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