XXIII PAGE---THE MAN
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<TITLE>Burton J. Hendrick. The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page. 1922. Chapters 23-4.</TITLE>
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CHAPTER XXIII
PAGE---THE MAN
THE entrance of America into the war, followed by the successful
promotion of the Balfour visit, brought a period of quiet into
Page's life. These events represented for him a personal triumph;
there were many things still to be done, it is true, and Page,
as always, was active in advancing the interests that were nearest
his heart; yet the mighty relief that followed the American declaration
was the kind that one experiences after accomplishing the greatest
task of a lifetime. Page's letters have contained many references
to the sense of moral isolation which his country's policy had
forced upon him; he probably exaggerated his feeling that there
was a tendency to avoid him; this was merely a reflection of his
own inclination to keep away from all but the official people.
He now had more leisure and certainly more interest in cultivating
the friends that he had made in Great Britain. For the fact is
that, during all these engrossing years, Page had been more than
an Ambassador; by the time the United States entered the war he
had attained an assured personal position in the life of the British
capital. He had long since demonstrated his qualifications for
a post, which, in the distinction of the men who have occupied
it, has few parallels in diplomacy. The scholarly Lowell, the
courtly Bayard, the companionable Hay, the ever-humorous Choate,
had set a standard for American Ambassadors which had made the
place a difficult one for their successors. Though Page had characteristics
in common with all these men, his personality had its own distinctive
tang; and it was something new to the political and social life
of London. And the British capital, which is extremely exacting
and even merciless in its demands upon its important personages,
had found it vastly entertaining. "I didn't know there could
be anything so American as Page except Mark Twain," a British
literary man once remarked; and it was probably this strong American
quality, this directness and even breeziness of speech and of
method, this absence of affectation, this almost openly expressed
contempt for finesse and even for tradition, combined with those
other traits which we like to think of as American---an upright
purpose, a desire to serve not only his own country but mankind---which
made the British public look upon Page as one of the most attractive
and useful figures in a war-torn Europe.
There was a certain ruggedness in Page's exterior which the
British regarded as distinctly in keeping with this American flavour.
The Ambassador was not a handsome man. To one who had heard much
of the liveliness of his conversation and presence a first impression
was likely to be disappointing. His figure at this time was tall,
gaunt, and lean--and he steadily lost weight during his service
in England; his head was finely shaped---it was large, with a
high forehead, his thin gray hair rather increasing its intellectual
aspect; and his big frank brown eyes reflected that keen zest
for life, that unsleeping interest in everything about him, that
ever-working intelligence and sympathy which were the man's predominant
traits. But a very large nose at first rather lessened the pleasing
effects of his other features, and a rather weather-beaten, corrugated
face gave a preliminary suggestion of roughness. Yet Page had
only to begin talking and the impression immediately changed.
"He puts his mind to yours," Dr. Johnson said, describing
the sympathetic qualities of a friend, and the same was true of
Page. Half a dozen sentences, spoken in his quick, soft, and ingratiating
accents, accompanied by the most genial smile, at once converted
the listener into a friend. Few men have ever lived who more quickly
responded to this human relationship. The Ambassador, at the simple
approach of a human being, became as a man transformed. Tired
though he might be, low in spirits as he not infrequently was,
the press of a human hand at once changed him into an animated
and radiating companion. This responsiveness deceived all his
friends in the days of his last illness. His intimates who dropped
in to see Page invariably went away much encouraged and spread
optimistic reports about his progress. A few minutes' conversation
with Page would deceive even his physicians. The explanation was
a simple one: the human presence had an electric effect upon him,
and it is a revealing sidelight on Page's character that almost
any man or woman could produce this result. As an editor, the
readiness with which he would listen to suggestions from the humblest
source was a constant astonishment to his associates. The office
boy had as accessible an approach to Page as had his partners.
He never treated an idea, even a grotesque one, with contempt;
he always had time to discuss it, to argue it out, and no one
ever left his presence thinking that he had made an absurd proposal.
Thus Page had a profound respect for a human being simply because
he was a human being; the mere fact that a man, woman, or child
lived and breathed, had his virtues and his failings, constituted
in Page's imagination a tremendous fact. He could not wound such
a living creature any more than he could wound a flower or a tree;
consequently he treated every person as an important member of
the universe. Not infrequently, indeed, he stormed at public men,
but his thunder, after all, was not very terrifying; his remarks
about such personages as Mr. Bryan merely reflected his indignation
at their policies and their influence but did not indicate any
feeling against the victims themselves. Page said "Good morning"
to his doorman with the same deference that he showed to Sir Edward
Grey, and there was not a little stenographer in the building
whose joys and sorrows did not arouse in him the most friendly
interest. Some of the most affecting letters written about Page,
indeed, have come from these daily associates of more humble station.
