tiger--an easier job than
I have with the British lion. You can find out exactly who your
tiger is, you know the house he lives in, the liquor he drinks, the
company he goes with. The British lion isn't so easy to find. At
times in English history he has dwelt in Downing Street--not so
now. So far as our struggle with him is concerned, he's all over
the Kingdom; for he is public opinion. The governing crowd in usual
times and on usual subjects can here overrun public opinion--can
make it, turn it, down it, dodge it. But it isn't so now--as it
affects us. Every mother's son of 'em has made up his mind that
Germany must and shall be starved out, and even Sir Edward's scalp
isn't safe when they suspect that he wishes to be lenient in that
matter. They keep trying to drive him out, on two counts: (1) he
lets goods out of Germany for the United States "and thereby
handicaps the fleet"; and (2) he failed in the Balkans. Sir Edward
is too much of a gentleman for this business of rough-riding over
all neutral rights and for bribing those Balkan bandits.

I went to see him to-day about the _Hocking_, etc. He asked me: "Do
_you know_ that the ships of this line are really owned, in good
faith, by Americans?"

"I'll answer your question," said I, "if I may then ask you one.
No, I don't know of my own knowledge. Now, _do you know_ that they
are _not_ owned by Americans?"

He had to confess that he, of his own knowledge, didn't know.

"Then," I said, "for the relief of us both, I pray you hurry up
your prize court."

When we'd got done quarrelling about ships and I started to go, he
asked me how I liked Wordsworth's war poems. "The best of all war
poems," said he, "because they don't glorify war but have to do
with its philosophy." Then he told me that some friend of his had
just got out a little volume of these war poems selected from
Wordsworth; "and I'm going to send you a copy."

"Just in time," said I, "for I have a copy of 'The Life and Letters
of John Hay'[23] that I'm sending to you."

He's coming to dine with me in a night or two: he'll do anything
but discuss our Note with me. And he's the only member of the
Government who, I think, would like to meet our views; and he
can't. To use the language of Lowell about the campaign of Governo