51
  Some days back I lent Miss Lizzie Petit the novel of
�Guy Livingtone,� she wishing to read it.  To-day I got it back,
with penciled lines of attention or admiration of her doing.  These
occur especially where he girds at the virtue of women &c, and
in one place, here a coquette�s triumphs are spoken of, is a silly
�Ha! ha! ha!� Suggestive, I think of the writer�s character!
Literary ladies, and women who aspire to a sham Bohemianism
� which ought to be called simple impropriety � are prone to this sort
of thing.     Mrs Kidder used to do it, and I remember Lotty under-
scoring my copy of �Esmond� where it condemned husbands.   Unless
a reader knows something above the average, or can offer pertinent
information, it�s sheer conceit, this sort of annotation.  What
do I care what the man who�s preceded me in a book�s perusal
thinks of it? or what does he care for my opinion.          I very
respectfully, india-rubbered Missx Petit out of�Gary Livingstone.�
  Writing for the rest of the day.
  24.  Sunday.  To Parton�s.  Found Haney there.  He left in
the afternoon, Parton accompanying him to New York, presently returning
alone.       I called at �Doesticks� at night.  Found O�Brien and Clapp
in Haney�s room on my return, Cahill with them.  Got into a
sort of discussion with the two former about money and rich men,
they railing at �em after a common fashion, and at the supposed
deference paid to them: I holding that such railing did not good,
might originate in envy and bosh � that if you looked close
enough you might find out a certain amount of right in every-
thing, even in the popular respect for wealth � money representing,
tangibly, somebody�s labor, intellect and ability.  Let the rich
have fair play in talk � they do in life � and away with the piti-
	  x I�m not sure that they were her notes, after all.   Feb 16  They were.