" We so often speak of Mr. Page," writes one of the
Embassy staff--- Findlater, Short, and Frederick"-t--hese
were all English servants at the Embassy; "we all loved him
equally, and hardly a day passes that something does not remind
us of him, and I often fancy that I hear his laugh, so full of
kindness and love of life." And the impression left on those
in high position was the same. "I have seen ladies representing
all that is most worldly in Mayfair," writes Mr. Ellery Sedgwick,
the editor of the Atlantic Monthly, "start at the
sudden thought of Page's illness, their eyes glistening with tears."
Perhaps what gave most charm to this human side was the fact
that Page was fundamentally such a scholarly man. This was the
aspect which especially delighted his English friends. He preached
democracy and Americanism with an emphasis that almost suggested
the backwoodsman---the many ideas on these subjects that appear
in his letters Page never hesitated to set forth with all due
resonance at London dinner tables---yet he phrased his creed in
language that was little less than literary style, and illuminated
it with illustrations and a philosophy that were the product of
the most exhaustive reading.
"Your Ambassador has taught us something that we did not
know before," an English friend remarked to an American.
"That is that a man can be a democrat and a man of culture
at the same time." The Greek and Latin authors had been Page's
companions from the days when, as the holder of the Greek Fellowship
at Johns Hopkins, he had been a favourite pupil of Basil L. Gildersleeve
British statesmen who had been trained at Balliol, in the days
when Greek was the indispensable ear-mark of a gentleman, could
thus meet their American associate on the most sympathetic terms.
Page likewise spoke a brand of idiomatic English which immediately
put him in a class by himself. He regarded words as sacred things.
He used them, in his writing or in his speech, with the utmost
care and discrimination; yet this did not result in a halting
or stilted style; he spoke with the utmost ease, going rapidly
from thought to thought, choosing invariably the one needful word,
lighting up the whole with whimsicalities all his own, occasionally
emphasizing a good point by looking downward and glancing over
his eyeglasses, perhaps, if he knew his companion intimately,
now and then giving him a monitory tap on the knee. Page, in fact,
was a great and incessant talker; hardly anything delighted him
more than a companionable exchange of ideas and impressions; he
was seldom so busy that he would not push aside his papers for
a chat; and he would talk with almost any one, on almost any subject---his
secretaries, his stenographers, his office boys, and any crank
who succeeded in getting by the doorman---for, in spite of his
lively warnings against the breed, Page did really love cranks
and took a collector's joy in uncovering new types. Page's voice
was normally quiet; though he had spent all his early life in
the South, the characteristic Southern accents were ordinarily
not observable; yet his intonation had a certain gentleness that
was probably an inheritance of his Southern breeding. Thus, when
he first began talking, his words would ripple along quietly and
rapidly; a characteristic pose was to sit calmly, with one knee
thrown over the other, his hands folded; as his interest increased,
however, he would get up, perhaps walk across the room, or stand
before the fireplace, his hands behind his back; a large cigar,
sometimes unlighted, at other times emitting huge clouds of smoke,
would oscillate from one side of his mouth to the other; his talk
would grow in earnestness, his voice grow louder, his words come
faster and faster, until finally they would gush forth in a mighty
torrent.
All Page's personal traits are explained by that one characteristic
which tempered all others, his sense of humour. That Page was
above all a serious-minded man his letters show; yet his spirits
were constantly alert for the amusing, the grotesque, and the
contradictory; like all men who are really serious and alive to
the pathos of existence, he loved a hearty laugh, especially as
he found it a relief from the gloom that filled his every waking
moment in England. Page himself regarded this ability to smile
as an indispensable attribute to a well-rounded life. "No
man can be a gentleman," he once declared, "who does
not have a sense of humour." Only he who possessed this gift,
Page believed, had an imaginative insight into the failings and
the virtues of his brothers; only he could have a tolerant attitude
toward the stupidities of his fellows, to say nothing of his own.
