Always clear & bright, & all the day, very cold. ― For a while, on rising, I doubted if I would write all the morning, ― but finally, having heard Giorgio read, ― I dressed, & went to S.W.C. ― & with him to Church. ― The old crush & bustle & nonsense: ― happily the Athanasian Creed was not said. Afterwards, I called on Bright, & at 1, we went out to Tor di Schiavi,1  & on to Cervara Grottoes, which are indeed beautiful. Bright knows C. Fortescue, Hutchinson, J. Harford & others well, & is a nice plain fellow. It was 6 before we got to the Scalinata, & we must have walked 14 or 15 miles. Then I went upstairs, & getting a cloak, to the Falcone. That place is clean & tolerably quiet. Thence I came home, & had café & a cigarette, & am tolerably happy on the whole, thanks to Giorgio’s arrangements. ―

Nearly nine, but I tire, & [am] for bed, & not over well.

X1

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

  1. Lear painted “The Tor di Schiavi on the Via Labicana, Rome” for  Captain and Miss Phipps Hornby of Shooters Hill, Kent. [↩]