A few days were spent with Miss Jane Hume Clapperton, author of “Scientific Meliorism,” and we had an interesting time visiting George Eliot’s haunts and friends.  Through the Warwickshire lanes—­where the high hedges and the great trees at regular intervals made it impossible to see anything beyond, except an occasional gate, reminding me of Mrs. Browning’s—­

    And between the hedgerows green,
    How we wandered—­I and you;
    With the bowery tops shut in,
    And the gates that showed the view.

—­we saw the homestead known as “Mrs. Poyser’s Farm,” as it answers so perfectly to the description in “Adam Bede.”  I was taken to see Mrs. Cash, a younger friend of George Eliot, and took tea with two most interesting, old ladies—­one 82, and the other 80—­who had befriended the famous authoress when she was poor and stood almost alone.  How I grudged the thousands of acres of beautiful agricultural land given up to shooting and hunting!  We in Australia have no idea of the extent to which field sports enter into the rural life of England.  People excused this love of sport to me on the ground that it is as a safety valve for the energy of idle men.  Besides, said one, hunting leads, at any rate, to an appreciation of Nature; but I thought it a queer appreciation of Nature that would lead keen fox hunters to complain of the “stinking” violets that throw the hounds off the scent of the fox.  I saw Ascot and Epsom, but fortunately not on a race day.  A horse race I have never seen.  George Moore’s realistic novel “Esther Waters” does not overstate the extent to which betting demoralizes not only the wealthier, but all classes.  There is a great pauper school in Sutton, where from 1,600 to 1,800 children are reared and educated.  On Derby Day the children go to the side of the railroad, and catch the coppers and silver coins thrown to them by the passengers, and these are gathered together to give the children their yearly treat.  But this association in the children’s minds of their annual pleasure with Derby Day must, I often think, have a demoralizing tendency.

While in London I slipped in trying to avoid being run down by an omnibus and dislocated my right shoulder.  I was fortunate in being the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Petherick at the time.  I can never be sufficiently grateful to them for their care of and kindness to me.  Only last year I went to Melbourne to meet them both again.  It was the occasion of the presentation to the Federal Government of the Petherick Library, and I went over to sign and to witness the splendid deed of gift.