nature of permanent public opinion of
England, above the ebb and flow of the parties. Now Mr. Balfour is a
perfectly sincere patriot, a man who, from his own point of view, thinks
long and seriously about the public needs, and he is, moreover, a man
of entirely exceptionable intellectual power. But alas, in spite of
all this, when I had read that speech I thought with a heavy heart that
there was one more thing that I had to add to the list of the specially
English things, such as kippers and cricket; I had to add the specially
English kind of humbug. In France things are attacked and defended for
what they are. The Catholic Church is attacked because it is Catholic,
and defended because it is Catholic. The Republic is defended because
it is Republican, and attacked because it is Republican. But here is the
ablest of English politicians consoling everybody by telling them that
the House of Lords is not really the House of Lords, but something quite
different, that the foolish accidental peers whom he meets every night
are in some mysterious way experts upon the psychology of the democracy;
that if you want to know what the very poor want you must ask the very
rich, and that if you want the truth about Hoxton, you must ask for it
at Hatfield. If the Conservative defender of the House of Lords were
a logical French politician he would simply be a liar. But being an
English politician he is simply a poet. The English love of believing
that all is as it should be, the English optimism combined with the
strong English imagination, is too much even for the obvious facts. In a
cold, scientific sense, of course, Mr. Balfour knows that nearly all the
Lords who are not Lords by accident are Lords by bribery. He knows, and
(as Mr. Belloc excellently said) everybody in Parliament knows the very
names of the peers who have purchased their peerages. But the glamour
of comfort, the pleasure of reassuring himself and reassuring others, is
too strong for this original knowledge; at last it fades from him,
and he sincerely and earnestly calls on Englishmen to join with him in
admiring an august and public-spirited Senate, having wholly forgotten
that the Senate really consists of idiots whom he has himself despised;
and adventurers whom he has himself ennobled.

"Your ivy is so beautifully soft and thick," said the American lady, "it
seems to cover almost everything. It must be the most poetical thing in
England."

"It is very beautifu