at the door. At dinner, the dishes appeared and disappeared, the
courses succeeded one another, invisibly, or as if by mere fiat of the
will; you must be very wide-awake to catch a footman or butler
meddling with the matter. You went up to the bedroom to change your
dress; you came down with it changed; but only by an effort could you
recall the fact that a viewless but supremely efficient valet had been
concerned in the transaction. The coal fire in the grate needed
poking; you glanced away for a moment; when you looked at the fire
again it had been poked--had, to all appearance, poked itself. And so
in all relations; to desire was to get; to picture a condition was to
realize it. You were shielded on every side by rose-leaves of culture
and refinement; all you had to do was to allow your mind to lapse from
one conception to another, and then, lifting your languorous eyelids,
behold! there you were--as Mr. James would say.

But I set out to tell not of noblemen's country-seats, but of Rock
Park. Rock Park was one of the typical abodes of the English
respectable middle-class, and the English middle-class, respectable,
or not altogether respectable, is the substance of England. Not until
you have felt and smelt and tasted that do you know what England
really is. Fifty years ago, the people in question were dull,
ignorant, material, selfish, prejudiced, conventional; they were
hospitable, on conventional lines; they were affable and even social,
so long as you did not awaken their prejudices; they were confidential
and communicative, if you conceded at the outset that England was the
best of all countries and the English the leading nation of the world.
They read a newspaper resembling in every particular themselves;
usually several of them united in a subscription to a single copy,
which passed solemnly from hand to hand. They were slow and
methodical, never taking short-cuts across lots; but they were