My Impressions of America Part 8

"From Mrs. Hocker, with best wishes for a successful evening at St.

Louis, to absolutely the most brilliant and interesting woman it has been my privilege to meet either in America or Europe."

I need hardly say that I clung to my bouquet that evening when I was escorted upon the stage by Judge Henry Caulfield, the City Counsellor.

Mr. Anderson of the St. Louis _Post-Dispatch_ returned to talk to us after the meeting, and I can truly say that after "Bruce"--whose real name I never discovered--I found him the most interesting press-man that I have met. I wrote to his editor congratulating him on having such a man upon his staff, and received a grateful reply.

Never having been interviewed till I arrived in this country, I do not know in what way reporters of intellect here would compare with ours, but it pa.s.ses my comprehension to understand why those that I have met are content to write for papers that seldom print what is either informing or interesting.

One of them said to me:

"We do not publish news, Mrs. Asquith, we concoct it."

XIII: KANSAS CITY AND OMAHA

KANSAS CITY AND OMAHA

AMERICAN VOICES RARELY MUSICAL--SEES LOVELY COUNTRY HOME--DISCUSSION ON CHARACTER BUILDING--MARGOT PREDICTS GREAT FUTURE FOR GOVERNOR ALLEN

We travelled to Kansas City the night of the lecture and were met upon our arrival and taken to the country house of Mrs. Edwin s.h.i.+elds.

After greeting her, I observed her fine tapestries, oriental china, portraits (by Sir Joshua Reynolds), and other old masters, as well as modern French pictures. We ate porridge, eggs and bacon and grapefruit for breakfast, off an oak table with Irish linen napkins, and I observed the refinement of my hostess's little face, and the pretty quality of her voice.

I do not think the voices here are generally musical; they are nasal and a little loud and, though Americans have a great deal of geniality and love of fun, I am so slow at picking up the language, that I probably miss much of the irony and _finesse_ that characterises our better kind of humour. The Canadians, who are of British stock, have a better sense of humour; but it is always a dangerous subject to write about, and when I remember the stupid things that evoke the laughter of the London public in our theatres, I feel I had better walk warily.

I am Scotch, and as a nation we have been accused of lack of humour; I cannot be expected to agree with this, nevertheless I remember being told in my youth of a man who had said:

"Oh! aye; Jock undoubtedly jokes, but he jokes with facility. I joke too, but with difficulty."

The French have a far finer sense of humour than any other nation in the world, and all they say is a constant source of delight to me.

It is pardonable not to laugh at what is amusing, but sudden guffaws at bad jokes is the test of a true sense of humour.

After breakfasting with Mrs. s.h.i.+elds I asked her to show me over her beautiful house. I was reminded of Glen by the freshness of the chintzes, and general feeling of air and comfort which I saw wherever I went.

We started at midday for Omaha, where we arrived in the evening. I felt less sad at parting with my hostess as I knew I was going to spend from 7 a.m. till midnight with her on the 24th. She is coming to Europe this summer where I shall look forward to entertaining her in London, as well as in the country.

After leaving her, Mr. Horton told me she had said to him that till she met me, she felt like a flower that had grown on clay soil, and that I had helped her to break into the sunlight. I was deeply touched, and am encouraged to hope that some day I may be worthy of so rare a compliment.

Upon our arrival at Omaha we were met by an open motor lent by Mrs.

Kountze, who had invited us to stay with her in her town house, but fearing that three of us might be embarra.s.sing, we decided to go to the hotel.

Omaha is a lovely city, with avenues of trees on either side of wide boulevards, and within easy reach of stretches of wild and beautiful country. As our hostess had been obliged to go to New York, her kind relations conducted us to see the wonderful views surrounding the town.

After speaking in the afternoon to an encouraging audience, with Mr.

Hall, the British Consul, as my chairman, I dined with Mr. and Mrs. Ward Burgess. They were more than hospitable, and had it not been for the severe figure of my secretary standing in the doorway, my jolly host, who had entertained me for two hours at dinner, would have prevented me from catching the midnight train.

We returned to Kansas City early on the morning of the 24th.

On being informed by Mrs. s.h.i.+elds's butler that her maid had already called her, I had a bath and, dressing as quickly as I could, went downstairs.

Her sitting room was a garden of roses, lilies and antirrhinums and I shall always remember our unforgettable _tete-a-tete_.

