Tuesday March 27th.
Went to Malvern with B & A. So much pro & conning about who should go, that we were not off until past eleven. Provoking. Left B at Mrs. Trant’s—& A drove me on. Into the dining room at R C, where I waited half an hour at the very least, before Mr. Boyd let me go into his room. Scholefield was lying before him, covered with white paper. He said a great deal about it—, after he had said a little about my coming so late. He is certainly pleased with my present to him, binding & all. I looked at different readings in it for him,—& read to him nearly two whole odes from the Supplices. We thought the short passage ending κερσειεν αωτον, exquisite,[1] but indeed there is a great deal of beauty all the way thro’. He said today that it was one of the unpleasant circumstances attending his blindness, that he was forced to have recourse to the services of those whom he did not like! “Now when Miss Mushet is kind enough to offer to read anything for me, I cannot help taking advantage of her doing so: and I dont like Miss Mushet.” I observed, “I thought you did like her very much.” “I did for the first four or five days—but not since,—not since I have discovered what kind of mind she has”.
Nothing more, he says, is settled,—since I was last at R C. What will be settled at last?— I hear from Arabel, that Mrs. Boyd may go to Frome on Monday. I am sure that is, to make enquiries about houses,—tho’ Arabel says it is not.
Annie & Miss H M talk of coming here on Thursday,—on Annie’s way to Mathon where she will sleep. She ought to be asked to sleep here—and yet I am not anxious about it certainly.
<…>[2]
1. These words conclude line 666: E.B.B.’s “short passage” was probably lines 656–666, ending: “But may the flower of its youth be unculled, and may Ares, the partner of Aphrodite’s bed, he who maketh havoc of men, not shear off their bloom” (LCL-A, I, 68–69).
2. One leaf, i.e., two pages, excised.