And humour with him assumed various shades; now it would flash
in an epigram, or smile indulgently at a passing human weakness;
now and then it would break out into genial mockery; occasionally
it would manifest itself as sheer horse-play; and less frequently
it would become sardonic or even savage. It was in this latter
spirit that he once described a trio of Washington statesmen,
whose influence he abhorred as, "three minds that occupy
a single vacuum." He once convulsed a Scottish audience by
describing the national motto of Scotland---and doing so with
a broad burr in his voice that seemed almost to mark the speaker
a native to the heath---as " Liber-r-ty, fra-a-ternity and
f-r-r-ugality." The policy of his country occasioned many
awkward moments which, thanks to his talent for amiable raillery,
he usually succeeded in rendering harmless. Not infrequently Page's
fellow guests at the dinner table would think the American attitude
toward Germany a not inappropriate topic for small talk. "Mr.
Page," remarked an exaltedly titled lady in a conversational
pause,"when is your country going to get into the war? "
The more discreet members of the company gasped, but Page was
not disturbed. "Please give us at least ninety days,"
he answered, and an exceedingly disagreeable situation was thus
relieved by general laughter.
On another occasion his repudiation of this flippant spirit
took a more solemn and even more effective form. The time was
a few days before the United States had declared war. Bernstorff
had been dismissed; events were rapidly rushing toward the great
climax; yet the behaviour of the Washington Administration was
still inspiring much caustic criticism. The Pages were present
at one of the few dinners which they attended in the course of
this crisis; certain smart and tactless guests did not seem to
regard their presence as a bar to many gibes against the American
policy. Page sat through it all impassive, never betraying the
slightest resentment.
Presently the ladies withdrew. Page found himself sitting next
to Mr. Harold Nicolson, an important official in the Foreign Office.
It so happened that Mr. Nicolson and Page were the only two members
of the company who were the possessors of a great secret which
made ineffably silly all the chatter that had taken place during
the dinner; this was that the United States had decided on war
against Germany and would issue the declaration in a few days.
"Well, Mr. Nicolson," said Page, "I think that
you and I will drink a glass of wine together."
The two men quietly lifted their glasses and drank the silent
toast. Neither made the slightest reference to the forthcoming
event. Perhaps the other men present were a little mystified,
but in a few days they understood what it had meant, and also
learned how effectively they had been rebuked.
"Is it any wonder," says Mr. Nicolson, telling this
story, "that I think that Mr. Page is perhaps the greatest
gentleman I have ever known? He has only one possible competitor
for this distinction---and that is Arthur Balfour. "
The English newspapers took delight in printing Page's aphorisms,
and several anecdotes that came from America afforded them especial
joy. One went back to the days when the Ambassador was editor
of the Atlantic Monthly. A woman contributor had sent him
a story; like most literary novices she believed that editors
usually rejected the manuscripts of unknown writers without reading
them. She therefore set a trap for Page by pasting together certain
sheets. The manuscript came back promptly, and, as the prospective
contributor had hoped, these sheets had not been disturbed. These
particular sections had certainly not been read. The angry author
triumphantly wrote to Page, explaining how she had caught him
and denouncing the whole editorial tribe as humbugs. " Dear
Madam," Page immediately wrote in reply, "when I break
an egg at breakfast, I do not have to eat the whole of it to find
out that it is bad." Page's treatment of authors, however,
was by no means so acrimonious as this little note might imply.
Indeed, the urbanity and consideration shown in his correspondence
with writers had long been a tradition in American letters. The
remark of O. Henry in this regard promises to become immortal:
"Page could reject a story with a letter that was so complimentary,"
he said, " and make everybody feel so happy that you could
take it to a bank and borrow money on it."
Another anecdote reminiscent of his editorial days was his
retort to S. S. McClure, the editor of McClure's Magazine.
"Page," said Mr. McClure, "there are only three
great editors in the United States."
"Who's the third one, Sam? " asked Page.
Plenty of stories, illustrating Page's quickness and aptness
in retort, have gathered about his name in England. Many of them
indicate a mere spirit of boyish fun. Early in his Ambassadorship
he was spending a few days at Stratford-on-Avon, his hostess being
an American woman who had beautifully restored an Elizabethan
house; the garden contained a mulberry tree which she liked to
think had been planted by Shakespeare himself. The dignitaries
of Stratford, learning that the American Ambassador had reached
town, asked permission to wait upon him; the Lord Mayor, who headed
the procession, made an excellent speech, to which Page appropriately
replied, and several hundred people were solemnly presented. After
the party had left Page turned to his hostess:
"Have they all gone "
"Yes."
" All? "
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Then let's take hands and dance around the mulberry tree!"
Page was as good as his word; he danced as gaily as the youngest
member of the party, to the singing of the old English song.
