“I have been all last week at Holly Lodge, doing the only thing that I was capable of, in such intense and continuous heat—sitting out of doors in the shade, with my mouth a-jar to catch the little air that was moving, and ready for talk with anybody that happened to pass by. I did not return till Saturday morning; and, I suppose, I shall soon go back again. I certainly shall, if the weather be as it has been. Yesterday (a sad breach of the Sabbath, but really the day excused it) I gave way to a kind solicitation of Mrs. Disney, and drove out with her from four to six to see if any air could be found on Barnes Common and Putney Heath; for there was none to speak of—a mere sufficiency for the sustenance of a gasping existence—to be had in London. We succeeded in our exertions, and finding a breeze under the shade of a tree on the Barnes road, we stopped the carriage, and sat nearly an hour in the placid enjoyment of it.
“I have done nothing with Miss
Mitford, nor
| THE 'MESSIAH.' | 295 |
“I went to hear the ‘Messiah’ the other night. The music, of course, charmed me; but I had heard it all better sung, with more heart and feeling, in the olden times, in the Hanover Square Rooms. At Exeter Hall the voices are strained, and with all their straining are lost in space.”
