e financial help we give to German and Austrian subjects (poor
devils) is given, of course, at their embassies, where we have
men--our men-in charge. Each of these governments accepted my offer
to give our Ambassadors (Gerard and Penfield) a sum of money to
help Americans if I would set aside an equal sum to help their
people here. The German fund that I thus began with was $50,000;
the Austrian, $25,000. All this and more will be needed before the
war ends.--All this activity is kept up with scrupulous attention
to the British rules and regulations. In fact, we are helping this
Government much in the management of these "alien enemies," as they
call them.

I am amazed at the good health we all keep with this big volume of
work and the long hours. Not a man nor a woman has been ill a day.
I have known something about work and the spirit of good work in
other organizations of various sorts; but I never saw one work in
better spirit than this. And remember, most of them are volunteers.

The soldiers here complained for weeks in private about the
lethargy of the people--the slowness of men to enlist. But they
seemed to me to complain with insufficient reason. For now they
come by thousands. They do need more men in the field, and they may
conscript them, but I doubt the necessity. But I run across such
incidents as these: I met the Dowager Countess of D----
yesterday--a woman of 65, as tall as I and as erect herself as a
soldier, who might be taken for a woman of 40, prematurely gray.
"I had five sons in the Boer War. I have three in this war. I do
not know where any one of them is." Mrs. Page's maid is talking of
leaving her. "My two brothers have gone to the war and perhaps I
ought to help their wives and children." The Countess and the maid
are of the same blood, each alike unconquerable. My chauffeur has
talked all day about the naval battle in which five German ships
were lately sunk[68]. He reminded me of the night two months ago
when he drove Mrs. Page and me to dine with Sir John and Lady
Jellicoe--Jellicoe now, you know, being in command of the British
fleet.

This Kingdom has settled down to war as its one great piece of
business now in hand, and it is impossible, as the busy, burdensome
days pass, to pick out events or impressions th