The great service in St. Paul's Cathedral, in commemoration
of America's entry into the war, has already been described. A
number of wounded Americans, boys whose zeal for the Allies had
led them to enlist in the Canadian Army, were conspicuous participants
in this celebration. After the solemn religious ceremonies, the
Ambassador and these young men betook themselves for lunch to
a well-known London restaurant. In an interval of the conversation
one of the Americans turned to Page.
"Mr. Ambassador, there was just one thing wrong with that
service."
"What was that?"
"We wanted to yell, and we couldn't."
"Then why don't you yell now? "
The boy jumped on a chair and began waving his napkin. "The
Ambassador says we may yell," he cried. "Let's yell!
"
"And so," said Page, telling the story, "they
yelled for five minutes and I yelled with them. We all felt better
in. consequence."
This geniality, this disposition not to take life too solemnly,
sometimes lightened up the sombre atmosphere of the Foreign Office
itself. "Mr. Balfour went on a sort of mild rampage yesterday,"
Page records. "The British and American navies had come to
an arrangement whereby the Brazilian ships that are coming over
to help us fight should join the American unit, not the British,
as was at first proposed. Washington telegraphed me that the British
Minister at Rio was blocking the game by standing out for the
first British idea---that the Brazilian ships should join the
British. It turned out in the conversation that the British Minister
had not been informed of the British-American naval arrangement.
Mr. Balfour sent for Lord Hardinge. He called in one of the private
secretaries. Was such a thing ever heard of?
"'Did you ever know,' said the indignant Mr. Balfour,
turning to me, 'of such a thing as a minister not even being informed
of his Government's decisions?' 'Yes,' I said, 'if I ransack my
memory diligently, I think I could find such cases.' The meeting
went into laughter!"
Evidently the troubles which Page was having with his own State
Department were not unfamiliar to British officialdom.
Page's letters sufficiently reveal his fondness for Sir Edward
Grey and the splendid relations that existed between them. The
sympathetic chords which the two men struck upon their first meeting
only grew stronger with time. A single episode brings out the
bonds that drew them together. It took place at a time when the
tension over the blockade was especially threatening. One afternoon
Page asked for a formal interview; he had received another exceedingly
disagreeable protest from Washington, with instructions to push
the matter to a decision; the Ambassador left his Embassy with
a grave expression upon his face; his associates were especially
worried over the outcome. So critical did the situation seem that
the most important secretaries gathered in the Ambassador's room,
awaiting his return, their nerves strung almost to the breaking
point. An hour went by and nothing was heard from Page; another
hour slowly passed and still the Ambassador did not return. The
faces of the assembled staff lengthened as the minutes went by;
what was the Ambassador doing at the Foreign Office? So protracted
an interview could portend only evil; already, in the minds of
these nervous young men, ultimatums were flying between the United
States and Great Britain, and even war might be hanging in the
balance. Another hour drew out its weary length; the room became
dark, dinner time was approaching, and still Page failed to make
his appearance. At last, when his distracted subordinates were
almost prepared to go in search of their chief, the Ambassador
walked jauntily in, smiling and apparently carefree. What had
happened? What was to be done about the detained ships?
"What ships?" asked Page, and then suddenly he remembered.
"Oh, yes---those." That was all right; Sir Edward had
at once promised to release them; it had all been settled in a
few minutes.
"Then why were you so long?"
The truth came out: Sir Edward and Page had quickly turned
from intercepted cargoes to the more congenial subject of Wordsworth,
Tennyson, and other favourite poets, and the rest of the afternoon
had been consumed in discussing this really important business.
Perhaps Page was not so great a story-teller as many Americans,
but he excelled in a type of yarn that especially delights Englishmen,
for it is the kind that is native to the American soil. He possessed
an inexhaustible stock of Negro anecdotes, and he had the gift
of bringing them out at precisely the right point. There was one
which the Archbishop of York never tired of repeating. Soon after
America entered the war, the Archbishop asked Page how long his
country was "in for." "I can best answer that by
telling you a story," said Page. " There were two Negroes
who had just been sentenced to prison terms. As they were being
taken away in the carriage placed at their disposal by the United
States Government, one said to the other, 'Sam, how long is you
in fo'?' 'I guess dat it's a yeah or two yeahs,' said Sam. 'How
long is you in fo'?' 'I guess it's from now on,' said the other
darky." "From now on," remarked the Archbishop,
telling this story. "What could more eloquently have described
America's attitude toward the war?"
