f
temporary expediency; that which serves a momentary purpose is all
they consider. But it stands to reason that if they make me play
parts in which I must fail, my London popularity must decrease, and
with it my provincial profits; and that, of course, is a serious
thing. In short, dear H----, where success means bread and butter,
failure means dry bread, or none; and I hate the last, I believe,
less than the first, though, as I never tried starvation, perhaps
dry bread is nicer....

The excitement about the Bill is rising instead of subsiding. The
shops are all shut, and the people meeting in every direction; the
windows of Apsley House have been smashed, and Wellington's statue
(the Achilles in the Park) pelted and threatened to be pulled down.
They say that Nottingham and Belvoir Castles are burnt down. All
this is bad, and bodes, I fear, worse. Good-by, dear.

Your affectionate
F. A. K.

_Thursday, August 22d._--I read some of "Cibber's Lives." I should
like to read a well-written French life of Alin Chartier, Louis
XI.'s ugly secretary, whose mouth Queen Margaret kissed while he
was sleeping, "parce qu'elle avait dit de si belles choses." In the
life, or rather the death, of Sackville, he notes his sitting up
till eleven at night as a manifest waste of human existence. It is
near two in the morning as I am now writing, but people's notions
change as to time as well as other things. We don't dine at twelve
any more. Macdonald, the sculptor, dined with us; I like him for
dear Scotland's sake, and the blessed time I passed there. After
the gentlemen came up into the drawing-room, Nourrit, the great
French tenor, sang delightfully for us; Adelaide sang and played,
and Nourrit made her try a charming duet from the "Dame Blanche,"
which I accompanied, and was frightened to death for self and
sister. Macdonald wants to make a statue of me in "The Grecian
Daughter," at the moment of veiling the face: he is right. An
interval of some time elapsed, in which I did not keep my journal
regularly. I had a long visit from my friend Miss S----. The
lawsuit about the theater continued, the affairs of the concern
becoming more and more involved in difficulties every day; and