3 December 1877 – 9 December 1877

C.'s about 3.20 — dressing. Enter Mary : ' Flowers for Birthday yesterday, and letters, ' Mme. Venturi came at \ past 1 1 at night — couldn't let her up ; we actually quarrelled, for the first time.' Carlyle and I in the Chelsea omnibus to Charing Cross : ' This is the second day of my eighty-third year — no doubt of that ! Browning came down yester- day, he has a great deal to say about many things. I must go and see him, I told him frankly about the Agamemnon^ after praising his fidelity, that I could make nothing of his translation — could not understand it — , had to turn to the Jesuit's book, R. B. admitted that all said it was of no use.' (I spoke of Athenaeum and Academy^ which praised C. — ' I still exhorted him to give us, as the best \ possible thing, a Greek Theatre, done like that from Euripides in Balaustion. He said the Agamemnon text .; is exceedingly corrupt (only one MS. known in the f world), much mauled by commentators.' We walk to Bedford Street — Civil Service Stores. Can't at first find the clothing department. Carlyle has a coat tried on (after careful inquiries as to whether this is the coat ordered at such a time — and ' is this the man that took my measure.'' etc, etc.'). Walk back to Charing Cross. He speaks oi" Johnson's house in Gough Square, praises once more the English Dictionary. Asks me what number of Fraser ' Modern Prophets ' is in ? a blind old gentleman in Scotland wishes to have it read to him. C. asks me about MacMahon, and says, ' In a century or less all Europe will be republican — demo- cratic ; nothing can stop that. And they are finding out their old religions, too, to be mere putrid heaps of lies.'