Quiet day at home, preparing the usual Despatches of the week. They are not quite so burdensome this time, but there is always more or less of anxiety about it. Time does not diminish the sense of responsibility attending it. I sometimes feel as if I ought to do more. But the days appear to pass swiftly and I can scarcely account for the time that is not spent at my writing table. My walks are all taken after dark now. Latterly there has been much alarm occasioned by sudden attacks upon single persons in the street, with a lasso so as to throttle and rot them. I therefore rather avoid my lovely rambles around the Regent’s park, and seek the frequented ways. This evening I went along Baker Street to St John’s wood and thence to the Edgeware road. Whilst passing in nearly to the opening of Hyde Park, it being about six o’clock. I saw before me the most remarkable meteor in the sky that I ever beheld. It moved in a broad train of light of a bluish color from east to west until it passed beyond my vision which was obstructed to suppose it some optical illusion for some firework closely magnified in the mist. At home in the evening. Lord Auchland’s memoirs and a game of whist with the family.245