sometimes unlighted, at other times emitting huge clouds of
smoke, would oscillate from one side of his mouth to the other; his talk
would grow in earnestness, his voice grow louder, his words come faster
and faster, until finally they would gush forth in a mighty torrent.

All Page's personal traits are explained by that one characteristic
which tempered all others, his sense of humour. That Page was above all
a serious-minded man his letters show; yet his spirits were constantly
alert for the amusing, the grotesque, and the contradictory; like all
men who are really serious and alive to the pathos of existence, he
loved a hearty laugh, especially as he found it a relief from the gloom
that filled his every waking moment in England. Page himself regarded
this ability to smile as an indispensable attribute to a well-rounded
life. "No man can be a gentleman," he once declared, "who does not have
a sense of humour." Only he who possessed this gift, Page believed, had
an imaginative insight into the failings and the virtues of his
brothers; only he could have a tolerant attitude toward the stupidities
of his fellows, to say nothing of his own. And humour with him assumed
various shades; now it would flash in an epigram, or smile indulgently
at a passing human weakness; now and then it would break out into genial
mockery; occasionally it would manifest itself as sheer horse-play; and
less frequently it would become sardonic or even savage. It was in this
latter spirit that he once described a trio of Washington statesmen,
whose influence he abhorred as, "three minds that occupy a single
vacuum." He once convulsed a Scottish audience by describing the
national motto of Scotland--and doing so with a broad burr in his voice
that seemed almost to mark the speaker a native to the heath--as
"Liber-r-ty, fra-a-ternity and f-r-r-u-gality." The policy of his
country occasioned many awkward moments which, thanks to his talent for
amiable raillery, he usually succeeded in rendering harmless. Not
infrequently Page's fellow guests at the dinner table would think the
American attitude toward Germany a not inappropriate topic for small
talk. "Mr. Page," remarked an exaltedly titled lady in a conversational
pause, "when is your country going to get into the war?" The more
discreet members of the company gasped, but Page was not disturbed.
"Please give us at least ninety days," he answered, and an exceedingly
disagreeable situation was thus