! How was the future to be met?

The American was about to take his leave, considerably disappointed
with the Heads of Oxford colleges, but he suspected that American
neutrality might be at the bottom of the Warden's reticence.

"I am not one of those Americans," he said, rising, "who regard
President Woodrow Wilson as the only statesman in the world at this
present moment."

The Warden threw his cigarette into the fire. "Wilson has one
qualification for statesmanship," he said, rising and speaking as if he
was suddenly roused to interest by this highly contentious subject.

The American was surprised. "I presume, coming from you, Professor, that
you speak of the President's academic training?" he said.

"I am not a Professor," said the Warden, at last sufficiently awakened
from his preoccupation to make a correction that he should have made
before. "The University has not conferred that honour upon me. Yes, I
mean an academic training. When a man who is trained to think meets a
new problem in politics he pauses to consider it; he takes time; and for
this the crowd jeer at him! The so-called practical man rarely pauses;
he doesn't see, unless he has genius, that he mustn't treat a new
problem as if it were an old one. He decides at once, and for this the
crowd admire him. 'He knows his own mind,' they say!"

The Warden spoke with a ring of sarcasm in his voice. It was a sarcasm
secretly directed against himself. That letter in his pocket was the
cause.

He had been confronted in the small world of his own life with a new
problem--marriage, and he ought to have understood that it was new, new
to himself, complicated by his position and needing thought; and he had
not thought, he had acted. He had belied the use and dignity of his
training. Had he any excuse? There was the obligation to marry, and
there was "pity." Were these excuses? They were miserable excuses.

But he had no time to argue further with himself, the inexorable voice
of the man standing opposite to him broke in.

"In your view, Warden, the practical man is too previous?" said the
American, making notes (in his own mind).

"He is too confident," said the Warden. "It is difficult enough to make
an untrained man accept a new fact. It is still more difficult to make
him think out a new method!"

"I opine," said the American, "that in your view President Wilson has
only one qualification for statesmanship?"

"I didn't say that," said the Warden.