I had been out in the East End all day, speculating on that shabby mass that have nothing, know nothing, dream nothing; or do they? I could have cried as dark fell, and I returned through long, humble streets alive with a home-hurrying mass of people--clouds of people not knowing whence they came or why. London always struck me as so vast and so pathetic, and now I was to return and go to dine where the laws are made for all England. I was escorted by another friend, a Mr. M., since dead, who was, when I reached the hotel, quite disturbed lest we be late. I like the man who takes society and social forms seriously, though I would not be that man for all the world. M. was one such. He was, if you please, a stickler for law and order. The Houses of Parliament and the repute of the Hon. T. P. O’Connor meant much to him. I can see O’Connor’s friendly, comprehensive eye understanding it all--understanding in his deep, literary way why it should be so. As I hurried through Westminster Hall, the great general entrance, once itself the ancient Parliament of England, the scene of the deposition of Edward II, of the condemnation of Charles I, of the trial of Warren Hastings, and the poling of the exhumed head of Cromwell, I was thinking, thinking, thinking. What is a place like this, anyhow, but a fanfare of names? If you know history, the long, strange tangle of steps or actions by which life ambles crab-wise from nothing to nothing, you know that it is little more than this. The present places are the thing, the present forms, salaries, benefices, and that dream of the mind which makes it all into something. As I walked through into the Central Hall, where we had to wait until T. P. was found, I studied the high, groined arches, the Gothic walls, the graven figures of the general anteroom. It was all rich, gilded, dark, lovely. And about me was a room full of men all titillating with a sense of their own importance--commoners, lords possibly, call-boys, ushers, and here and there persons crying of “Division! Division!” while a bell somewhere clanged raucously. “There’s a vote on,” observed Mr. M. “Perhaps they won’t find him right away. Never mind; he’ll come back.” He did return finally, with, after his first greetings, a “Well, now we’ll ate, drink, and be merry,” and then we went in. At table, being an old member of Parliament, he explained many things swiftly and interestingly, how the buildings were arranged, the number of members, the procedure, and the like. He was, he told me, a member from Liverpool, which, by the way, returns some Irish members, which struck me as rather strange for an English city. “Not at all, not at all. The English like the Irish--at times,” he added softly. “I have just been out in your East End,” I said, “trying to find out how tragic London is, and I think my mood has made me a little color-blind. It’s rather a dreary world, I should say, and I often wonder whether law-making ever helps these people.”