XI ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR - Revision history

Rdh7 at 06:55, 8 February 2009

2009-02-08T06:55:05Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 06:55, 8 February 2009
Line 2:		Line 2:
	[[Main Page \| WWI Document Archive]] > [[Diaries, Memorials, Personal Reminiscences]] > [[The_Life_and_Letters_of_Walter_H._Page\|Walter H. Page]] > '''Chapter XI'''		[[Main Page \| WWI Document Archive]] > [[Diaries, Memorials, Personal Reminiscences]] > [[The_Life_and_Letters_of_Walter_H._Page\|Walter H. Page]] > '''Chapter XI'''
	</p><hr>		</p><hr>
		+
		+
		+	<center>[[Image: Walter_H._Page_Signature.gif]]</center> <br><br>

Hirgen at 06:56, 18 January 2009

2009-01-18T06:56:21Z

Show changes

Hirgen at 06:44, 18 January 2009

2009-01-18T06:44:36Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 06:44, 18 January 2009
Line 395:		Line 395:
	<br><br>.		<br><br>.

−	<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Edward M. House</FONT></I><center>	+	<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Edward M. House</FONT></I></center>
	<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>October 11, 1914.		<BLOCKQUOTE><br><br>October 11, 1914.
	<br><br>DEAR HOUSE:		<br><br>DEAR HOUSE:
Line 905:		Line 905:
	<p align="right">		<p align="right">
	[[Main Page \| WWI Document Archive]] > [[Diaries, Memorials, Personal Reminiscences]] > [[The_Life_and_Letters_of_Walter_H._Page\|Walter H. Page]] > '''Chapter XI'''		[[Main Page \| WWI Document Archive]] > [[Diaries, Memorials, Personal Reminiscences]] > [[The_Life_and_Letters_of_Walter_H._Page\|Walter H. Page]] > '''Chapter XI'''
−	</p~~><hr~~>	+	</p>

Hirgen at 06:42, 18 January 2009

2009-01-18T06:42:52Z

Show changes

Rdh7 at 18:31, 17 January 2009

2009-01-17T18:31:23Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:31, 17 January 2009
Line 1:		Line 1:
		+	<p align="right">
		+	[[Main Page \| WWI Document Archive]] > [[Diaries, Memorials, Personal Reminiscences]] > [[The_Life_and_Letters_of_Walter_H._Page\|Walter H. Page]] > '''Chapter XI'''
		+	</p><hr>
		+
		+
	<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+2">CHAPTER XI</FONT></center><br><br>		<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+2">CHAPTER XI</FONT></center><br><br>

Line 883:		Line 888:
	<br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>		<br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>
	</BLOCKQUOTE>		</BLOCKQUOTE>
		+

	<HR>		<HR>
		+	<p align="right">
		+	[[Main Page \| WWI Document Archive]] > [[Diaries, Memorials, Personal Reminiscences]] > [[The_Life_and_Letters_of_Walter_H._Page\|Walter H. Page]] > '''Chapter XI'''
		+	</p><hr>

Hirgen at 10:22, 3 January 2009

2009-01-03T10:22:42Z

Hirgen at 04:15, 3 January 2009

2009-01-03T04:15:58Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 04:15, 3 January 2009
Line 884:		Line 884:
	</BLOCKQUOTE>		</BLOCKQUOTE>

−	~~<P ALIGN=CENTER>~~<HR>	+	<HR>
−		+
−	~~<BLOCKQUOTE>~~	+
−	~~<br><br><FONT SIZE="+1"><IMG SRC="thumbnails/2b.gif" WIDTH="25" HEIGHT="24"~~	+
−	~~ALIGN="MIDDLE" BORDER="0" ><A HREF="Page07.htm">Chapter~~	+
−	~~Twelve</A></FONT>~~	+
−	~~<br><br><FONT SIZE="+1"><IMG SRC="thumbnails/2b.gif" WIDTH="25" HEIGHT="24"~~	+
−	~~ALIGN="MIDDLE" BORDER="0" ><A HREF="PageTC.htm#TC">Table~~	+
−	~~of Contents</A></FONT>~~	+
−	~~</BLOCKQUOTE>~~	+
−		+
−	~~</BODY>~~	+
−	~~</HTML~~>	+

Hirgen at 02:18, 3 January 2009

2009-01-03T02:18:39Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 02:18, 3 January 2009
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	<~~P ALIGN=~~CENTER><FONT ~~COLOR~~="~~#0000ff~~"></FONT~~><A NAME="ch11"~~></A><~~FONT~~	+	<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+2">CHAPTER XI</FONT></center><br><br>
−	~~SIZE="+2"~~>~~CHAPTER XI~~<~~/FONT~~>	+

−	<~~P ALIGN=~~CENTER><FONT SIZE="+2">ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR</FONT>	+	<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+2">ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR</FONT></center>

	<br><br>THE months following the outbreak of the war were busy ones		<br><br>THE months following the outbreak of the war were busy ones

Hirgen: New page:
CHAPTER XI
ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR

THE mont...

2009-01-02T10:54:57Z

New page: <A NAME="ch11"></A>CHAPTER XI ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR THE mont...

New page

<A NAME="ch11"></A>CHAPTER XI

ENGLAND UNDER THE STRESS OF WAR

 THE months following the outbreak of the war were busy ones
for the American Embassy in London. The Embassies of all the great
Powers with which Great Britain was contending were handed over
to Page, and the citizens of these countries---Germany, Austria,
Turkey---who found themselves stranded in England, were practically
made his wards. It is a constant astonishment to his biographer
that, during all the labour and distractions of this period, Page
should have found time to write long letters describing the disturbing
scene. There are scores of them, all penned in the beautiful copper-plate
handwriting that shows no signs of excitement or weariness, but
is in itself an evidence of mental poise and of the sure grip
which Page had upon the evolving drama. From the many sent in
these autumn and early winter months the following selections
are made:

 .

