nce the war began. Of
course everybody's worked to death. But something else ails a lot
of 'em all the way from Constantinople to London. Leaving out
common gutter lying (and there's much of it) the sheer stupidity of
governments is amazing. They are all so human, so mighty human! I
wouldn't be a government for any earthly consideration. I'd rather
be a brindled dog and trot under the wagon.

But it has been an inexpressibly interesting experience to find all
this out for myself. There's a sort of weary satisfaction in
feeling that you've seen too much of them to be fooled by 'em any
more. And, although most men now engaged in this game of government
are mere common mortals with most of the common mortal weaknesses,
now and then a really big man does stumble into the business. I
have my doubts whether a really big man ever deliberately goes into
it. And most of the men who the crowd for the moment thinks are big
men don't really turn out so. It's a game like bull fighting. The
bull is likely to kill you--pretty sure to do so if you keep at the
business long enough; but in the meantime you have some exciting
experiences and the applause of the audience. When you get killed,
they forget you--immediately. There are two rather big men in this
Government, and you wouldn't guess in three rounds who they are.
But in general the war hasn't so far developed very big men in any
country. Else we are yet too close to them to recognize their
greatness. Joffre seems to have great stuff in him; and (I assure
you) you needn't ever laugh at a Frenchman again. They are a great
people. As for the British, there was never such a race. It's
odd--I hear that it happens just now to be the fashion in the
United States to say that the British are not doing their share.
There never was a greater slander. They absolutely hold the Seven
Seas. They have caught about seventy submarines and some of them
are now destroying German ships in the Baltic Sea. They've sent to
France by several times the largest army that any people ever sent
over the sea. They are financing most of their allies and they have
turned this whole island into gun and shell factories. They made a
great mistake at the Dardanelles and they are slower than death to
change their set methods. But no family in the