* * * * *
* * * * *
Came to bed in tremendous dudgeon. The few critiques that I have seen upon our acting have been, upon the whole, laudatory. One was sent to me from a paper called The Mirror, which pleased me very much; not because the praise in it was excessive, and far beyond my deserts, but that it was written with great taste and feeling, and was evidently not the produce of a common press-hack. There appeared to me in all the others the true provincial dread of praising too much, and being led into approbation by previous opinions; a sort of jealousy of critical freedom, which, together with the established nil admirari of the press, seems to keep them in a constant dread of being thought enthusiastic. They need not be afraid: enthusiasm may belong to such analyses as Schlegel's or Channing's, but has nothing in common with the paragraphs of a newspaper; the inditers of which, in my poor judgment, seldom go beyond the very threshold of criticism, i. e. the discovery of faults. I am infinitely amused at the extreme curiosity which appears to me to be the besetting sin of the people here. A gentleman whom you know (as for instance, in my case,) very slightly, will sit down by your table during a morning visit, turn over every article upon it, look at the cards of the various people who have called upon you, ask half-a-dozen questions about each of them, as many about your own private concerns; and all this, as though it were a matter of course that you should answer him, which I feel greatly inclined occasionally not to do.
Saturday, 22d.
Rose at eight. After breakfast, dawdled about till near one o'clock: got into a hackney coach[16] with D——, and returned all manner of cards.
* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
Went into a shop to order a pair of shoes. The shopkeepers in this place, with whom I have hitherto had to deal, are either condescendingly familiar, or insolently indifferent in their manner. Your washer woman sits down before you, while you are standing speaking to her; and a shop-boy bringing things for your inspection not only sits down, but keeps his hat on in your drawing-room. The worthy man to whom I went for my shoes was so amazingly ungracious, that at first I thought I would go out of the shop; but recollecting that I should probably only go farther and fare worse, I gulped, sat down, and was measured. All this is bad: it has its origin in a vulgar misapprehension, which confounds ill-breeding with independence, and leads people to fancy that they elevate themselves above their condition by discharging its duties and obligations discourteously.[17]
* * * * *