ruling the world, without any treaty or entangling alliance
whatsoever. If, when you went to Berlin to talk to your gentle and
timid friend, the Emperor, about disarmament before the war--if
about 200 American dreadnaughts and cruisers, with real grog on
'em, had come over to make a friendly call, in the North Sea, on
the 300 English dreadnaughts and cruisers--just a friendly call,
admirals on admirals--the "Star-Spangled Banner" and "God Save the
King"--and if General Bell, from the Philippines, had happened in
London just when Kitchener happened to be home from Egypt--_then,
there wouldn't have been this war now_. Nothing need have been
said--no treaty, no alliance, nothing. For then 100 or more British
naval ships would have joined the Panama naval procession and any
possible enemy would have seen that combined fleet clean across the
Pacific.

Now this may all be a mere Christmas fancy--a mere yarn about what
might have been--because we wouldn't have sent ships here in our
old mood; the crew would have missed one Sunday School. But it's
_this kind_ of thing that does the trick. But this means the
practice of courtesy, and we haven't acquired the habit. Two years
or more ago the training ships from Annapolis with the cadets
aboard anchored down the Thames and stayed several weeks and let
the boys loose in England. They go on such a voyage every two years
to some country, you know. The English didn't know that fact and
they took the visit as a special compliment. Their old admirals
were all greatly pleased, and I hear talk about that yet. We ought
to have two or three of our rear-admirals here on their fleet now.
Symington, of course, is a good fellow; but he's a mere commander
and attaché--not an admiral--in other words, not any particular
compliment or courtesy to the British Navy. (As soon as the war
began, a Japanese admiral turned up here and he is here now.) We
sent over two army captains as military observers. The Russians
sent a brigadier-general. We ought to have sent General Wood. You
see the difference? There was no courtesy in our method. It would
be the easiest and prettiest job in the world to swallow the whole
British organization, lock, stock, and barrel--King, Primate,
Cabinet, Lords, and Commons, feathers and all, and to make 'em
follow our _courteous_ lead anywhere. The President had them in
this mood when the war started and for a long time after--till the
_Lusitania_ seemed to be forgotten and till the lawyers began to
write his Notes. He can get 'em back, after the war ends, by
several acts of courtesy--if we could get into the habit of doing
such things as sending generals and admirals as compliments to
them. The British Empire is ruled by a wily use of courtesies and
decorations. If I had the President himself to do the
correspondence, if I had three or four fine generals and admirals
and a good bishop or two, a thoroughbred senator or two and now and
then a Supreme Court Justice to come on proper errands and be
engineered here in the right way--we could do or say anything we
liked and they'd do whatever we'd say. I'd undertake to underwrite
the whole English-speaking world to keep peace, under our
leadership. Instead whereof, every move we now make is to _follow_
them or to _drive_ them. The latter is impossible, and the former
is unbecoming to us.

But to return to Christmas.--I could go on writing for a week in
this off-hand, slap-dash way, saying wise things flippantly. But
Christmas--that's the thing now. Christmas! What bloody irony it is
on this side the world! Still there will be many pleasant and
touching things done. An Englishman came in to see me the other day
and asked if I'd send $1,000 to Gerard[25] to use in making the
English prisoners in Germany as happy as possible on Christmas
Day--only I must never tell anybody who did it. A lady came on the
same errand--for the British prisoners in Turkey, and with a less
but still a generous sum. The heroism, the generosity, the
endurance and self-restraint and courtesy of these people would
melt a pyramid to tears. Of course there are yellow dogs among 'em,
here and there; but the genuine, thoroughbred English man or woman
is the real thing--one of the realest things in this world. So
polite are they that not a single English person has yet mentioned
our Note to me--not one.

But every one I've met for two days has mentioned the sending of
Von Papen and Boy-Ed[26] home--not that they expect us to get into
the war, but because they regard this action as maintaining our
self-respect.

