Walking-Stick Papers by Robert Cortes Holliday
page 70 of 198 (35%)
page 70 of 198 (35%)
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remember where it was published. Now he has lost his glasses,
ridiculously small glasses, which he has been continually attempting to fix firmly upon his nose. Slapping yourself about the chest is an excellent way to find glasses. Well, it is very flattering to be told that one is so well known in America. But so he had heard before. Describes himself as a "philosophical journalist." Did not know that there was an audience in America for his kind of writing. Wonders whether democracy as carried on there "on such a gigantic scale" can keep right on successfully. Admits a division between our two peoples. "Trenches have been dug between us," he declares. Rises to a remark about the Englishman's everlasting garden. "He likes to have a little fringe about him," he says. And then tells a little story, which one might say contains all the elements of his art. When he first came to Beaconsfield, Mr. Chesterton said, the policemen used to touch their helmets to him, until he told them to stop it. Because, he said, he felt that rather he should touch his hat to the policemen. "Saluting the colours, as it were," he explained. "For," he added, "are they not officers of the King?" Mr. Chesterton apologised for being, as he put it, excessively talkative. This was occasioned, he said, by "worry and fatigue." I declined to stay for tea, as I noticed a chugging car awaiting in front of the house. "You must come to see me again," said the grand young man of England. The last I saw of him he was rolling through his garden, tossing his mane; the famous garden that rose up and hit him, you remember, at the time of his unfortunate fall. |
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