The mention of the Archbishop suggests another of Page's talents---the
aptness of his letters of introduction. In the spring of 1918
the Archbishop, at the earnest recommendation of Page and Mr.
Balfour, came to the United States. Page prepared the way by letters
to several distinguished Americans, of which this one, to Theodore
Roosevelt, is a fair sample:
.
To Theodore Roosevelt
London, January 16, 1918.
DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT:
The Archbishop of York goes to the United States to make some observations of us and of our ways and to deliver addresses---on the invitation of some one of our church organizations; a fortunate event for us and, I have ventured to tell him, for him also.
During his brief stay in our country, I wish him to make your acquaintance, and I have given him a card of introduction to you, and thus I humbly serve you both.
The Archbishop is a man and a brother, a humble, learned, earnest, companionable fellow, with most charming manners and an attractive personality, a good friend of mine, which argues much for him and (I think) implies also something in my behalf. You will enjoy him.
I am, dear Mr. Roosevelt,
Sincerely yours,
WALTER H. PAGE.
.
Greatly as Page loved England he never ceased to preach his
Americanism. That he preferred his own country to any other and
that he believed that it was its greatest destiny to teach its
institutions to the rest of the world, Page's letters show; yet
this was with him no cheap spread-eagleism; it was a definite
philosophy which the Ambassador had completely thought out. He
never hesitated to express his democratic opinions in any company,
and only once or twice were there any signs that these ideas jarred
a little in certain strongholds of conservatism. Even in the darkest
period of American neutrality Page's faith in the American people
remained complete. After this country had entered the war and
the apparent slowness of the Washington Administration had raised
certain questionings, Page never doubted that the people themselves,
however irresolute and lukewarm their representatives might be,
would force the issue to its only logical end. Even so friendly
a man as Mr. Balfour once voiced a popular apprehension that the
United States might not get into the war with all its strength
or might withdraw prematurely. This was in the early period of
our participation. "Who is going to stop the American people
and how?" Page quickly replied. "I think that was a
good answer," he said, as he looked back at the episode in
the summer of 1918, when hundreds of thousands of Americans were
landing in France every month. A scrap of his writing records
a discussion at a dinner party on this question: "If you
could have a month in any time and any country, what time and
what country would you choose?" The majority voted for England
in the time of Elizabeth, but Page's preference was for Athens
in the days of Pericles. Then came a far more interesting debate:
"If you could spend a second lifetime when and where would
you choose to spend it?" On this Page had not a moment's
hesitation: "In the future and in the U. S. A.!" and
he upheld his point with such persuasiveness that he carried the
whole gathering with him. His love of anything suggesting America
came out on all occasions. One of his English hostesses once captivated
him by serving corn bread at a luncheon. "The American Ambassador
and corn bread!" he exclaimed with all the delight of a schoolboy.
Again he was invited, with another distinguished American, to
serve as godfather at the christening of the daughter of an American
woman who had married an Englishman. When the ceremony was finished
he leaned over the font toward his fellow godfather. "Born
on July 4th," he exclaimed, "of an American mother!
And we two Yankee godfathers! We'll see that this child is taught
the Constitution of the United States!"
One day an American duchess came into Page's office.
"I am going home for a little visit and I want a passport,"
she said.
"But you don't get a passport here," Page replied.
"You must go to the Foreign Office."
His visitor was indignant.
"Not at all," she answered. " I am an American:
you know that I am; you knew my father. I want an American passport."
Page patiently explained the citizenship and naturalization
laws and finally convinced his caller that she was now a British
subject and must have a British passport. As this American duchess
left the room he shook at her a menacing forefinger.
"Don't tell me," was the Ambassador's parting shot,
"that you thought that you could have your Duke and Uncle
Sam, too!"
The judgments which Page passed on men and things were quick
and they were not infrequently wise. One of these judgments had
historic consequences the end of which cannot even yet be foreseen.
On the outbreak of hostilities, as already related, an American
Relief Committee was organized in London to look out for the interests
of stranded Americans. Page kept a close eye on its operations,
and soon his attention was attracted by the noiseless efficiency
of an American engineer of whom he had already caught a few fleeting
glimpses in the period of peace. After he had finished his work
with the American Committee, Mr. Herbert C. Hoover began to make
his arrangements to leave for the United States. His private affairs
had been disorganized; he had already sent his family home, and
his one ambition was to get on the first ship sailing for the
United States. The idea of Belgian relief, or of feeding starving
people anywhere, had never occurred to him. At this moment an
American, Mr. Millard K. Shaler, came from Brussels and gave the
most harrowing account of conditions in Belgium. Mr. Hoover took
Mr. Shaler to Page, who immediately became sympathetic. The Ambassador
arranged an interview between Mr. Hoover and Sir Edward Grey,
who likewise showed great interest and promised government support.
