Page:An Epistle to Posterity.djvu/163

140 some others, on an interesting subject — that of life peerage. There was a desire, as I was told by a member of the House of Commons, to infuse some new life into the "Lords" by the introduction of a limited number of life peers, men who did not desire or who had not the wealth to aspire to "founding a family." The opponents of the case quoted some good things from English history, of men who had desired title simply that they might give it to a son, and the question of life peerage was lost.

The House of Lords, architecturally, is a magnificent room, and the dignity, quiet, and repose of the scene made me unwillingly acknowledge that the Senate of the United States might possibly improve its manners. Perhaps in our desire for simplicity, absence of title, or badge of office we may have thrown over too much. The drives out of London shared, of course, in our pleasures. Hampton Court, Windsor, Richmond, the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, came in their turn. I walked through a half-mile of roses at a rose show at Sydenham, and saw that imperial flower for the first time, for we cannot grow such roses here. The rose in America is dwindled and thin compared with the English rose. It has suffered from transplantation, as the human animal did for two centuries. Now the human animal is beginning to grow broad and rosy and show his English origin. I hope the roses may too.

Of the English dinner-table we had a pretty fair experience. Had our indebtedness to English hospitality been limited to the dinners alone, we should have returned overwhelmed with a sense of unrequitable favors bestowed; but when all these dinners were followed up by other kindnesses, we owned ourselves hopelessly bankrupt. For every letter a dozen doors flew open; for