Emmy, don’t you know what I mean? But when anything one loves is unhappy, it seems more particularly to belong to one.
He comes to us the 11th, for a few days, which I look to with some anxiety, after that taste, or rather distaste, we had of each other in London.
I am looking about for a conveyance to Town, because I want to buy a hat; at present I am all shaven and shorn, and shall be reduced to wear a paper cap, if I don’t take care.
I am obliged to write with this pen, which is like a Chinese chop stick, because I am in Aunt’s room, and she is asleep, and I dare not begin that quick rustle, which disturbs and wakes a Patient as much as the roar of a cannon, and which would be unavoidable in a hunt for quill or knife; as it is I have some trouble to keep the paper from crackling, and the few books d’alentour from throwing themselves head-long off the table, which is the way of all books the moment one drops asleep.
I have had sad fits of low spirits. Spring makes one languid to a degree, that the air is a weight upon one.
The Assizes were delightful. I don’t think it right to carve out futurity for oneself, or else I really think I should like never to marry anybody who does not wear a Lawyer’s Wig. It is proper, it adorneth the outward and visible man; those thin terrier faces, those hollow cheeks and deep eyes, are precious and lovely.
I was amused at the younglings, whose callow smooth faces look all the younger for the wig. Seriously, the interest of the most important cases to me was inexpressible. It is the reality which presses on one’s heart, and makes an impression far deeper than the utmost stretch of imaginary sorrow can ever produce.
I have seen no creature, and have established my character Bearish in the neighbourhood, so they are content to let me alone....
Mr. Peel[94] could not help marrying that girl who is silly; those things fit, and are so far satisfactory they establish some sort of system in the goings on of the world, and give body to speculation. Wise men love fools.
I had done writing, and then as usual a whole heap of things came lumbering about my head. I had a high letter from poor Eliza Fitz.[95] She has given up her dearest hopes on earth, and if she should be obliged to marry any one else, miserable, wretched, homeless, she trusts she will do her duty and be a good wife; that’s the résumé of four criss-cross sheets of paper. I wrote her a very reasonable letter to comfort her, for she is painfully ashamed of herself, poor girl, and there is no use in that, so I turned her over to the bright side. She has only fallen in that common error of whipping up her feelings with words, and they never can keep pace even, one will always be before the other.