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 panto