4 June 1888 – 10 June 1888

To London. National Liberal Club. Terrace, and saw Prince of Wales unveil statue of Sir B. Frere (looked most appropriate when standing before the public in its white sheet). Princess and daughters, Old Duke of Cambridge, Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Knutsford, Sir Richard Temple, etc.

Irish Exhibition. To Queen Anne's Lodge. James Knowles's house full of fine things. J. K., wife and daughter, Lucy Taylor, Lady Pollock, Helen. Tea. Portrait of Gladstone : Claude — Turner, etc. Urn (ashes and bits of bones).

To Whitley Stokes's ; W. S. cordial. To 40 Kensington Square. Sir John and Lady Simon. Dinner. Marcus Aurelius — Lady S. prefers ' that old- fashioned and despised book, the Bible.' Sir John agrees with me that it is desirable to inculcate morals without dogma. Ruskin : Simon attended him some years ago.

To 29 De Vere Gardens — Up- stairs, tapestry, bust of E. B. B., one of R. B. (young). Enter R. B., friendly and vigorous. He asked me, Did I often come up to town ? ' Very seldom.' On which he remarked ( I think premeditatedly), that in his early life he had much secluded himself, and had often since regretted it. He sees that he lost much by it.^ Then he took up a book from the table, Oannes, an Ancient Myth^ as told by Berosiis^ by J. Garth Wilkinson. ' Here's a thing has been sent to me ' — and read half a page or so (without spectacles, I noticed), to the purport that in remote times a creature, half man and half fish, came to a certain island, and taught the islanders various arts — his name was Oannes.' W. A. — 'It might be taken as a foreshadowing of Darwinism — the origin of man in an amphibious lepidosyren.' B, — ' Yes, altogether different from Wilkinson's notions.' W. A. — ' A gentleman whom the Vicar of Wake- field met was fond of quoting Berosus.' B. (smiling). — ' Ay, sir, the world is in its dotage.' Then we talked a little about Darwin, B. saying that, whatever his merits as investigator, his philosophy was of little or no importance. I told him of our neighbour Alfred Wallace, and how he had arrived, as it were, at the opposite goal from Darwin in what are called ' Supernatural questions ' ; D. at last believing almost nothing, W. almost anything ! Miss Rehan in Shrew — I praise her. B. going to meet her at lunch at Boughton's next Sunday. We talk of plays and actors. B. says — ' The acting of my four plays by pro- fessionals, unpaid^ for the Browning Society, is surely one of the greatest and most wonderful honours ever paid to a dramatic writer. People burning to have their plays produced — paying to have them produced ; if something even of Tennyson's is to be done you hear of the curtain's costing ^2000 ! and here in my case the actors play for love, and give every word of the longest parts, and the audience listen to the very end ! ' the intellectual life and interests of London. He had made the move to Witley chiefly on account of his wife and children — and never regretted it. But now that the education difficulty made another change desirable (for he wished to avoid boarding-schools if possible), his thoughts turned again towards London. Miss Alma Murray, he maintains, is the most poetical actress now on the stage ; her Beatrice, in The Cenci^ thrilling ; at the end she appears, and is, exhausted and barely able to speak. Vezin as the wicked count, most admirable. B. reckons up the four Plays — In a Balcony^ The Blot in the 'Scutcheon^ Colombe^s Birthday, and they're going to do The Return of the Druses. ' Charles Kean accepted Colombe's Birthday, but said he couldn't bring it out for two years, and I declined to hold it over so long. He wanted the name of the play altered to The Advocate ofCleves. " You've got the best part, Ellen," he said to his wife, " but the play must be called The Advocate of devest ' In quitting the subject B. said, ' the Theatre is a great force ; but its conditions need to be entirely altered.' W. A. — ' Would a subsidised Theatre be any good in England? ' B. — ' Not the least ! ' B. ate as usual a hearty dinner-luncheon, talking all the time — what a man ! B, — ' C. said many things that I mentally dissented from, and he said something about a certain lady (E. B. B. I knew this was) which was reported to me and made me, for a time, hold aloof from him altogether. But I feel towards him as John Forster did to Landor : Landor used sometimes to write most unreasonable and exasperating letters to Forster, and one day that I was with Forster and he had been talking of Landor almost with indignation, he suddenly exclaimed " If he were standing here before me — I'd hug the old man ! " — and so would I Carlyle.' In saying this B. hugged me closely with his broad chest and strong arms, and laughed merrily. The notion of his being seventy-six ! B. — ' He called one day at Warwick Crescent when I was out, and said from his carriage window to my sister, " I should like to see him once more." ' (I believe I was with C. in the carriage that day.) B. — ' The last time I went to Cheyne Row his niece said he was not speaking to any one, but I might go up and see him. He was lying on the sofa, wrapt in a shawl. I stooped over him and said a word or two, and he put his arm round my neck. That was all.' In going away both B. and his sister asked me repeatedly and warmly to come soon again — any day I chose. Up through Kensington Gardens to Hyde Park, very fresh and green, and on to Zoological Gardens, where I saw a monkey with artificial flowers snatched from a hat, fourteen crocodiles, young kangaroo getting into mother's pouch, etc. As I sat in shady nook by the water-fowl, reading a newspaper, Mr. Stewart Hodgson accosted me, and we had some pleasant chat — he had heard we were going to leave Sandhills. Walk to Hampstead Road — train ; people with branches of hawthorn ; 1 8 Gay ton Road. Mrs. Paterson, and Carrie and H. — We take a look at Lested Lodge, garden tangled. — Walk to Adelaide —Club. Wrote to-day at Club a note to Miss Rehan, signed An old Playgoer, entreating her not to greet the audience after sweeping in round the stage in a passion on her first appearance in The Shrew.