A
wonderful spectacle!
It is quaint, no doubt, this England--it is even dignified in
places--and full of mellow associations. That does not alter the quality
of the realities these robes conceal. The realities are greedy trade,
base profit--seeking, bold advertisement; and kingship and chivalry,
spite of this wearing of treasured robes, are as dead among it all
as that crusader my uncle championed against the nettles outside the
Duffield church.
I have thought much of that bright afternoon's panorama.
To run down the Thames so is to run one's hand over the pages in the
book of England from end to end. One begins in Craven Reach and it is as
if one were in the heart of old England. Behind us are Kew and Hampton
Court with their memories of Kings and Cardinals, and one runs at first
between Fulham's episcopal garden parties and Hurlingham's playground
for the sporting instinct of our race. The whole effect is English.
There is space, there are old trees and all the best qualities of
the home-land in that upper reach. Putney, too, looks Anglican on a
dwindling scale.
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