17 December 1877 – 23 December 1877

To Carlyle's. Louis Napoleon — ' Met him at dinner — he made up to me rather, understanding me to be a writer, who might perhaps be of help to him somehow. His talk was a puddle of revolutionary nonsense. He was internally a mass of darkness. I used to meet him often in the street, mostly about Sloane Square, driving a cab, with a little tiger behind ; his face had a melancholy look that was rather affecting at first, but I soon recognised that it was the sadness of an Opera Singer who cannot get an engagement. When I heard of him afterwards as Emperor, I said to myself, " Gad, sir, you've got an opera engagement such as no one could possibly have expected ! " '