"Grillparzer is grand--antique--_not so simple_ as the ancients, but very simple for a modern--too Madame de Staël_ish_, now and then--but altogether a great and goodly writer.
"Sketched the outline and Drams. Pers. of an intended tragedy of Sardanapalus, which I have for some time meditated. Took the names from Diodorus Siculus, (I know the history of Sardanapalus, and have known it since I was twelve years old,) and read over a passage in the ninth vol. octavo, of Mitford's Greece, where he rather vindicates the memory of this last of the Assyrians.
"Dined--news come--the _Powers_ mean to war with the peoples. The intelligence seems positive--let it be so--they will be beaten in the end. The king-times are fast finishing. There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist; but the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I foresee it.
"I carried Teresa the Italian translation of Grillparzer's Sappho, which she promises to read. She quarrelled with me, because I said that love was _not the loftiest_ theme for true tragedy; and, having the advantage of her native language, and natural female eloquence, she overcame my fewer arguments. I believe she was right. I must put more love into 'Sardanapalus' than I intended. I speak, of course, _if_ the times will allow me leisure. That _if_ will hardly be a peace-maker.
"Turned over Seneca's tragedies. Wrote the opening lines of the intended tragedy of Sardanapalus. Rode out some miles into the forest. Misty and rainy. Returned--dined--wrote some more of my tragedy.
"Read Diodorus Siculus--turned over Seneca, and some other books. Wrote some more of the tragedy. Took a glass of grog. After having ridden hard in rainy weather, and scribbled, and scribbled again, the spirits (at least mine) need a little exhilaration, and I don't like laudanum now as I used to do. So I have mixed a glass of strong waters and single waters, which I shall now proceed to empty. Therefore and thereunto I conclude this day's diary.
"The effect of all wines and spirits upon me is, however, strange. It _settles_, but it makes me gloomy--gloomy at the very moment of their effect, and not gay hardly ever. But it composes for a time, though sullenly.
