Friday June 24.
Gent drove me to Malvern, where we arrived I shd. think very soon after eleven. I was shown into the dining room, & therefore of course took it into my head that Miss Heard[1] was there. Of course consequently out of humour. She was not however there; & I was admitted into the drawing room & Mr. Boyd’s presence, before five minutes had past. He said that it was very kind in me to come so often, but that he hoped I had not inconvenienced myself. How I do hate those set phrases. I inconvenience myself by going there!— Well! we sate down & began to talk about Paganini,—& Mr. Boyd thanked me for sending him the extract which Miss H had read to him yesterday, & which had very much interested him. Then we adjourned to Mr. Boyd’s own room & read Æschylus. At two o’clock I was asked whether I would have any luncheon—& how long I would stay. “No” to the first question: to the second a little hesitation. I had ordered the carriage at a late hour,—but there was no necessity for my staying until a late hour—I could easily have the carriage at the door earlier. “At what hour have you ordered the carriage?” “At seven—but you know, if you do not like my staying—” “If you dont go until seven, will it not be very late for you to be on the road?” How impatient & surprised I felt; & how moderately I answered— “There is no reason why I shd. not go before, if you dont like my staying.” “I was thinking only of your being late on the road, when I said what I did: you know very well whether I like your staying or not.” The smile which spoke at the same moment, satisfied me—but still two years ago when so much used to be said about “moon light nights”, nothing was ever said about lateness. Quantum mutatus!—[2] We dined together at half past three; & afterwards went into the drawing room, & talked miscellaneously of novels & Romances—of how many thousands I had read in my life; & of his surprise at hearing me say so. He recollects Modern Philosophers[3] coming out. Another work on the same subject entitled “The Young Philosopher” (by a Mr. Walker, he thought)[4] came out at the same time: and he considered it superior to Mrs. Hamilton’s. He spoke of a German novel called the Family of Haldon, which he read & liked extremely, in his youth.[5] I was provoked to hear of his having advised Eliza Cliffe to read Tom Jones.[6] If Mrs. Cliffe hears of it, she will like the adviser none the better. I wish he had not done it; & I said to him what I have written here. Afterwards we returned to Mr. Boyd’s own room, & read Æschylus again. We read the scene after the first chorus of the Seven Chiefs, & both of us abused it.[7] I had abused it before reading it with him; & he, from indistant recollections, had taken it’s part; but by this co-reading our opinions became united. While I was reading, I observed the closing of eyes & imperfect attention—what he calls “his heaviness” coming on. I may be wrong; but I cant help thinking that if he were much interested, he wd. not suffer in this way. I thought so yesterday, till my voice absolutely trembled. I may be wrong. When the reading was over, we talked of the Knowles’s. He scarcely liked (evidently!) my having written any congratulation to them. He told me that Lady Knowles[8] had misrepresented me in one thing. He had doubted my essay on mind having been my own unassisted composition,—& Lady Knowles had said “wait till you see her”,—& had written in a letter, which is preserved in the box with my letters, that my “conversation was brilliant & witty”. “Now” Mr. Boyd continued “as far at least as I have observed, tho’ some of your letters have a good deal of wit, you are not lavish of it in your conversation”. He is certainly right in that observation. Why should I blame him for being disappointed in me?—& why should I,—observing & knowing what I do observe & know,—seek farther for a cause of his colder manner & conduct, than the simple circumstance of his being disappointed in me?— But then should he have expressed such warmth of regard, if he felt only literary estimation or admiration? I wonder where he has put my letter box. It is invisible!
We talked, in conclusion, of Annie & injudiciousness, until the carriage came, & a little while afterwards. I went away at seven, at past seven o’clock,—& got home at eight. Just in time for tea.— Heard as I came thro’ our gate of Mrs. Martin’s return. Henrietta doubtful whether she should or should not be pleased. I not doubtful at all—not pleased! Had tea & talking; & I wd. have gone to sleep if I could,—at least two hours before I was in bed. Sam had been at Mathon, & brought back a letter from Eaton the bookseller[9] to Eliza Cliffe, about my books. He must see them before he decides upon them. If he has not the books which I require, why shd. he either see them or decide upon them? He shant. Mrs. Boyd is to return today at nine. I feel misanthropically this evening, on account of some things which past this morng.
1. This is the same person as the Miss Hurd previously mentioned in the Diary on 14 June.
2. “How changed.” (Virgil: “how changed from that Hector who returns after donning the spoils of Achilles,” LCL-V, I, 312–313: “Aeneid,” II, lines 274–275.)
3. [Elizabeth Hamilton], Memoirs of Modern Philosophers, 3 vols. (Bath, 1800). [Purporting to be edited by Geoffrey Jarvis.]
4. His memory was at fault; the author was Charlotte Smith. The Younger Philosopher: A Novel, 4 vols. (London, 1798).
5. August Heinrich Julius Lafontaine, Die Familie von Halden, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1797). The preface to the first English edition (London, 1799) said of Lafontaine: “he is called the German Fielding. He is a Saxon Clergyman, and was lately presented to a living by the King of Prussia, who at the same time sent him a handsome letter, informing him that he was indebted for his promotion to the pleasure which his Majesty and the Queen had received from perusing his works.”
6. Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, 6 vols. (London, 1749).
7. Beginning “You, I ask, insufferable creatures that ye are!” (LCL-A, I, 334, lines 182 ff.)
8. Charlotte, wife of Admiral Sir Charles Knowles, and sister of Capt. John Johnstone of Mainstone Court, near Ledbury.
9. T. Eaton & Sons, trading in College-street, Worcester.
