_may_ wonder;--he might wonder more at that production's being written
at all. But to describe the _feelings of that situation_ were
impossible--it is _icy_ even to recollect them.

"The Bride of Abydos was published on Thursday the second of December;
but how it is liked or disliked, I know not. Whether it succeeds or not
is no fault of the public, against whom I can have no complaint. But I
am much more indebted to the tale than I can ever be to the most partial
reader; as it wrung my thoughts from reality to imagination--from
selfish regrets to vivid recollections--and recalled me to a country
replete with the _brightest_ and _darkest_, but always most _lively_
colours of my memory. Sharpe called, but was not let in--which I regret.

"Saw * * yesterday. I have not kept my appointment at Middleton, which
has not pleased him, perhaps; and my projected voyage with * * will,
perhaps, please him less. But I wish to keep well with both. They are
instruments that don't do, in concert; but, surely, their separate tones
are very musical, and I won't give up either.

"It is well if I don't jar between these great discords. At present I
stand tolerably well with all, but I cannot adopt their _dislikes_;--so
many _sets_. Holland's is the first;--every thing _distingué_ is welcome
there, and certainly the _ton_ of his society is the best. Then there is
Mde. de Staël's--there I never go, though I might, had I courted it. It
is composed of the * *'s and the * * family, with a strange
sprinkling,--orators, dandies, and all kinds of _Blue_, from the regular
Grub Street uniform, down to the azure jacket of the _Littérateur_. To
see * * and * * sitting together, at dinner, always reminds me of the
grave, where all distinctions of friend and foe are levelled; and
they--the Reviewer and Reviewée--the Rhinoceros and Elephant--the