ole broad panoramic effect of that afternoon. The stiff
square lace of Victorian Gothic with its Dutch clock of a tower came
upon me suddenly and stared and whirled past in a slow half pirouette
and became still, I know, behind me as if watching me recede. "Aren't
you going to respect me, then?" it seemed to say.

Not I! There in that great pile of Victorian architecture the landlords
and the lawyers, the bishops, the railway men and the magnates of
commerce go to and fro--in their incurable tradition of commercialised
Bladesovery, of meretricious gentry and nobility sold for riches. I have
been near enough to know. The Irish and the Labour-men run about among
their feet, making a fuss, effecting little, they've got no better plans
that I can see. Respect it indeed! There's a certain paraphernalia of
dignity, but whom does it deceive? The King comes down in a gilt coach
to open the show and wears long robes and a crown; and there's a display
of stout and slender legs in white stockings and stout and slender legs
in black stockings and artful old gentlemen in ermine. I was reminded
of one congested afternoon I had spent with my aunt amidst a cluster of
agitated women's hats in the Royal Gallery of the House of Lords and
how I saw the King going to open Parliament, and the Duke of Devonshire
looking like a gorgeous pedlar and terribly bored with the cap of
maintenance on a tray before him hung by slings from his shoulder. A
wonderful spectacle!

It is quaint, no doubt, this England--it is even dignified in
places--and full of mellow associations. That does not alter the quality
of the realities these robes conceal. The realities are greedy trade,
base profit--seeking, bold advertisement; and kingship and chivalry,
spite of this wearing of treasured robes, are as dead among it all
as that crusader my uncle championed against the nettles outside the
Duffield church.

I have thought much of that bright afternoon's panorama.

To run down the Thames so is to run one's hand over the pages in the
book of England from end to end. One begins in Craven Reach and it is as
if one were in the heart of old England. Behind us are Kew and Hampton
Court with their memories of Kings and Cardinals, and one runs at first
between Fulham's episcopal garden parties and Hurlingham's playground
for the sporting instinct of our race. The whole effect is English.
There is space, there are old trees and all the best qualities of
the home-land in