hich had little prospect of
ever being accepted by this country. The sight of the French
Premier's happiness made him radiant.

It was not merely because representatives of foreign governments
found Colonel House easy to see when they could not gain access to
President Wilson that kept a throng running to his quarters in the
Crillon; it was because there they found the line of least
resistance. There was the readiest sympathy. There was the greatest
desire to accommodate. He sought always for a formula that would
satisfy the claims of all.

A man so ready to compromise is actuated by no guiding principle.
Mr. Scott, the editor of the "Manchester Guardian", said when
President Wilson was in England; "Yes, Lloyd George is honestly for
the League of Nations. But that won't prevent him from doing things
at Paris which will be utterly inconsistent with the principle of
such a league. It isn't intellectual dishonesty; but Lloyd George
hasn't a logical mind. He doesn't understand the implications of
his own position."

Neither did Colonel House at Paris. The League of Nations was an
emotion with him, not a principle. It was a tremendous emotion. He
spoke of it in a voice that almost broke. I remember his glowing
eyes and the little catch in his throat as he said, at Paris, "The
politicians don't like the League of Nations. And if they really
knew what it would do to them, they would like it still less."

But, for all that naive faith in the wonders it would do, Colonel
House had not thought out the League of Nations, and was quite
incapable of thinking it out, for he is not a man of analytical
mind; and what mental power he had was inhibited by the glow of his
feelings. His temperature was above the thinking point. Thus, like
Mr. Lloyd George, he could make compromises that played ducks and
drakes with his general position, since he had no real
understanding of the League, which was not an intellectual
conviction with him, arduously arrived at, but which possessed his
soul as by an act of grace, like an old-fashioned religious
conversion.

He was loyal at heart to Mr. Wilson and to everything that was Mr.
Wilson's, his mind being absorbed into Mr. Wilson's, and having no
independent existence. There are natures which demand an utter and
unquestioning loyalty in those to whom they yield their confidence,
and Mr. Wilson's was of that sort, as a remark of his about
Secretary Colby will indicate.

When Mr. Lansing was re