Nor do they neglect other things because of the war. I went to the
annual dinner of the Scottish Corporation the other night-an
organization which for 251 years has looked after Scotchmen
stranded in London; and they collected $20,000 then and there.
There's a good deal of Christmas in 'em yet. One fellow in a little
patriotic speech said that the Government is spending twenty-five
million dollars a day to whip the Germans.--"Cheap work, very cheap
work. We can spend twice that if necessary. Why, gentlemen, we
haven't exhausted our pocket-change yet."

Somehow I keep getting away from Christmas. It doesn't stay put.
It'll be a memorable one here for its sorrows and for its grim
determination--an empty chair at every English table. But nowhere
in the world will it be different except in the small neutral
states here and in the lands on your side the world.

How many Christmases the war may last, nobody's wise enough to
know. That depends absolutely on Germany. The Allies announced
their terms ten months ago, and nothing has yet happened to make
them change them. That would leave the Germans with Germany and a
secure peace--no obliteration or any other wild nonsense, but only
a secure peace. Let 'em go back home, pay for the damage they've
done, and then stay there. I do hope that the actual fighting will
be ended by Christmas of next year. Of course it _may_ end with
dramatic suddenness at any time, this being the only way, perhaps,
for the Kaiser to save his throne. Or it may go on for two or three
years. My guess is that it'll end next year--a guess subject to
revision, of course, by events that can't be foreseen.

But as I said before--to come back to Christmas. Mrs. Page and I
send you and Mrs. House our affectionate good wishes and the hope
that you keep very well and very happy in your happy, prosperous
hemisphere. We do, I thank you. We haven't been better for
years--never before so busy, never, I think, so free from care. We
get plenty to eat (such as it is in this tasteless wet zone), at a
high cost, of course; we have comfortable beds and shoes (we spend
all our time in these two things, you know); we have good company,
enough to do (!!), no grievances nor ailments, no ill-will, no
disappointments, a keen interest in some big things--all the chips
are blue, you know; we don't feel ready for halos, nor for other
uncomfortable honours; we deserve less than we get and are content
with what the gods send. This, I take it, is all that Martin[27]
would call a comfortable mood for Christmas; and we are old enough
and tough enough to have thick armour against trouble. When Worry
knocks at the door, the butler tells him we're not at home.

And I see the most interesting work in the world cut out for me
for the next twenty-five or thirty years--to get such courtesy into
our dealings with these our kinsmen here, public and private--as
will cause them to follow us in all the developments of democracy
and-in keeping the peace of the world secure. I can't impress it on
you strongly enough that the English-speaking folk have got to set
the pace and keep this world in order. Nobody else is equal to the
job. In all our dealings with the British, public and private, we
allow it to be assumed that _they_ lead: they don't. _We_ lead.
They'll follow, if we do really lead and are courteous to them. If
we hold back, the Irishman rears up and says we are surrendering to
the English! Suppose we go ahead and the English surrender to us,
what can your Irishmen do then? Or your German? The British Navy is
a pretty good sort of dog to have to trot under your wagon. If we
are willing to have ten years of thoughtful good manners, I tell
you Jellicoe will eat out of your hand.

Therefore, cheer up! It's not at all improbable that Ford[28] and
his cargo of cranks, if they get across the ocean, may strike a
German mine in the North Sea. Then they'll die happy, as martyrs;
and the rest of us will live happy, and it'll be a Merry Christmas
for everybody.

Our love to Mrs. House.

Always heartily yours,

W.H.P.

_To Frank N. Doubleday and Others_

London, Christmas, 1915.

DEAR D.P. & Co.

... Now, since we're talking about the war, let me deliver my
opinion and leave the subject. They're killing one another all
right; you needn't have any doubt about that--so many thousand
every day, whether there's any battle or not. When there's "nothing
to report" from France, that means the regular 5,000 casualties
that happen every day. There isn't any way of getting rid of men
that has been forgotten or neglected. Women and children, too, of
course, starve in Serbia and Poland and are massacred in Turkey.
England, though she has by very much the largest army she ever had,
has the smallest of all the big armies and yet I don't know a
family that had men of fighting age which hasn't lost one or more
members. And the worst is to come. But you never hear a complaint.
Poor Mr. Dent[29], for instance (two sons dead), says: "It's all
right. England must be saved."

