I write--Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, edited by
Carlyle, with what Carlyle amusingly calls "Elucidations." (Carlyle is
not very good at "elucidating" anything!) I have heard somewhere or
other that this is one of Wilson's favourite books, and indeed, there
is much of the Cromwell in him. With what a grim, covenanting zeal he
took up the sword when at last it was forced into his hand! And I have
been thinking that what he will say to the Peace Conference will smack
strongly of what old Oliver used to say to Parliament in 1657 and
1658--"If we will have Peace without a worm in it, lay we foundations
of Justice and Righteousness." What makes Wilson so irritating to the
unthoughtful is that he operates exclusively upon reason, not upon
passion. He contradicts Kipling's famous lines, which apply to most
men--

Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.

In this instance, I think, Reason is going to win. I feel the whole
current of the world setting in that direction.

It's quaint to think of old Woodrow, a kind of Cromwell-Wordsworth,
going over to do his bit among the diplomatic shell-craters. What I'm
waiting for is the day when he'll get back into private life and write
a book about it. There's a job, if you like, for a man who might
reasonably be supposed to be pretty tired in body and soul! When that
book comes out I'll spend the rest of my life in selling it. I ask
nothing better! Speaking of Wordsworth, I've often wondered whether
Woodrow hasn't got some poems concealed somewhere among his papers!
I've always imagined that he may have written poems on the sly. And by
the way, you needn't make fun of me for being so devoted to George
Herbert. Do you realize that two of the most familiar quotations in
our language come from his pen, viz.:

Wouldst thou both eat thy cake, and have it?

and

Dare to be true: nothing can need a ly;
A fault, which needs it most, grows two thereby.

Forgive this tedious sermon! My mind has been so tumbled up and down
this autumn that I am in a queer state of mingled melancholy and
exaltation. You know how much I live in and for books. Well, I have a
curious feeling, a kind of premonition that there are great books
coming out of this welter of human hopes and anguishes, perhaps A book
in which the tempest-shaken soul of the race will speak out as it never
has before. The Bi