November 28th ...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....Ifound 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;1,200policemen 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.
