H'ry to Wm, May 28, 1894. Age: 52

Now reflecting at length (going on for several pages) H'ry admits that his problem with Sister Alice's diary is that it contained indelicate things about persons with whom he was still friendly -- and that he'd sometimes invented those things (and now the book has sneaked into the hands of others who might show it to newspapers):

"When I see that I say that Augustin Birrell has a self-satisfied smirk after he speaks...I feel very unhappy, & wonder at the strangeness of destiny....My observations about Birrell ('coloured' a little to divert Alice!) were for instance made at a dining club of which we were both members & about which I gossipped to the sister."

Politician and author Augustine Birrell,
who did not smirk while being
photographed.