on
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 cooeperation of the two countries and to the
inevitable triumph of this cooeperation.

_To Arthur W. Page_

Knebworth House, Knebworth,
August 11, 1917.