<BLOCKQUOTE>
To Edward M. House
 September 22nd, 1914.
 MY DEAR HOUSE:
 When the day of settlement comes, the settlement must make
sure that the day of militarism is done and can come no more.
If sheer brute force is to rule the world, it will not be worth
living in. If German bureaucratic brute force could conquer Europe,
presently it would try to conquer the United States; and we should
all go back to the era of war as man's chief industry and back
to the domination of kings by divine right. It seems to me, therefore,
that the Hohenzollern idea must perish---be utterly strangled
in the making of peace.
 Just how to do this, it is not yet easy to say. If the German
defeat be emphatic enough and dramatic enough, the question may
answer itself---how's the best way to be rid of the danger of
the recurrence of a military bureaucracy? But in any event, this
thing must be killed forever---somehow. I think that a firm insistence
on this is the main task that mediation will bring. The rest
will be corollaries of this.
 The danger, of course, as all the world is beginning to fear,
is that the Kaiser, after a local victory---especially if he
should yet take Paris---will propose peace, saying that he dreads
the very sight of blood---propose peace in time, as he will hope,
to save his throne, his dynasty, his system. That will be a dangerous
day. The horror of war will have a tendency to make many persons
in the countries of the Allies accept it. All the peace folk
in the world will say "Accept it!" But if he and his
throne and his dynasty and his system be saved, in twenty-five
years the whole job must be done over again.
 We are settling down to a routine of double work and to an
oppression of gloom. Dead men, dead men, maimed men, the dull
gray dread of what may happen next, the impossibility of changing
the subject, the monotony of gloom, the consequent dimness of
ideals, the overworking of the emotions and the heavy bondage
of thought---the days go swiftly: that's one blessing.
 The diplomatic work proper brings fewer difficulties than
you would guess. New subjects and new duties come with great
rapidity, but they soon fall into formulas ---at least into classes.
We shall have no sharp crises nor grave difficulties so long
as our Government and this Government keep their more than friendly
relations. I see Sir Edward Grey almost every day. We talk of
many things---all phases of one vast wreck; and all the clear-cut
points that come up I report by telegraph. To-day the talk was
of American cargoes in British ships and the machinery they have
set up here for fair settlement. Then of Americans applying for
enlistment in Canadian regiments. "If sheer brute force
conquer Europe," said he, "the United States will be
the only country where life will be worth living; and in time
you will have to fight against it, too, if it conquer Europe."
He spoke of the letter he had just received from the President,
and he asked me many sympathetic questions about you also and
about your health. I ventured to express some solicitude for
him,
 "How much do you get out now?"
 "Only for an automobile drive Sunday afternoon."
 This from a man who is never happy away from nature and is
at home only in the woods and along the streams. He looks worn.
 I hear nothing but satisfaction with our neutrality tight-rope
walk. I think we are keeping it here, by close attention to our
work and by silence.
 Our volunteer and temporary aids are doing well---especially
the army and navy officers. We now occupy three work-places:
(1) the over-crowded embassy; (2) a suite of offices around the
corner where the ever-lengthening list of inquiries for persons
is handled and where an army officer pays money to persons whose
friends have deposited it for them with the Government in Washington---just
now at the rate of about $15,000 a day; and (3) two great rooms
at the Savoy Hotel, where the admirable relief committee (which
meets all trains that bring people from the continent) gives
aid to the needy and helps people to get tickets home. They have
this week helped about 400 with more or less money---after full
investigation.
 At the Embassy a secretary remains till bed-time, which generally
means till midnight; and I go back there for an hour or two every
night.
 The financial help we give to German and Austrian subjects
(poor devils) is given, of course, at their embassies, where
we have men---our men---in charge. Each of these governments
accepted my offer to give our Ambassadors (Gerard and Penfield)
a sum of money to help Americans if I would set aside an equal
sum to help their people here. The German fund that I thus began
with was $50,000; the Austrian, $25,000. All this and more will
be needed before the war ends.---All this activity is kept up
with scrupulous attention to the British rules and regulations.
In fact, we are helping this Government much in the management
of these "alien enemies," as they call them.
 I am amazed at the good health we all keep with this big volume
of work and the long hours. Not a man nor a woman has been ill
a day. I have known something about work and the spirit of good
work in other organizations of various sorts; but I never saw
one work in better spirit than this. And remember, most of them
are volunteers.
 The soldiers here complained for weeks in private about the
lethargy of the people---the slowness of men to enlist. But they
seemed to me to complain with insufficient reason. For now they
come by thousands. They do need more men in the field, and they
may conscript them, but I doubt the necessity. But I run across
such incidents as these: I met the Dowager Countess of D-----
yesterday ---a woman of 65, as tall as I and as erect herself
as a soldier, who might be taken for a woman of 40, prematurely
gray. "I had five sons in the Boer War. I have three in
this war. I do not know where any one of them is." Mrs.
Page's maid is talking of leaving her. "My two brothers
have gone to the war and perhaps I ought to help their wives
and children." The Countess and the maid are of the same
blood, each alike unconquerable. My chauffeur has talked all
day about the naval battle in which five German ships were lately
sunk.(<A NAME="n68"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#68">68</A>) He
reminded me of the night two months ago when he drove Mrs. Page
and me to dine with Sir John and Lady Jellicoe---Jellicoe now,
you know, being in command of the British fleet.
 This Kingdom has settled down to war as its one great piece
of business now in hand, and it is impossible, as the busy, burdensome
days pass, to pick out events or impressions that one can be
sure are worth writing. For instance a soldier---a man in the
War Office---told me to-day that Lord Kitchener had just told
him that the war may last for several years. That, I confess,
seems to me very improbable, and (what is of more importance)
it is not the notion held by most men whose judgment I respect.
But all the military men say it will be long. It would take several
years to kill that vast horde of Germans, but it will not take
so long to starve them out. Food here is practically as cheap
as it was three months ago and the sea routes are all open to
England and practically all closed to Germany. The ultimate result,
of course, will be Germany's defeat. But the British are now
going about the business of war as if they knew they would continue
it indefinitely. The grim efficiency of their work even in small
details was illustrated to-day by the Government's informing
us that a German handy man, whom the German Ambassador left at
his Embassy, with the English Government's consent, Is a spy---that
he sends verbal messages to Germany by women who are permitted
to go home, and that they have found letters written by him sewed
in some of these women's undergarments! This man has been at
work there every day under the two very good men whom I have
put in charge there and who have never suspected him. How on
earth they found this out simply passes my understanding. Fortunately
it doesn't bring any embarrassment to us; he was not in our pay
and he was left by the German Ambassador with the British Government's
consent, to take care of the house. Again, when the German Chancellor
made a statement two days ago about the causes of the war, in
a few hours Sir Edward Grey issued a statement showing that the
Chancellor had misstated every important historic fact.---The
other day a commercial telegram was sent (or started) by Mr.
Bryan for some bank or trading concern in the United States,
managed by Germans, to some correspondent of theirs in Germany.
