Thursday, March 15, 1832

 1832 March

Thursday 15

9 1/2

12 20/..

Incurred a cross last night thinking of Mariana and Miss Hobart.

Finish morning, F 58 1/2° at 10 in my room and 47° at 10 35/.. in the balcony –

Breakfast at 10 40/.. – Came to my room at 11 3/4 – 1/2 hour skimming over the newspaper – She gave me her cheek to kiss, then said, Oh, you do not kiss it.  I did it immediately, saying, you know you have kissed me the last two or three days.  I always follow the precedent.  I did not want it, said she.  You know I always do as you tell me, said I.  She answered, that is very fine indeed.

Speaking of walking, said I should take a long walk some day to Battle or Winchelsea. ‘You know we go to Battle together next Monday.’ I merely said, what is today?

Miss H- mentioned the Ladies’ Club begun many many years ago in London which failed immediately, as did also the Club for Ladies and Gentlemen.  The ladies all got to loggerheads –  Then, speaking of ladies fighting, laughed and said I would learn to box.  Then, said Miss H-, I will not go to Italy.  I took no notice, and she added,  For in the same carriage too, I should be boxed. You know, said I quietly, we are to have two carriages and I cannot therefore box you through the panels.  What then, said she, are we to be divorced?  I made no regular answer but turned to something else.  

She somehow afterwards found occasion to say she gave me pain interiorly though not apparently.  Oh no, said I civilly. Not at all.  Don’t think so.  I was glad of the opportunity of referring to two carriages.   I see I shall really care comfortably about her by and by.  She will find this last humour suit her jeu and chandelle less well than any she had the difficulty to manage before.  Worse than the douceurs.  

She evidently wishes to be conciliatory.  Gave me her brother Augustus’s letter she had just had to read, and read me much from her friend Miss Colville’s three full half sheets.  She seriously asked me to give her a seal with who cares en gothique.   She wanted the two words in two lines.  I said they should be encircle all the letters equidistant. To be done in Paris.  She wants Strongitharm to do it.  

Well, enough of her – ’tis 12 50/.. – Have just had the man about the cloth – Will take the 7/8 wide piece I had from London (at 3/. a yard) at 2/. a yard –  Mr. Stuart went this morning at 8 per little van –

From 1 40/.. to 4 (in the meantime had Miss H- and Cameron about the buying or rather exchanging cloth), wrote 3 pages and long ends and under the seal to Mariana. 

Dare not expect your coming to London – ‘It would be a great comfort to me to see you tho’ but for a day – I have thought again and again of Lawton and Leamington, and begin to be in despair about both these – In fact, as I told you in my last, Miss H- has not been quite so well lately; and I now find myself obliged to remain here longer than I intended, which will rather derange what I had before thought of, and end, perhaps, in my going to Dover direct from here –

I have been weighing what you say about the difficulty of your setting off from home, and am free to confess, I have more strength of wishes than arguments to urge against you – your coming to London would be beautiful, but I dare not think of it’ –  I do not like the cholera in London – the less from feeling that Hastings has relaxed me exceedingly, and that I am now far less than usual able to stand against contagion or epidemic, or anything else’ –

Impatient to get back to Paris -- ....‘The more I think of it, the more I incline to being off as soon as I can, and going as fast as I can – But I see, I cannot leave here before the end of next month or nearly thereabouts – If I do not see you, I shall feel as if I had been abroad all the winter – However I somehow or other count upon being over soon again –

I have not seen, nor am I likely to see you comfortably this time of my being in England – and our Dutch journey was too hurried for social comfort – The Shibden business has deranged me altogether; and what with this and the excessive languor I feel here (of which do not breathe one syllable to anyone), I am rather out of sorts – I seem as if I had no energy left – I have been unusually bilious too, and had cold upon cold till at last I feel quite tired of it, and, at this moment, as I write, I think I have made up my mind for Dover direct, and Paris au grand galop –

I shall patronize Hastings from a variety of plausible motives, – pretty little town, beautiful country – but I do not like it for myself – I have done nothing, and can do nothing but think of your 3 Lords of ?’ –

Sorry for her pother about little Mariana’s changing her school. ‘At last I have made out the account I mentioned a letter or 2 ago, and find, on the 1st January this year there was a balance of £151.14.7 in your favor without counting any interest from 1st January 1829, that is for the last 3 years – Do you want any part of this? Do not hesitate a moment about saying so, if you do – I can easily send you a fifty-pounds note, or more if you are at all inconvenienced by this tiresome change of school –

I pity poor Lord Seagrave’ (has looked or been the same since Miss Foote’s marriage) ‘turning off an old love never answers’ –

Wrote the last 27 lines till 4 25/.. – then till 6 1/4 inking over Dutch Journal. Sent off at 6 my letter to ‘Mrs. Lawton, Lawton hall, Lawton Cheshire’ – Dressed – Dinner at 6 3/4 in 3/4 hour – Talking politics – Coffee at 8 – Played and won 2 hits at backgammon – From 10 to 11 read aloud from page 134 to the end of Chapter 53, and the 1st 8 pages, Chapter 54, as far as page 174, Volume X, Gibbon –

Came upstairs at 11 10/.. and to my room at 11 1/4.  In particularly good spirits, but quite at my ease and never cared so really little about her.  She rated me a little about Gibbon, and while I defended my[self] too well, she was getting cross, but told me to stop.  I did so without effort and read on then.  Said afterwards I always read well and spoke well.  She gave first one cheek then the other to kiss –

Finish day – F 60° at 11 1/4 in my room and 42° at 12 in the balcony and fine moonlight night –

WYAS Finding Number SH:7/ML/E/15/0040