my own back, and that this
was why I could never manage to see it, however often I twisted and
turned to take it by surprise. I had a notion of a man perpetually
spinning round on one foot like a teetotum in the effort to find that
world behind his back which continually fled from him. Perhaps this is
why the world goes round. Perhaps the world is always trying to look
over its shoulder and catch up the world which always escapes it, yet
without which it cannot be itself.

In any case, as I have said, I think that we must always conceive of
that which is the goal of all our endeavours as something which is in
some strange way near. Science boasts of the distance of its stars;
of the terrific remoteness of the things of which it has to speak.
But poetry and religion always insist upon the proximity, the almost
menacing closeness of the things with which they are concerned. Always
the Kingdom of Heaven is "At Hand"; and Looking-glass Land is only
through the looking-glass. So I for one should never be astonished if
the next twist of a street led me to the heart of that maze in which all
the mystics are lost. I should not be at all surprised if I turned one
corner in Fleet Street and saw a yet queerer-looking lamp; I should not
be surprised if I turned a third corner and found myself in Elfland.

I should not be surprised at this; but I was surprised the other day at
something more surprising. I took a turn out of Fleet Street and found
myself in England.

.....

The singular shock experienced perhaps requires explanation. In the
darkest or the most inadequate moments of England there is one thing
that should always be remembered about the very nature of our country.
It may be shortly stated by saying that England is not such a fool as
it looks. The types of England, the externals of England, always
misrepresent the country. England is an oligarchical country, and it
prefers that its oligarchy should be inferior to itself.

The speaking in the House of Commons, for instance, is not only worse
than the speaking was, it is worse than the speaking is, in all or
almost all other places in small debating clubs or casual dinners. Our
countrymen probably prefer this solemn futility in the higher places of
the national life. It may be a strange sight to see the blind leading
the blind; but England provides a stranger. England shows us the blind
leading the people who can see. And this again is an under-statement
of the case.