Such habits, I say, sir or madam, if you have had to note in your diary of ’61, I have not the slightest doubt you will enter in your pocket-book of ’62.  There are habits Nos. 4 and 7, for example.  I am morally sure that some of us will not give up those bad customs, though the women cry out and grumble, and scold ever so justly.  There are habits Nos. 9 and 13.  I feel perfectly certain, my dear young ladies, that you will continue to keep John Coachman waiting; that you will continue to give the most satisfactory reasons for keeping him waiting:  and as for (9), you will show that you once (on the 1st of April last, let us say,) came to breakfast first, and that you are always first in consequence.

Yes; in our ’62 diaries, I fear we may all of us make some of the ’61 entries.  There is my friend Freehand, for instance. (Aha!  Master Freehand, how you will laugh to find yourself here!) F. is in the habit of spending a little, ever so little, more than his income.  He shows you how Mrs. Freehand works, and works (and indeed Jack Freehand, if you say she is an angel, you don’t say too much of her); how they toil, and how they mend, and patch, and pinch; and how they can’t live on their means.  And I very much fear—­nay, I will bet him half a bottle of Gladstone 14s. per dozen claret—­that the account which is a little on the wrong side this year, will be a little on the wrong side in the next ensuing year of grace.

A diary.  Dies.  Hodie.  How queer to read are some of the entries in the journal!  Here are the records of dinners eaten, and gone the way of flesh.  The lights burn blue somehow, and we sit before the ghosts of victuals.  Hark at the dead jokes resurging!  Memory greets them with the ghost of a smile.  Here are the lists of the individuals who have dined at your own humble table.  The agonies endured before and during those entertainments are renewed, and smart again.  What a failure that special grand dinner was!  How those dreadful occasional waiters did break the old china!  What a dismal hash poor Mary, the cook, made of the French dish which she would try out of Francatelli!  How angry Mrs. Pope was at not going down to dinner before Mrs. Bishop!  How Trimalchio sneered at your absurd attempt to give a feast; and Harpagon cried out at your extravagance and ostentation!  How Lady Almack bullied the other ladies in the drawing-room (when no gentlemen were present):  never asked you back to dinner again:  left her card by her footman:  and took not the slightest notice of your wife and daughters at Lady Hustleby’s assembly!  On the other hand, how easy, cozy, merry, comfortable, those little dinners were; got up at one or two days’ notice; when everybody was contented; the soup as clear as amber; the wine as good as Trimalchio’s own; and the people kept their carriages waiting, and would not go away until midnight!