s condition, situated as he is, who would
not have done the same thing. A child of barely ten years old made
to sing her lungs away for four hours every day, when it is not
possible yet to know what the character and qualities of her voice
will be, or even if she will have any voice at all. Wasting her
health and strength in attempting "The Soldier Tired" and "Di
piacer," it really was pitiful. We gave her plenty of kind words
and compliments, and sundry pieces of advice to him, which he will
not take, and in a few months no doubt we shall hear of little Miss
H---- singing away as a prodigy, and in a few years the voice,
health, and strength will all be gone, and probably the poor little
life itself have been worn out of its fragile case. Stupid
barbarian! After rehearsal drove to Bannisters.... In the evening,
at the theater, the play was "The Provoked Husband." The house was
very full; I played fairly well. I was rather tired, and Lady
Townley's bones ached, for I had been taking a rowing lesson from
Emily, and supplied my want of skill, tyro fashion, with a deal of
unnecessary effort.

_Friday, August 19th._-- ... It sometimes occurs to me that our
spirits, when dwelling with the utmost intensity of longing upon
those who are distant from us, must create in them some perception,
some consciousness of our spiritual presence, so that not by the
absent whom I love thinking of me, but by my thinking of them, they
must receive some intimation of the vividness with which my soul
sees and feels them. It seems to me as if my earnest desire and
thought must not bring those they dwell on to me, but render me in
some way perceptible, if not absolutely visible, to them.

"Though thou see me not pass by,
Thou shalt feel me with thine eye."

I fancy I must create my own image to their senses by the clinging
passion with which my thoughts dwell on them. And yet it would be
rather fearful if one were thus subject, not only to the disordered
action of one's own imagination, but to the ungoverned imaginations
of others; and so, upon the whole, I don't believe people would be
allowed to pester other people with their presence only by dint of
thinking hard enough and long enough about them. It would be
intolerable, and yet I have sometimes fancied I w