r the President in general.

In spite of certain details which it seems impossible to make
understood on the Potomac, the whole American preparation and
enthusiasm seem from this distance to be very fine. The _people_
seem in earnest. When I read about tax bills, about the food
regulation and a thousand other such things, I am greatly
gratified. And it proves that we were right when we said that
during the days of neutrality the people were held back. It all
looks exceedingly good from this distance, and it makes me
homesick.

_To Frank N. Doubleday_

American Embassy.

[Undated, but written about October I, 1917]

DEAR EFFENDI:

... The enormous war work and war help that everybody seems to be
doing in the United States is heartily appreciated here--most
heartily. The English eat out of our hands. You can see American
uniforms every day in London. Every ship brings them. Everybody's
thrilled to see them. The Americans here have great houses opened
as officers' clubs, and scrumptious huts for men where countesses
and other high ladies hand out sandwiches and serve ice cream and
ginger beer. Our two admirals are most popular with all classes,
from royalty down. English soldiers salute our officers in the
street and old gentlemen take off their hats when they meet nurses
with the American Red Cross uniform. My Embassy now occupies four
buildings for offices, more than half of them military and naval.
And my own staff, proper, is the biggest in the world and keeps
growing. When I go, in a little while, to receive the Freedom of
the City of Edinburgh, I shall carry an Admiral or a General as my
aide!

That's the way we keep a stiff upper lip.

And Good Lord! it's tiresome. Peace? We'd all give our lives for
the right sort of peace, and never move an eyelid. But only the
wrong sort has yet come within reach. The other sort is coming,
however; for these present German contortions are the beginning of
the end. But the weariness of it, and the tragedy and the cost. No
human creature was ever as tired as I am. Yet I keep well and keep
going and keep working all my waking hours. When it ends, I shall
collapse and go home and have to rest a while. So at least I feel
now. And, if I outlive the work and the danger and the weariness