. . . On Monday evening I went without Mr. Bancroft to a little
party at Mrs. Lyell's, where I was introduced to Mrs. Somerville.
She has resided for the last nine years abroad, chiefly at Venice,
but has now come to London and taken a house very near us.
. . . Her
daughter told me that nothing could exceed the ease and simplicity
with which her literary occupations were carried on. She is just
publishing a book upon Natural Geography without regard to political
boundaries. She writes principally before she rises in the morning
on a little piece of board, with her inkstand on a table by her
side. After she leaves her room she is as much at leisure as other
people, but if an idea strikes her she takes her little board into a
corner or window and writes quietly for a short time and returns to
join the circle.
Dr. Somerville told me that his wife did not discover her genius for
mathematics till she was about sixteen. Her brother, who has no
talent for it, was receiving a mathematical lesson from a master
while she was hemming and stitching in the room. In this way she
first heard the problems of Euclid stated and was ravished. When
the lesson was over, she carried off the book to her room and
devoured it. For a long time she pursued her studies secretly, as
she had scaled heights of science which were not considered feminine
by those about her.
December 2d
I put down my pen yesterday when the carriage came to the door for
my drive. It was a day bright, beaming, and exhilarating as one of
our own winter days. I was so busy enjoying the unusual beams of
the unclouded sun that I did not perceive for some time that I had
left my muff, and was obliged to drive home again to get it. While
I was waiting in the carriage for the footman to get it, two of the
most agreeable old-lady faces in the world presented themselves at
the window. They were the Miss Berrys. They had driven up behind
me and got out to have a little talk on the sidewalk. I took them
into Mr. Bancroft's room and was thankful that my muff had sent me
back to receive a visit which at their age is rarely paid. . . . I
found them full of delight at Mr. Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak, with
whose nobleness of soul they would have great sympathy. He is just
now the lion of London, and like all other lions is run after by
most people because he is one, and by the few because he deserves to
be one. Now, lest you should know nothing about him, let me tell
you that at his own expense he fitted out a vessel, and established
himself at Borneo, where he soon acquired so great [an] ascendancy
over the native Rajah, that he insisted on resigning to him the
government of his province of Sarawak. Here, with only three
European companions, by moral and intellectual force alone, he
succeeded in suppressing piracy and civil war among the natives and
opened a trade with the interior of Borneo which promises great
advantages to England. . . . Everybody here has the INFLUENZA--a
right-down influenza, that sends people to their beds. Those who
have triumphed at their exemption in the evening, wake up perhaps in
the morning full of aches in every limb, and scoff no longer. . . .
Dinner parties are sometimes quite broken up by the excuses that
come pouring in at the last moment. Lady John Russell had seven
last week at a small dinner of twelve; 1,200 policemen at one time
were taken off duty, so that the thieves might have had their own
way, but they were probably as badly off themselves.
LETTER: To Mr. and Mrs. I.P.D.
LONDON, December 16, 1847
My dear Uncle and Aunt: . . . On Saturday Mr. Hallam wrote us that
Sir Robert Peel had promised to breakfast with him on Monday morning
and he thought we should like to meet him in that quiet way. So we
presented ourselves at ten o'clock, and were joined by Sir Robert,
Lord Mahon, Macaulay, and Milman, who with Hallam himself, formed a
circle that could not be exceeded in the wide world. I was the only
lady, except Miss Hallam; but I am especially favored in the
breakfast line. I would cross the Atlantic only for the pleasure I
had that morning in hearing such men talk for two or three hours in
an entirely easy unceremonious breakfast way. Sir Robert was full
of stories, and showed himself as much the scholar as the statesman.
Macaulay was overflowing as usual, and Lord Mahon and Milman are
full of learning and accomplishments. The classical scholarship of
these men is very perfect and sometimes one catches a glimpse of
awfully deep abysses of learning. But then it is ONLY a glimpse,
for their learning has no cumbrous and dull pedantry about it. They
are all men of society and men of the world, who keep up with it
everywhere. There is many a pleasant story and many a good joke,
and everything discussed but politics, which, as Sir Robert and
Macaulay belong to opposite dynasties, might be dangerous ground.
After dinner we went a little before ten to Lady Charlotte
Lindsay's. She came last week to say that she was to have a little
dinner on Monday and wished us to come in afterwards. This is
universal here, and is the easiest and most agreeable form of
society. She had Lord Brougham and Colonel and Mrs. Dawson-Damer,
etc., to dine. . . . Mrs. Damer wished us to come the next evening
to her in the same way, just to get our cup of tea. These nice
little teas are what you need in Boston. There is no supper, no
expense, nothing but society. Mrs. Damer is the granddaughter of
the beautiful Lady Waldegrave, the niece of Horace Walpole, who
married the Duke of Gloucester.
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