about to submerge everything that had made it great. And the
Irish question had reached another crisis with the passage of the Home
Rule Bill, which Sir Edward Carson was preparing to resist with his
Irish "volunteers."

All these matters formed the staple of talk at dinner tables, at country
houses and at the clubs; and Page found constant entertainment in the
variegated pageant. There were important American matters to discuss
with the Foreign Office--more important than any that had arisen in
recent years--particularly Mexico and the Panama Tolls. Before these
questions are considered, however, it may be profitable to print a
selection from the many letters which Page wrote during his first year,
giving his impressions of this England which he had always loved and
which a closer view made him love and admire still more. These letters
have the advantage of presenting a frank and yet sympathetic picture of
British society and British life as it was just before the war.

_To Frank N Doubleday_

The Coburg Hotel,
Carlos Place, Grosvenor Square,
London, W.

DEAR EFFENDI:[15]

You can't imagine the intensity of the party feeling here. I dined
to-night in an old Tory family. They had just had a "division" an
hour or two before in the House of Lords on the Home Rule Bill. Six
Lords were at the dinner and their wives. One was a Duke, two were
Bishops, and the other three were Earls. They expect a general
"bust-up." If the King does so and so, off with the King! That's
what they fear the Liberals will do. It sounds very silly to me;
but you can't exaggerate their fear. The Great Lady, who was our
hostess, told me, with tears in her voice, that she had suspended
all social relations with the Liberal leaders.

At lunch--just five or six hours before--we were at the Prime
Minister's, where the talk was precisely on the other side.
Gladstone's granddaughter was there and several members of the
Cabinet.

Somehow it reminds me of the tense days of the slavery controversy
just before the Civil War.

Yet in the everyday life of the people, you hear nothing about it.
It is impossible to believe that the ordinary man cares a fig!

Good-night. You don't care a fig for this. But I'll get time to
write you something interesting in a little while.

Yours,
W.H.P.

_To Herbert S. Houston_