And this Kingdom alone, as you know, is spending twenty-five
million dollars a day. The big loan placed in the United States[30]
would last but twenty days! if this pace of slaughter and of
spending go on long enough, there won't be any men or any money
left on this side the world. Yet there will be both left, of
course; for somehow things never quite go to the ultimate smash
that seems to come. Read the history of the French Revolution. How
did the French nation survive?

It will go on, unless some unexpected dramatic military event end
it, for something like another year at least--many say for two
years more, and some, three years more. It'll stop, of course,
whenever Germany will propose terms that the Allies can
consider--or something near such terms; and it won't stop before.
By blockade pressure and by fighting, the Allies are gradually
wearing the Germans out. We can see here the gradual pressure of
events in that direction. My guess is that they won't go into a
third winter.

Well, dear gentlemen, however you may feel about it, that's enough
for me. My day--every day--is divided into these parts: (1) two to
three hours listening to Americans or their agents here whose
cargoes are stopped, to sorrowing American parents whose boys have
run away and gone into the English Army, to nurses and doctors and
shell makers who wish to go to France, to bereaved English men and
women whose sons are "missing": can I have them found in Germany?
(2) to answering letters about these same cheerful subjects; (3) to
going over cases and documents prepared about all these sorts of
troubles and forty other sorts, by the eight or ten secretaries of
the Embassy, and a conference with every one of them; (4) the
reading of two books of telegrams, one incoming, the other
outgoing, and the preparation of a lot of answers; (5) going to the
Foreign Office, not every day but often, to discuss more troubles
there; (6) home to dinner at 8 o'clock--at home or somewhere else,
and there is more talk about the war or about the political
troubles. That for a regular daily routine for pretty nearly a year
and a half! As I say, if anybody is keeping the war up for my
entertainment, he now has my permission to stop. No time to read,
no time to write, little time to think, little or no time to see
the people you most wish to see, I often don't know the day of the
week or of the month: it's a sort of life in the trenches, without
the immediate physical danger. Then I have my cabinet meetings, my
financial reports (money we spend for four governments: I had till
recently about a million dollars subject to my check); then the
commission for the relief of Belgium; then the Ambassadors and
Ministers of the other neutral states--our task is worse than war!

Well, praise God for sleep. I get from seven to nine hours a night,
unbroken; and I don't take Armageddon to bed with me.

I don't mind telling _you_ (nobody else) that the more I see just
how great statesmen work and manage great governments--the more I
see of them at close range--whether in Washington or London or
Berlin or Vienna or Constantinople (for these are _my_ Capitals),
the more I admire the methods of the Long Island farmers. Boys, I
swear I could take our crowd and do a better job than many of these
great men do. I have to spend a lot of time to correct their moves
before the other fellow finds out the mistake. For instance I know
I spent $2,000 in telegrams before I could make the German
Government understand the British military age, and the British
Government understand the German military age, for exchanging
prisoners who had lost two legs or arms or both eyes; and I've had
to send a man to Berlin to get a financial report from one man on
one floor of a building there and to take it to another man on the
floor above. Just yesterday I was reminded that I had made eighteen
requests for the same information of the British Government, when
the nineteenth request for it came from Washington; and I have now
telegraphed that same thing nineteen times since the war began. Of
course everybody's worked to death. But something else ails a lot
of 'em all the way from Constantinople to London. Leaving out
common gutter lying (and there's much of it) the sheer stupidity of
governments is amazing. They are all so human, so mighty human! I
wouldn't be a government for any earthly consideration. I'd rather
be a brindled dog and trot under the wagon.

