for that from the first, though he had not liked to vex me by saying so, it was an expense he could not conscientiously afford.  I had expected this, and certainly, when from day to day a man may be obliged to declare himself insolvent, keeping a horse does seem rather absurd.  He then went on to speak about the ruin that is falling upon us; and dismal enough it is to stand under the crumbling fabric we have spent having and living, body, substance, and all but soul, to prop, and see that it must inevitably fall and crush us presently.  Yet from my earliest childhood I remember this has been hanging over us.  I have heard it foretold, I have known it expected, and there is no reason why it should now take any of us by surprise, or strike us with sudden dismay.  Thank God, our means of existence lie within ourselves; while health and strength are vouchsafed to us there is no need to despond.  It is very hard and sad to be come so far on in life, or rather so far into age, as my father is, without any hope of support for himself and my mother but toil, and that of the severest kind; but God is merciful.  He has hitherto cared for us, as He cares for all His creatures, and He will not forsake us if we do not forsake Him or ourselves....  My father and I need scarcely remain without engagements, either in London or the provinces....  If our salaries are smaller, so must our expenses be.  The house must go, the carriage must go, the horses must go, and yet we may be sufficiently comfortable and very happy—­unless, indeed, we have to go to America, and that will be dreadful....  We are yet all stout and strong, and we are yet altogether.  It is pitiful to see how my father still clings to that theater.  Is it because? the art he loves, once had its noblest dwelling there?  Is it because his own name and the names of his brother and sister are graven, as it were, on its very stones?  Does he think he could not act in a smaller theater?  What can, in spite of his interest, make him so loth to leave that ponderous ruin?  Even to-day, after summing up all the sorrow and care and toil, and waste of life and fortune which that concern has cost his brother, himself, and all of us, he exclaimed, “Oh, if I had but L10,000, I could set it all right again, even now!” My mother and I actually stared at this infatuation.  If I had twenty, or a hundred thousand pounds, not one farthing would I give to the redeeming of that fatal millstone, which cannot be raised, but will infallibly drag everything tied to it down to the level of its own destruction.  The past is past, and for the future we must think and act as speedily as we may.  If our salaries are half what they are now we need not starve; and, as long as God keeps us in health of body and mind, nothing need signify, provided we are not obliged to separate and go off to that dreadful America.

Thursday, March 1st.—­ ...  After dinner I read over again Knowles’s play, “The Hunchback,” and like it better