Stavillos ― 4

Rose at 7 ― & wrote my Greek lesson. ― Had my hair cut ― ὁ ὁποῖος κόπτει τὰ μαλλιά1 ― & went to Taylor’s, to know when a L2  post Vapore3 came & is to come again in a week. So what I send to England, must be packed & off on Monday. ― Morning fine & grayish. Worked at the Constantinople, ― one of the 6 ― (for 2 I have put away ―) ― & at the Philae. At 1 came Σταϐελλος ― 4th lesson. Worked at Philae afterwards, but was irritable & could not go on. Called on L. (who had sent me in a little letter of Hallam Tennyson’s, “Mama says that the French plums made Lionel naughty, & that they must be sent away, but Lionel says it is the Rice makes him naughty ― so Mama must send the Rice & Sago away. We want to buy Mrs. ――’s baby, at Freshwater. We heard a gun shooting, & we found a little Robin Redbreast dead. So we buried him in the garden, & said God help him, & Mama & Papa, & everybody said God bless him, for we ought to wish God to help every thing, and the angels. And they will come some day & take away our souls, to God, as they did little ――― o ――――

There were also some Havelock verses ― I suppose his own: I did not like them. ― They were forced & pedantic & unmelodious ― tho’ the sentiment is good.

At 5 I walked alone to Potamo ― & over the [rose] veily dim hills, & back by the Marshes ― cold-gray white the mountains in a sunless sunset, & so back by dark at 6¾. ― Dined alone.

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

  1. “He who cuts hair,” which, as Denise Harvey says, “does not make much sense in the context.” She adds, “the third word is not actually a word, but I think Lear making a mistake in his grammar, because the present tense, third person, for cut is κόβει, the past is έκοψε, and the passive (was cut) κόπηκε.” [↩]
  2. Lloyds. [↩]
  3. Italian for “steamer.” [↩]