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I arrived–but there was no letter. I sat down to wait, in a spirit of calmer enjoyment than I had experienced for some days; and in less than half an hour a note was brought to me. At length, the desired despatch had come; it seemed written on the leaf of a lily with a pen dipped in dew. I opened it–and had nearly fainted with disappointment. It was from a stock-broker, who begins an anecdote of Mr. Rothschild before dinner, and finishes it with the fourth bottle–and who makes his eight children stay up to supper and snap-dragon. In macadamizing a stray stone in one of his periodical puddings, I once lost a tooth, and with it an heiress of some reputation. I wrote a most irritable apology, and despatched my warmest regards in a whirlwind.

December the twenty-fourth–I began to count the hours, and uttered many poetical things about the wings of Time. Alack! no letter came;–yes, I received a note from a distinguished dramatist, requesting the honor, etc. But I was too cunning for this, and practiced wisdom for once. I happened to reflect that his pantomime was to make its appearance on the night after, and that his object was to perpetrate the whole programme upon me. Regret that I could not have the pleasure of meeting Mr. Paulo, and the rest of the literati to be then and there assembled, was of course immediately expressed.

My mind became restless and agitated. I felt, amidst all these invitations, cruelly neglected. They served, indeed, but to increase my uneasiness, as they opened prospects of happiness in which I could take no share. They discovered a most tempting dessert, composed of forbidden fruit. I took down “Childe Harold,” and read myself into a sublime contempt of mankind. I began to perceive that merriment is only malice in disguise, and that the chief cardinal virtue is misanthropy.

I sat “nursing my wrath,” till it scorched me; when the arrival of another epistle suddenly charmed me from this state of delicious melancholy and delightful endurance of wrong. I sickened as I surveyed, and trembled as I opened it. It was dated—-, but no matter; it was not the letter. In such a frenzy as mine, raging to behold the object of my admiration condescend, not to eat a custard, but to render it invisible–to be invited perhaps to a tart fabricated by her own ethereal fingers; with such possibilities before me, how could I think of joining a “friendly party,”–where I should inevitably sit next to a deaf lady, who had been, when a little girl, patted on the head by Wilkes, or my Lord North, she could not recollect which–had taken tea with the author of “Junius,” but had forgotten his name–and who once asked me “whether Mr. Munden’s monument was in Westminster Abbey or St. Paul’s?”–I seized a pen, and presented my compliments. I hesitated–for the peril of precariousness of my situation flashed on my mind; but hope had still left me a straw to catch at, and I at length succeeded in resisting this late and terrible temptation.

After the first burst of excitement, I sunk into still deeper despondency. My spirit became a prey to anxiety and remorse. I could not eat; dinner was removed with unlifted covers. I went out. The world seemed to have acquired a new face; nothing was to be seen but raisins and rounds of beef. I wandered about like Lear–I had given up all! I felt myself grated against the world like a nutmeg. It grew dark–I sustained a still gloomier shock. Every chance seemed to have expired, and everybody seemed to have a delightful engagement for the next day. I alone was disengaged–I felt like the Last Man! To-morrow appeared to have already commenced its career; mankind had anticipated the future; “and coming mince pies cast their shadows before.”

In this state of desolation and dismay, I called–I could not help it–at the house to which I had so fondly anticipated an invitation, and a welcome. My protest must here however be recorded, that though I called in the hope of being asked, it was my fixed determination not to avail myself of so protracted a piece of politeness. No: my triumph would have been to have annihilated them with an engagement made in September, payable three months after date. With these feelings, I gave an agitated knock–they were stoning the plums, and did not immediately attend. I rung–how unlike a dinner bell it sounded! A girl at length made her appearance, and, with a mouthful of citron, informed me that the family had gone to spend their Christmas Eve in Portland Place. I rushed down the steps, I hardly knew whither. My first impulse was to go to some wharf and inquire what vessels were starting for America. But it was a cold night–I went home and threw myself on my miserable couch. In other words, I went to bed.