Saturday. Oct. 22.
I have written a brief account of my visit my happy visit, my last visit—perhaps! to Malvern, because not having my Diary with me, I was obliged to trust my memory. I have been writing to Mr. Boyd this morning.[1] My note to him may be too expressive of regard!! As his letters to me express actually none, I have often resolved to ice mine over also; but I dont know how it is—the frost scarcely begins, when a ray of sunshine melts it all away!— I wish I had told him of my having written for the Gregory. They hurried me so while I wrote, that I had no time to consider anything; & now there is no use in reconsidering anything! I addressed two lines to Mrs. Boyd in the envelope. I hope she wont think it is too little. My letter to Mr. Boyd began “my dearest friend”. How will his begin to me? Lord Byron used to make “much ado about nothing” when his friends addressed him as only “my dear Byron”.[2] Lord Byron was at school then,—& I am not at school!— Well! I cannot help it! The probability, after all, is that a certain person will write no kind of letter to me!—
I am reading Amadis of Gaul. The conceit of the old knight’s garland half fresh & half withered, is a very pretty one—& may be put to use.[3]
1. For the letter, see BC, 2, 328–329.
2. Thomas Moore’s Letters and Journals, ed. cit., I, 50: “There are … some curious proofs of the passionate and jealous sensibility of Byron .... We collect that he had taken offence at his young friend’s addressing him ‘my dear Byron,’ instead of ‘my dearest.’”
3. In Robert Southey’s version of Vasco Lobeira’s epic (4 vols., London, 1803); the garland was “of flowers, the half whereof were as beautiful and fresh as though they had just been cut from the living stem; the other half so withered and dry, that it seemed they would crumble at a touch. … When this garland of flowers shall be set upon the head of that Lady or Damsel, that with the same surpassing love doth love her husband or friend, the dry flowers shall again become fresh and green” (II, 216).
