resting myself by
sitting down and lending another aspect of my face to my friend for
his Elijah.

I found, after this experience, no difficulty in understanding the
state of bewildered stupefaction into which the lecturer on
electro-biology had thrown his patients by demanding of them a fixed
attention of mind, look, and attitude to a given point of
contemplation. I think, just before I quite broke down, I could
neither have said where I was, nor who I was, nor contradicted Sir
Frederick Leighton if he had assured me that my name was Polly and
that I was putting the kettle on.]

CLARGES STREET, June, 1844.
DEAREST HARRIET,

I have not a morsel of letter-paper in my writing-book; do not,
therefore, let your first glance take offence at the poor narrow
note-paper, on which our dear friend Emily is forever writing to me, and
which throws me into a small fury every time I get an affectionate
communication from her on it. Our drawing-room has only this instant
emptied itself of a throng of morning visitors, among whom my brother
John and his wife, Mary Anne Thackeray, Dick Pigott, Sydney Smith, and
A---- C----....

My letter has suffered an interruption, dear Harriet; I had to go out
and return all manner of visits, took a walk with Adelaide in Kensington
Gardens, went and dined quietly with M---- M----, and came back at
half-past ten, to find Mr. C---- very quietly established here with my
father and sister....

This is to-morrow, my dear Harriet, and we are all engaged sitting to
Lane, who is making medallion likenesses of us all. John and his wife
together in one sphere, their two little children in another, ---- and I
in one eternity, and our chicks in another, their two little profiles
looking so funny and so pretty, one just behind the other; my father,
my sister, and Henry have each their world to themselves in single
blessedness. The likenesses are all good, and charmingly executed. I
should like to be able to send you mine and my children's, but as he
will accept no remuneration for them, and as time and trouble are the
daily bread of an artist----

Here I was interrupted again, and obliged to put by my letter, which was
begun last Thursday, and it is now Sunday afternoon. Our drawing-room
has just emptied itself of A---- M---- and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Grote,
Mr. H----, young Mr. K---- of Frankfort, and Chorley. Mrs. G