heaven, that he could not endure his presence?

July 1714.

My own portrait remains unfinished at his sudden departure. I sat
for it in a walking-dress, made under his direction--a gown of a
peculiar silken stuff, falling into an abundance of small folds,
giving me "a certain air of piquancy" which pleases him, but is far
enough from my true self. My old Flemish faille, which I shall
always wear, suits me better.

I notice that our good-hearted but sometimes difficult friend said
little of our brother Jean-Baptiste, though he knows us so anxious on
his account--spoke only of his constant industry, [25] cautiously,
and not altogether with satisfaction, as if the sight of it wearied
him.

September 1714.

Will Antony ever accomplish that long-pondered journey to Italy? For
his own sake, I should be glad he might. Yet it seems desolately
far, across those great hills and plains. I remember how I formed a
plan for providing him with a sum sufficient for the purpose. But
that he no longer needs.

With myself, how to get through time becomes sometimes the question,-
-unavoidably; though it strikes me as a thing unspeakably sad in a
life so short as ours. The sullenness of a long wet day is yielding
just now to an outburst of watery sunset, which strikes from the far
horizon of this quiet world of ours, over fields and willow-woods,