It contained the words, "Where is Harry?" The censor
here stopped it. It was brought to me with the explanation that
"Harry" is one of the most notorious of German spies---whom
they would like to catch. The English were slow in getting into
full action, but now they never miss a trick, little or big.
 The Germans have far more than their match in resources and
in shrewdness and---in character. As the bloody drama unfolds
itself, the hollow pretence and essential barbarity of Prussian
militarism become plainer and plainer: there is no doubt of that.
And so does the invincibility of this race. A well-known Englishman
told me to-day that his three sons, his son-in-law, and half
his office men are in the military service, "where they
belong in a time like this." The lady who once so sharply
criticized this gentleman to Mrs. Page has a son and a brother
in the army in France. It makes you take a fresh grip on your
eyelids to hear either of these talk. In fact the strain on one's
emotions, day in and day out, makes one wonder if the world is
real---or is this a vast dream? From sheer emotional exhaustion
I slept almost all day last Sunday, though I had not for several
days lost sleep at all. Many persons tell me of their similar
experiences. The universe seems muffled. There is a ghostly silence
in London (so it seems); and only dim street lights are lighted
at night. No experience seems normal. A vast organization is
working day and night down town receiving Belgian refugees. They
become the guests of the English. They are assigned to people's
homes, to boarding houses, to institutions. They are taking care
of them---this government and this people are. I do not recall
when one nation ever did another whole nation just such a hospitable
service as this. You can't see that work going on and remain
unmoved. An old woman who has an income of $15 a week decided
that she could live on $7.50. She buys milk with the other $7.50
and goes to meet every train at one of the big stations with
a basket filled with baby bottles, and she gives milk to every
hungry-looking baby she sees. Our American committeeman, Hoover,
saw her in trouble the other day and asked her what was the matter.
She explained that the police would no longer admit her to the
platform because she didn't belong to any relief committee. He
took her to headquarters and said: "Do you see this good
old lady? She puts you and me and everybody else to shame---do
you understand?" The old lady now gets to the platform.
Hoover himself gave $5,000 for helping stranded Americans and
he goes to the trains to meet them, while the war has stopped
his big business and his big income. This is a sample of the
noble American end of the story.
 These are the saying class of people to whom life becomes
a bore unless they can help somebody. There's just such a fellow
in Brussels---you may have heard of him, for his name is Whitlock.
Stories of his showing himself a man come out of that closed-up
city every week. To a really big man, it doesn't matter whether
his post is a little post, or a big post but, if I were President,
I'd give Whitlock a big post. There's another fellow somewhere
in Germany---a consul---of whom I never heard till the other
day. But people have taken to coming in my office ---English
ladies---who wish to thank "you and your great government"
for the courage and courtesy of this consul.(<A NAME="n69"></A><A
HREF="Pagenotes.htm#69">69</A>) Stories about him will follow.
Herrick, too, in Paris, somehow causes Americans and English
and even Guatemalans who come along to go out of their way to
say what he has done for them. Now there is a quality in the
old woman with the baby bottles, and in the consul and in Whitlock
and Hoover and Herrick and this English nation which adopts the
Belgians---a quality that is invincible. When folk like these
come down the road, I respectfully do obeisance to them. And---it's
this kind of folk that the Germans have run up against. I thank
Heaven I'm of their race and blood.
 The whole world is bound to be changed as a result of this
war. If Germany should win, our Monroe Doctrine would at once
be shot in two, and we should have to get "out of the sun."
The military party is a party of conquest---absolutely. If England
wins, as of course she will, it'll be a bigger and a stronger
England, with no strong enemy in the world, with her Empire knit
closer than ever---India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South
Africa, Egypt; under obligations to and in alliance with Russia!
England will not need our friendship as much as she now needs
it; and there may come governments here that will show they do
not. In any event, you see, the world will be changed. It's changed
already: witness Bernstorff(<A NAME="n70"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#70">70</A>)
and Münsterberg(<A NAME="n71"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#71">71</A>)
playing the part once played by Irish agitators!
 All of which means that it is high time we were constructing
a foreign service. First of all, Congress ought to make it possible
to have half a dozen or more permanent foreign under-secretaries---men
who, after service in the Department, could go out as Ministers
and Ambassadors; it ought generously to reorganize the whole
thing. It ought to have a competent study made of the foreign
offices of other governments. Of course it ought to get room
to work in. Then it ought at once to give its Ambassadors and
Ministers homes and dignified treatment. We've got to play a
part in the world whether we wish to or not. Think of these things.
 The blindest great force in this world to-day is the Prussian
War Party---blind and stupid.---Well, and the most weary man
in London just at this hour is
<BLOCKQUOTE>
 Your humble servant,
 W. H. R</BLOCKQUOTE>
 but he'll be all right in the morning.
 .
To Arthur W. Page
 [Undated](<A NAME="n72"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#72">72</A>)
 DEAR ARTHUR:
 I recall one night when we were dining at Sir John Jellicoe's,
he told me that the Admiralty never slept ---that he had a telephone
by his bed every night.
 "Did it ever ring? I asked.
 "No; but it will."
 You begin to see pretty clearly how English history has been
made and makes itself. This afternoon Lady S---- told your mother
of her three sons, one on a warship in the North Sea, another
with the army in France, and a third in training to go. "How
brave you all are!" said your mother, and her answer was:
"They belong to their country; we can't do anything else."
One of the daughters-in-law of the late Lord Salisbury came to
see me to find out if I could make an inquiry about her son who
was reported "missing" after the battle of Mons. She
was dry-eyed, calm, self-restrained---very grateful for the effort
I promised to make; but a Spartan woman would have envied her
self-possession. It turned out that her son was dead.
 You hear experiences like these almost every day. These are
the kinds of women and the kinds of men that have made the British
Empire and the English race. You needn't talk of decadence. All
their great qualities are in them here and now. I believe that
half the young men who came to Katharine's(<A NAME="n73"></A><A
HREF="Pagenotes.htm#73">73</A>) dances last winter and who used
to drop in at the house once in a while are dead in France already.
They went as a matter of course. This is the reason they are
going to win. Now these things impress you, as they come to you
day by day.
 There isn't any formal social life now---no dinners, no parties.
A few friends dine with a few friends now and then very quietly.
The ladies of fashion are hospital nurses and Red Cross workers,
or they are collecting socks and blankets for the soldiers. One
such woman told your mother to-day that she went to one of the
recruiting camps every day and taught the young fellows what
colloquial French she could. Every man, woman, and child seems
to be doing something. In the ordinary daily life, we see few
of them: everybody is at work somewhere.
 We live in a world of mystery: nothing can surprise us. The
rumour is that a servant in one of the great families sent word
to the Germans where the three English cruisers(<A NAME="n74"></A><A
HREF="Pagenotes.htm#74">74</A>) were that German submarines blew
up the other day. Not a German in the Kingdom can earn a penny.
We're giving thousands of them money at the German Embassy to
keep them alive. Our Austrian Embassy runs a soup kitchen where
it feeds a lot of Austrians. Your mother went around there the
