15 November 1875 – 21 November 1875

On my way to Cheyne Row saw Carlyle and Lecky in King's Road walking along, C. looking small beside L., who overtopped and bent over C. in speaking and listening. C. asked for ' Madame and the Homunculus.' ^ ' A Baby is the most wonderful of all phenomena in this variegated world. Some of the women told Mary it was a most lovely creature (smiling). Babies have na features at first — they're small red things, but gradually you come to discern some features.' After this we spoke of Historians. ' Ranke a diligent man, gave much about diplomacies useful in its way, no picture of men or things. He hangs up a kind of — well — a gray shadow, you might say, like an Ossian ghost, " the stars dim twinkling through." Macaulay like a Russian Steppe — green enough, but not a rock or tree to break the monotony.' I. — ' Macaulay tried much to make an effect by style.* C. (smiling). — ' Then we can only say he did not succeed.' i The Slav people — C: 'An ugly, dirty, ill-conditioned set of creatures, with all the worst qualities attributed to the Irish, and none of the good. Their language a mere jargon, with nothing in it worth knowing.' L. — ' You have been among them } ' C. — ' O yes, for some three weeks.' L. (very mildly). — ' Is that long enough to judge of a nation } ' C. — ' Oh, I did not judge them by that alone. They are most miserable, their houses filthy and unventilated beyond imagination — smells centuries old ! '