into the interior of Spain, and there taken prisoners and shot?  This news has shocked us all dreadfully, especially poor John.  You may imagine how grateful we are that he is now among us, instead of having fallen a victim to his chimerical enthusiasm.  I hardly know how to deplore the event for Torrijos himself:  death has spared him the bitter disappointment of at last being convinced that the people he would have made free are willing slaves, and that the time when Spain is to lift herself up from the dust has not yet come.

I went the other day with John to the Angerstein Gallery....  The delight I find in a fine painting is one of the greatest and most enduring pleasures I have; my mind retains the impression so long and so very vividly....  Good-by, my dearest H——.

Ever affectionately yours,
F. A. K.

Saturday, 31st.—­After breakfast went to the theater to rehearse “The Grecian Daughter,” and Mr. Ward, for whom the rehearsal was principally given, never came till it was over.  Pleasant creature!...

The day seemed beautifully fine, and my father and mother took, a drive, while Henry and I rode, that my father might see the horse I had bought for him; but it was bitterly cold, and I could not make my mare trot, so she cantered and I froze.  Mr. Power was there, on that lovely horse of his.  I think the Park will become bad company, it is so full of the player folk.  Frederick Byng called, and I like him, so I went and sat with him and my father and mother in the library till time to dress for dinner.  After dinner wrote “The Star of Seville.”  I have got into conceit with it again, and so poor, dear, unfortunate Dall coming in while I was working at it, I seized hold of her, like the Ancient Mariner of the miserable “Wedding Guest,” and compelled her, in spite of her outcries, to sit down, and then, though she very wisely went fast asleep, I read it to her till tea-time.

My mother wished to sit up and see the New Year in, and so we played quadrille till they sat down to supper, which had been ordered for the vigil, and I went fast asleep.  At twelve o’clock kisses and good wishes went round, and we were all very merry, in spite of which I once or twice felt a sudden rush of hot tears into my eyes.  All the hours of last year are gone, standing at the bar of Heaven, our witnesses or accusers:  the evil done, the good left undone, the opportunities vouchsafed and neglected, the warnings given and unheeded, the talents lent and unworthily or not employed, they are gone from us for ever! forever! and we make merry over the flight of Time!  O Time! our dearest friend! how is it that we part so carelessly from you, who never can return to us?...  A New Year....

A NEW YEAR, 1832.

January 1st, Sunday.—­When I came down my father wished me a
happy New Year, and I am sure we were both thinking of the same
thing, and neither of us felt happy.