The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page Volume I Part 10

The ladies to be presented come along. They curtsy to the King, then to the Queen, and disappear in the rooms farther on. The Amba.s.sadors (all in gaudy uniforms but me) stand near the throne--stand through the whole performance. One night after an hour or two of ladies coming along and curtsying and disappearing, I whispered to the Spanish Amba.s.sador, "There must be five hundred of these ladies." "U-m," said he, as he shifted his weight to the other foot, "I'm sure there are five thousand!" When they've all been presented, the King and Queen go into a room where a stand-up supper is served. The royalty and the diplomatic folks go into that room, too; and their Majesties walk around and talk with whom they please. Into another and bigger room everybody else goes and gets supper. Then we all flock back to the throne room; and preceded by the backing courtiers, their Majesties come out into the floor and bow to the Amba.s.sadors, then to the d.u.c.h.esses, then to the general diplomatic group and they go out. The show is ended. We come downstairs and wait an hour for our car and come home about midnight. The uniforms on the men and the jewels on the ladies (by the ton) and their trains--all this makes a very brilliant spectacle. The American Amba.s.sador and his Secretaries and the Swiss and the Portuguese are the only ones dressed in citizens'

clothes.

At a levee, the King receives only gentlemen. Here they come in all kinds of uniforms. If you are not ent.i.tled to wear a uniform, you have a dark suit, knee breeches, and a funny little tin sword. I'm going to adopt the knee breeches part of it for good when I go home--golf breeches in the day time and knee breeches at night.

You've no idea how nice and comfortable they are--though it is a devil of a lot of trouble to put 'em on. Of course every sort of man here but the Americans wears some sort of decorations around his neck or on his stomach, at these functions. For my part, I like it--here. The women sparkle with diamonds, the men strut; the King is a fine man with a big ba.s.s voice and he talks very well and is most agreeable; the Queen is very gracious; the royal ladies (Queen Victoria's daughters, chiefly) are nice; you see all the big Generals and all the big Admirals and the great folk of every sort--fine show.

You've no idea how much time and money they spend on shooting. The King has been shooting most of the time for three months. He's said to be a very good shot. He has sent me, on different occasions, grouse, a haunch of venison, and pheasants.

But except on these occasions, you never think about the King. The people go about their business as if he didn't exist, of course.

They begin work much later than we do. You'll not find any of the shops open till about ten o'clock. The sun doesn't shine except once in a while and you don't know it's daylight till about ten.

You know the House of Commons has night sessions always. n.o.body is in the Government offices, except clerks and secretaries, till the afternoon. We dine at eight, and, when we have a big dinner, at eight thirty.

I like these people (most of 'em) immensely. They are very genuine and frank, good fighters and folk of our own sort--after you come to know them. At first they have no manners and don't know what to do. But they warm up to you later. They have abundant wit, but much less humour than we. And they know how to live.

Except that part of life which is ministered to in mechanical ways, they resist conveniences. They don't really like bathrooms yet.

They prefer great tin tubs, and they use bowls and pitchers when a bathroom is next door. The telephone--Lord deliver us!--I've given it up. They know nothing about it. (It is a government concern, but so is the telegraph and the post-office, and they are remarkably good and swift.) You can't buy a newspaper on the street, except in the afternoon. Cigar-stores are as scarce as hen's teeth.

Barber-shops are all "hairdressers"--dirty and wretched beyond description. You can't get a decent pen; their newspapers are as big as tablecloths. In this aquarium in which we live (it rains every day) they have only three vegetables and two of them are cabbages. They grow all kinds of fruit in hothouses, and (I can't explain this) good land in admirable cultivation thirty miles from London sells for about half what good corn land in Iowa brings.

Lloyd George has scared the land-owners to death.

Party politics runs so high that many Tories will not invite Liberals to dinner. They are almost at the point of civil war. I asked the Prime Minister the other day how he was going to prevent war. He didn't give any clear answer. During this recess of Parliament, though there's no election pending, all the Cabinet are all the time going about making speeches on Ireland. They talk to me about it.

"What would you do?"

"Send 'em all to the United States," say I.

"No, no."

They have had the Irish question three hundred years and they wouldn't be happy without it. One old Tory talked me deaf abusing the Liberal Government.

"You do this way in the United States--hate one another, don't you?"

"No," said I, "we live like angels in perfect harmony except a few weeks before election."

"The devil you do! You don't hate one another? What do you do for enemies? I couldn't get along without enemies to swear at."

If you think it's all play, you fool yourself; I mean this job.