other day and they showed that they thought they owe their daily
bread to her. One day she went to one of the big houses where
the English receive and distribute the thousands of Belgians
who come here, poor creatures, to be taken care of. One old woman
asked your mother in French if she were a princess. The lady
that was with your mother answered, "Une Grande Dame."
That seemed to do as well.
 This government doesn't now let anybody carry any food away.
But to-day they consented on condition I'd receive the food (for
the Belgians) and consign it to Whitlock. This is their way of
keeping it out of German hands ---have the Stars and Stripes,
so to speak, to cover every bag of flour and of salt. That's
only one of 1,000 queer activities that I engage in. I have a
German princess's(<A NAME="n75"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#75">75</A>)
jewels in our safe---$100,000 worth of them in my keeping; I
have an old English nobleman's check for $40,000 to be sent to
men who have been building a house for his daughter in Dresden---to
be sent as soon as the German Government agrees not to arrest
the lady for debt. I have sent Miss Latimer(<A NAME="n76"></A><A
HREF="Pagenotes.htm#76">76</A>) over to France to bring an Austrian
baby eight months old whose mother will take it to the United
States and bring it up an American citizen! The mother can't
go and get it for fear the French might detain her; I've got
the English Government's permission for the family to go to the
United States. Harold(<A NAME="n77"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#77">77</A>)
is in Belgium, trying to get a group of English ladies home who
went there to nurse wounded English and Belgians and whom the
Germans threaten to kidnap and transport to German hospitals---every
day a dozen new kinds of jobs.
 London is weird and muffled and dark and, in the West End,
deserted. Half the lamps are not lighted, and the upper half
of the globes of the street lights are painted black---so the
Zeppelin raiders may not see them. You've no idea what a strange
feeling it gives one. The papers have next to no news. The 23rd
day of the great battle is reported very much in the same words
as the 3rd day was. Yet nobody talks of much else. The censor
erases most of the matter the correspondents write. We're in
a sort of dumb as well as dark world. And yet, of course, we
know much more here than they know in any other European capital.
 .
To the President
 [Undated.]
 DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
 When England, France, and Russia agreed the other day not
to make peace separately, that cooked the Kaiser's goose. They'll
wear him out. Since England thus has Frenchmen and Russians bound,
the Allies are strengthened at their only weak place. That done,
England is now going in deliberately, methodically, patiently
to do the task. Even a fortnight ago, the people of this Kingdom
didn't realize all that the war means to them. But the fever
is rising now. The wounded are coming back, the dead are mourned,
and the agony of hearing only that such-and-such a man is missing---these
are having a prodigious effect. The men I meet now say in a matter-of-fact
way: "Oh, yes! we'll get 'em, of course; the only question
is, how long it will take us and how many of us it will cost.
But no matter, we'll get 'em."
 Old ladies and gentlemen of the high, titled world now begin
by driving to my house almost every morning while I am at breakfast.
With many apologies for calling so soon and with the fear that
they interrupt me, they ask if I can make an inquiry in Germany
for "my son," or ".my nephew"---"he's---
among the missing." They never weep; their voices do not
falter; they are brave and proud and self-restrained. It seems
a sort of matter-of-course to them. Sometimes when they get home,
they write me polite notes thanking me for receiving them. This
morning the first man was Sir Dighton Probyn of Queen Alexandra's
household---so dignified and courteous that you'd hardly have
guessed his errand. And at intervals they come all day. Not a
tear have I seen yet. They take it as a part of the price of
greatness and of empire. You guess at their grief only by their
reticence. They use as few words as possible and then courteously
take themselves away. It isn't an accident that these people
own a fifth of the world. Utterly unwarlike, they outlast anybody
else when war comes. You don't get a sense of fighting here---only
of endurance and of high resolve. Fighting is a sort of incident
in the struggle to keep their world from German domination. .
. .
 .
To Edward M. House
 October 11, 1914.
 DEAR HOUSE:
 There is absolutely nothing to write. It's war, war, war all
the time; no change of subject; and, if you changed with your
tongue, you couldn't change in your thought; war, war, war---"for
God's sake find out if my son is dead or a prisoner"; rumours---they
say that two French generals were shot for not supporting French,
and then they say only one; and people come who have helped take
the wounded French from the field and they won't even talk, it
is so horrible; and a lady says that her own son (wounded) told
her that when a man raised up in the trench to fire, the stench
was so awful that it made him sick for an hour; and the poor
Belgians come here by the tens of thousands, and special trains
bring the English wounded; and the newspapers tell little or
nothing---every day's reports like the preceding days; and yet
nobody talks about anything else.
 Now and then the subject of its settlement is mentioned---Belgium
and Serbia, of course, to be saved and far as possible indemnified;
Russia to have the Slay-Austrian States and Constantinople; France
to have Alsace-Lorraine, of course; and Poland to go to Russia;
Schleswig-Holstein and the Kiel Canal no longer to be German;
all the South-German States to become Austrian and none of the
German States to be under Prussian rule; the Hohenzollerns to
be eliminated; the German fleet, or what is left of it, to become
Great Britain's; and the German colonies to be used to satisfy
such of the Allies as clamour for more than they get.
 Meantime this invincible race is doing this revolutionary
task marvellously---volunteering; trying to buy arms in the United
States (a Pittsburgh manufacturer is now here trying to close
a bargain with the War Office!);(<A NAME="n78"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#78">78</A>)
knitting socks and mufflers; taking in all the poor Belgians;
stopping all possible expenditure; darkening London at night;
doing every conceivable thing to win as if they had been waging
this war always and meant to do nothing else for the rest of
their lives---and not the slightest doubt about the result and
apparently indifferent how long it lasts or how much it costs.
 Every aspect of it gets on your nerves. I can't keep from
wondering how the world will seem after it is over---Germany
(that is, Prussia and its system) cut out like a cancer; England
owning still more of the earth; Belgium---all the men dead; France
bankrupt; Russia admitted to the society of nations; the British
Empire entering on a new lease of life; no great navy but one;
no great army but the Russian; nearly all governments in Europe
bankrupt; Germany gone from the sea---in ten years it will be
difficult to recall clearly the Europe of the last ten years.
And the future of the world more than ever in our hands!
 We here don't know what you think or what you know at home;
we haven't yet any time to read United States newspapers, which
come very, very late; nobody writes us real letters (or the censor
gets 'em, perhaps!); and so the war, the war, the war is the
one thing that holds our minds.
 We have taken a house for the Chancery(<A NAME="n79"></A><A
HREF="Pagenotes.htm#79">79</A>)--almost the size of my house
in Grosvenor Square-for the same sum as rent that the landlord
proposed hereafter to charge us for the old hole where we've
been for twenty-nine years. For the first time Uncle Sam has
a decent place in London. We've five times as much room and ten
times as much work. Now---just this last week or two---I get
off Sundays: that's doing well. And I don't now often go back
at night. So, you see, we've much to he thankful for.---Shall
we insure against Zeppelins? That's what everybody's asking.
I told the Spanish Ambassador yesterday that I am going to ask
the German Government for instructions about insuring their Embassy
here!
 Write and send some news. I saw an American to-day who says
he's going home to-morrow." Cable me," said I, "if
