ence to me; but in
reality they had haunted me. And now you make a personal appeal. You say
that England at the present moment is misunderstood, and even hardly
judged in America, and that even those great newspapers of yours that are
most friendly to the Allies are often melancholy reading for those with
English sympathies. Our mistakes--real and supposed--loom so large. We are
thought to be not taking the war seriously--even now. Drunkenness,
strikes, difficulties in recruiting the new armies, the losses of the
Dardanelles expedition, the failure to save Serbia and Montenegro, tales
of luxurious expenditure in the private life of rich and poor, and of
waste or incompetence in military administration--these are made much of,
even by our friends, who grieve, while our enemies mock. You say the
French case has been on the whole much better presented in America than
the English case; and you compare the international situation with those
months in 1863 when it was necessary for the Lincoln Government to make
strenuous efforts to influence and affect English opinion, which in the
case of our upper classes and too many of our leading men was unfavourable
or sceptical towards the North. You who know something of the vastness of
the English effort--you urge upon me that English writers whose work and
names are familiar to the American public are bound to speak for their
country, bound to try and make Americans feel what we here feel through
every nerve--that cumulative force of a great nation, which has been slow
to rouse, and is now immovably--irrevocably--set upon its purpose. "Tell
me," you say in effect, "what in your belief is the real spirit of your
people--of your men in the field and at sea, of your workmen and employers
at home, your women, your factory workers, your soldiers' wives, your
women of the richer and educated classes, your landowners and politicians.
Are you yet fully awake--yet fully in earnest, in this crisis of England's
fate? 'Weary Titan' that she is, with her age-long history behind her, and
her vast responsibilities by sea and land, is she shouldering her load in
this incredible war, as she must shoulder it; as her friends--the friends
of liberty throughout the world--pray that she may shoulder it?"

Yes!--I must answer your questions--to the best of my power. I am no
practised journalist--the days of my last articles for _The Pall Mall_
under the "John Morley" of those days are thirty odd years behi