.
Everyone walks about, and you cannot be sure that any of the Senators
will speak from the seat that they occupied the day before, which makes
it rather confusing to a stranger.

At 4.30 I went to see Mr. Hughes in the Department of State. He is
remarkably handsome and has not only a striking intelligence, but
charming manners. We said nothing worth recording. I told him what,
alas! he must have heard a thousand times: the profound impression that
his opening speech on Disarmament at the Washington Conference had
created in my country, if not all over the world; and what perhaps he
did not know so well, that there never was a closer feeling than that
which exists between England and America to-day.

When I say this with all the eloquence I can command at every lecture,
though it is always cheered, it is seldom reported, and I read in one of
the papers:

"What Mrs. Margot Asquith said about the hand-clasp of Great Britain and
the United States is doubtful if not conventional," I am glad to be
called conventional, but what I say is not doubtful; it is true.

I see that in one of Byron's recently published letters, he writes to
Lady Melbourne:

"I wish that ... would not speak his speech at the Durham meeting above
once a week after its first delivery.

"Ever yours most nepotically,

"B."

But in spite of Byron's wise warning I repeat the same thing in every
lecture, because I feel passionately that it is not only important that
the English-speaking nations should stand side by side, but vital to the
Peace of Europe, and I am far from original in thinking it.

XI: SYRACUSE AND BUFFALO

SYRACUSE AND BUFFALO

CITY OF CULTURE AND BEAUTY--NIAGARA'S NATURAL BEAUTY MARRED BY
BILLBOARDS--MARGOT READS ABOUT HERSELF

On March 13 my daughter and her husband motored me to Baltimore where,
after speaking to a responsive audience, we took the midnight train to
Utica, and went from there to the Onondaga Hotel at Syracuse. This is a
university city of culture and beauty, and I wished I had had time to
see more of it.

I was introduced to my audience by Dean Richards, a lady of ability and
high standing in the college, and several people came up and spoke to me
behind the scenes when the lecture was over.

I have received many remarkable letters and invitations in every city I
have visited, not only to lunch and dine, but even to stay in private
houses. Had I but realised