And then the walls at the end obtain
additional splendour from the fine pictures that there stand out and
confront you--pictures full of crowded life, movement, and tragedy. The
Throne, too, with all its gilded splendour, remains, even in its
emptiness, a reminder of that stately and opulent lordship which our
institutions give to a great personage above all parties and all
classes.
[Sidenote: Lovely woman.]
In addition to all this, the House of Lords has made provision for the
appearance of lovely woman, which contrasts most favourably with the
curmudgeon and churlish arrangements of the House of Commons. In the
House of Commons women have to hide themselves, as though they were in a
Mahommedan country, behind a grille--where, invisible, suffocated, and
crowded, they are permitted to see--themselves unseen--the gambollings
of their male companions below. In the House of Lords, on the other
hand, there is a gallery all round the house, in which peeresses and the
relatives of peers are allowed to sit--observed of all men--prettily
dressed, attentive--a beautiful flower-bordering, so to speak, to the
male assemblage below. The variety and brilliancy of colour given by
their fashionable clothes adds a great richness and opulence and
lightness to the scene; in fact, takes away anything like sombreness, in
appearance and aspect at least, from an assembly which otherwise is
calculated to suggest sinister reminiscences of coming trouble and the
approaching darkness of political agitation.
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