"Wrote part of a Tragedy--advanced in Act 1st with 'all deliberate speed.' Bought a blanket. The weather is still muggy as a London May--mist, mizzle, the air replete with Scotticisms, which, though fine in the descriptions of Ossian, are somewhat tiresome in real, prosaic perspective. Politics still mysterious.
"Rode i' the forest--fired pistols--dined. Arrived a packet of books from England and Lombardy--English, Italian, French, and Latin. Read till eight--went out.
"To-day, the post arriving late, did not ride. Read letters--only two gazettes instead of twelve now due. Made Lega write to that negligent Galignani, and added a postscript. Dined.
"At eight proposed to go out. Lega came in with a letter about a bill _unpaid_ at Venice, which I thought paid months ago. I flew into a paroxysm of rage, which almost made me faint. I have not been well ever since. I deserve it for being such a fool--but it _was_ provoking--a set of scoundrels! It is, however, but five and twenty pounds.
"Rode. Winter's wind somewhat more unkind than ingratitude itself, though Shakspeare says otherwise. At least, I am so much more accustomed to meet with ingratitude than the north wind, that I thought the latter the sharper of the two. I had met with both in the course of the twenty-four hours, so could judge.
"Thought of a plan of education for my daughter Allegra, who ought to begin soon with her studies. Wrote a letter--afterwards a postscript. Rather in low spirits--certainly hippish--liver touched--will take a dose of salts.
"I have been reading the Life, by himself and daughter, of Mr. R.L. Edgeworth, the father of _the_ Miss Edgeworth. It is altogether a great name. In 1813, I recollect to have met them in the fashionable world of London (of which I then formed an item, a fraction, the segment of a circle, the unit of a million, the nothing of something) in the assemblies of the hour, and at a breakfast of Sir Humphry and Lady Davy's, to which I was invited for the nonce. I had been the lion of 1812; Miss Edgeworth and Madame de Staël, with 'the Cossack,' towards the end of 1813, were the exhibitions of the succeeding year.
"I thought Edgeworth a fine old fellow, of a clarety, elderly, red complexion, but active, brisk, and endless. He was seventy, but did not look fifty--no, nor forty-eight even. I had seen poor Fitzpatrick not very long before--a man of pleasure, wit, eloquence, all things. He tottered--but still talked like a gentleman, though feebly. Edgeworth bounced about, and talked loud and long; but he seemed neither weakly nor decrepit, and hardly old.