Cloudy ― till noon. Then clear.

Worked a very little at the Col de [Baleno].1

Col. & Mrs. Wynne came: ― & M. Grasset.

The sending away so much unfinished work is no small vexation ― & altogether I am bored & stupid & sorry. Better perhaps to go to Paleocastrizza tomorrow ― yet, although I am in better health than at this time last year, I have hardly more heart to do anything.

Lunched at 1.30 & read Burton’s Mormons2 till 3.30, wh. book sustains me this much just now.

Walked out to the ridge road above the Parga village ― but could hardly draw anything I had intended, owing to their having put a chevaux de frise3 of reeds &c.

At 6 went to Mrs. Woolffs ― taking Eu. Curcumelly some of AT’s poems. ― Returned by 7.15 ― & dined at 7.30, or later. Penned out, but driven to absolute madness by that infernal little ass Sterling ― yelling song after song, in the most disgusting Pothouse way ― Mrs. M. ― playing hour after hour also ― the very same discordant thumps. If a steamer were ready ― I would pay 50£ now & go.

Bed at 11 ― but I fear me no sleep ― these howling hell=idiots still shrieking & roaring like drunken maniacs.

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

  1. If “Baleno” is a mistake for “balena” (whale), this might refer to the place where Lear saw whale bones on 20 March, i.e. Palaiocastritza. On the other hand, this might be a hill somewhere, Col de Baleno being “Lightning Hill.” [↩]
  2. Richard F. Burton’s The City of Saints, and Across the Rocky Mountains. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1862. [↩]
  3. The singular form should be “cheval de frise.” [↩]