“That chorus, which applies to one of the most important problems of the Empire, contains nearly all the points that illustrate ‘How it is Done.’ In the first place, note the conception of the Law. It has been my effort to imprint this idea of the Law upon the mind of the English-speaking world--a phrase, by the way, far preferable to that of Anglo-Saxon, which I take this opportunity of publicly repudiating. You may, perhaps, have noticed that my idea of the Law is the strongest thing in modern England. ‘Do this because I tell you, or it will be the worse for you,’ is all we know, and all we need to know. For so, it seems to me, Heaven” (here he reverently raised the plain billy-cock hat which he is in the habit of wearing in his drawing-room) “governs the world, and we who are Heaven’s lieutenants can only follow upon the same lines. I will not insist upon the extent to which the religious training I enjoyed in early youth helped to cast me in that great mould. You have probably noticed its effect in all my work.” I said I had. “Well, then, first and foremost, I have in this typical instance brought out my philosophy of the Law. In my private conversation I call this ‘following the gleam.’” “Now for the adventitious methods by which I enhance the value of my work. Consider the lilt. ‘Lilt’ is the ‘Túm ti ti túm ti túm’ effect which you may have felt in my best verse.” I assured him I had indeed felt it. “Lilt,” he continued, “is the hardest thing of all to acquire. Thousands attempt it, and hundreds fail. I have it (though I say it who should not) to perfection. It is the quality you will discover in the old ballads, but there it is often marred by curious accidents which I can never properly explain. Their metre is often very irregular, and I fancy that their style (which my Work closely resembles) has suffered by continual copying. No: where you get the true ‘Lilt’ is in the music halls--I am sorry it is so often wasted upon impertinent themes. Do you know ‘It is all very fine and large,’ or ‘At my time of life,’ or again, ‘Now we shan’t be long’?” I answered I had them all three by heart. “I shouldn’t say they were worth _that_,” he answered, as a shade of disappointment appeared upon his delicate, mobile features, “but there is a place where you get it to perfection, and that is Macaulay’s _Lays of Ancient Rome_. They are my favourite reading. But that is another story.” “To turn to quite a different point, the Vernacular. It isn’t everything that will go down in ordinary English. Of course I _do_ use ordinary English--at least, Bible English, in my best work. For instance, there is a little thing called ‘In the Confessional,’ which I propose to read to you later, and which has no slang nor swear-words from beginning to end.”