Dr. Holland's. His wife and daughter are charming, and then we met,
besides, Lady Charlotte Lindsay, the only surviving child of Lord
North, Mr. and Mrs. Milman (the author of the "Fall of Jerusalem"),
and Mr. Macaulay. Yesterday I went to return the visit of the
Milmans and found that the entrance to their house, he being a
prebend of Westminster Abbey, was actually in the cloisters of the
Abbey. They were not at home, but I took my footman and wandered at
leisure through the cloisters, treading at every step on the tomb of
some old abbot with dates of 1160 and thereabouts.

Nothing could be more delightful than London is now, if I had only a
little more physical vigor to enjoy it. We see everybody more
frequently, and know them better than in the full season, and we
have some of the best specimens of English society, too, here just
now, as the Whig ministry brings a good deal of the ability of the
aristocracy to its aid. The subjects of conversation among women
are more general than with us, and [they] are much more cultivated
than our women as a body, not our blues. They never sew, or attend,
as we do, to domestic affairs, and so live for social life and
understand it better.


LONDON, December 2, 1846


My dear Mrs. Polk: you told me when I parted from you at Washington
that you would like to get from me occasionally some accounts of my
experiences in English society. I thought at that time that we
should see very little of it until the spring, but contrary to my
expectation we have been out almost every day since our arrival. We