ough the audience was dull and didn't help me. Mary
and William Harness supped with us....

_Friday, 27th._--A long discussion after breakfast about the
necessity of one's husband being clever. Ma foi je n'en vois pas la
necessite. People don't want to be entertaining each other all day
long; _very_ clever men don't grow on every bush, and _middling_
clever men don't amount to anything. I think I should like to have
married Sir Humphry Davy. A well-assorted marriage, as the French
say, seems to me like a well-arranged duet for four hands; the
treble, the woman, has all the brilliant and melodious part, but
the whole government of the piece, the harmony, is with the base,
which really leads and sustains the whole composition and keeps it
steady, and without which the treble for the most part _runs to
tune_ merely, and wants depth, dignity, and real musical
importance.

In the afternoon went to Lady Dacre's.... She read me the first act
of a little piece she has been writing; while listening to her I
was struck as I never had been before with the great beauty of her
countenance, and its very varied and striking expression.... At
home spent my time in reading Shelley. How wonderful and beautiful
the "Prometheus" is! The unguessed heavens and earth and sea are so
many storehouses from which Shelley brings gorgeous heaps of
treasure and piles them up in words like jewels. I read "The
Sensitive Plant" and "Rosalind and Helen." As for the
latter--powerful enough, certainly--it gives me bodily aches to
read such poetry.

What extraordinary proceedings have been going on in the House of
Commons! Mr. Percival getting up and quoting the Bible, and Mr.
Hunt getting up and answering him by quoting the Bible too. It
seems we are to have a general fast--on account of the general
national misconduct, I suppose; serve us right.

_Sunday, 29th._--Went into my mother's room before going to church.
Henry Greville has sent her Victor Hugo's new book, "Notre Dame de
Paris," but she appears half undetermined whether she will go on
reading it or not, it is so painfully exciting. I took Mrs.
Montague up in the carriage on my way to church, and after service
drove her home, and went up to see Mrs. Procter, and found baby
(Adelaide Procter) at dinner. That chil