Sunday, December 18, 1831

 1831 December

Sunday 18

8 50/..

1 10/..

Very rainy stormy night and very wet windy morning – F 56 1/2° now at 9 in my room and 49° at 8 3/4 in the balcony at 9 35/.. – Fair (now at 9 35/..) for the last 3/4 hour or more – Down at 10 – Breakfast and looked at the paper in 3/4 hour –

Miss Hobart down, but not quite well, that I went to church at 10 55/.. alone – our 2 usual clergymen – the one read the whole of the lesson, Isaiah xxx.  (I do not remember having ever heard v. 22 read in any church before), and the other preached dully and affectedly 36 minutes from John vi. 56 – a sacrament sermon –

Home at 1 10/.. .25 minutes downstairs with Miss H-, then came to my room – Had my hair done and mended pens for Miss H- and dawdled over 1 thing or other –

Somehow that heartless talking at of Miss H-’s last night made more impression than I expected or than anything she says ought to make. I thought of it much last night and this morning and at church, and felt myself very little able to do any good there. I fancied I had become so indifferent she could not annoy me much more.  Surely this time is not far off.

How could such a person suit me, even if she would? Lady Gordon must suit better than Miss H-,  who is surely proud and vain and heartless.  If there is anything to be got from her acquaintance, let me have it.  She shall have my profound civility in return. As for regard, keep it for those, whoever they may be, who can appreciate it better or at least offend my feelings less.

Wrote the above of today till 2 35/.. – Just beginning my accounts when Miss H- came to shew me one and a quarter page she had been writing to her aunt, Lady Buckinghamshire, who is angry at Miss H‘-s not having written to her from here. Miss H- was angry at first, said Lady B ought to have written to ask her to write.  It would have been vanity in, her Miss H-, to suppose she would be glad to hear from if she was not told so.  Nonsense.  The letter struck me as being heartless in spite of its wish to be all that was right, but I merely suggested two softening words the sentence was like the following: I don’t wish to exculpate myself. I had no reason for not writing, excepting that I had no reason for writing, if you can understand that reasoning. My two words were ‘of fancying’ inserted after ‘excepting that of fancying I had no reason’ etc.

All this led to several observations. I said she might not perhaps quite understand me.  She had nothing there (pointing to the place of the heart) to respond. She talking of the letter’s being humble. I asked if she ever had in her life done anything really humble, for perhaps humility was not her forte.  She said she could put so much violent heart into everything.  I said no violence was required. She said I had seen a great deal. I denied. She said that was shameful.  I had her own letters, and she could do no more. 

Somehow she got to, she wondered why I had flattered her so.  Could not see what good purpose it could be for.   I said I had flattered her.  Nobody had told her more truth. Oh, she said, the truth only came lately. I combated this, and alluded so that she understood to Dunkirk. I said we did not particularly like those in whom we did not see something to admire, and that I had ventured from selfishness and for my own pleasure, to flatter in the honest consciousness that I should do the contrary when it was deserved. She said she did not like me to think she had no heart. ‘You have formed a sweeping opinion of me, from six weeks, of my present, past, and future conduct’, and on this she left me.  

In my saying before her being angry with me was no matter, she could not possibly make me angry with her, and she had no cause to be angry with me lately, she said she had been so angry that it had never lasted more than a moment. It is nonsense to speculate or I might fancy that, in spite of all, she likes me and if no man comes her way she may in time turn round to me and be a little more genial. But every time I talk to her seriously, it ends in some disagreeable feeling or other. I shall by and by have no remaining fancy for her even if I have now, and then she will be satisfied or mortified.  My present too-little moderation of feeling towards her settled into profoundly civil indifference – Away with her.  Turn my mind and time to more profitable subjects.

Had just done the last 30 lines at 4 5/.. – then till 6 1/2 at accounts – Cameron’s house accounts – stupid enough – Could not easily read her writing. Came to an instance where could not make her account of particulars agree with totals. Found some mistakes.  She cried on my naming this, so having burnt her paper, gave back her book and said she needed not give it me again till I asked for it, meaning not to trouble her much more about it –

Dinner at 7 10/.. in 50 minutes – She sitting on the sofa and seeing the curtains blow about, said I need not ask you to come and sit on the sofa. I merely made some civil remark that the air was indeed very strong. But, said she, you have not sat on the sofa by me for a month. I looked and said quietly, no, you are right. I can tell you the date if you like. Oh no, she did not want to, that my precision would wear her to death.  But she did not know what she had said to produce the change, tho it was a great improvement. I said it was the third time she had had to speak and the third time ought to be enough. Well, she was glad of it. Yes, said I, and you don’t need rejoice with fear and trembling, meaning, as I saw she understood, that there was no fear of my relapsing.

By and by, she wished I was a little more impromptu. Why did I now think so much before I said or did anything? It might seem to me hard to be under so much restraint.  She did not mean all that, she only wanted the beau milieu, adding poor Missy Lister. ‘Oh don’t pity me.  I am going on very well, and feel nearer your beau milieu than I ever was before.’ Yes, said she, I daresay you are, speaking in a tone and manner as if she comprehended my meaning – I had before said I was sorry for having annoyed her by my manner of sitting on the sofa or anything else, but that really it was more thoughtlessness than anything else, or sometimes done out of foolish fun to teaze her –

She seemed rather wishing all the evening to be conciliatory, but she has no longer the knack of making it answer with me, and I sat all the evening reading the newspaper, not taking notice of her or her music save when she spoke to me. The less we talk of her beau milieu etc. the better? It only makes me like her less and my regard for her will be beau milieu enough by and by. Shall I hate her? Pretty ending of our visit at Hastings!

Miss H- not quite well tonight – At the piano most of the evening – Coffee at 8 1/2 – I reading the debates in the Globe almost all the evening – Both came up to bed at 11 – Just wished her goodnight in her room – No attempt at a kiss tonight or the two or three nights before.

Wrote the last 24 lines till 11 55/.. – Great deal of rain during last night – very wet windy  morning till about 8 – then fair – another at 10 – fair when I went to church and for 3 or 4 hours – a little more rain in afternoon and evening, but now at 12, fine moonlight night, rather, but not very, windy and balcony quite dry –

For pity’s sake nor write nor think nor care much more about Miss Hobart

F 64° in my room at 11 1/4 and 48° now at 12 1/2 in the balcony –

Suspicious, proud, vain, heartless or at least to me. Why think of her? –

’Tis 12 35/.. have done nothing since coming to my room at 11 but finish this journal of today and muse!

‘Unaccountable folly’  Miss Hobart’s own words applied to my regard some while ago --

No German tonight.  Miss H- offered it, but I thought I should be stupid – no German last night.

WYAS Finding Numbers  SH:7/ML/E/14/0164 and SH:7/ML/E/14/0165