[Manchester—Thursday, 30 August 1866]
Thursday morning. Cloudy again; walked on the beach and had a rough play with Mr Sturgis’ large Newfoundland dog who had been playing in the waves with what appeared the highest physical enjoyment. I half envied him and so urged him to caper with me but the result was he proved the stronger.
Wrote letters and drove to Essex with Mrs Chase while the day cleared and lovely masses of white clouds rolled off and dissolved into ether. We saw the strangest of goats tethered by the old, with branching horns and blear eyes and a long black beard. It was Silenus dwindling in age and half gone to decay with the human element nearly lost.
