6th.--... Off to the field; rain; worked about one hour and a-half under an umbrella, at the swedes. Rain drove me off; came home and dined. At half-past three prepared all our plate (six teaspoons), all the jewelry, my watch, opera-glass, and bronzes, to take into London to the pawnbroker’s. Stayed unconsciously too long at dinner. After dinner it rained so furiously that I hesitated, and finally remitted the expedition, so I have the pleasant task for the morning (two hours). Funds reduced to three shillings, and two more that Lucy has left behind. 7th.--Walked into London. Raised £11; bought Lucy some things, and self a pair of shoes. Called on Thomas. Heard from him some curious details of the cholera, which raged furiously round his two streets,[88] but did not molest _them_. Bodies taken from Middlesex Hospital in vans. In the pest-stricken streets groups of women and children frantic for their relations taken off. Police and others with stretchers running about. Undertakers as common as other people in the streets running about with coffins, like lamplighters. Hearses with coffins outside as well as in; people following in cabs. One funeral consisted of a cab, with coffin atop, and people inside. Thomas and family all well.... Heard of the taking of Sebastopol being all a lie, so my flaming up to epic pitch was unnecessary and unwarranted. “Sic transit gloria” &c. However, let me, before it is too late to prophesy, declare it my conviction that the allies acted [like] imbeciles, to allow the Austrians to take the Principalities without first having _fought_ the Russians--so. Next, our government acted like imbeciles to imagine the Emperor of Russia would withdraw his troops without force, and so waste precious time. Next, the government has acted with pusillanimity in not requiring more of Dundas in the Black Sea. Next, it is disgraceful to the nation that, while all the powerful places of the Baltic and Black Sea have been hitherto unmolested [?] some unfortunate Laplanders in the White Sea should be murdered in their houses, and ruined, to no earthly purpose, under the pretext of war. Surely, surely, this nation is powerful enough to enable them to do grace to the poor inhabitants of the Frozen Ocean. What a pity Captain Lyons cannot be exchanged with Admiral Dundas! In the regions where Nature shows herself so cruel, man should (fear of the Almighty would suggest) be awed into charity. And so the capital of Lapland (combining antiquity of most strange and foreign character with mysterious remoteness almost unearthly) is reduced to a heap of ashes by a set of semi-barbarous sailors. Very likely that neither Captain Lyons nor any of his crew are elevated (in literary knowledge, feeling for art, morals, or the world’s best interests) much above the rank of shopkeepers or any other mechanically civilized savages. The men, whatever or wherever set to do, will do their work; this is certain; but they are unequally