you find the continent where it used to be."
<BLOCKQUOTE>
 Faithfully yours,
 WALTER H. PAGE.</BLOCKQUOTE>
 P. S. It is strange how little we know what you know on your
side and just what you think, what relative value you put on
this and what on that. There's a new sort of loneliness sprung
up because of the universal absorption in the war.
 And I hear all sorts of contradictory rumours about the effect
of the German crusade in the United States. Oh well, the world
has got to choose whether it will have English or German domination
in Europe; that's the single big question at issue. For my part
I'll risk the English and then make a fresh start ourselves to
outstrip them in the spread of well-being; in the elevation of
mankind of all classes; in the broadening of democracy and democratic
rule (which is the sheet-anchor of all men's hopes just as bureaucracy.
and militarism are the destruction of all men's hopes); in the
spread of humane feeling and action; in the growth of human kindness;
in the tender treatment of women and children and the old; in
literature, in art; in the abatement of suffering; in great changes
in economic conditions which discourage poverty; and in science
which gives us new leases on life and new tools and wider visions.
These are our world tasks, with England as our friendly rival
and helper. God bless us.
<BLOCKQUOTE>
 W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>
 .
To Arthur W. Page
 London, November 6, 1914.
 DEAR ARTHUR:
 Those excellent photographs, those excellent apples, those
excellent cigars-thanks. I'm thinking of sending Kitty(<A NAME="n80"></A><A
HREF="Pagenotes.htm#80">80</A>) over again. They all spell and
smell and taste of home---of the U. S. A. Even the messenger
herself seems Unitedstatesy, and that's a good quality, I assure
you. She's told us less news than you'd think she might for so
long a journey and so long a visit; but that's the way with us
all. And, I dare say, if it were all put together it would make
a pretty big news-budget. And luckily for us (I often think we
are among the luckiest families in the world) all she says is
quite cheerful. It's a wonderful report she makes of County Line(<A
NAME="n81"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#81">81</A>)---the country,
the place, the house, and its inhabitants. Maybe, praise God,
I'll see it myself some day---it and them.
 But---but---I don't know when and can't guess out of this
vast fog of war and doom. The worst of it is nobody knows just
what is happening. I have, for an example, known for a week of
the blowing up of a British dreadnaught(<A NAME="n82"></A><A
HREF="Pagenotes.htm#82">82</A>)---thousands of people know it
privately---and yet it isn't published! Such secrecy makes you
fear there may be other and even worse secrets. But I don't really
believe there are. What I am trying to say is, so far as news
(and many other things) go, we are under a military rule.
 It's beginning to wear on us badly. It presses down, presses
down, presses down in an indescribable way. All the people you
see have lost sons or brothers; mourning becomes visible over
a wider area all the time; people talk of nothing else; all the
books are about the war; ordinary social life is suspended---people
are visibly growing older. And there are some aspects of it that
are incomprehensible. For instance, a group of American and English
military men and correspondents were talking with me yesterday---men
who have been on both sides---in Germany and Belgium and in France---and
they say that the Germans in France alone have had 750,000 men
killed. The Allies have lost 400,000 to 500,000. This in France
only. Take the other fighting lines and there must already be
a total of 2,000,000 killed. Nothing like that has ever happened
before in the history of the world. A flood or a fire or a wreck
which has killed 500 has often shocked all mankind. Yet we know
of this enormous slaughter and (in a way) are not greatly moved.
I don't know of a better measure of the brutalizing effect of
war---it's bringing us to take a new and more inhuman standard
to measure events by.
 As for any political or economic reckoning---that's beyond
any man's ability yet. I see strings of incomprehensible figures
that some economist or other now and then puts in the papers,
summing up the loss in pounds sterling. But that means nothing
because we have no proper measure of it. If a man lose $10 or
$10,000 we can grasp that. But when nations shoot away so many
million pounds sterling every day---that means nothing to me.
I do know that there's going to be no money on this side the
world for a long time to buy American securities. The whole world
is going to be hard up in consequence of the bankruptcy of these
nations, the inestimable destruction of property, and the loss
of productive men. I fancy that such a change will come in the
economic and financial readjustment of the world as nobody can
yet guess at.---Are Americans studying these things? It is not
only South-American trade; it is all sorts of manufacturers;
it is financial influence---if we can quit spending and wasting,
and husband our earnings. There's no telling the enormous advantages
we shall gain if we are wise.
 The extent to which the German people have permitted themselves
to be fooled is beyond belief. As a little instance of it, I
enclose a copy of a letter that Lord Bryce gave me, written by
an English woman who did good social work in her early life---a
woman of sense---and who married a German merchant and has spent
her married life in Germany. She is a wholly sincere person.
This letter she wrote to a friend in England and---she believes
every word of it. If she believes it, the great mass of the Germans
believe similar things. I have heard of a number of such letters---sincere,
as this one is. It gives a better insight into the average German
mind than a hundred speeches by the Emperor.
 This German and Austrian diplomatic business involves an enormous
amount of work. I've now sent one man to Vienna and another to
Berlin to straighten out almost hopeless tangles and lies about
prisoners and such things and to see if they won't agree to swap
more civilians detained in each country. On top of these, yesterday
came the Turkish Embassy! Alas, we shall never see old Tewfik(<A
NAME="n83"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#83">83</A>) again! This
business begins briskly to-day with the detention of every Turkish
consul in the British Empire. Lord! I dread the missionaries;
and I know they're coming now. This makes four embassies. We
put up a sign, "The American Embassy," on every one
of them. Work? We're worked to death. Two nights ago I didn't
get time to read a letter or even a telegram that had come that
day till 11 o'clock at night. For on top of all these Embassies,
I've had to become Commissary-General to feed 6,000,000 starving
people in Belgium; and practically all the food must come from
the United States. You can't buy food for export in any country
in Europe. The devastation of Belgium defeats the Germans.---I
don't mean in battle but I mean in the after-judgment of mankind.
They cannot recover from that half as soon as they may recover
from the economic losses of the war. The reducing of those people
to starvation---that will stick to damn them in history. whatever
they win or whatever they lose.
 When's it going to end? Everybody who ought to know says at
the earliest next year---next summer. Many say in two years.
As for me, I don't know. I don't see how it can end soon. Neither
can lick the other to a frazzle and neither can afford to give
up till it is completely licked. This way of living in trenches
and fighting a month at a time in one place is a new thing in
warfare. Many a man shoots a cannon all day for a month without
seeing a single enemy. There are many wounded men back here who
say they haven't seen a single German. When the trenches become
so full of dead men that the living can't stay there longer,
they move back to other trenches. So it goes on. Each side has
several more million. men to lose. What the end will be---I mean
when it will come, I don't see how to guess. The Allies are obliged
to win; they have more food and more money, and in the long run,
more men. But the German fighting machine is by far the best
organization ever made---not the best men,, but the best organization;
and the whole German people believe what the woman writes whose
letter I send you. It'll take a long time to beat it.
<BLOCKQUOTE>
 Affectionately,
 W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>

