Friday. August 19.
While we were at breakfast two men came up to the house, & rang the front door bell. I knew very well what their business was, tho’ Bummy talked about lion hunters from Malvern. As we went out of the diningroom, Lane past her, & said something in a low voice. I was therefore prepared for what followed. We had to go up stairs, that the lower part of the house might be seen by these gentlemen—one of them dark & foreign-looking, the other apparently an agent. I have heard no other particulars,—not even their names. I wrote to my dear Papa today, & made an allusion which was scarcely an allusion, to his present distress—begging him to let none of his anxious feelings rest on us who loved him more than we loved anything else, & felt that we must be happy when we shall be all together once again— It seemed to me better to say this, that he might not suffer the additional pain of fancying us unprepared for the stroke which he knew to be impending.
No letters.
I finished the Endymion[1] today. I do not admire it as a fine poem; but I do admire many passages of it, as being very fine poetry. As a whole, it is cumbrous & unwieldy. You dont know where to put it. Your imagination is confused by it; & your feelings uninterested. And yet a poet wrote it. When I had done with Keats, I took up Theophrastus. Theophrastus has a great deal of vivacity, & power of portraiture about him; & uplifts that veil of distance veiling the old Greeks with such sublime mistiness; & shows you how they used to spit & take physic & wear nailed shoes tout comme un autre. In short he makes you a valet de chambre (to whom no man is a hero) to the ancient heroes! This is amusing enough: but I am not in a humour for it!— Theophrastus does me no good just now: & as I cant laugh with him, I shall be glad when I have done hearing him laugh.
This evening B H & A went out to walk; & I was their attendant cavalry. The poney carried me beautifully, past Mr. Hailes,[2] & there was some delightful cantering as we came back. I ventured to carry Isocrates down to tea, that I might read while they played chess. As Bro remonstrated, I wont do so any more. I read the opening of the Panegyricus. It is lengthy; but the cadence of the sentences, has a full & beautiful harmony, & does not at all resemble the cadence in that treatise addressed to Demonicus, which some attribute to Isocrates.[3] I think I shall admire the style at least, of the genuine Isocrates.
1. John Keats. Endymion: a Poetic Romance (London, 1818).
2. Mr. Berrington Hailes had land immediately to the east of Hope End.
3. Isocratis ad Demonicum Parœnesis; modern opinion tends to accept the authenticity of its attribution.
