Friday. Sept. 23.
I mean to go to Malvern tomorrow, if I can peaceably, & obligingly. Finished the Panegyricus, at last. What is the reason that I have been able to dawdle over it? There must be some reason. A long passage near the end, has a great deal of eloquence, & vivida vis besides: and the general style is very flowing & beautiful. In general, perhaps, more flowing than glowing—which may account for my “reluctant indolent delay”.[1] Another thing which materially blunted the edge of my interest, is, my deficiency in historical information. This I really must correct.
Read some more of Lamartine. He is certainly verbose, & apt to mistake “words that burn” for “thoughts that breathe”.[2] There is much lengthiness together with much picturesqueness & Goldsmith, in his mille, ou la terre natale; but le tombeau d’une mere, is perfectly exquisite.[3] I read also some of Shelley—the whole of his Queen Mab as extant “free from the objectionable passages.”[4] It is not in my opinion, written in the highest vein of poetry; & it is dull & heavy.
So Bummy has agreed (for me & herself) to drink tea with the Martins tonight, that we may escort Henrietta home, who after driving out with Mrs. Martin is to dine with her. I made no objections, tho’ I had several, ready made. Mushroom hunting; & hair curling preparatives.
Dull evening at the Martins; & for a fitting peroration, Henrietta asked Mrs. Martin to dine here tomorrow at five oclock, after having driven her out at twelve. All over, then, with my drive to Malvern. I am better than cd. be expected.
1. This quotation has not been traced. E.B.B. may be misquoting Milton’s “Yielded with coy submission, modest pride, / And sweet reluctant amorous delay” (Paradise Lost, ed. cit. Bk. IV, lines 310–311).
2. Odes by Mr. Gray (Strawberry Hill, 1757), Ode I, III, 3, p. 11.
3. Lamartine’s Harmonies, ed. cit., “Milly, ou la Terre Natale,” II, 19–38; “Le Tombeau d’une Mère,” II, 101–106.
4. The poem was originally published in 1813, but E.B.B.’s reference is to Queen Mab, or the Destiny of Man, Revised Edition. Free from all the Objectionable Passages (London, 1830).
