Manchurian Books

I found something very agreeable
and picturesque in its clean cobbled streets, its odd turnings and
abrupt corners; and in the pleasant park that crowds up one side of the
town. The whole place is under the Eastry dominion and it was the
Eastry influence and dignity that kept its railway station a mile and
three-quarters away. Eastry House is so close that it dominates the
whole; one goes across the marketplace (with its old lock-up and
stocks), past the great pre-reformation church, a fine grey shell, like
some empty skull from which the life has fled, and there at once are the
huge wrought-iron gates, and one peeps through them to see the facade of
this place, very white and large and fine, down a long avenue of yews.
Eastry was far greater than Bladesover and an altogether completer
example of the eighteenth century system. It ruled not two villages, but
a borough, that had sent its sons and cousins to parliament almost as a
matter of right so long as its franchise endured. Every one was in the
system, every one--except my uncle.


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