o is now among
the leading political forces of the world.

Well, we talked of many things--of the future local habitation of the
League of Nations, of the Russian _impasse_, and the prospects of
Prinkipo, of Mr. Lloyd George's speech that day at the Conference, of
Siberia and Japan, of Ireland even! There was no difficulty anywhere;
no apparent concealment of views and opinions. But there was also no
carelessness and no indiscretion. I came away feeling that I had seen
a remarkable man, on one of the red-letter days of his life;
revolving, too, an old Greek tag which had become familiar to me:

"Mortal men grow wise by seeing. But without seeing, how can any man
foretell the future--how he may fare?"

In other words, call no work happy till it is accomplished. Yes!--but
men and women are no mere idle spectators of a destiny imposed on
them, as the Greeks sometimes, but only sometimes, believed. They
themselves _make_ the future. If Europe wants the League of Nations,
and the end of war, each one of us must turn to, _and work_, each in
our own way. Since the day of the first Conference resolution, the
great scheme, like some veiled Alcestis, has come a good deal further
down the stage of the world. There it stands while we debate; as
Thanatos and Heracles fought over the veiled queen. But in truth it
rests with us, the audience, and not with any of the leading
characters in the drama, to bring that still veiled figure into life
and light, and to give it a lasting place in the world's household.

Meanwhile the idea is born; but into a Europe still ringing with the
discords of war, and in a France still doubtful and full of fears.
There is a brooding and threatening presence beyond the Rhine. And
among the soldiers going and coming between the Rhine bridge-heads and
Paris, there is a corresponding and anxious sense of the fierce
vitality of Germany, and of the absence of any real change of heart
among her people. Meanwhile the relations between Great Britain and
America were never closer, and the determination of the leading men in
both countries to forge a bond beyond breaking between us was never so
clear. There are problems and difficulties ahead in this friendship,
as in all friendships, whether national or individual. But a common
good-will will solve them, a common resolve to look the facts of the
moment and the hopes of the future steadily in the face.

CHAPTER II

THE DEFENSIVE BATTLE OF LAST SPRING