But it has been an inexpressibly interesting experience to find all
this out for myself. There's a sort of weary satisfaction in
feeling that you've seen too much of them to be fooled by 'em any
more. And, although most men now engaged in this game of government
are mere common mortals with most of the common mortal weaknesses,
now and then a really big man does stumble into the business. I
have my doubts whether a really big man ever deliberately goes into
it. And most of the men who the crowd for the moment thinks are big
men don't really turn out so. It's a game like bull fighting. The
bull is likely to kill you--pretty sure to do so if you keep at the
business long enough; but in the meantime you have some exciting
experiences and the applause of the audience. When you get killed,
they forget you--immediately. There are two rather big men in this
Government, and you wouldn't guess in three rounds who they are.
But in general the war hasn't so far developed very big men in any
country. Else we are yet too close to them to recognize their
greatness. Joffre seems to have great stuff in him; and (I assure
you) you needn't ever laugh at a Frenchman again. They are a great
people. As for the British, there was never such a race. It's
odd--I hear that it happens just now to be the fashion in the
United States to say that the British are not doing their share.
There never was a greater slander. They absolutely hold the Seven
Seas. They have caught about seventy submarines and some of them
are now destroying German ships in the Baltic Sea. They've sent to
France by several times the largest army that any people ever sent
over the sea. They are financing most of their allies and they have
turned this whole island into gun and shell factories. They made a
great mistake at the Dardanelles and they are slower than death to
change their set methods. But no family in the land, from charcoal
burners to dukes, hesitates one moment to send its sons into the
army. When the news comes of their death, they never whimper. When
you come right down to hard facts, the courage and the endurance of
the British and the French excel anything ever before seen on this
planet. All the old stories of bravery from Homer down are outdone
every day by these people. I see these British at close range,
full-dress and undress; and I've got to know a lot of 'em as well
as we can ever come to know anybody after we get grown. There is
simply no end to the silly sides of their character. But, when the
real trial comes, they don't flinch; and (except the thoroughbred
American) there are no such men in the world.

A seven-foot Kansas lawyer (Kansas all over him) came to see me
yesterday. He came here a month ago on some legal business. He told
me yesterday that he had always despised Englishmen. He's seen a
few with stud-horse clothes and white spats and monocles on who had
gone through Kansas to shoot in the Rocky Mountains. He couldn't
understand 'em and he didn't like 'em. "So infernally uppish," said
he.

"Well, what do you think of 'em now?"

"The very best people in the world," said he. I think he has a
notion of enlisting!

You're still publishing books, I hear. That's a good occupation.
I'd like to be doing it myself. But I can't even get time to read
'em now.

But, as you know, nobody's writing anything but war books--from
Kipling to Hall Caine. Poor Kipling!--his boy's dead. I have no
doubt of it. I've had all the German hospitals and prison camps
searched for him in vain. These writing men and women, by the way,
are as true blue and as thoroughbred as any other class. I can
never forget Maurice Hewlett's brave behaviour when he thought that
his flying corps son had been killed by the Germans or drowned at
sea. He's no prig, but a real man. And the women are as fine as the
men....

To go back to books: Of course nobody can tell what effect the war
will have on the writing of them, nor what sort of new writers may
come up. You may be sure that everything is stirred to its
profoundest depths and will be stirred still more. Some old stagers
will be laid on the shelf; that's certain. What sort of new ones
will come? I asked H.G. Wells this question. He has promised to
think it out and tell me. He has the power to guess some things
very well. I'll put that question to Conrad when I next see him.

Does anybody in the United States take the Prime Minister, Mr.
Asquith, to be a great man? His wife is a brilliant woman; and she
has kept a diary ever since he became Prime Minister; and he now
has passed the longest single term in English history. Mr. Dent
thinks he's the biggest man alive, and Dent has some mighty good
instincts.

