Thursday June 23d.

At breakfast this morning, Bummy proposed that I shd. go to see Mr. Boyd in the evening. But I would not do it—Eliza Cliffe was to go!— Henrietta exclaimed “This is the first time I ever heard Ba refuse to go to see Mr. Boyd”. “Ah!” but Bummy responded—“remember the reason!”— I wonder if she will propose my going tomorrow. If she does, I will go!--- And I wd. not go tomorrow or any day if I did not believe in my heart that he really does like to have me with him. Read as usual .. and wrote a long letter to Papa. A long & cheerful letter without one allusion to the subject. At about six B H A & I went out to take a walk. We walked up coome hill[1] & sate down nearly at the summit, & tried our fate by daisies—“il aime—un peu—beaucoup—point du tout”!— And there are the degrees of my philosophy—un peu—beaucoup—point du tout!!! Bummy mentioned the Malvern subject again; proposed that I shd. go there tomorrow, & that Gent[2] shd. drive me. I am to go!—. We drank tea at eight o’clock, & Bro read the debates to us afterwards.[3] I irrepressibly sleepy; & they,—the debates, not the company,—inexpressibly dull. How much happier I am in having a seat in my arm chair, than one in the House of Lords. How they are brawling & quarrelling just now, about nothing, for something; at once aristocratically & cacistically.[4]

1. Coome Hill, some 450 feet high, about ¾ mile north of Hope End.

2. William Gent (1799–1885), born at Gosforth, Newcastle, became a member of the Graham-Clarke household. He accompanied Bummy to Hope End in May 1831. He married Ann Mason of the Hope End household at Great Malvern in 1836.

3. The debate in the House of Lords on 21 June, following the Speech from the Throne on the opening of Parliament that day by the King. In debating the customary Address to the King, the issue of Reform was a major topic, and some acrimonious personal exchanges passed between certain of Their Lordships. A report of the debate occupied 13 columns in The Times, 22 June 1831.

4. From kakistocracy: the government of a state by its worst citizens (Oxford English Dictionary).


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