. . .  On the other hand the existing order is the most skilfully devised machinery for perpetuating itself that has ever grown up among civilized men.  Did you ever see a London directory?  It hasn’t names alphabetically; but one section is “Tradesmen,” another “The City,” etc., etc., and another “The Court.”  Any one who has ever been presented at Court is in the “Court” section, and you must sometimes look in several sections to find a man.  Yet everybody so values these distinctions that nobody complains of the inconvenience.  When the Liberal party makes Liberals Peers in order 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,