Diaries of a Lady of Quality: From 1797 to 1844 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Diaries of a Lady of Quality: From 1797 to 1844

How many of us have regretted that we did not make a note at the time of what we heard fall from persons who had been prominent actors on the political or literary stage, or who had even been behind the scenes when a memorable performance was arranged or in progress! How unlucky, have we thought, that we did not copy the striking passage in the now forgotten book, or the curious letter which we might easily have borrowed for the purpose; or that we did not cut out and keep the clever newspaper article or quaint paragraph which so much struck everybody! Then why, on finding that this has been judiciously done by another, should we not profit by his or her sagacity, industry, and taste? Such were the questions that suggested themselves to me when I had gone over these diaries with the view of deciding whether a book, calculated to reflect credit on the collector, could be compiled from them.

Gray went a little too far when (as quoted by Horace Walpole) he laid down that 'if any man were to form a book of what he had seen and heard himself, it must, in whatever hands, prove a useful and entertaining one.' But when a woman of thought and feeling, of cultivation and discernment, has enjoyed such opportunities of seeing' and hearing as this lady of quality, a book so formed by her could hardly fall short of the degree of value and attraction anticipated by Gray.

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