 .

 The letter that Page inclosed, and another copy of which was
sent to the President, purported to be written by the English
wife of a German in Bremen. It was as follows:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
 It is very difficult to write, more difficult to believe that
what I write will succeed in reaching you. My husband insists
on my urging you---it is not necessary I am sure---to destroy
the letter and all possible indications of its origin, should
you think it worth translating. The letter will go by a business
friend of my husband's to Holland, and be got off from there.
For our business with Holland is now exceedingly brisk as you
may understand. Her neutrality is most precious to us.(<A NAME="n84"></A><A
HREF="Pagenotes.htm#84">84</A>)
 Well, I have of course a divided mind. I think of those old
days in Liverpool and Devonshire---how far off they seem I And
yet I spent all last year in England. It was in March last when
I was with you and we talked of the amazing treatment of your
army---I cannot any longer call it our army---by ministers crying
for the resignation of its officers and eager to make their humiliation
an election cry! How far off that seems, too! Let me tell you
that it was the conduct of your ministers, Churchill especially,
that made people here so confident that your Government could
not fight. It seemed impossible that Lloyd George and his following
could have the effrontery to pose as a "war" cabinet;
still more impossible that any sane people could trust them if
they did! Perhaps you may remember a talk we had also in March
about Matthew Arnold whom I was reading again during my convalescence
at Sidmouth. You said that "Friendship's Garland" and
its Arminius could not be written now. I disputed that and told
you that it was still true that your Government talked and "gassed"
just as much as ever, and were wilfully blind to the fact that
your power of action was wholly unequal to your words. As in
1870 so now. Nay, worse, your rulers have always known it perfectly
well, but refused to see it or to admit it, because they wanted
office and knew that to say the truth would bring the radical
vote in the cities upon their poor heads. It is the old hypocrisy,
in the sense in which Germans have always accused your nation:
alas! and it is half my nation too. You pride yourselves on "Keeping
your word" to Belgium. But you pride yourselves also, not
so overtly just now, on always refusing to prepare yourselves
to keep that word in deed. In the first days of August
you knew, absolutely and beyond all doubt, that you could do
nothing to make good your word. You had not the moral courage
to say so, and, having said so, to act accordingly and to warn
Belgium that your promise was "a scrap of paper," and
effectively nothing more. It is nothing more, and has proved
to be nothing more, but you do not see that your indelible disgrace
lies just in this, that you unctuously proclaim that you are
keeping your word when all the time you know, you have always
known, that you refused utterly and completely to take the needful
steps to enable you to translate word into action. Have you not
torn up your " scrap of paper" just as effectively
as Germany has? As my husband puts it: England gave Belgium a
check, a big check, and gave it with much ostentation, but took
care that there should be no funds to meet it! Trusting to your
check Belgium finds herself bankrupt, sequestrated, blotted out
as a nation. But I know England well enough to foresee that English
statesmen, with our old friend, the Manchester Guardian, which
we used to read in years gone by, will always quote with pride
how they "guaranteed" the neutrality of Belgium.
 As to the future. You cannot win. A nation that has prided
itself on making no sacrifice for political power or even independence
must pay for its pride. Our house here in Bremen has lately been
by way of a centre for naval men, and to a less extent, for officers
of the neighbouring commands. They are absolutely confident that
they will land ten army corps in England before Christmas. It
is terrible to know what they mean to go for. They mean to destroy.
Every town which remotely is concerned with war material is to
be annihilated. Birmingham, Bradford, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield,
Northampton are to be wiped out, and the men killed, ruthlessly
hunted down. The fact that Lancashire and Yorkshire have held
aloof from recruiting is not to save them. The fact that Great
Britain is to be a Reichsland will involve the destruction of
inhabitants, to enable German citizens to be planted in your
country in their place. German soldiers hope that your poor creatures
will resist, as patriots should, but they doubt it very much.
For resistance will facilitate the process of clearance. Ireland
will be left independent, and its harmlessness will be guaranteed
by its inevitable civil war.
 You may wonder, as I do sometimes, whether this hatred of
England is not unworthy, or a form of mental disease. But you
must know that it is at bottom not hatred but contempt; fierce,
unreasoning scorn for a country that pursues money and ease,
from aristocrat to trade-unionist labourer, when it has a great
inheritance to defend. I feel bitter, too, for I spent half my
life in your country and my dearest friends are all English still;
and yet I am deeply ashamed of the hypocrisy and make-believe
that has initiated your national policy and brought you down.
Now, one thing more. England is, after all, only a stepping stone.
From Liverpool, Queenstown, Glasgow, Belfast, we shall reach
out across the ocean. I firmly believe that within a year Germany
will have seized the new Canal and proclaimed its defiance of
the great Monroe Doctrine. We have six million Germans in the
United States, and the Irish-Americans behind them. The Americans,
believe me, are as a nation a cowardly nation, and will
never fight organized strength except in defense of their own
territories. With the Nova Scotian peninsula and the Bermudas,
with the West Indies and the Guianas we shall be able to dominate
the Americas. By our possession of the entire Western European
seaboard America can find no outlet for its products except by
our favour. Her finance is in German hands, her commercial capitals,
New York and Chicago, are in reality German cities. It is some
years since my father and I were in New York. But my opinion
is not very different from that of the forceful men who have
planned this war---that with Britain as a base the control of
the American continent is under existing conditions the task
of a couple of months.
 I remember a conversation with Doctor Dohrn, the head of the
great biological station at Naples, some four or five years ago.
He was complaining of want of adequate subventions from Berlin.
"Everything is wanted for the Navy," he said. "And
what really does Germany want with such a navy?" I asked.
"She is always saying that she certainly does not regard
it as a weapon against England." At that Doctor Dohrn raised
his eyebrows. "But you, gnädige Frau, are a
German?" "Of course." "Well, then, you will
understand me when I say with all the seriousness I can command
that this fleet of ours is intended to deal with smugglers on
the shores of the Island of Rügen." I laughed. He became
graver still. "The ultimate enemy of our country is America;(<A
NAME="n85"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#85">85</A>) and I pray
that I may see the day of an alliance between a beaten England
and a victorious Fatherland against the bully of the Americas."
Well, Germany and Austria were never friends until Sadowa had
shown the way. Oh! if your country, which in spite of all I love
so much, would but "see things clearly and see them whole."
<BLOCKQUOTE>
 Bremen, September 25, 1914.</BLOCKQUOTE>
 .
To Ralph W. Page(<A
NAME="n86"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#86">86</A>)
 London, Sunday, November 15, 1914.
 DEAR RALPH:
 You were very good to sit down in Greensboro, or anywhere
else, and to write me a fine letter. Do that often. You say there's
nothing to do now in the Sandhills. Write us letters: that's
a fair job!
 God save us, we need 'em. We need anything from the sane part