Talk about troubles! Think of poor Northcliffe. He thinks he's
saved the nation from its miserable government, and the government
now openly abuses him in the House of Commons. Northcliffe puts on
his brass knuckles and turns the _Times_ building upside down and
sets all the _Daily Mail_ machine guns going, and has to go to bed
to rest his nerves, while the row spreads and deepens. The
Government keeps hell in the prayer-book because without it they
wouldn't know what to do with Northcliffe; and Northcliffe is just
as sure that he has saved England as he is sure the Duke of
Wellington did.

To come back to the war. (We always do.) Since I wrote the first
part of this letter, I spent an evening with a member of the
Cabinet and he told me so much bad military news, which they
prevent the papers from publishing or even hearing, that to-night I
almost share this man's opinion that the war will last till 1918.
That isn't impossible. If that happens the offer that I heard a
noble old buck make to a group of ladies the other night may be
accepted. This old codger is about seventy-five, ruddy and saucy
yet. "My dear ladies," said he, "if the war goes on and on we shall
have no young men left. A double duty will fall on the old fellows.
I shall be ready, when the need comes, to take four extra wives,
and I daresay there are others of my generation who are as
patriotic as I am."

All of which is only my long-winded, round-about diplomatic way of
wishing you every one and every one of yours and all the folk in
the office, their assigns, superiors, dependents, companions in
labour--all, everyone and sundry, the happiest of Christmases; and
when you take stock of your manifold blessings, don't forget to be
thankful for the Atlantic Ocean. That's the best asset of safety
that we have.

Affectionately yours,

W.H.P.

_To Mrs. Charles G. Loring_

6 Grosvenor Square,

London, December 7, 1915.

DEAR KITTY:

This is my Christmas letter to you and Chud--a poor thing, but the
best I have to give you. At least it carries my love, dear, and my
wishes that every Christmas under your own roof will be happier
than the preceding one. Since your starting point is on the high
level of your first Christmas in your own home--that's a good wish:
isn't it?

I'm beginning to think a good deal of your mother and me. Here we
are left alone by every one of you--in a foreign land; and,
contrary to all predictions that any of you would have made about
us four or five years ago, we're faring pretty well, thank you, and
not on the edge of dying of loneliness at all. I tell you, I think
we're pretty brave and hardy.

We're even capable of becoming cocky and saucy to every one of you.
Be careful, then.

You see if you have a war to live with you don't necessarily need
children: you'll have strife enough without 'em. We'll console
ourselves with such reflections as these.

And the truth is--at least about me--that there isn't time to think
of what you haven't got. Of course, I'm working, as always, to
soften the relations between these two governments. So far, in
spite of the pretty deep latent feeling on both sides--far worse
than it ought to be and far worse than I wish it were--I'm working
all the time to keep things as smooth as possible. Happily, nobody
can prove it, but I believe it, that there is now and there has
been all along more danger of a serious misunderstanding than
anybody has known. The Germans have, of course, worked in 1000 ways
to cause misunderstanding between England and the United States.
Then, of course, there has been constant danger in the English
bull-headed insularity which sees nothing but the Englishman's
immediate need, and in the English slowness. Add to these causes
the American ignorance of war and of European conditions. It has
been a God's mercy for us that we have so far had a man like Sir
Edward Grey in his post. And in my post, while there might well
have been a better man, this much at least has been lucky--that I
do have a consciousness of English history and of our common
origin and some sense of the inevitable destiny of the great
English-speaking race--so that, when we have come to sharp corners
in the road, I have known that whatever happen we must travel in
the right general direction--have known that no temporary
difference must be allowed to assume a permanent quality. I have
thought several times that we had passed the worst possible place,
and then a still worse one would appear. It does look now as if we
had faced most of the worst difficulties that can come, but I am
not sure what Congress may do or provoke. If we outlast Congress,
we shall be safe. Now to come through this enormous war even with
no worse feeling than already exists between the two
countries--that'll be a big thing to have done. But it's work like
the work of the English fleet. Nobody can prove that Jellicoe has
been a great admiral. Yet the fleet has done the whole job more
successfully than if it had had sea-fights and lost a part of their
ships.

