sible
or immediate results. I hope I am mistaken in this. But you know
that the German Government has a well-laid progressive plan for
shipbuilding for a certain number of years. I believe that the work
has, in fact, already been arranged for. But that has nothing to do
with the case. You are going to see what effect you can produce on
the mind of a man. Perhaps you will never know just what effect you
will produce. Yet the fact that you are who you are, that you make
this journey for this especial purpose, that you are everlastingly
right--these are enough.

Moreover, you can't ever tell results, nor can you afford to make
your plans in this sort of high work with the slightest reference
to probable results. That's the bigness and the glory of it. Any
ordinary man can, on any ordinary day, go and do a task, the
favourable results of which may be foreseen. _That's_ easy. The big
thing is to go confidently to work on a task, the results of which
nobody can possibly foresee--a task so vague and improbable of
definite results that small men hesitate. It is in this spirit that
very many of the biggest things in history have been done. Wasn't
the purchase of Louisiana such a thing? Who'd ever have supposed
that that could have been brought about? I applaud your errand and
I am eagerly impatient to hear the results. When will _you_ get
here? I assume that Mrs. House will not go with you to Berlin. No
matter so you both turn up here for a good long stay.

I've taken me a little bit of a house about twenty miles out of
town whither we are going in July as soon as we can get away from
London. I hope to stay down there till far into October, coming up
to London about thrice a week. That's the dull season of the year.
It's a charming little country place--big enough for you to visit
us. . . .

_From Edward M. House_

An Bord des Dampfers _Imperator_

den May 21, 1914.

Hamburg-Amerika Linie

Dear Page:

Here we are again. The Wallaces[60] land at Cherbourg, Friday
morning, and we of course go on to Berlin. I wish I might have the
benefit of your advice just now, for the chances for success in
this great adventure are slender enough at best. The President has
done his part in the letter I have with me, and it is clearly up to