A reconciliation has taken place, but the _feeling_, which I had previous to that moment, when the (three-fourth) calumny burst, like a thunderstorm from a blue sky, on my soul, after fifteen years of such religious, almost superstitious idolatry and self-sacrifice. Oh, no! no! that, I fear, never can return. All outward actions, all inward wishes, all thoughts and admirations will be the same--_are_ the same, but--aye, there remains an immedicable _But_. Had W. said (what he acknowledges to have said) to you, I should have thought it unkind, and have had a right to say, "Why, why am I, whose whole being has been like a glass beehive before you for five years, why do I hear this from a _third_ person for the first time?" But to such ... as Montagu! just when W. himself had forewarned me! Oh! it cut me to the heart's core.
DEAR STUART,--I forgot to ask you by what address a letter would best reach you! Whether Kilburn House, Kilburn? I shall therefore send it, or leave it at the "Courier" office. I found Southey so _chevaux-de-frized_ and pallisadoed by preëngagements that I could not reach at him till Sunday sennight, that is, Sunday, October 3, when, if convenient, we should be happy to wait on you. Southey will be in town till Monday evening, and you have his brother's address, should you wish to write to him (Dr. Southey,[105] 28, Little Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square).
A curious paragraph in the "Morning Chronicle" of this morning, asserting with its usual _comfortable_ anti-patriotism the determination of the Emperor of Austria to persevere in the terms[106] offered to his son-in-law, in his frenzy of power, even though he should be beaten to the dust. Methinks there ought to be good authority before a journalist dares prophesy folly and knavery in union of our Imperial Ally. An excellent article ought to be written on this subject. In the same paper there is what I should have called a masterly essay on the causes of the downfall of the Comic Drama, if I was not perplexed by the distinct recollection of having _conversed_ the greater part of it at Lamb's. I wish you would read it, and tell me what you think; for I seem to remember a conversation with you in which you asserted the very contrary; that comic genius was the thing wanting, and not comic subjects--that the watering places, or rather the characters presented at them, had never been adequately managed, etc.