en from a distance, which defies
discrimination of objects, a thistle is as good as a rose, and in
that enormous frame refinement is mere platitude, and finish of
detail an unnecessary minutia.

We went to the theater to see a new piece, I believe by Mrs.
Norton. The pit and galleries were very indifferent; the dress
circle and private boxes full of fine folk. Lady St. Maur
(Georgiana Sheridan, Mrs. Norton's youngest sister, afterward
Duchess of Somerset and Queen of Beauty) and her husband, with
Corinne and Mr. Norton, in a box opposite ours. What a terrible
piece! what atrocious situations and ferocious circumstances!
tinkering, starving, hanging--like a chapter out of the Newgate
Calendar. But, after all, she's in the right; she has given the
public what they desire, given them what they like. Of course it
made one cry horribly; but then of course one cries when one hears
of people reduced by sheer craving to eat nettles and
cabbage-stalks. Destitution, absolute hunger, cold and nakedness,
are no more subjects for artistic representation than sickness,
disease, and the _real_ details of idiotcy, madness, and death. All
art should be an idealized; elevated representation (not imitation)
of nature; and when beggary and low vice are made the themes of the
dramatist, as in this piece, or of the poet, as in the works of
Crabbe, they seem to me to be clothing their inspirations in wood
or lead, or some base material, instead of gold or ivory. The clay
of the modeler is more _real_, but the marble of the sculptor is
the clay glorified. In Crabbe's writings one has at least the
comfort and consolation of a high moral sense, charming
versification, and an occasional tender, exquisite expression of
the beauties of nature. Our play to-night could not boast of these
_alleviations_.

_Wednesday, June 1st._--At the riding school saw Miss C----, who
wants me to get the play changed at Covent Garden _for this
evening_--"rien que cela!" What a fine thing it is to be "one of
those people!" They fancy that anybody's business of any sort can
be postponed to the first whim that enters their head. My mother
came with Dr. Combe in the carriage to fetch me from the riding
school. At home found a note from Lady Francis and the epilogue
Lord Francis has writt