rder to have Liberals in the
House of Lords, lo! they soon turn Conservative after they get there.
The system perpetuates itself and stifles the natural desire for change
that most men in a state of nature instinctively desire in order to
assert their own personalities. . . .

* * * * *

. . . All this social life which engages us at this particular season,
sets a man to thinking. The mass of the people are very slow--almost
dull; and the privileged are most firmly entrenched. The really alert
people are the aristocracy. They see the drift of events. "What is the
pleasantest part of your country to live in?" Dowager Lady X asked me on
Sunday, more than half in earnest. "My husband's ancestors sat in the
House of Lords for six hundred years. My son sits there now--a dummy.
They have taken all power from the Lords; they are taxing us out of our
lands; they are saving the monarchy for destruction last. England is of
the past--all is going. God knows what is coming." . . .

* * * * *

. . . And presently the presentations come. Lord! how sensible American
women scramble for this privilege! It royally fits a few of them. Well,
I've made some rules about presentations myself, since it's really a
sort of personal perquisite of the Ambassador. One rule is, I don't
present any but handsome women. Pretty girls: that's what you want when
you are getting up a show. Far too many of ours come here and marry
Englishmen. I think I shall make another rule and exact a promise that
after presentation they shall go home. But the American women do enliven
London. . . .

* * * * *

That triumph with the tariff is historic. I wrote to the President:
"Score one!" And I have been telling the London writers on big subjects,
notably the editor of the _Economist_, that this event, so quiet and
undramatic, will mark a new epoch in the trade history of the world. . . .
This island is a good breeding place for men whose children find
themselves and develop into real men in freer lands. All that is needed
to show the whole world that the future is ours is just this sort of an
act of self-confidence. You know the old story of the Negro who saw a
ghost--"Git outen de way, Mr. Rabbit, and let somebody come who _kin_
run!" Score one! We're making History, and these people here know it.
The trade of the world, or as much of it as is profitable, we may take
a