There's no end of the work. It consists of these parts: Receiving people for two hours every day, some on some sort of business, some merely "to pay respects," attending to a large (and exceedingly miscellaneous) mail; going to the Foreign Office on all sorts of errands; looking up the oddest a.s.sortment of information that you ever heard of; making reports to Washington on all sorts of things; then the so-called social duties--giving dinners, receptions, etc., and attending them. I hear the most important news I get at so-called social functions. Then the court functions; and the meetings and speeches! The American Amba.s.sador must go all over England and explain every American thing. You'd never recover from the shock if you could hear me speaking about Education, Agriculture, the observance of Christmas, the Navy, the Anglo-Saxon, Mexico, the Monroe Doctrine, Co-education, Woman Suffrage, Medicine, Law, Radio-Activity, Flying, the Supreme Court, the President as a Man of letters, Hookworm, the Negro--just get down the Encyclopaedia and continue the list. I've done this every week-night for a month, hand running, with a few afternoon performances thrown in! I have missed only one engagement in these seven months; and that was merely a private luncheon. I have been late only once. I have the best chauffeur in the world--he deserves credit for much of that. Of course, I don't get time to read a book. In fact, I can't keep up with what goes on at home. To read a newspaper eight or ten days old, when they come in bundles of three or four--is impossible. What isn't telegraphed here, I miss; and that means I miss most things.

I forgot, there are a dozen other kinds of activities, such as American marriages, which they always want the Amba.s.sador to attend; getting them out of jail, when they are jugged (I have an American woman on my hands now, whose four children come to see me every day); looking after the American insane; helping Americans move the bones of their ancestors; interpreting the income-tax law; receiving medals for Americans; hearing American fiddlers, pianists, players; sitting for American sculptors and photographers; sending telegrams for property owners in Mexico; reading letters from thousands of people who have shares in estates here; writing letters of introduction; getting tickets to the House Gallery; getting seats in the Abbey; going with people to this and that and t'other; getting tickets to the races, the art-galleries, the House of Lords; answering fool questions about the United States put by Englishmen. With a military attache, a naval attache, three secretaries, a private secretary, two automobiles, Alice's private secretary, a veterinarian, an immigration agent, consuls everywhere, a despatch agent, lawyers, doctors, messengers--they keep us all busy. A woman turned up dying the other day. I sent for a big doctor. She got well. As if that wasn't enough, both the woman and the doctor had to come and thank me (fifteen minutes each). Then each wrote a letter! Then there are people who are going to have a Fair here; others who have a Fair coming on at San Francisco; others at San Diego; secretaries and returning and outgoing diplomats come and go (lunch for 'em all); n.i.g.g.e.rs come up from Liberia; Rhodes Scholars from Oxford; Presidential candidates to succeed Huerta; people who present books; women who wish to go to court; Jews who are excited about Rumania; pa.s.sports, pa.s.sports to sign; peace committees about the hundred years of peace; opera singers going to the United States; artists who have painted some American's portrait--don't you see? I haven't said a word about reporters and editors: the city's full of them.

A Happy New Year.

Affectionately, WAT.

_To Ralph W. Page_[30]

London, December 23, 1913.

DEAR RALPH:

. . . The game is pretty much as it has been. I can't think of any new kinds of things to write you. The old kinds simply multiply and repeat themselves. But we are beginning now really to become acquainted, and some life friendships will grow out of our experience. And there's no doubt about its being instructive. I get glimpses of the way in which great governments deal with one another, in ways that our isolated, and, therefore, safe government seldom has any experience of. For instance, one of the Lords of the Admiralty told me the other night that he never gets out of telephone reach of the office--not even half an hour. "The Admiralty," said he, "never sleeps." He has a telephone by his bed which he can hear at any moment in the night. I don't believe that they really expect the German fleet to attack them any day or night. But they would not be at all surprised if it did so to-night. They talk all the time of the danger and of the probability of war; they don't expect it; but most wars have come without warning, and they are all the time prepared to begin a fight in an hour.

They talk about how much Germany must do to strengthen her frontier against Russia and her new frontier on the Balkan States. They now have these problems in hand and therefore they are for the moment not likely to provoke a fight. But they might.

It is all pitiful to see them thinking forever about danger and defense. The controversy about training boys for the army never ends. We don't know in the United States what we owe to the Atlantic Ocean--safe separation from all these troubles. . . .

But I've often asked both Englishmen and Americans in a dining room where there were many men of each country, whether they could look over the company and say which were English and which were Americans. n.o.body can tell till--they begin to talk.

The ignorance of the two countries, each of the other, is beyond all belief. A friend of Kitty's--an American--received a letter from the United States yesterday. The maid noticed the stamp, which had the head of George Washington on it. Every stamp in this kingdom bears the image of King George. She asked if the American stamp had on it the head of the American Amba.s.sador! I've known far wiser people to ask far more foolish questions.

Affectionately, W.H.P.

_To Mrs. Ralph W. Page_

London, Christmas-is-coming, 1913.

MY DEAR LEILA:

. . . Her work [Mrs. Walter H. Page's] is all the work of going and receiving and--of reading. She reads incessantly and enormously; and, when she gets tired, she goes to bed. That's all there is about it. Lord! I wish I could. But, when I get tired, I have to go and make another speech. They think the American Amba.s.sador has omniscience for a foible and oratory as a pastime.