We started upon personality, and the difficulty of expressing what was true without hurting anyone, or acquiring character without becoming a character part. The difference between originality and eccentricity; kindness and tenderness; sympathy and understanding; and the delicate grades by which your attempts at goodness may either help or hamper your fellow creatures.

It is an eternal problem; and the morally lenient and socially severe is what you encounter every day of your life. I confessed how much I resented the shortness of life and urged her to realise this, as she appeared to me, in spite of having a genius for friends.h.i.+p, to be self-contained and lonely. She was responsive, and said many encouraging things to me. I said that somewhere or other I had read that Marcus Aurelius had begged us to keep our colour. I was not very sure of the correct text; but that the idea was that some of us were born red, some yellow, and others grey, but that however this might be, the point was to keep it; not so much by contrast or conflict with the other person, but to complement it. Great scientists, mathematicians or philosophers may manage to develop their personality alone, but what they write will not have the key that the writings of men who are nearer the earth are able to present to ordinary human beings.

At one of Abraham Lincoln's great meetings, he had to walk through the crowd to reach the platform. He heard someone say as he pa.s.sed:

"Is _that_ President Lincoln? Why, what a common-looking fellow!"

At which he turned round and said:

"G.o.d likes common-looking fellows or he would not have made so many of them."

I told her how much I had been moved by her remark to my secretary that our friends.h.i.+p would help her to emerge out of clay soil; adding that the desire of my life was to replant myself in a bigger pot every year, and that what she had said would encourage me to go on. After a certain age we were liable to become stationary; and the ravages of war so far from having regenerated, had r.e.t.a.r.ded civilisation.

We were interrupted by Mr. Henry J. Allen, a guest who arrived long before the luncheon hour.

The Governor of the State of Kansas is a man of authority--not only intelligent but intellectual, always a rare combination, and it needs no witch to predict a great future for him. He remained at Mrs. s.h.i.+elds's lovely house in Cherry Street from 11.30 till 6 in the evening, in spite of having an appointment at 4, by which I inferred he could do what he liked.

XIV: THE WAR AND PROHIBITION

THE WAR AND PROHIBITION

HEATED DISCUSSION ON ENGLAND'S ENTRY INTO THE WAR--OUR GERMAN FRIENDS--AMERICAN VITALITY--MISQUOTED ON PROHIBITION

I sat next to Mr. Heath Moore at lunch and discussed many subjects; among others, the motives that had brought Great Britain into the war.

He expressed himself with vigour and frankness, and said that nothing would induce him to believe that our purpose had been moral. That our trade was in danger of being out-rivalled, and the German navy had developed into such a formidable menace, that after France had been defeated, our own sh.o.r.es would have been immediately attacked by the Germans; it was therefore humbug to suggest that our motive had not been one of pure self defence.

As this was the first anti-British note that I had heard since my arrival, it interested me.

I asked him where he imagined our s.h.i.+ps would be when the German dreadnoughts sailed into our harbours: and what sort of reception the British people were likely to give the enemy crew, even supposing it could land an army--never a very easy matter--and concluded by saying I had not been kept awake by the fear that the Kaiser would succeed where Napoleon had failed. He stuck to his point and said that but for the violation of Belgium we would not have entered into the war. I answered that no doubt this had made it easier for the party in power--of which my husband was the head--because among the many convictions that divide Liberals from Conservatives is that we believe in freedom, while they believe in force: and that imperialism meant militarism against which we would fight for ever. But, I added, no British Government of whatever party would have watched with folded arms the whole German navy sail down our coast to attack France.

He inquired if my husband had felt any qualms _when he took upon his shoulders this great decision_. I answered that our Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward now Lord Grey, Lord Crewe, and others, had made up their minds from the first moment; and that in one year--thanks to the Committee of Defence, Lord Haldane and Lord Kitchener--we had produced a large voluntary army; and had he been in England at the time, he would have been struck by the pathos and silence with which men of every cla.s.s joined up to fight in a war which was not their own, against a foe for whom they felt no hatred.

He asked if England had been disappointed that America had come in so late to help her, I confessed that in a moment of pique I had exclaimed that had I been Christopher Columbus I would have said nothing about the discovery, but that I doubted if Great Britain would have come in any earlier to help the United States had they been in a similar quandary.

Someone asked me privately if I had lost a child in the war. I said that my little boy had been too young to fight, but that both my sisters, my three brothers and my husband had lost their sons; that living in Downing Street in the first years of the war had been an anguish, the depth of which no one could realise.

We had refused to drop any of our German friends in London, and in consequence became targets for the abuse and calumny of our social and political enemies.