1 January 1872 – 7 January 1872

Bright, vernal. To C. at 3. We walked to Hyde Park. He spoke about a curious old Scotchwoman Susy, a blacksmith's daughter. She could do quadratic equations in her head, without any mathematics ; when she had to solve a question she thwarted it, that was her explanation of her method. She wrote poetry, and used to say, ' Burns and me are pure nature.' Sir Charles Johnston, * a rich, wild man,' gave Susy a cottage and kail-garden. C. praised parts of The Ring and the Book very highly — ' showing a most intimate acquaintance with Italian life — better, I think, than anything else of Browning,' he said. ' But the whole is on a most absurd basis. The real story is plain enough on looking into it ; the girl and the handsome young priest were lovers.' I said that B. had neither given us the real story as he found it, nor, on the other hand, constructed a poem out of it, and in reading The Ring and the Book I felt (as I told B. himself) like a creature with one leg and one wing, half hopping, half flying ; at which C. laughed. C. said Thackeray's Irish Ballads were the best things he ever wrote, and quoted (as he often did) with great gusto and a strong brogue — 'Twould binifit your sowls To see the butther'd rowls, laughing heartily afterwards. For Thackeray's novels, except Esmond^ he had little praise. The fact is he has not read most of them. He praises Laurence Bloomfield.