If my journal is not more full of wailing, this is because I take pleasure in writing only in a state of felicity. That resolution, already made in my youth, to let my work reflect nothing but joy (or rather an encouragement to living) may lead to believe, most deceptively, that I am accessible to nothing else. Just like the sundial that marks ‘only the happy hours’. But my depression of late was due, as often, chiefly to fatigue.

‘Mouton-Rothschild’ is served and a lackey half fills the Cardinal’s glass, when the latter stops him and fills it up with water.

‘What, Your Grace, are you baptizing my wine!’

‘Don’t be alarmed, Baron, I am cutting it.’

Apparently apocryphal remark, but amusing all the same, especially if it implies the complete presence of mind of both interlocutors. Much less funny as soon as one imagines it to be invented; resulting quite naturally from the realization of two picturesque ways of describing the dilution of wine, and from the reflection that one of the two images can apply equally well to the Jewish practice and the other to the Christian practice. Put into the mouth of interlocutors, it takes on life and becomes amusing; you hear the voices, see the subtle smiles. . . . Throws light on the device for fabricating witty theatrical dialogue.