Tuesday. August 16.
The rain, the provoking rain, prevented my going to Malvern as soon as I intended: but I went after breakfast & after doubting whether I shd. go at all. Met Mrs. Boyd on the stairs, & was detained by her in the drawing room for a little while, after which, I was dismissed into Mr. Boyd’s room. He had expected me yesterday, & wd. have expected me today, if he had not heard that it rained. I like to hear of his expecting me!— He asked if I had any good news to tell him. Good news!— He said something about the 25th. of August, as if that were the day fixed on for the sale by auction.[1] I would not enquire—I wd. not satisfy myself if it were. I will not know anything about it!— We read some of the Seven Chiefs—very little! Mr. Boyd proposed that we shd. read in future what he is familiar with,—as my voice is not always audible to him—that we shd. read Gregory’s poems & Basil &c. I am sorry: but as he likes it, let it be so—Farewell to the Seven Chiefs—χαιροιτε λοιπον ημιτ ‘Hρωες:[2] I shd. have liked to have finished the play with him, which I suppose I cd. not have done, at any rate!-- He said “We can read Basil together you know, if everything is happily settled”. If!!-- We shall never read Basil together!—
Mr. Boyd wishes to learn forty more lines out of the Prometheus: & in search of them, I read to him nearly the whole of the last scenes of the Prometheus. I quite love the Prometheus. It is an exquisite creation: & besides,—I was so happy when I read the first scenes of that play!
We talked about the Heaven & Earth in Colossians & Ephesians, considered by him to refer to the Jews & Gentiles, by an Hebrew idiom. He made me feel clear about it,—& then he said—“I want you to do something for me—something to please me”. This was, to state my convictions on the subject to Miss Gibbons, while Miss Boyd was reading the paper to him! Paper again! I went out to do as he desired—& did it. Before the paper was quite read, he thought what I had thought long ago, that he might as well hear it, after I was gone. So he had me back again—& we talked till dinnertime—thro’ such a thunderstorm!!— If I had been anywhere else I shd. have been in heroics! Flashing lightening & crashing thunder! To add to the sublimity of the scene I took my metal comb out & let my hair “stream like a meteor”.![3]
We had dinner, & afterwards I went back to Mr. Boyd, without waiting for an embassador. A discussion about a trickery note which he & Miss Bordman had sent to Miss Gibbons,—as from her man of the mountains. I said I wd. know in a moment whether the composition were his or not. He showed it to me, & I said wrong. I said it was his. But I thought all the time that the style was a disguised style; tho’ the beginning of the first sentence appeared to me in his manner of writing.
I asked how long his sister intended to remain with him. He did not know. I think he likes Miss Bordman as much as he dislikes Miss Gibbons. I like Miss Bordman too, & I shd. like her better still, if it were not for— …! When I go away, I shall not be missed!—
“I wish it would rain furiously all the evening”. “Why?” “Because then you cd. not go home”. I was pleased by that answer; & wish!— Got home in the dark, & found that poor Bro was gone to bed with an attack of headache & feverishness. Talking. I was goose enough to tell Bummy about Miss Boyd’s secession from Mr. Boyd’s room, on my last visit to him: & she was severe enough to call his conduct “ungentlemanly & disgusting.” I was lighted up into a passion of course!! But there was no serious breach of the peace. I cannot imagine the quia of Bummy’s evident aversion to my dear friend, & everything & body connected with him—
He told me to consult Mr. Curzon about the passage in Coloss: & in the case of its being given in his favor, to write to him about it.
1. That was the day appointed.
2. “Farewell to the remaining half of the Heroes.”
3. Odes by Mr. Gray (Strawberry Hill, 1757), p. 14, Ode II [later called “The Bard”], I.2:
With haggard eyes the Poet stood;
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair
Stream’d, like a meteor, to the troubled air)
And with a Master’s hand, and Prophet’s fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.
