Read it through once

Of Harness, in this same _Diary_, he wrote still more bitterly. “I believe the Rev. Mr. Harness was among my slanderers at the time” is a reference to the old grievance, written under date June 30, 1835. In the July following he classes Harness with those “who gain their livelihood and draw their gratifications from the imagined triumphs of their envious and malignant nature”; in March, 1836, he writes of Harness’ “blackguardism and rascality” and so on, frequently through the _Diary_ until January 8, 1839. On this day Harness called on him by appointment to discuss a play by Mrs. Butler (Fanny Kemble) and, after the business was transacted, Macready detained him by saying there was another matter on which he wished to speak with him. “I observed to him that whatever faults of character might be ascribed to me, I was incapable of doing any one an injury wittingly; that my notions of honour and virtue, such as they were, were strictly revered by me, and if I had done him a wrong, I held myself bound to expatiate [_sic_] it in every possible way. I then mentioned to him the libellous article which in June, 1825, had been written against me in _Blackwood’s Magazine_; the effect it had had in raising _the Press_ against me; the partial contradiction that Miss Mitford had given it.... He was evidently much embarrassed and seemed to suffer much; his mode of expressing himself was confused and _rambling_; he said that he must acknowledge that he was inculpated so far as that he had heard the story told by Miss Mitford, and had communicated it to the writer of the article, but that he had not written it.... I told him that I was very glad to hear that he was not the author, as I was happy to think well of all men, and was very sorry that I had suspected him of the fact. He was going away, when he turned back, having passed the door, and said, ‘I think we ought to shake hands.’ I gave him my hand, saying, ‘I was very happy to do so,’ and we parted. My heart was much lighter, and I fear his was _much, very much_ heavier, as it is evident, though not the author, that he was deeply implicated in that shocking transaction—that assassination of my character. I think of him with perfect charity, and with the most entire and cheerful forgiveness.”[21]