of the world to enable us to keep our balance. One of the commonest
things you hear about now is the insanity of a good number of
the poor fellows who come back from the trenches as well as of
a good many Belgians. The sights and sounds they've experienced
unhinge their reason. If this war keep up long enough---and it
isn't going to end soon---people who have had no sight of it
will go crazy, too---the continuous thought of it, the inability
to get away from it by any device whatever---all this tells on
us all. Letters, then, plenty of them---let 'em come.
 You are in a peaceful land. The war is a long, long way off.
You suffer nothing worse than a little idleness and a little
poverty. They are nothing. I hope (and believe) that you get
enough to eat. Be content, then. Read the poets, improve a piece
of land, play with the baby, learn golf. That's the happy and
philosophic and fortunate life in these times of world-madness.
 As for the continent of Europe---forget it. We have paid far
too much attention to it. It has ceased to be worth it. And now
it's of far less value to us---and will be for the rest of your
life---than it has ever been before. An ancient home of man,
the home, too, of beautiful things---buildings, pictures, old
places, old traditions, dead civilizations---the place where
man rose from barbarism to civilization---it is now bankrupt,
its best young men dead, its system of politics and of government
a failure, its social structure enslaving and tyrannical---it
has little help for us. The American spirit, which is the spirit
that concerns itself with making life better for the whole mass
of men---that's at home at its best with us. The whole future
of the race is in the new countries---our country chiefly. This
grows on one more and more and more. The things that are best
worth while are on our side of the ocean. And we've got all the
bigger job to do because of this violent demonstration of the
failure of continental Europe. It's gone on living on a false
basis till its elements got so mixed that it has simply blown
itself to pieces. It is a great convulsion of nature, as an earthquake
or a volcano is. Human life there isn't worth what a yellow dog's
life is worth in Moore County. Don't bother yourself with the
continent of Europe any more---except to learn the value of a
real democracy and the benefits it can confer precisely in proportion
to the extent to which men trust to it. Did you ever read my
Address delivered before the Royal Institution of Great Britain?(<A
NAME="n87"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#87">87</A>) I enclose a
copy. Now that's my idea of the very milk of the word. To come
down to daily, deadly things---this upheaval is simply infernal.
Parliament opened the other day and half the old lords that sat
in their robes had lost their heirs and a larger part of the
members of the House wore khaki. To-morrow they will vote $1,125,000,000
for war purposes. They had already voted $500,000,000. They'll
vote more, and more, and more, if necessary. They are raising
a new army of 2,000,000 men. Every man and every dollar they
have will go if necessary. That's what I call an invincible people.
The Kaiser woke up the wrong passenger. But for fifty years the
continent won't be worth living on. My heavens! what bankruptcy
will follow death!
<BLOCKQUOTE>
 Affectionately,
 W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>
 .
To Frank C. Page(<A
NAME="n88"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#88">88</A>)
 Sunday, December 20th, 1914.
 DEAR OLD MAN:
 I envy both you and your mother(<A NAME="n89"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#89">89</A>)
your chance to make plans for the farm and the house and all
the rest of it and to have one another to talk to. And, most
of all, you are where you can now and then change the subject.
You can guess somewhat at our plight when Kitty and I confessed
to one another last night that we were dead tired and needed
to go to bed early and to stay long. She's sleeping yet, the
dear kid, and I hope she'll sleep. till lunch time. There isn't
anything the matter with us but the war; but that's enough, Heaven
knows. It's the worst ailment that has ever struck me. Then,
if you add to that this dark, wet, foggy, sooty, cold, penetrating
climate---you ought to thank your stars that you are not in it.
I'm glad your mother's out of it, as much as we miss her; and
miss her? Good gracious! there's no telling the hole her absence
makes in all our life. But Kitty is a trump, true blue and dead
game, and the very best company you can find in a day's journey.
And, much as we miss your mother, you mustn't weep for us; we
are having some fun and are planning more. I could have no end
of fun with her if I had any time. But to work all day and till
bedtime doesn't leave much time for sport.
 The farm---the farm---the farm---it's yours and Mother's to
plan and make and do with as you wish. I shall be happy whatever
you do, even if you put the roof in the cellar and the cellar
on top of the house.
 If you have room enough (16 X 10 plus a fire and a bath are
enough for me), I'll go down there and write a book. If you haven't
it, I'll go somewhere else and write a book. I don't propose
to be made unhappy by any house or by the lack of any house nor
by anything whatsoever.
 All the details of life go on here just the same. The war
goes as slowly as death because it is death, death to millions
of men. We've all said all we know about it to one another a
thousand times; nobody knows anything else; nobody can guess
when it will end; nobody has any doubt about how it will end,
unless some totally improbable and unexpected thing happens,
such as the falling out of the Allies, which can't happen for
none of them can afford it; and we go around the same bloody
circle all the time. The papers never have any news; nobody ever
talks about anything else; everybody is tired to death; nobody
is cheerful; when it isn't sick Belgians, it's aeroplanes; and
when it isn't aeroplanes, it's bombarding the coast of England.
When it isn't an American ship held up, it's a fool American-German
arrested as a spy; and when it isn't a spy it's a liar who knows
the Zeppelins are coming tonight. We don't know anything;
we don't believe anybody; we should be surprised at nothing;
and at 3 o'clock I'm going to the Abbey to a service in honour
of the 100 years of peace! The world has all got itself so jumbled
up that the bays are all promontories, the mountains are all
valleys, and earthquakes are necessary for our happiness. We
have disasters for breakfast; mined ships for luncheon; burned
cities for dinner; trenches in our dreams, and bombarded towns
for small talk.
 Peaceful seems the sandy landscape where you are, glad the
very blackjacks, happy the curs, blessed the sheep, interesting
the chin-whiskered clodhopper, innocent the fool darkey, blessed
the mule, for it knows no war. And you have your mother---be
happy, boy; you don't know how much you have to be thankful for.
 Europe is ceasing to be interesting except as an example of
how-not-to-do-it. It has no lessons for us except as a warning.
When the whole continent has to go fighting---every blessed one
of them---once a century, and half of them half the time between
and all prepared even when they are not fighting, and when they
shoot away all their money as soon as they begin to get rich
a little and everybody else's money, too, and make the whole
world poor, and when they kill every third or fourth generation
of the best men and leave the worst to rear families, and have
to start over afresh every time with a worse stock---give me
Uncle Sam and his big farm. We don't need to catch any of this
European fife. We can do without it all as well as we can do
without the judges' wigs and the court costumes. Besides, I like
a land where the potatoes have some flavour, where you can buy
a cigar, and get your hair cut and have warm bathrooms.
 Build the farm, therefore; and let me hear at every stage
of that happy game. May the New Year be the best that has ever
come for you !
<BLOCKQUOTE>
 Affectionately,
 W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>

