There is, apparently, more in horse-racing than meets the eye. I am not addicted to remembering much about the "previous performances" of horses, as some men are, who will tell you that _Cynic_ was third in the Kelso Hunt Cup for last year, and that you ought to keep an eye on him for the Ayrshire Handicap. But I have remarked that horses are not like men; they do not always run almost equally well, though the conditions of the race seem similar. No doubt this is owing to the nervousness of the animal, who may be discouraged by the noise, the smell of bad tobacco, and so forth. I have given up Racing. That was after last year's Ascot meeting. I was staying at a country house, some days before, and somehow I lost my betting-book. It is really extraordinary how things do get lost. Perhaps I left it in a railway carriage. Afterwards I tried to put my bets, as far as I could remember them, down on a large sheet of paper, and I think I got it very nearly right. But I left the paper lying about in the library in a very interesting first edition of _Plotinus_, I believe, and either the housemaid burned it, or my host threw it into the waste-paper basket. At all events, it was lost, and I have no head for figures, and things got mixed somehow. The book-maker's recollection of the circumstances was not the same as mine. But I began quite a fresh book, on imaginative principles, on the course. I had not a good Ascot. And as Racing gives me a headache, and I seldom meet any people on the Turf who are at all interested in the same things as myself, I have given it up for good. They say I am a good deal regretted by the Ring. It is always pleasant to remember having made a favourable impression. * * * * * THE OPERA-GOER'S DIARY.