they take life rationally;
they talk pleasantly (not jocularly, nor story-telling); they abhor
the smart in talk or in conduct; they have gentleness, cultivation,
the best manners in the world; and they are genuine. The hostess
has me take a basket and go with her while she cuts it full of
flowers for us to bring home; and, as we walk, she tells the story
of the place. She is a tenant-for-life; it is entailed. Her husband
was wounded in South Africa. Her heir is her nephew. The home, of
course, will remain in the family forever. No, they don't go to
London much in recent years: why should they? But they travel a
month or more. They give three big tea-parties--one when the
rhododendrons bloom and the others at stated times. They have
friends to stay with them half the time, perhaps--sometimes parties
of a dozen. England never had a finer lot of folk than these. And
you see them everywhere. The art of living sanely they have
developed to as high a level, I think, as you will find at any time
in any land.

The present political battle is fiercer than you would ever guess.
The Lords feel that they are sure to be robbed: they see the end
of the ordered world. Chaos and confiscation lie before them. Yet
that, too, has nearly always been so. It was so in the Reform Bill
days. Lord Morley said to me the other day that when all the
abolitions had been done, there would be fewer things abolished
than anybody hopes or fears, and that there would be the same
problems in some form for many generations. I'm beginning to
believe that the Englishman has always been afraid of the
future--that's what's keeps him so alert. They say to me: "You have
frightful things happen in the United States--your Governor of New
York[16], your Thaw case, your corruption, etc., etc.; and yet you
seem sure and tell us that your countrymen feel sure of the safety
of your government." In the newspaper comments on my
Southampton[17] speech the other day, this same feeling cropped up;
the American Ambassador assures us that the note of hope is the
dominant note of the Republic--etc., etc. Yes, they are dull, _in a
way_--not dull, so much as steady; and yet they have more solid
sense than any other people.

It's an interesting study--the most interesting in the world. The
gen