Our Note has left a great deal of bad feeling--suppressed, but
existent. A part of it was inevitable and (I'd say) even necessary.
But we put in a lot of things that seem to me to be merely
disputatious, and we didn't write it in the best form. It
corresponds to what you once called _suburban_: do you remember?
Not thoroughbred. But we'll get over even that, especially if the
Administration and the courts continue to bring the Germans to book
who are insulting our dignity and destroying our property and
killing Americans. If we can satisfactorily settle the _Lusitania_
trouble, the whole outlook will be very good.

Your mother and I are hearing much interesting political talk. We
dined last night with Mr. Bonar Law. Sir Edward Carson was there.
To-day we lunched with Lady P.--the other side, you see. There are
fundamental differences continually arising. They thought a few
weeks ago that they had the Prime Minister's scalp. He proved too
nimble for them. Now one person after another says to you:
"Kitchener doesn't deserve the reverence the people give him." More
and more folks say he's hard to work with--is domineering and
selfish. Nobody seems really to know him; and there are some signs
that there may be a row about him.

We've heard nothing from Harold in quite a little while. We have,
you know, three of our footmen in the war. Allen was wounded at
Loos--a flesh, bullet-wound. He's about well now and is soon going
back. Leslie is in the trenches and a postal card came from him the
other day. The third one, Philip, is a prisoner in Germany. Your
mother sent him a lot of things, but we've never heard whether he
received them or not. The general strain--military, political,
financial--gets greater. The streets are darker than ever. The
number of wounded increases rapidly. More houses are turned into
hospitals. The Manchesters', next door, is a hospital now. And
everybody fears worse days are to come. But they have no nerves,
these English. They grit their teeth, but they go on bravely,
enduring everything. We run into experiences every day that melt
you, and the heroic things we hear outnumber and outdo all the
stories in all the books.

I keep forgetting Xmas, Kitty, and this is my Xmas letter. You
needn't put it in your stocking, but you'd really better burn it
up. It would be the ruination of the world if my frank comments got
loose. It's for you and Chud only. You may fill your stocking full
of the best wishes you ever received--enough to fill the polar bear
skin. And I send you both my love.

W.H.P.

_To Ralph W., Arthur 147., and Frank C. Page_[31]

London, Christmas, 1915.

DEAR Boys: R.W.P., A.W.P., F.C.P.

A Merry Christmas to you! Good cheer, good company, good food, good
fires, good golf. I suppose (though the Lord only knows) that I'll
have to be here another Christmas; but another after that? Not on
your life!

I think I'm as cheerful and hopeful as I ever was, but this
experience here and the war have caused my general confidence in
the orderly progress of civilization somewhat to readjust itself. I
think that any man who looks over the world and who knows something
of the history of human society--I mean any American who really
believes in democracy and in human progress--is somewhat saddened
to see the exceeding slowness of that progress. In the early days
of our Republic hopeful Americans held the opinion that the other
countries of the world would follow our example; that is to say,
would educate the people, would give the masses a chance to become
real men, would make their governments and institutions serve the
people, would dispense with kings and gross privileges and become
free. Well, they haven't done it. France is nominally a republic,
but the masses of its people are far, far backward. Switzerland
_is_ a republic, but a very small one. Denmark is a very free
state, in spite of its monarchical form of government. In South
America they think they have republics, but they haven't the
slightest idea of the real education and freedom of the people.
Practically, therefore, the United States and the self-governing
British colonies are the only really free countries of much
importance in the whole world--these and this Kingdom. Our example
hasn't been followed. In Europe, Germany and Russia in particular
have monarchs who are in absolute command. Thus on both sides the
world, so far as government and the danger of war are concerned,
there hasn't been very much real progress in five hundred years.

