You know I cannot avoid the reflections which often fill me with melancholy even on the most joyous occasions. So was it with me now, as Lord D---- thus conjured up before me the picture of departed times;--as he eulogized my grandfather's amiable character, described my mother's high spirit, and what a wild child I was: 'Hélas, ils sont passés ces jours de fête.' The amiable man has long lain mouldering in his grave; the high-spirited young woman is old, and no longer high-spirited; and even the wild boy is more than tamed--nay, not very far from those days in which he will say, "I have no pleasure in them:" the mad-cap young Englishman who played the ghost on the ice, lay before me, an old man, tortured with gout, stretched helpless on a sofa,--the tale of the merry pranks of his youth interrupted by sighs extorted by pain; while the poor fool whom he so terrified as ghost has long been a ghost himself, and the good Lord would be not a little alarmed if his visit happened to be returned. "Oh world, world!" as Napoleon said.[42] _February 3d:--Evening._ Lord D---- possesses a fine collection of pictures, among which are Titian's celebrated Venus; the death of Regulus, by Salvator Rosa; a large picture of Rubens, which has frequently been engraved; and a very fine Guido. In the two latter indeed, a not very agreeable subject, a lifeless head, is the principal object; in the one that of Cyrus, in the other that of John the Baptist. But Guido's Herodias is another of those figures instinct with the genius of poetical, divine beauty, uniting the most lovely womanliness with the deepest tragic expression, which leave so indelible an impression, and are so seldom found in reality. There is a lady of your acquaintance who corresponds with this ideal, Countess A---- of B----. She was, when I knew her,[43] the most beautiful and richly dressed woman I ever beheld. Perfect symmetry, absolute harmony, reigned in her person and in her mind; so that the most heterogeneous things equally became her. Majestic as a queen, when she was 'en representation;' distinguished by the most easy and graceful manners, the most exquisite knowledge of the world, when doing the honours of her own house; and by the most 'naïve,' touching kindness and sweetness in the circle of her family;--but under every aspect rendered more interesting and impressive by a trace of thoughtful melancholy never wholly effaced, allied to that perfect feminine tenderness which gives to woman the highest and most resistless charm in the eyes of men;--her resemblance to this picture of Guido's was striking. Two very pretty attendants of Herodias are in admirable contrast with the main figure. They are perfect ladies-in-waiting, who have no soul for anything beyond their court and their service; and their beauty receives from its very unmeaningness a certain rather animal character, which we can contemplate with an agreeable carelessness--a sort of repose to the mind