After breakfast, practised: Mr. and Mrs. ---- called, also Dr. ----. Went and saw poor Mrs. ---- for a little time; she interests me most extremely--I like her very very much. Came up to my own room; read a canto of Dante. Was called down to see folk, and found the drawing-room literally thronged. The first face I made out was Mr. ----'s, for whom I have taken an especial love: two ladies, a whole load of men, and Mr. ----, who had brought me a curious piece of machinery, in the shape of a musical box, to look at. It contained a little bird, no larger than a large fly, with golden and purple wings, and a tiny white beak. On the box being wound up, this little creature flew out, and, perching itself on the brink of a gold basin, began fluttering its wings, opening its beak, and uttering sundry very melodious warblings, in the midst of which, it sank suddenly down, and disappeared, the lid closed, and there was an end. What a pity 'tis that we can only realise fairy-land through the means of machinery. One reason why there is no such thing left as the believing faculty among men, is because they have themselves learnt to make magic, and perform miracles. When the coast was once more clear, I returned to my room, got out things for the theatre, dined _tête-à-tête_ with D----; my father dined at the public table. After dinner, came up stairs, read Grahame, wrote journal, began my novel under another shape. I can't write prose; (query, can I any thing else?) I don't know how, but my sentences are the comicalest things in the world; the end forgets the beginning, and the whole is a perfect labyrinth of parenthesis within parenthesis. Perhaps, by the by, without other view, it would be just as well if I exercised myself a little in writing my own language, as the grammar hath it, "with elegance and propriety." At half-past five, went to the theatre. The play was Romeo and Juliet; the house not good. Mr. ---- played Romeo. * * * * * * * * * *