Soon afterward three Belgians arrived and described the situation
as immediately alarming: Brussels had only food enough to feed
the people for thirty-six hours; after that, unless help were
forthcoming, the greatest distress would set in. Five men---Page,
the three Belgians, and Mr. Hoover---at once got together at the
American Embassy. Upon the result of that meeting hung the fate
of millions of people. Who before had ever undertaken a scheme
for feeding an entire nation for an indefinite period? That there
were great obstacles in the way all five men knew; the British
Admiralty in particular were strongly opposed; there was a fear
that the food, if it could be acquired and sent to Belgium, would
find its way to the German Army. Unless the British Government
could be persuaded that this could be prevented, the enterprise
would fail at the start. How could it be done?
"There is only one way," said Page. "Some government
must give its guarantee that this food will get to the Belgian
people." "And, of course," he added, "there
is only one government that can do that. It must be the American
Government."
Mr. Hoover pointed out that any such guarantee involved the
management of transportation; only by controlling the railroads
could the American Government make sure that this food would reach
its destination.
And that, added Page, involved a director---some one man who
could take charge of the whole enterprise. Who should it be?
Then Page turned quickly to the young American.
"Hoover, you're It! "
Mr. Hoover made no reply; he neither accepted nor rejected
the proposal. He merely glanced at the clock, then got up and
silently left the room. In a few minutes he returned and entered
again into the discussion.
"Hoover, why did you get up and leave us so abruptly?"
asked Page, a little puzzled over this behaviour.
"I saw by the clock," came the answer---and it was
a story that Page was fond of telling, as illustrating the rapidity
with which Mr. Hoover worked---"that there was an hour left
before the Exchange closed in New York. So I went out and cabled,
buying several millions of bushels of wheat---for the Belgians,
of course."
For what is usually known as "society" Page had little
inclination. Yet for social intercourse on a more genuine plane
he had real gifts. Had he enjoyed better health, week ends in
the country would have afforded him welcome entertainment. He
also liked dinner parties but indulged in them very moderately.
He was a member of many London clubs but he seldom visited any
of them. There were a number of organizations, however, which
he regularly attended. The Society of Dilettanti, a company of
distinguished men interested in promoting the arts and improving
the public taste, which has been continuously in existence since
1736, enrolling in each generation the greatest painters and writers
of the time, elected Page to membership. He greatly enjoyed its
dinners in the Banquet Hall of the Grafton Gallery. "Last
night," he writes, describing his initial appearance, "I
attended my first Dilettanti dinner and was inducted, much as
a new Peer is inducted into the House of Lords. Lord Mersey in
the chair---in a red robe. These gay old dogs have had a fine
time of it for nearly 200 years---good wine, high food, fine satisfaction.
The oldest dining society in the Kingdom. The blue blood old Briton
has the art of enjoying himself reduced to a very fine point indeed."
Another gathering whose meetings he seldom missed was that of
the Kinsmen, an informal club of literary men who met occasionally
for food and converse in the Trocadero Restaurant. Here Page would
meet such congenial souls as Sir James Barrie and Sir Arthur Pinero,
all of whom retain lively memories of Page at these gatherings.
"He was one of the most lovable characters I have ever had
the good fortune to encounter," says Sir Arthur Pinero, recalling
these occasions. "In what special quality or qualities lay
the secret of his charm and influence? Surely in his simplicity
and transparent honesty, and in the possession of a disposition
which, without the smallest loss of dignity, was responsive and
affectionate. Distinguished American Ambassadors will come and
go, and will in their turn win esteem and admiration. But none,
I venture to say, will efface the recollection of Walter Page
from the minds of those who were privileged to gain his friendship."