This is a little disappointing. And it means, of course, that we
are likely to have periodical earthquakes like this present one
till some radical change come. Republics have their faults, no
doubt. But they have at least this virtue: that no country where
the people really have the control of their government is likely to
start out deliberately on any war of conquest--is not likely to run
amuck--and will not regard its population as mere food for shell
and powder.

Nor do I believe that our example of our government has, relatively
to our strength and wealth and population, as much influence in the
world as we had one hundred years ago. Our people have no foreign
consciousness and I know that our government knows almost nothing
about European affairs; nor do our people know. As regards foreign
affairs our government lacks proper machinery. Take this as an
illustration: The President wrote vigorous and proper notes about
the _Lusitania_ and took a firm stand with Germany. Germany has
paid no attention to the _Lusitania_ outrage. Yet (as I understand
it) the people will not run the risk of war--or the Administration
thinks they will not--and hence the President can do nothing to
make his threat good. Therefore we stand in a ridiculous situation;
and nobody cares how many notes we write. I don't know that the
President could have done differently--unless, before he sent the
_Lusitania_ notes, he had called Congress together and submitted
his notes to Congress. But, as the matter stands, the Germans are
merely encouraged to blow up factories and practically to carry on
war in the United States, because they know we can (or will) do
nothing. Mere notes break nobody's skin.

We don't seem to have any machinery to bring any influence to bear
on foreign governments or on foreign opinion; and, this being so,
it is little wonder that the rest of the world does not follow our
republican example.

And this sort of impotence in influence has curious effects at
home. For example, the ship-purchase bill, as it was at the last
session of Congress, was an economic crime. See what has happened:
We have waked up to the fact that we must have a big navy. Well, a
navy is of no far-fighting value unless we have auxiliary ships and
a lot of 'em. Admiral Jellicoe has 3,000 ships under his command;
and he couldn't keep his fleet on the job if he didn't have them.
Most of them are commandeered merchant, passenger, and fishing
ships. Now we haven't merchant, passenger, and fishing ships to
commandeer. We've got to build and buy auxiliary ships to our navy.
This, to my mind, makes the new ship-purchase bill, or something
like it, necessary. Else our navy, when it comes to the scratch,
will be of no fighting value, however big it be. It's the price
we've got to pay for not having built up a merchant marine. And we
haven't built up a merchant marine because we've had no foreign
consciousness. While our Irishmen have been leading us to twist the
Lion's tail, we've been depending almost wholly on English
ships--and, in late years, on German ships. You can't cross the
ocean yet in a decent American ship. You see, we've declared our
independence; and, so far as individual development goes, we've
worked it out. But the governmental machinery for maintaining it
and for making it visible to the world--we've simply neglected to
build it or to shape it. Hence the President's notes hurt nobody
and accomplish nothing; nor could our navy put up a real fight, for
lack of colliers and supply ships. It's the same way all around the
horizon. And these are the reasons we haven't made our democracy
impress the world more.

A democracy is not a quick-trigger war-engine and can't be made
into one. When the quick-trigger engines get to work, they forget
that a democracy does not consider fighting the first duty of man.
You can bend your energies to peaceful pursuits or you can bend
them to war. It's hard to do both at the same time. The Germans are
the only people who have done both at the same time; and even they
didn't get their navy big enough for their needs.

When the infernal thing's over--that'll be a glad day; and the
European world won't really know what it has cost in men and money
and loss of standards till it is over....

Affectionately,

W.H.P.


_To Walter H. Page, Jr._[32].

London, Christmas, 1915.

SIR:

For your first Christmas, I have the honour to send you my most
affectionate greetings; and in wishing you all good health, I take
the liberty humbly to indicate some of the favours of fortune that
I am pleased to think I enjoy in common with you.

