Tuesday August 9.
I believe I was more tired last night than was good for me; certainly more so than was good for my diary which I had to bring to an untimely end, without noticing Bummy & Henrietta & Arabel drinking tea at the Martins; & Bro & Sam dittoing it at the Trants. I was left to my soliloquies—, & my Antoninus, & my Last Man.
This morning I sent off my letter to Papa. None from him. One from Miss Price,[1] in which she alludes for the first time & in a mournful manner, to our prospect of leaving Hope End. Dominick arrived to dine & sleep; an unprompted honor— Arabel was so goodnatured as to walk to Colwall before breakfast for Mrs. Shelley’s second volume,[2]—& I have read it thro’. And I have read besides the whole of Marcus Antoninus’s 9th. book. He becomes easy to me, as I become familiar with him; & this, I am becoming by degrees, tho’ he is an emperor & a philosopher.
I did not like Mrs. Shelley’s first volume at all, & fancied that all her genius had exhaled in Frankenstein.[3] But in the second volume, Richard’s himself again![4] There is a great deal of power & originality about it—and yet I devoutly wish that the book had been unread as far as I am concerned. It has dessolated me! I wish I had the 3d. volume! There are two wishes—like what most of my wishes are!—
Shall I go to Malvern tomorrow? If I can. And I think I can.
Henrietta & Bummy walked to the Bartons today, & asked Miss Glasco to come to us this evening. The rain seems to me to have come instead. Henrietta at the window— Tea.[5] No falsetto I hope!—[6]
1. Miss Caroline Price (1783–1853), of Foxley, the only daughter of the late Sir Uvedale Price, Bt.
2. Of The Last Man.
3. Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus, 3 vols. (London, 1818).
4. E.B.B. must mean Raymond, the hero, who is believed lost in battle against the Turks at the end of volume one. The opening of volume two discloses that he is not dead, but a prisoner; his release is secured after some months of hardship and he returns to the war to win fresh laurels, but is ultimately killed.
5. After “tea” E.B.B. has drawn the musical note “ti.”
6. This is one of E.B.B.’s more obscure word plays, which may be more obvious to some readers than it is to us. Henrietta was probably using the window seat while tea was served, which could have led to the alliterative link between “tea” and the musical note “ti”; hence falsetto, suggesting a play on “false” and “sit”.
