burnished gilding, besides being adorned with rows of rock crystals--which
seemed to me of rather questionable taste....

We next, after long contemplating this rich hall, proceeded through
passages and corridores to a great central room, very beautiful, which
seems to be used for purposes of refreshment, and for electric telegraphs;
tho I should not suppose this could be its primitive and ultimate design.
Thence we went into the House of Commons, which is larger than the Chamber
of Peers, and much less richly ornamented, tho it would have appeared
splendid had it come first in order. The Speaker's chair, if I remember
rightly, is loftier and statelier than the throne itself. Both in this
hall and in that of the Lords we were at first surprized by the narrow
limits within which the great ideas of the Lords and Commons of England
are physically realized; they would seem to require a vaster space. When
we hear of members rising on opposite sides of the House, we think of them
but as dimly discernible to their opponents, and uplifting their voices,
so as to be heard afar; whereas they sit closely enough to feel each
other's spheres, to note all expression of face, and to give the debate
the character of a conversation. In this view a debate seems a much more
earnest and real thing than as we read it in a newspaper. Think of the
debaters meeting each other's eyes, their faces flushing, their looks
interpreting their words, their speech growing into eloquence, without
losing the genuineness of talk! Yet, in fact, the Chamber of Peers is
ninety feet long and half as broad and high, and the Chamber of Commons is
still larger.



ST. PAUL'S [Footnote: From "Walks in London."]