_First_--I hear with pleasure that you are quite well content with
yourself--not because of a reasoned conviction of your own worth,
which would be mere vanity and unworthy of you, but by reason of a
philosophical disposition. It is too early for you to bother over
problems of self-improvement--as for me it is too late; wherefore
we are alike in the calm of our self-content. What others may think
or say about us is a subject of the smallest concern to us.
Therefore they generally speak well of us; for there is little
satisfaction in speaking ill of men who care nothing for your
opinion of them. Then, too, we are content to be where we happen to
be--a fact that we did not order in the beginning and need not now
concern ourselves about. Consider the eternal coming and going of
folk. On every road many are travelling one way and an equal number
are travelling the other way. It is obvious that, if they were all
content to remain at the places whence they set forth, the
distribution of the population would be the same. Why therefore
move hither and yon at the cost of much time and labour and money,
since nothing is accomplished thereby? We spare ourselves by being
content to remain where we are. We thereby have the more time for
reflection. Nor can we help observing with a smile that all persons
who have good reasons to see us themselves make the necessary
journey after they discover that we remain fixed.

Again, people about us are continually doing this service and that
for some other people--running errands, mending fences, bearing
messages, building, and tearing down; and they all demand equal
service in return. Thus a large part of mankind keeps itself in
constant motion like bubbles of water racing around a pool at the
foot of a water-fall--or like rabbits hurrying into their warrens
and immediately hurrying out again. Whereas, while these antics
amuse and sadden us, we for the most part remain where we are.
Hence our wants are few; they are generally most courteously
supplied without our asking; or, if we happen to be momentarily
forgotten, we can quickly secure anything in the neighbourhood by a
little judicious squalling. Why, then, should we whirl as bubbles
or scurry as rabbits? Our conquering self-possession gives a
masterful charm to life that the victims of perpetual locomotion
never seem to attain.

You have discovered, and my experience confirms yours, that a
perpetual self-consciousness brings most of the misery of the
world. Men see others who are richer than they; or more famous, or
more fortunate--so they think; and they become envious. You have
not reached the period of such empty vanity, and I have long passed
it. Let us, therefore, make our mutual vows not to be disturbed by
the good luck or the good graces of others, but to continue,
instead, to contemplate the contented cat on the rug and the
unenvious sky that hangs over all alike.

This mood will continue to keep our lives simple. Consider our
diet. Could anything be simpler or better? We are not even tempted
by the poisonous victuals wherewith mankind destroys itself. The
very first sound law of life is to look to the belly; for it is
what goes into a man that ruins him. By avoiding murderous food, we
may hope to become centenarians. And why not? The golden streets
will not be torn up and we need be in no indecent haste to travel
even on them. The satisfactions of this life are just beginning for
us; and we shall be wise to endure this world for as long a period
as possible.

And sleep is good--long sleep and often; and your age and mine
permit us to indulge in it without the sneers of the lark or the
cock or the dawn.

I pray you, sir, therefore, accept my homage as the philosopher
that you are and my assurance of that high esteem indicated by my
faithful imitation of your virtues. I am,

With the most distinguished consideration,
With the sincerest esteem, and
With the most affectionate good wishes,
Sir,
Your proud,
Humble,
Obedient
GRANDDADDY.

To Master Walter Hines Page,

On Christmas, 1915.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 23: By William Roscoe Thayer, published in 1915.]

[Footnote 24: The Ambassador had in mind _The Round Table_.]

[Footnote 25: James W. Gerard, American Ambassador to Germany, and, as
such, in charge of British interests in Germany.]

[Footnote 26: The German military and naval attachés, whose persistent
and outrageous violation of American laws led to their dismissal by
President Wilson.]

[Footnote 27: E.S. Martin, Editor of _Life_.]

[Footnote 28: Mr. Henry Ford at this time was getting together his
famous peace ship, which was to sail to Europe "to get the boys out of
the trenches by Christmas."]

[Footnote 29: J.M. Dent, the London publisher.]

[Footnote 30: $500,000,000.]

[Footnote 31: The Ambassador's Sons.]

[Footnote 32: The Ambassador's infant grandson, son of Arthur W. Page.]