The Mirrors of Washington

by Clinton W. Gilbert; John Kirby

Looking the work over with that blindness with which men are struck who are under the dominion of another and stronger man's mind, his gentle soul was flooded with happiness. He was as near boasting as one of his modest habits could be, as his mind turned to the wisdom of his youth which had brought forth this excellent fruit.

"I got my first real sight of politics," he said, "when I was a boy in Cornell University. My great chum there was young Morton, a son of the Republican war governor of Indiana. The Hayes-Tilden contest over the Presidency was being decided. Morton and I used to run away from Ithaca to Washington during that absorbing fight. By reason of his father's position in the Democratic party, he could get in behind the scenes as few young men could; and he took me with him. I saw the whole amazing thing. I made up my mind then and there that only three or four men in this country counted, and that there was little chance of rising to be one of those three or four by the ordinary methods."

He was, when he said this, at the apex of his career, behind the scenes of the greatest World Congress ever held, following the greatest War the world had ever known. And he had been behind the scenes as had no other man, in Europe as a privileged onlooker with both belligerents, and in America as the confidant of tremendous events.

He was there, as in his college days, at the Hayes-Tilden contest, by grace of a friend whose influence had been sufficient to secure him his opportunities. The parallel was in his mind, and he regarded it with self-approval. He had chosen his course and chosen it wisely. It had led him to the greatest peace-making in history.

There was a little more self-revelation. He and Morton had prepared for college with Yale in view. But Morton had flunked his entrance examinations at Yale and afterward succeeded in passing the Cornell tests. House had gone to Cornell to be with his friend, an early indication of a capacity for self-effacement, for attachment to the nearest great man at hand who could take him behind the scenes.

The mystery of Colonel House is that he has been possessed all his life, almost passionately, with that instinct which makes boys run to fires. His fastening upon the favorably placed, whether it was Morton in his youth, or Wilson in his maturity, was not ordinary self-seeking, not having for its object riches or power or influence. It was merely desire to see for the pure love of seeing.

His is a boundless curiosity about both men and events. His eyes are the clue to his character. Boardman Robinson, with the caricaturist's gift for catching that feature which exhibits character, said to me one day during the War, "I just passed Colonel House on the street. The most wonderful seeing eyes I ever saw!"

Nature had made Colonel House all eyes—trivial in figure, undistinguished, slightly ludicrous, almost shambling, shrinking under observation so that he gained a reputation for mystery, with only one feature to catch your attention, a most amazingly fine pair of eyes. It was as if nature had concentrated on those eyes, treating all the puny rest of him with careless indifference. They are eyes that delight in seeing, eyes to seek a place in the first row of the grand stand of world events, eyes that turn steadily outward upon objective reality. Not the eyes of a visionary—House got his visions of the brotherhood of man and the rest of it at second-hand from Wilson—eyes that glow not with the internal fires of a great soul, but with the intoxication of the spectacle.

And with the eyes nature had given House an unerring instinct for getting where, with his small figure, he could see. The ego of the passionate spectator is as peculiar as that of the book collector or the curiosity hunter. Given a shoulder tall enough the diminutive House perches upon it, like a small boy watching a circus parade from his father's broad back, whether the shoulder be Morton's in his youth, or Wilson's in his maturity.

Some have tried to explain House by saying that he had the vanity of loving familiarity with the great; but I doubt if House cared for kings, as kings, any more than a bibliomaniac cares for jade. He wanted to see; and kings were merely tall objects on which to perch and regard the spectacle.