Читать книгу Lamia's Winter-Quarters (Alfred Austin) - with the original illustrations - (Literary Thoughts Edition) онлайн

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‘Let Dennis charge all Grub Street on my quill,

I wished the man a dinner, and sate still.’

‘But,’ I said, ‘are not such inventions calculated to injure the influence of the prints that resort to them?’

‘I should think so,’ she said, honouring me for once by talking seriously. ‘But whose, and what, influence is not being injured just now by their own misdoings? The House of Commons, for instance, though more written and talked about than ever, has long been losing influence, and the Press is now following suit; and it is the silent, or comparatively silent, persons and forces that are acquiring or increasing influence; the Monarchy, the House of Lords, and——’

‘The House of Lords!’ I exclaimed. ‘I thought it was going to be abolished, or to have its very moderate claims yet further curtailed.’

‘Did you?’ she answered. ‘Then your thoughts are not of much value. I daresay it would be difficult to persuade Politicians that Shakespeare was wiser than all the sons of the Mother of Parliaments put together; and what does he say?