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.