with Mr. Lloyd George must be one of the highest pleasures experienced
by the Welsh statesman. It is an event to go to a meeting in the
institute at Llanystumdwy and hear him address a crowded meeting of his
compatriots in their native tongue and with all the old affectionate
familiarity of a long-standing friend and neighbor. The rolling music
of the ancient language is echoed back from the enthusiastic Celts in a
kind of rhythmic ecstasy which thrills even the ignorant and alien
Sassenach visitor. Lloyd George is still one of themselves. It is
indeed hard for them to realize his position in the outside world,
though they are so proud of it. To Criccieth and Llanystumdwy he is
not so much the prominent statesman of the United Kingdom as just Lloyd
George, the friend who grew up with them. He will never be anything
else to them. It is all quite delightful and, one may add, quite
bewildering to his enemies, who cannot understand that such unconcealed
and regardless simplicity is an integral part of the nature of him whom
they regard as a malignant. I have seen Lloyd George in a hundred
capacities, electrifying a multitude, in the thick of battle with the
cleverest minds of Parliament, attacking to their faces with relentless
ferocity men of the noblest descent in Britain, and yet I know of
nothing in his life which approaches in interest his relations with his
old village friends of long ago. They like him for himself and not for
what he has become, though they are so proud of him. One elderly lady,
a friend of the Lloyd George family, when paying a visit to London
heard that Lloyd George was to address a London meeting, and she
thought she would like to go and hear him. She presented herself at
the hall and was nearly swept off her feet by the surging crowd making
its way in. After reaching one of the corridors with difficulty, she
got an attendant to take her name in to Mrs. Lloyd George. The latter,
who was on the platform, hurried out to her old friend and took her to
a seat in the front of the hall. The building was packed in every
part. Lloyd George got one of his usual receptions and made one of his
usual speeches. The old lady was staggered. She went back to Wales
full of the wonderful experience--and it has to be remembered that she
had known Lloyd George all her life. "I have heard that he has become
a well-known man," she said, "but I never understood what an important
man he was till I went t