The Canvasser

Hilaire Belloc

ca. 1910 

IN that part of the Garden of Eden which lies 

somewhat to the south-west of the centre thereof 

the weather, during the recent election which was 

held there, was bad. It blew, it rained, it hailed, it 

snowed, and all this was on account of the great 

comet, of which the people of that region said 

proudly to strangers, " Have you seen our comet ? " 

Imagining, with I know not how much justice, that 

this celestial phenomenon was local rather than 

national or imperial. 

The Garden of Eden being mainly of a clay soil, 

large parts of it were flooded, and a Canvasser (a 

draper by profession and a Gentleman from London 

by birth), unacquainted as he was with the Garden of 

Eden, thought it a foul place, and picked his way 

without pleasure. He went down a lane the like of 

which he did not even know to exist in England (for 

it was what we call in the Garden of Eden a " green 

lane," and only those learned in the place could get 

along it at all during the floods). 

I say he went down this lane, turned back, took 

a circumbendibus over some high but abominably 

sticky ploughed fields, and turned up with more of 

English earth than most citizens can boast at the 

door of the Important Cottage. He had been given 

his instructions carefully, and he was sure of the 

place. He swung off several pounds of clay from his 

boots to the right and to the left, and then it struck 

him that he did not know how to accost a cottage 

door. There was no knocker and there was no bell, 

But he had had plenty of proof and instruction 

dinned into him as to the importance of that cottage, 

so at last he made up his mind to do something bold 

and unconventional, and he knocked at it with his 

knuckles. 

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