Thursday. June 16th
Papa was in very good spirits today at breakfast, most undoubtedly. He told Bro to put the clock half an hour more forward;[1] & this sent my hopes forward .. a little way. Would he think about altering the clock, if it were likely to strike so seldom before we are removed for ever from its sound?? I heard Stormy & Georgie read Homer & Xenophon—as usual,—tho’ I have not yet commemorated them here[2]—& I prepared a part of the first choral ode of the Seven Chiefs for Mr. Boyd. He seemed to wish me to “sound dreadful note of preparation”[3] before I read Æschylus with him in future; as in this way, the benefit to myself is likely to be greater. I looked also at the Greek verbs, which he wishes me to be more accurate about. After all, I am annoyed & discontented & disappointed by Mr. Boyd. He talked so cooly about our leaving Hope End—seemed so little disturbed by it—& that little, more on my account, than his own. I can bear anything from anybody better than coldness from some people—and coldness, coldness, coldness, is what I have to bear from them. If they could communicate a portion of this frigidity to me, they would reconcile me to its existence. The society of that Miss Hurd is as much valued as mine—as much! at least, as much! and yet is it probable or possible that her friendship is like my friendship? Friendship!--the word makes me yearn for the time, the past time, when it was not familiar to my ear!--- Abused & vain word!—
Walked out with Bummy H & A half way down the road & round the walks till I was tired. Sate in the ice house & talked of the garden & all the painful et cœtera. Papa in good spirits at dinner. The wholesale stock of the Biddulphs[4] called half an hour before dinner, but was not unpacked. Henrietta spoke to them at the door!—
On reading what I have written .. I am more that half ashamed of it. I have certainly no reason for accusing Miss Hurd of being as much liked my Mr. B as I am; & if I had the reason, I should be still without the right. And as to coldness— Mr. Boyd used not to be cold to me! Had he been so, I should not have thought him so on Tuesday. The fact is—the greatest regard, far the greatest, is on my side:—or rather the fact is—my disposition is far too exclusive & exacting. Both those facts are operative facts. When will they cease to be so?— Read, as I do every day, seven chapters of Scripture. My heart & mind are not affected by this exercise as they should be—witness what I have written today. I would erase every line of it, could I annihilate the feelings, together with the description of them; but, since I cannot, let the description pass! That Friendship should fade away before my eyes, as Fame did in my poetical vision, is too painful! And that the “skeleton” of Friendship … but I am getting wrong again! Oh I never never should have begun this journal!— No one should write journals, who is not wiser, on a hundred points, than I am! & stronger, on a thousand!--
1. This was the clock in the tower over the entrance to the courtyard at Hope End, which regulated the comings and goings of the whole estate. When the Moulton-Barretts left Hope End, it was sent to Jamaica and installed in the Court-house at Brown’s Town.
2. In a letter of 27 March 1889, to Robert Browning (ms at Eton), George recalled these lessons: “I must add my brother Storm & I received from her all our early lessons in Greek, & that on our appearing in her room, she would at once lay aside her own books, her loved studies, & tolerate in her strong affection, with perhaps only a gentle reproach, our stupidity & ignorance.”
3. Henry V, IV, Prologue, 12–14:
The armourers accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.
4. Mr. Biddulph recorded in his Diary (now in Hereford City Library) that he called at Hope End with three of his daughters. As the Biddulph establishment numbered four sons and five daughters, as well as Mrs. Biddulph, E.B.B. was guilty of a little exaggeration in describing this modest representation as “the wholesale stock of the Biddulphs.”
