The Emperor dined with us to-day; it was long since we had enjoyed his company. After dinner he read to us Florian’s novel of Claudine, and some extracts from Paul and Virginia, a work which he says he is very fond of, on account of early recollections.
The Adamant transport has arrived. This vessel a short time ago missed the island. She formed part of a convoy, the remainder of which arrived nearly a month back. These ships brought the famous wooden palace, accounts of which have filled all the newspapers in England, and probably in Europe; and also the furniture, about which the papers have also made a great parade. The wooden palace proved to be nothing more than a number of rough planks, which no one knows how to put together at St. Helena, and which it would require several years to fit up. The splendour of the other articles was of course well suited to our situation. Ostentation, pomp, and luxury, were for Europe; truth and wretchedness for St. Helena.
7th.—The Governor came to Longwood about four o’clock, and went over the establishment without asking to see any one. His ill-humour was visibly increased, his manners had become fierce and brutal.
About five o’clock the Emperor sent for me; the Grand Marshal had been with him for some time. When he went away, the Emperor began to talk with me upon literature; and we reviewed almost every epic poem, ancient and modern. When conversing on the Iliad, he took up an edition of Homer, and read aloud several cantos. The Emperor greatly admired the Iliad. “It was,” he said, "like the Books of Moses, the token and the pledge of the age in which it was produced. Homer, in his epic poem, has proved himself a poet, an orator, an historian, a legislator, a geographer, and a theologist. He may be justly called the encyclopedist of the period in which he flourished.”
The Emperor considered Homer inimitable. Father Hardouin had ventured to question the authenticity of of the Iliad, and to attribute that sacred monument of antiquity to a monk of the tenth century. This the Emperor said was perfect absurdity. He added that he had never been so struck with the beauties of the Iliad as at that very moment; and that the sensations with which it then inspired him fully convinced him of the justice of the universal approbation bestowed on it. One thing which particularly struck him, he observed, was the combination of rudeness of manners with refinement of ideas. Heroes were described killing animals for their food, cooking their meat with their own hands, and yet delivering speeches distinguished for singular eloquence and denoting a high degree of civilization.