ments 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.

CHAPTER XXIV

A RESPITE AT ST. IVES

_To Edward M. House_

Knebworth House
Sunday, September,[sic] 1917.

Dear House:

... By far the most important peace plan or utterance is the
President's extraordinary answer to the Pope[64]. His flat and
convincing refusal to take the word of the present rulers of
Germany as of any value has had more effect here than any other
utterance and it is, so far, the best contribution we have made to
the war. The best evidence that I can get shows also that it has
had more effect in Germany than anything else that has been said by
anybody. That hit the bull's-eye with perfect accuracy; and it has
been accepted here as _the_ war aim and _the_ war condition. So far
as I can make out it is working in Germany toward peace with more
effect than any other deliverance made by anybody. And it steadied
the already unshakable resolution here amazingly.

I can get any information here of course without danger of the
slightest publicity--an important point, because even the mention
of peace now is dangerous. All the world, under this long strain,
is more or less off the normal, and all my work--even routine
work--is done with the profoundest secrecy: it has to be.

Our energetic war preparations call forth universal admiration and
gratitude here on all sides and nerve up the British and hearten
them more than I know how to explain. There is an eager and even
pathetic curiosity to hear all the details, to hear, in fact,
anything about the United States; and what the British do not know
about the United States would fill the British Museum. They do
know, however, that they would soon have been obliged to make an
unsatisfactory peace if we hadn't come in when we did a