114 THE UNFINISHED BOOK. [1858. 



and enjoyed myself the fresh yet dark-green of the grand 

 Scotch firs, the brown of the catkins of the old birches, with 

 their white stems, and a fringe of distant green from the 

 larches, made an excessively pretty view. At last I fell fast 

 asleep on the grass, and awoke with a chorus of birds singing 

 around me, and squirrels running up the trees, and some 

 woodpeckers laughing, and it was as pleasant and rural a 

 scene as ever I saw, and I did not care one penny how any of 

 the beasts or birds had been formed. I sat in the drawing- 

 room till after eight, and then went and read the Chief 

 Justice's summing up, and thought Bernard * guilty, and then 

 read a bit of my novel, which is feminine, virtuous, clerical, 

 philanthropical, and all that sort of thing, but very decidedly 

 flat. I say feminine, for the author is ignorant about money 

 matters, and not much of a lady for she makes her men say, 

 " My Lady." I like Miss Craik very much, though we have 

 some battles, and differ on every subject. I like also the 

 Hungarian ; a thorough gentleman, formerly attache at Paris, 

 and then in the Austrian cavalry, and now a pardoned exile, 

 with broken health. He does not seem to like Kossuth, but 

 says, he is certain [he is] a sincere patriot, most clever and 

 eloquent, but weak, with no determination of character. . . . 



* Simon Bernard was tried in Emperor of the French. The ver- 

 April 1858 as an accessory to diet was " not guilty." 

 Orsini's attempt on the life of the 