One aspect of Page that remains fixed in the memory of his
associates is his unwearied industry with the pen. His official
communications and his ordinary correspondence Page dictated;
but his personal letters he wrote with his own hand. He himself
deplored the stenographer as a deterrent to good writing; the
habit of dictating, he argued, led to wordiness and general looseness
of thought. Practically all the letters published in these volumes
were therefore the painstaking work of Page's own pen. His handwriting
was so beautiful and clear that, in his editorial days, the printers
much preferred it as "copy" to typewritten matter. This
habit is especially surprising in view of the Ambassador's enormous
epistolary output. It must be remembered that the letters included
in the present book are only a selection from the vast number
that he wrote during his five years in England; many of these
letters fill twenty and thirty pages of script; the labour involved
in turning them out; day after day, seems fairly astounding. Yet
with Page this was a labour of love. All through his Ambassadorship
he seemed hardly contented unless he had a pen in his hand. As
his secretaries would glance into his room, there they would see
the Ambassador bending over his desk---writing, writing, eternally
writing; sometimes he would call them in, and read what he had
written, never hesitating to tear up the paper if their unfavourable
criticisms seemed to him well taken. The Ambassador kept a desk
also in his bedroom, and here his most important correspondence
was attended to. Page's all-night self-communings before his wood
fire have already been described, and he had another nocturnal
occupation that was similarly absorbing. Many a night, after returning
late from his office or from dinner, he would put on his dressing
gown, sit at his bedroom desk, and start pouring forth his inmost
thoughts in letters to the President, Colonel House, or some other
correspondent. His pen flew over the paper with the utmost rapidity
and the Ambassador would sometimes keep at his writing until two
or three o'clock in the morning. There is a frequently expressed
fear that letter writing is an art of the past; that the intervention
of the stenographer has destroyed its spontaneity; yet it is evident
that in Page the present generation has a letter writer of the
old-fashioned kind, for he did all his writing with his own hand
and under circumstances that would assure the utmost freshness
and vividness to the result.
An occasional game of golf, which he played badly, a trip now
and then to rural England---these were Page's only relaxations
from his duties. Though he was not especially fond of leaving
his own house, he was always delighted when visitors came to him.
And the American Embassy, during the five years from 1913 to 1918,
extended a hospitality which was fittingly democratic in its quality
but which gradually drew within its doors all that was finest
in the intellect and character of England. Page himself attributed
the popularity of his house to his wife. Mrs. Page certainly embodied
the traits most desirable in the Ambassadress of a great Republic.
A woman of cultivation, a tireless reader, a close observer of
people and events and a shrewd commentator upon them, she also
had an unobtrusive dignity, a penetrating sympathy, and a capacity
for human association, which, while more restrained and more placid
than that of her husband, made her a helpful companion for a sorely
burdened man. The American Embassy under Mr. and Mrs. Page was
not one of London's smart houses as that word is commonly understood
in this great capital. But No. 6 Grosvenor Square, in the spaciousness
of its rooms, the simple beauty of its furnishings, and especially
in its complete absence of ostentation, made it the worthy abiding
place of an American Ambassador. And the people who congregated
there were precisely the kind that appeal to the educated American.
"I didn't know I was getting into an assembly of immortals,"
exclaimed Mr. Hugh Wallace, when he dropped in one Thursday afternoon
for tea, and found himself foregathered with Sir Edward Grey,
Henry James, John Sargent, and other men of the same type. It
was this kind of person who most naturally gravitated to the Page
establishment, not the ultra-fashionable, the merely rich, or
the many titled. The formal functions which the position demanded
the Pages scrupulously gave; but the affairs which Page most enjoyed
and which have left the most lasting remembrances upon his guests
were the informal meetings with his chosen favourites, for the
most part literary men. Here Page's sheer brilliancy of conversation
showed at its best. Lord Bryce, Sir John Simon, John Morley, the
inevitable companions, Henry James and John Sargent---"What
things have I seen done at the Mermaid"; and certainly these
gatherings of wits and savants furnished as near an approach to
its Elizabethan prototype as London could then present.
Besides his official activities Page performed great services
to the two countries by his speeches. The demands of this kind
on an American Ambassador are always numerous, but Page's position
was an exceptional one; it was his fortune to represent America
at a time when his own country and Great Britain were allies in
a great war. He could therefore have spent practically all his
time in speaking had he been so disposed. Of the hundreds of invitations
received he was able to accept only a few, but most of these occasions
became memorable ones. In any spectacular sense Page was not an
orator; he rather despised the grand manner, with its flourishes
and its tricks; the name of public speaker probably best describes
his talents on the platform. Here his style was earnest and conversational:
his speech flowed with the utmost readiness; it was invariably
quiet and restrained; he was never aiming at big effects, but
his words always went home. Of the series of speeches that stand
to his credit in England probably the one that will be longest
remembered is that delivered at Plymouth on August 4, 1917, the
third anniversary of the war. This not only reviewed the common
history of the two nations for three hundred years, and suggested
a programme for making the bonds tighter yet, but it brought the
British public practical assurances as to America's intentions
in the conflict. Up to that time there had been much vagueness
and doubt; no official voice had spoken the clear word for the
United States; the British public did not know what to expect
from their kinsmen overseas. But after Page's Plymouth speech
the people of Great Britain looked forward with complete confidence
to the cooperation of the two countries and to the inevitable
triumph of this cooperation.
