t I might not see
how we heaved, and sang that I might not think how sick I was: and
so we reached shore, and I ran up and down the steep beach while
the rest were disembarking, and the wind soon dried my light muslin
clothes. The other poor things continued drenched till we reached
home. After a good rest, we went to our dinner at Mr. W----'s; my
father was all right again, and our party, that had separated in
such dismal plight, met again very pleasantly in the evening. Mr.
W---- got quite tipsy with talking, an accident not uncommon with
eager, excitable men, and all but overwhelmed me with an argument
about dramatic writing, in which he was wrong from beginning to
end.... We leave Plymouth to-morrow.

_Sunday, August 7th._--Started for Exeter at seven, and slept
nearly the whole way by little bits; between each nap getting
glimpses of the pleasant land that blended for a moment with my
hazy, dream-like thoughts, and then faded away before my closing
eyes. One patch of moorland that I woke to see was lovely--all
purple heather and golden gorse; nature's royal mantle thrown, it
is true, over a barren soil, whose gray, cold, rifted ridges of
rock contrasted beautifully with its splendid clothing. We got to
Exeter at two o'clock, and I was thankful to rest the rest of the
day.

_Monday, August 8th._--I read old Biagio's preface to Dante, which,
from its amazing classicality, is almost as difficult as the
crabbed old Florentine's own writing. Worked at a rather elaborate
sketch tolerably successfully, and was charmingly interrupted by
having our landlady's pretty little child brought in to me. She is
a beautiful baby, but will be troublesome enough by and by.... At
the theater the house was very good; I played tolerably well upon
the whole, but felt so fagged and faint toward the end of the play
that I could hardly stand.

_Tuesday, August 9th._--I sometimes wish I was a stone, a tree,
some senseless, soulless, irresponsible thing; that ebbing sea
rolling before me, its restlessness is obedience to the law of its
nature, not striving against it, neither is it "the miserable life
in it" urging it to ceaseless turmoil and agitation. We dined
early, and then started for Dorchester, which we reached at
half-past ten, after a most fatiguing