ask for it at Hatfield. If the Conservative defender
of the House of Lords were a logical French politician
he would simply be a liar. But being an English
politician he is simply a poet. The English love
of believing that all is as it should be, the English
optimism combined with the strong English imagination,
is too much even for the obvious facts. In a
cold, scientific sense, of course, Mr. Balfour knows
that nearly all the Lords who are not Lords by accident
are Lords by bribery. He knows, and (as Mr. Belloc
excellently said) everybody in Parliament knows the
very names of the peers who have purchased their peerages.
But the glamour of comfort, the pleasure of reassuring
himself and reassuring others, is too strong for this
original knowledge; at last it fades from him, and
he sincerely and earnestly calls on Englishmen to
join with him in admiring an august and public-spirited
Senate, having wholly forgotten that the Senate really
consists of idiots whom he has himself despised; and
adventurers whom he has himself ennobled.
“Your ivy is so beautifully soft and thick,”
said the American lady, “it seems to cover almost
everything. It must be the most poetical thing
in England.”
“It is very beautiful,” I said, “and,
as you say, it is very English. Charles Dickens,
who was almost more English than England, wrote one
of his rare poems about the beauty of ivy. Yes,
by all means let us admire the ivy, so deep, so warm,
so full of a genial gloom and a grotesque tenderness.
Let us admire the ivy; and let us pray to God in His
mercy that it may not kill the tree.”
The Travellers in State
The other day, to my great astonishment, I caught
a train; it was a train going into the Eastern Counties,
and I only just caught it. And while I was running
along the train (amid general admiration) I noticed
that there were a quite peculiar and unusual number
of carriages marked “Engaged.” On
five, six, seven, eight, nine carriages was pasted
the little notice: at five, six, seven, eight,
nine windows were big bland men staring out in the
conscious pride of possession. Their bodies seemed
more than usually impenetrable, their faces more than
usual placid. It could not be the Derby, if only
for the minor reasons that it was the opposite direction
and the wrong day. It could hardly be the King.
It could hardly be the French President. For,
though these distinguished persons naturally like to
be private for three hours, they are at least public
for three minutes. A crowd can gather to see
them step into the train; and there was no crowd here,
or any police ceremonial.
Who were those awful persons, who occupied more of
the train than a bricklayer’s beanfeast, and
yet were more fastidious and delicate than the King’s
own suite? Who were these that were larger than
a mob, yet more mysterious than a monarch? Was
it possible that instead of our Royal House visiting
the Tsar, he was really visiting us? Or does
the House of Lords have a breakfast? I waited
and wondered until the train slowed down at some station
in the direction of Cambridge. Then the large,
impenetrable men got out, and after them got out the
distinguished holders of the engaged seats. They
were all dressed decorously in one colour; they had
neatly cropped hair; and they were chained together.
