"After dinner we played at capping verses, and after that at a game in which one of the party thinks of something for the others to guess at. Tom gave the slug that killed Perceval, the lemon that Wilkes squeezed for Doctor Johnson, the pork-chop which Thurtell ate after he had murdered Weare, and Sir Charles Macarthy's jaw which was sent by the Ashantees as a present to George the Fourth.
"Some one mentioned an acquaintance who had gone to the West Indies, hoping to make money, but had only ruined the complexions of his daughters. Tom said:
Mr. Walker was sent to Berbice
By the greatest of statesmen and earls.
He went to bring back yellow boys,
But he only brought back yellow girls.
"I never saw anything like the fun and humour that kindles in his eye when a repartee or verse is working in his brain.
"March 3, 1831.—Yesterday morning Hannah and I walked part of the way to his chambers with Tom, and, as we separated, I remember wishing him good luck and success that night. He went through it most triumphantly, and called down upon himself admiration enough to satisfy even his sister. I like so much the manner in which he receives compliments. He does not pretend to be indifferent, but smiles in his kind and animated way, with 'I am sure it is very kind of you to say so,' or something of that nature. His voice from cold and over-excitement got quite into a scream towards the last part. A person told him that he had not heard such speaking since Fox. 'You have not heard such screaming since Fox,' he said.
"March 24, 1831.—By Tom's account, there never was such a scene of agitation as the House of Commons presented at the passing of the second reading of the Reform Bill the day before yesterday, or rather yesterday, for they did not divide till three or four in the morning. When dear Tom came the next day he was still very much excited, which I found to my cost, for when I went out to walk with him he walked so very fast that I could scarcely keep up with him at all. With sparkling eyes he described the whole scene of the preceding evening in the most graphic manner.
"'I suppose the Ministers are all in high spirits,' said Mamma. 'In spirits, Ma'am? I'm sure I don't know. In bed, I'll answer for it.' Mamma asked him for franks, that she might send his speech to a lady [This lady was Mrs. Hannah More.] who, though of high Tory principles, is very fond of Tom, and has left him in her will her valuable library. 'Oh, no,' he said, 'don't send it. If you do, she'll cut me off with a prayer-book.'
"Tom is very much improved in his appearance during the last two or three years. His figure is not so bad for a man of thirty as for a man of twenty-two. He dresses better, and his manners, from seeing a great deal of society, are very much improved. When silent and occupied in thought, walking up and down the room as he always does, his hands clenched and muscles working with the intense exertion of his mind, strangers would think his countenance stern; but I remember a writing-master of ours, when Tom had come into the room and left it again, saying, 'Ladies, your brother looks like a lump of good-humour!'
"March 30, 1831—Tom has just left me, after a very interesting conversation. He spoke of his extreme idleness. He said: 'I never knew such an idle man as I am. When I go in to Empson or Ellis their tables are always covered with books and papers. I cannot stick at anything for above a day or two. I mustered industry enough to teach myself Italian. I wish to speak Spanish. I know I could master the difficulties in a week, and read any book in the language at the end of a month, but I have not the courage to attempt it. If there had not been really something in me, idleness would have ruined me.'
"I said that I was surprised at the great accuracy of his information, considering how desultory his reading had been. 'My accuracy as to facts,' he said, 'I owe to a cause which many men would not confess. It is due to my love of castle-building. The past is in my mind soon constructed into a romance.' He then went on to describe the way in which from his childhood his imagination had been filled by the study of history. 'With a person of my turn,' he said, 'the minute touches are of as great interest, and perhaps greater, than the most important events. Spending so much time as I do in solitude, my mind would have rusted by gazing vacantly at the shop windows. As it is, I am no sooner in the streets than I am in Greece, in Rome, in the midst of the French Revolution. Precision in dates, the day or hour in which a man was born or died, becomes absolutely necessary. A slight fact, a sentence, a word, are of importance in my romance. Pepys's Diary formed almost inexhaustible food for my fancy. I seem to know every inch of Whitehall. I go in at Hans Holbein's gate, and come out through the matted gallery. The conversations which I compose between great people of the time are long, and sufficiently animated; in the style, if not with the merits, of Sir Walter Scott's. The old parts of London, which you are sometimes surprised at my knowing so well, those old gates and houses down by the river, have all played their part in my stories.' He spoke, too, of the manner in which he used to wander about Paris, weaving tales of the Revolution, and he thought that he owed his command of language greatly to this habit.