Ocean. That's the best asset of safety
that we have.

Affectionately yours,

W.H.P.

_To Mrs. Charles G. Loring_

6 Grosvenor Square,

London, December 7, 1915.

DEAR KITTY:

This is my Christmas letter to you and Chud--a poor thing, but the
best I have to give you. At least it carries my love, dear, and my
wishes that every Christmas under your own roof will be happier
than the preceding one. Since your starting point is on the high
level of your first Christmas in your own home--that's a good wish:
isn't it?

I'm beginning to think a good deal of your mother and me. Here we
are left alone by every one of you--in a foreign land; and,
contrary to all predictions that any of you would have made about
us four or five years ago, we're faring pretty well, thank you, and
not on the edge of dying of loneliness at all. I tell you, I think
we're pretty brave and hardy.

We're even capable of becoming cocky and saucy to every one of you.
Be careful, then.

You see if you have a war to live with you don't necessarily need
children: you'll have strife enough without 'em. We'll console
ourselves with such reflections as these.

And the truth is--at least about me--that there isn't time to think
of what you haven't got. Of course, I'm working, as always, to
soften the relations between these two governments. So far, in
spite of the pretty deep latent feeling on both sides--far worse
than it ought to be and far worse than I wish it were--I'm working
all the time to keep things as smooth as possible. Happily, nobody
can prove it, but I believe it, that there is now and there has
been all along more danger of a serious misunderstanding than
anybody has known. The Germans have, of course, worked in 1000 ways
to cause misunderstanding between England and the United States.
Then, of course, there has been constant danger in the English
bull-headed insularity which sees nothing but the Englishman's
immediate need, and in the English slowness. Add to these causes
the American ignorance of war and of European conditions. It has
been a God's mercy for us that we have so far had a man like Sir
Edward Grey in his post. And in my post, while there might well
have been a better man, this much at least has been lucky--that I