“Awoke a little feverish, but no headache—no dreams neither, thanks to stupor! Two letters, one from * * * *, the other from Lady Melbourne—both excellent in their respective styles. * * * *’s contained also a very pretty lyric on ‘concealed griefs’—if not her own, yet very like her. Why did she not say that the stanzas were, or 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 practice, as well as ethics.
“I have been thinking lately a good deal of Mary Duff, &c. &c. &c. &c.*
“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, méchante.
“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. * * * *