.
To Arthur W. Page
Knebworth House, Knebworth,
August 11, 1917.
DEAR ARTHUR:
First of all, these three years have made me tired. I suppose there's no doubt about that, if there were any scientific way of measuring it. While of course the strain now is nothing like what it was during the days of neutrality, there's yet some strain.
I went down to Plymouth to make a speech on the anniversary of the beginning of the war---went to tell them in the west of England something about relations with the United States and something about what the United States is doing in the war. It turned out to be a great success. The Mayor met me at the train; there was a military company, the Star Spangled Banner and real American applause. All the way through the town the streets were lined with all the inhabitants and more---apparently millions of 'em. They made the most of it for five solid days.
On the morning of August 4th the Mayor gave me an official luncheon. Thence we went to the esplanade facing the sea, where soldiers and sailors were lined up for half a mile. The American Flag was flung loose, the Star Spangled Banner broke forth from the band, and all the people in that part of the world were there gathered to see the show. After all this salute the Mayor took me to the stand and he and I made speeches, and the background was a group of dozens of admirals and generals and many smaller fry. Then I reviewed the troops; then they marched by me and in an hour or two the show was over.
Then the bowling club---the same club and the same green as when Drake left the game to sail out to meet the Armada.
Then a solemn service in the big church, where the prayers were written and the hymns selected with reference to our part in the war.
Then, of course, a dinner party. At eight o'clock at night, the Guildhall, an enormous town hall, was packed with people and I made my speech at 'em. A copy (somewhat less good than the version I gave them) goes to you, along with a leader from the Times. They were vociferously grateful for any assuring word about the United States. It's strange how very little the provincial Englander knows about what we have done and mean to do. They took the speech finely, and I have had good letters about it from all sorts of people in every part of the Kingdom.
Then followed five days of luncheons and dinners and garden parties---and (what I set out to say) I got back to London last night dead tired. To-day your mother and I came here-about twenty-five miles from London---for a fortnight.
This is Bulwer-Lytton's house---a fine old English place hired this year by Lady Strafford, whom your mother is visiting for a fortnight or more, and they let me come along, too. They have given me the big library, as good a room as I want-with as bad pens as they can find in the Kingdom.
Your mother is tired, too. Since the American Red Cross was organized here, she has added to her committee and hospitals. But she keeps well and very vigorous. A fortnight here will set her up. She enjoyed Plymouth very much in spite of the continual rush, and it was a rush.
What the United States is doing looks good and large at this distance. The gratitude here is unbounded; but I detect a feeling here and there of wonder whether we are going to keep up this activity to the end.
I sometimes feel that the German collapse may come next winter. Their internal troubles and the lack of sufficient food and raw materials do increase. The breaking point may be reached before another summer. I wish I could prove it or even certainly predict it. But it is at least conceivable. Alas, no one can prove anything about the war. The conditions have no precedents. The sum of human misery and suffering is simply incalculable, as is the loss of life; and the gradual and general brutalization goes on and on and on far past any preceding horrors.
With all my love to you and Mollie and the trio,
W. H. P.
.
And so for five busy and devastating years Page did his work.
The stupidities of Washington might drive him to desperation,
ill-health might increase his periods of despondency, the misunderstandings
that he occasionally had with the British Government might add
to his discouragements, but a naturally optimistic and humorous
temperament overcame all obstacles, and did its part in bringing
about that united effort which ended in ---victory. And that it
was a great part, the story of his Ambassadorship abundantly proves.
Page was not the soldier working in the blood and slime of Flanders,
nor the sea fighter spending day and night around the foggy coast
of Ireland, nor the statesman bending parliaments to his will
and manipulating nations and peoples in the mighty game whose
stake was civilization itself. But history will indeed be ungrateful
if it ever forget the gaunt and pensive figure, clad in a dressing
gown, sitting long into the morning before the smouldering fire
at 6 Grosvenor Square, seeking to find some way to persuade a
reluctant and hesitating President to lead his country in the
defense of liberty and determined that, so far as he could accomplish
it, the nation should play a part in the great assize that was
in keeping with its traditions and its instincts.
.