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"--these 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
back-woodsman--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-u-gality." 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 coöperation of the two countries and to the
inevitable triumph of this coöperation.
_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.