XIX WAITING TO GO
'I am just waiting my time to go, meanwhile doing what little I can that
may be useful to my fellow-men.'
These were the words of Sir George Grey, and none could better express
the closing years of his life. If he might sow, in some wayside garden,
an idea for the common happiness, he counted that a day on the active
list. It made him feel young again, blowing the old fires red and rosy.
Ever, he held to his tryst with Dean Stanley.
'One evening,' it had been made, 'the Dean and myself were walking round
Westminster Abbey, as the doors were being closed. It was during my visit
to England, after my last Governorship, and the Dean was full of the
restorations then being carried out on the Chapter House. Naturally, I
had the keenest interest in whatever affected the ancient seat of the
House of Commons, regarding it as a shrine of constitutional government.
'Dean Stanley wanted to show me everything, to explain the whole place.
He told me of a theory of his that the Commons, while sitting there in
the circular room, probably had no parties, so called. They were grouped
in a ring, not confronting each other sharply, antagonistically, and
everything went on with quietness. But when they moved across to St.
Stephen's, they found themselves set opposite-wise, which fact may have
tended to create the party system.
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