The morning was so foggy that I couldn't go out, so I put on a very _chic_ costume, and sat in the glass-roof place which they call a "garden," and read Lady Sophia Dashton's novel. It is all about the Roman Emperors and the catacombs, and the love of a princess and a slave. The language is so beautiful, and the descriptions are wonderful: they seem as if they would never end, and you forget all about the story. The book has been well reviewed, and Lady Sophia has taken up literature seriously. I have heard she is making a great deal of money out of it. Mr. Beake will publish anything she writes--all the illustrated papers have got her portrait this week--and there are stories of hers now running in two of the leading Society papers. She began to write for pleasure, but has received such encouragement that she decided to win the laurel. Everybody in Society has bought her book. The whole family are talented. Her father's speeches in the House of Lords on the London drains have been edited at 7s. 6d., with the family arms on the cover; the _Times_ said they had the "ring of Burke in them," and Lady Sophia's brother's "Poems in odd Moments," which have appeared in the "Temple of Folly," are to be brought out in book form. I forget the name of Lady Sophia's novel; Mrs. Jack Strawe, in recommending it to me the day of Miss Parker's wedding, said she didn't know the name, and that very few people did, but when ordering it, it was only necessary to mention Lady Sophia Dashton's name, and the bookseller would know what you meant. I sent Thérèse to Mudie's for it, and told her to ask for any other books that were being widely read, as I like to be posted on what is being talked of. She brought back somebody's work on Aristotle, with an introduction by the Duke of Mauve, and Mrs. Katurah P. Glob's "There is no Death." Mrs. Glob is a Christian Scientist, and states in her preface that she is the seventh daughter of a seventh son. I could only get as far as what she had to say on vaccination; I make out that she preferred to "render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's," rather than to incur the penalty of the law. {_Dry Books_} After struggling the whole morning with Glob and Aristotle and Lady Sophia, and wondering how learned people were, and how they found time to acquire so much knowledge, I had lunch. Crême velours, sole princesse, noisettes Souvaroff, pommes nouvelles, etc., with Félix Boubel, carte d'or, took the dry taste of the books completely out of my mouth. Having spent such a morning improving my mind at the Carlton, I thought I deserved some relaxation in the afternoon. {_At the Aquarium_}