In some ways my duties are very instructive. We get different points of view on many things, some better than we had before had, some worse. For instance, life is pretty well laid out here in water-tight compartments; and you can't let a stream in from one to another without danger of sinking the ship. Four reporters have been here to-day because Mr. and Mrs. Sayre[31] arrived this morning. Every one of 'em asked the same question, "Who met them at the station?" That's the chief thing they wished to know. When I said "I did"--that fixed the whole thing on the highest peg of dignity. They could cla.s.sify the whole proceeding properly, and they went off happy. Again: You've got to go in to dinner in the exact order prescribed by the const.i.tution; and, if you avoid that or confuse that, you'll never be able to live it down. And so about Government, Literature, Art--everything. Don't you forget your water-tight compartments. If you do, you are gone! They have the same toasts at every public dinner. One is to "the guests." Now you needn't say a word about the guests when you respond. But they've been having toasts to the guests since the time of James I and they can't change it. They had me speak to "the guests" at a club last night, when they wanted me to talk about Mexico! The winter has come--the winter months at least. But they have had no cold weather--not so cold as you have in Pinehurst. But the sun has gone out to sea--clean gone. We never see it. A damp darkness (semi-darkness at least) hangs over us all the time. But we manage to feel our way about.

A poor photograph goes to you for Xmas--a poor thing enough surely.

But you get Uncle Bob[32] busy on the job of paying for an Amba.s.sador's house. Then we'll bring Christmas presents home for you. What a game we are playing, we poor folks here, along with Amba.s.sadors whose governments pay them four times what ours pays.

But we don't give the game away, you bet! We throw the bluff with a fine, straight poker face.

Affectionately, W.H.P.

_To Frank N. Doubleday and Others_

London, Sunday, December 28, 1913.

MY DEAR COMRADES:

I was never one of those abnormal creatures who got Christmas all ready by the Fourth of July. The true spirit of the celebration has just now begun to work on me--three days late. In this respect the spirit is very like Christmas plum-pudding. Moreover, we've just got the patriotic fervour flowing at high tide this morning. This is the President's birthday. We've put up the Stars and Stripes on the roof; and half an hour ago the King's Master of Ceremonies drove up in a huge motor car and, being shown into my presence in the state drawing room, held his hat in his hand and (said he):

"Your Excellency: I am commanded by the King to express to you His Majesty's congratulations on the birthday of the President, to wish him a successful administration and good health and long life and to convey His Majesty's greetings to Your Excellency: and His Majesty commands me to express the hope that you will acquaint the President with His Majesty's good wishes."

Whereto I made just as pretty a little speech as your 'umble sarvant could. Then we sat down, I called in Mrs. Page and my secretary and we talked like human beings.

Having worked like the devil, upon whom, I imagine, at this bibulous season many heavy duties fall--having thus toiled for two months--the international docket is clean, I've got done a round of twenty-five speeches (O Lord!) I've slept three whole nights, I've made my dinner-calls--you see I'm feeling pretty well, in this first period of quiet life I've yet found in this Babylon. Praise Heaven! they go off for Christmas. Everything's shut up tight. The streets of London are as lonely and as quiet as the road to Oyster Bay while the Oyster is in South America. It's about as mild here as with you in October and as damp as Sheepshead's Bay in an autumn storm. But such people as you meet complain of the c-o-l-d--the c-o-l-d; and they run into their heatless houses and put on extra waistcoats and furs and throw shawls over their knees and curse Lloyd George and enjoy themselves. They are a great people--even without mint juleps in summer or eggnog in winter; and I like them.

The old gouty Lords curse the Americans for the decline of drinking. And you can't live among them without laughing yourself to death and admiring them, too. It's a fine race to be sprung from.

All this field of international relations--you fellows regard it as a bore. So it used to be before my entrance into the game! But it's everlastingly interesting. Just to give him a shock, I asked the Foreign Secretary the other day what difference it would make if the Foreign Offices were all to go out of business and all the Amba.s.sadors were to be hanged. He thought a minute and said: "Suppose war kept on in the Balkans, the Russians killed all their Jews, Germany took Holland and sent an air-fleet over London, the j.a.panese landed in California, the English took all the oil-wells in Central and South America and--"

"Good Lord!" said I, "do you and I prevent all these calamities? If so, we don't get half the credit that is due us--do we?"

You could ask the same question about any group or profession of men in the world; and on a scratch, I imagine that any of them would be missed less than they think. But the realness and the bigness of the job here in London is simply oppressive. We don't even know what it is in the United States and, of course, we don't go about doing it right. If we did, we shouldn't pick up a green fellow on the plain of Long Island and send him here: we'd train the most capable male babies we have from the cradle. But this leads a long way.

As I look back over these six or seven months, from the pause that has come this week, I'm bound to say (being frank, not to say vain) that I had the good fortune to do one piece of work that was worth the effort and worth coming to do--about that infernal Mexican situation. An abler man would have done it better; but, as it was, I did it; and I have a most appreciative letter about it from the President.