<HR>

<BLOCKQUOTE>
 <IMG SRC="thumbnails/2b.gif" WIDTH="25" HEIGHT="24"
ALIGN="MIDDLE" BORDER="0" ><A HREF="Page07.htm">Chapter
Twelve</A>
 <IMG SRC="thumbnails/2b.gif" WIDTH="25" HEIGHT="24"
ALIGN="MIDDLE" BORDER="0" ><A HREF="PageTC.htm#TC">Table
of Contents</A>
</BLOCKQUOTE>

</BODY>
</HTML>

← Older revision		Revision as of 10:22, 3 January 2009
Line 259:		Line 259:
	in London just at this hour is		in London just at this hour is
	<BLOCKQUOTE>		<BLOCKQUOTE>
−	<br><br>Your humble servant,	+	<br><br>Your humble servant,
−	<br><br>W. H. R</BLOCKQUOTE>	+	<br><br>W. H. R</BLOCKQUOTE>
−	<br><br>but he'll be all right in the morning.	+	<br><br>but he'll be all right in the morning.
−	<br><br>.	+	<br><br>.
−	<P ALIGN=CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Arthur W. Page</FONT></I>	+	<P ALIGN=CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Arthur W. Page</FONT></I>
−	<br><br>[Undated](<A NAME="n72"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#72">72</A>)	+	<br><br>[Undated](<A NAME="n72"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#72">72</A>)
−	<br><br>DEAR ARTHUR:	+	<br><br>DEAR ARTHUR:
−	<br><br>I recall one night when we were dining at Sir John Jellicoe's,	+	<br><br>I recall one night when we were dining at Sir John Jellicoe's,
−	he told me that the Admiralty never slept ---that he had a telephone	+	he told me that the Admiralty never slept ---that he had a telephone
−	by his bed every night.	+	by his bed every night.
−	<br><br>"Did it ever ring? I asked.	+	<br><br>"Did it ever ring? I asked.
−	<br><br>"No; but it will."	+	<br><br>"No; but it will."
−	<br><br>You begin to see pretty clearly how English history has been	+	<br><br>You begin to see pretty clearly how English history has been
−	made and makes itself. This afternoon Lady S---- told your mother	+	made and makes itself. This afternoon Lady S---- told your mother
−	of her three sons, one on a warship in the North Sea, another	+	of her three sons, one on a warship in the North Sea, another
−	with the army in France, and a third in training to go. "How	+	with the army in France, and a third in training to go. "How
−	brave you all are!" said your mother, and her answer was:	+	brave you all are!" said your mother, and her answer was:
−	"They belong to their country; we can't do anything else."	+	"They belong to their country; we can't do anything else."
−	One of the daughters-in-law of the late Lord Salisbury came to	+	One of the daughters-in-law of the late Lord Salisbury came to
−	see me to find out if I could make an inquiry about her son who	+	see me to find out if I could make an inquiry about her son who
−	was reported "missing" after the battle of Mons. She	+	was reported "missing" after the battle of Mons. She
−	was dry-eyed, calm, self-restrained---very grateful for the effort	+	was dry-eyed, calm, self-restrained---very grateful for the effort
−	I promised to make; but a Spartan woman would have envied her	+	I promised to make; but a Spartan woman would have envied her
−	self-possession. It turned out that her son was dead.	+	self-possession. It turned out that her son was dead.
−	<br><br>You hear experiences like these almost every day. These are	+	<br><br>You hear experiences like these almost every day. These are
−	the kinds of women and the kinds of men that have made the British	+	the kinds of women and the kinds of men that have made the British
−	Empire and the English race. You needn't talk of decadence. All	+	Empire and the English race. You needn't talk of decadence. All
−	their great qualities are in them here and now. I believe that	+	their great qualities are in them here and now. I believe that
−	half the young men who came to Katharine's(<A NAME="n73"></A><A	+	half the young men who came to Katharine's(<A NAME="n73"></A><A
−	HREF="Pagenotes.htm#73">73</A>) dances last winter and who used	+	HREF="Pagenotes.htm#73">73</A>) dances last winter and who used
−	to drop in at the house once in a while are dead in France already.	+	to drop in at the house once in a while are dead in France already.
−	They went as a matter of course. This is the reason they are	+	They went as a matter of course. This is the reason they are
−	going to win. Now these things impress you, as they come to you	+	going to win. Now these things impress you, as they come to you
−	day by day.	+	day by day.
−	<br><br>There isn't any formal social life now---no dinners, no parties.	+	<br><br>There isn't any formal social life now---no dinners, no parties.
−	A few friends dine with a few friends now and then very quietly.	+	A few friends dine with a few friends now and then very quietly.
−	The ladies of fashion are hospital nurses and Red Cross workers,	+	The ladies of fashion are hospital nurses and Red Cross workers,
−	or they are collecting socks and blankets for the soldiers. One	+	or they are collecting socks and blankets for the soldiers. One
−	such woman told your mother to-day that she went to one of the	+	such woman told your mother to-day that she went to one of the
−	recruiting camps every day and taught the young fellows what	+	recruiting camps every day and taught the young fellows what
−	colloquial French she could. Every man, woman, and child seems	+	colloquial French she could. Every man, woman, and child seems
−	to be doing something. In the ordinary daily life, we see few	+	to be doing something. In the ordinary daily life, we see few
−	of them: everybody is at work somewhere.	+	of them: everybody is at work somewhere.
−	<br><br>We live in a world of mystery: nothing can surprise us. The	+	<br><br>We live in a world of mystery: nothing can surprise us. The
−	rumour is that a servant in one of the great families sent word	+	rumour is that a servant in one of the great families sent word
−	to the Germans where the three English cruisers(<A NAME="n74"></A><A	+	to the Germans where the three English cruisers(<A NAME="n74"></A><A
−	HREF="Pagenotes.htm#74">74</A>) were that German submarines blew	+	HREF="Pagenotes.htm#74">74</A>) were that German submarines blew
−	up the other day. Not a German in the Kingdom can earn a penny.	+	up the other day. Not a German in the Kingdom can earn a penny.
−	We're giving thousands of them money at the German Embassy to	+	We're giving thousands of them money at the German Embassy to
−	keep them alive. Our Austrian Embassy runs a soup kitchen where	+	keep them alive. Our Austrian Embassy runs a soup kitchen where
−	it feeds a lot of Austrians. Your mother went around there the	+	it feeds a lot of Austrians. Your mother went around there the
−	other day and they showed that they thought they owe their daily	+	other day and they showed that they thought they owe their daily
−	bread to her. One day she went to one of the big houses where	+	bread to her. One day she went to one of the big houses where
−	the English receive and distribute the thousands of Belgians	+	the English receive and distribute the thousands of Belgians
−	who come here, poor creatures, to be taken care of. One old woman	+	who come here, poor creatures, to be taken care of. One old woman
−	asked your mother in French if she were a princess. The lady	+	asked your mother in French if she were a princess. The lady
−	that was with your mother answered, "Une Grande Dame."	+	that was with your mother answered, "Une Grande Dame."
−	That seemed to do as well.	+	That seemed to do as well.
−	<br><br>This government doesn't now let anybody carry any food away.	+	<br><br>This government doesn't now let anybody carry any food away.
−	But to-day they consented on condition I'd receive the food (for	+	But to-day they consented on condition I'd receive the food (for
−	the Belgians) and consign it to Whitlock. This is their way of	+	the Belgians) and consign it to Whitlock. This is their way of
−	keeping it out of German hands ---have the Stars and Stripes,	+	keeping it out of German hands ---have the Stars and Stripes,
−	so to speak, to cover every bag of flour and of salt. That's	+	so to speak, to cover every bag of flour and of salt. That's
−	only one of 1,000 queer activities that I engage in. I have a	+	only one of 1,000 queer activities that I engage in. I have a
−	German princess's(<A NAME="n75"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#75">75</A>)	+	German princess's(<A NAME="n75"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#75">75</A>)
−	jewels in our safe---$100,000 worth of them in my keeping; I	+	jewels in our safe---$100,000 worth of them in my keeping; I
−	have an old English nobleman's check for $40,000 to be sent to	+	have an old English nobleman's check for $40,000 to be sent to
−	men who have been building a house for his daughter in Dresden---to	+	men who have been building a house for his daughter in Dresden---to
−	be sent as soon as the German Government agrees not to arrest	+	be sent as soon as the German Government agrees not to arrest
−	the lady for debt. I have sent Miss Latimer(<A NAME="n76"></A><A	+	the lady for debt. I have sent Miss Latimer(<A NAME="n76"></A><A
−	HREF="Pagenotes.htm#76">76</A>) over to France to bring an Austrian	+	HREF="Pagenotes.htm#76">76</A>) over to France to bring an Austrian
−	baby eight months old whose mother will take it to the United	+	baby eight months old whose mother will take it to the United
−	States and bring it up an American citizen! The mother can't	+	States and bring it up an American citizen! The mother can't
−	go and get it for fear the French might detain her; I've got	+	go and get it for fear the French might detain her; I've got
−	the English Government's permission for the family to go to the	+	the English Government's permission for the family to go to the
−	United States. Harold(<A NAME="n77"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#77">77</A>)	+	United States. Harold(<A NAME="n77"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#77">77</A>)
−	is in Belgium, trying to get a group of English ladies home who	+	is in Belgium, trying to get a group of English ladies home who
−	went there to nurse wounded English and Belgians and whom the	+	went there to nurse wounded English and Belgians and whom the
−	Germans threaten to kidnap and transport to German hospitals---every	+	Germans threaten to kidnap and transport to German hospitals---every
−	day a dozen new kinds of jobs.	+	day a dozen new kinds of jobs.
−	<br><br>London is weird and muffled and dark and, in the West End,	+	<br><br>London is weird and muffled and dark and, in the West End,
	deserted. Half the lamps are not lighted, and the upper half		deserted. Half the lamps are not lighted, and the upper half
	of the globes of the street lights are painted black---so the		of the globes of the street lights are painted black---so the