a
dumpy Artaxerxes, which is an impertinent remark for me to make;
she has a beautiful contralto voice. The opera went off
brilliantly, and after it the audience called for "God Save the
King," which was performed. Paganini was in the box opposite to us;
what a cadaverous-looking creature he is! Came home and saw my
father, and gave him the report of Miss Sheriff's success....

_Friday, December 2d._-- ... I went to see Cecilia Siddons; I
thought her looking aged and thin, and Mrs. Wilkinson (Mrs.
Siddons's companion for many years previous to her death) looking
sad and ill too. They have both lost the one idea of their whole
lives.

_Saturday, 3d._-- ... It seems the doctors recommend my father's
going to Brighton. I was urging him to do so this morning.... After
tea I looked on the map for Rhodez, the scene of that horrible
Fualdes tragedy (a murder the commission of which involved some
singular and terribly dramatic incidents). I read Daru's "History
of Venice" till bedtime.

_Sunday, December 4th._-- ... My father, for the first time this
fortnight, was able to dine with us. After dinner I read the whole
trial of Bishop and Williams, and their confession. My mother is
reading aloud to us Lord Edward Fitzgerald's Life.

GREAT RUSSELL STREET, December 4, 1831.
DEAR H----,

It is at the sensible hour of a quarter-past twelve at night that I
begin this immense sheet of paper, and with the sensible purpose of
filling it before I go to bed.... What an unsatisfactory invention
letter-writing is, to be sure; and yet there is none better for the
purpose. When you asked me so affectionately in your letter whether
I was going to bed, I concluded naturally that you were writing to
me instead of doing so yourself; but I received the letter at
half-past nine in the morning, when I was getting ready to ride.
This sort of epistolary cross-questions and crooked answers is
sometimes droll, but oftener sad: we weep with those who did weep,
when they have dried their eyes; and rejoice with those who did
rejoice, but the corners of whose mouths are already drawn down for
crying, while we fancy we are smiling sympathetically with them....
You ask me how the world goes with me, and I can only say round, as
I suppose i