at him openly; his political
opponents at home were taking advantage of his absence to create an
atmosphere against him; England was cold, critical, and unresponsive. He
had so formed his _entourage_ that he did not receive through private
channels the current of faith and enthusiasm of which the public sources
seemed dammed up. He needed, but lacked, the added strength of
collective faith. The German terror still overhung us, and even the
sympathetic public was very cautious; the enemy must not be encouraged,
our friends must be supported, this was not the time for discord or
agitations, the President must be trusted to do his best. And in this
drought the flower of the President's faith withered and dried up.

Thus it came to pass that the President countermanded the _George
Washington_, which, in a moment of well-founded rage, he had ordered to
be in readiness to carry him from the treacherous halls of Paris back to
the seat of his authority, where he could have felt himself again. But
as soon, alas, as be had taken the road of compromise, the defects,
already indicated, of his temperament and of his equipment, were fatally
apparent. He could take the high line; he could practise obstinacy; he
could write Notes from Sinai or Olympus; he could remain unapproachable
in the White House or even in the Council of Ten and be safe. But if he
once stepped down to the intimate equality of the Four, the game was
evidently up.

Now it was that what I have called his theological or Presbyterian
temperament became dangerous. Having decided that some concessions were
unavoidable, he might have sought by firmness and address and the use of
the financial power of the United States to secure as much as he could
of the substance, even at some sacrifice of the letter. But the
President was not capable of so clear an understanding with himself as
this implied. He was too conscientious. Although compromises were now
necessary, he remained a man of principle and the Fourteen Points a
contract absolutely binding upon him. He would do nothing that was not
honorable; he would do nothing that was not just and right; he would do
nothing that was contrary to his great profession of faith. Thus,
without any abatement of the verbal inspiration of the Fourteen Points,
they became a document for gloss and interpretation and for all the
intellectual apparatus of self-deception, by which, I daresay, the
President's forefathers had persuaded themsel