Melbourne—­both excellent in their respective styles. * * ’s contained also a very pretty lyric on ‘concealed griefs;’ if not her own, yet very like her.  Why did she not say that the stanzas were, or were not, of her composition?  I do not know whether to wish them hers or not.  I have no great esteem for poetical persons, particularly women; they have so much of the ‘ideal’ in _practics_, as well as _ethics_.

“I have been thinking lately a good deal of Mary Duff, &c. &c. &c. &c.[96]

“Lord Holland invited me to dinner to-day; but three days’ dining would destroy me.  So, without eating at all since yesterday, I went to my box at Covent Garden.

“Saw * * * * looking very pretty, though quite a different style of beauty from the other two.  She has the finest eyes in the world, out of which she pretends not to see, and the longest eyelashes I ever saw, since Leila’s and Phannio’s Moslem curtains of the light.  She has much beauty,—­just enough,—­but is, I think, mechante.

“I have been pondering on the miseries of separation, that—­oh how seldom we see those we love! yet we live ages in moments, when met.  The only thing that consoles me during absence is the reflection that no mental or personal estrangement, from ennui or disagreement, can take place; and when people meet hereafter, even though many changes may have taken place in the mean time, still, unless they are tired of each other, they are ready to reunite, and do not blame each other for the circumstances that severed them.

[Footnote 96:  This passage has been already extracted.]

“Saturday 27. (I believe—­or rather am in doubt, which is the ne plus ultra of mortal faith.)

“I have missed a day; and, as the Irishman said, or Joe Miller says for him, ‘have gained a loss,’ or by the loss.  Every thing is settled for Holland, and nothing but a cough, or a caprice of my fellow-traveller’s, can stop us.  Carriage ordered, funds prepared, and, probably, a gale of wind into the bargain. N’importe—­I believe, with Clym o’ the Clow, or Robin Hood, ’By our Mary, (dear name!) that art both Mother and May, I think it never was a man’s lot to die before this day.’  Heigh for Helvoetsluys, and so forth!

“To-night I went with young Henry Fox to see ‘Nourjahad,’ a drama, which the Morning Post hath laid to my charge, but of which I cannot even guess the author.  I wonder what they will next inflict upon me.  They cannot well sink below a melodrama; but that is better than a Satire, (at least, a personal one,) with which I stand truly arraigned, and in atonement of which I am resolved to bear silently all criticisms, abuses, and even praises, for bad pantomimes never composed by me, without even a contradictory aspect.  I suppose the root of this report is my loan to the manager of my Turkish drawings for his dresses, to which he was more welcome than to my name.  I suppose the real author will soon own it, as it has succeeded; if not, Job be my model, and Lethe my beverage!