sman in any shop on Piccadilly who does not, in the season,
wear a long-tail coat. Everywhere they say a second grace at
dinner--not at the end--but before the dessert, because two hundred
years ago they dared not wait longer lest the parson be under the
table: the grace is said to-day _before_ dessert! I tried three
months to persuade my "Boots" to leave off blacking the soles of my
shoes under the instep. He simply couldn't do it. Every "Boots" in
the Kingdom does it. A man of learning had an article in an
afternoon paper a few weeks ago which began thus: "It is now
universally conceded by the French and the Americans that the
decimal system is a failure," and he went on to concoct a scheme
for our money that would be more "rational" and "historical." In
this hot debate about Ulster a frequent phrase used is, "Let us see
if we can't find the right formula to solve the difficulty"; their
whole lives are formulas. Now may not all the honours and garters
and thistles and O.M.'s and K.C.B.'s and all manner of gaudy
sinecures be secure, only because they can't abolish anything? My
servants sit at table in a certain order, and Mrs. Page's maid
wouldn't yield her precedence to a mere housemaid for any mortal
consideration--any more than a royal person of a certain rank would
yield to one of a lower rank. A real democracy is as far off as
doomsday. So you argue, till you remember that it is these same
people who made human liberty possible--to a degree--and till you
sit day after day and hear them in the House of Commons,
mercilessly pounding one another. Then you are puzzled. Do they
keep all these outworn things because they are incapable of
changing anything, or do these outworn burdens keep them from
becoming able to change anything? I daresay it works both ways.
Every venerable ruin, every outworn custom, makes the King more
secure; and the King gives veneration to every ruin and keeps
respect for every outworn custom.

Praise God for the Atlantic Ocean! It is the geographical
foundation of our liberties. Yet, as I've often written, there are
men here, real men, ruling men, mighty men, and a vigorous stock.

A civilization, especially an old civilization, isn't an easy nut
to crack. But I notice that the men of vision keep their thought on
us.