To Mrs. William James.
H. J.'s eldest nephew was at this time occupied with relief work in Belgium.
21 Carlyle Mansions,
Cheyne Walk, S.W.
Feb. 20th, 1915.
Dearest Alice,
...Of course our great (family) public fact is Harry's continuously inscrutable and unseizable activity here. "Here" I say, without knowing in the least where he now is—and the torment of his spending all this time on this side of the sea, and of one's utter loss of him in consequence, is really quite dreadful.... England is splendid, undisturbed and undismayed by the savage fury and the roaring mad-bull "policy" of Germany's mine-and-torpedo practice against all the nations of the earth, or rather of the sea—though of course there will be a certain number of disasters, and it will probably be on neutrals that most of these will fall.
Feb. 22nd, p.m. I had to break this off two nights ago and since then that remark has been signally confirmed—three neutral ships have been sunk by mines and torpedoes, and one of these we learn this a.m. is an American cargo-boat. I don't suppose anything particular will "happen" for you all with Germany because of this incident alone (the crew were saved;) yet it can hardly improve relations, and she is sure to repeat the injury in some form, promptly, and then the fat will be on the fire. Mr. Roosevelt is far from being dear to me, but I can't not agree with his contention that the U.S.'s sitting down in meekness and silence under the German repudiation of every engagement she solemnly took with us, as the initiatory power in the Hague convention, constitutes an unspeakable precedent, and makes us a deplorable figure.
Meanwhile I find it a real uplifting privilege to live in an air so unterrorized as that of this country, and to feel what confidence we insuperably feel in the big sea-genius, let alone the huge sea-resources, of this people. It is a great experience. I mean the whole process of life here is now—even if it does so abound in tragedy and pity, such as one can often scarcely face. But there is too much of all that to say—and all I intended was to remark that while Germany roars and runs amuck the new armies now at last ready are being oh so quietly transported across the diabolised Channel. The quiet and the steady going here, amid the German vociferation, is of itself an enormous—I was going to say pleasure. We have just heard from Burgess of the arrival of his regiment at Havre—they left the Tower of London but a few days ago.... I go to-morrow to the Protheros to help them with tea-ing a party of convalescent soldiers from hospital—Mrs. J. G. Butcher, like thousands, or at least hundreds, of other people, sends her car on certain afternoons of the week to different hospitals for four of the bettering patients—or as many as will go into it—and they are conveyed either to her house or to some other arranged with. I have "met" sets of them thus several times—the "right people" are wanted for them, and nothing can be more interesting and admirable and verily charming than I mostly find them. The last time the Protheros had, by Mrs. Butcher's car, wounded Belgians—but to-morrow it is to be British, whom I on the whole prefer, though the Belgians are more gravely pathetic. The difficulty about them is that they are so apt to know only Flemish and understand almost no French—save as one of them, always included for the purpose, can interpret. I had to-day to luncheon a most decent and appreciative little sapper in the Engineers, whom I originally found in hospital and whose teeth I have been having done up for him—at very reduced military rates! There is nothing one isn't eager to do for them, and their gratitude for small mercies, excellent stuff as they are, almost wrings the heart. This obscure hero (a great athlete in the running line) is completely well again and goes in a day or two back to the Front; but oh how they don't like the hellishness of it (that is beyond all conception,) and oh how they don't let this make any difference! Tremendously will the "people" by this war—I mean by their patience of it and in it—have made good their place in the sun; though even as one says that one recognizes still more how the "upper classes" in this country and the others have poured themselves unstintedly out. The way "society" at large, in England, has magnificently played up, will have given it, I think it will be found, a new lease of life. However, society, in wars, always does play up—and it is by them, and for them, that the same are mostly made....
Feb. 23rd. Again I had to go to bed, but it's all right and my letter wouldn't in any case have gone to you till to-morrow's New York post. Meanwhile not much has happened, thank heaven, save that I went to tea with little Fanny P. and her five convalescents, and that it was a very successful affair.... We plied them with edibles and torrents of the drinkable and they expanded, as always, and became interesting and moving, in the warmth of civilization and sympathy. Those I had on either side of me at table were men of the old Army—I mean who had been through the Boer War, and were therefore nigh upon forty, and proportionately more soldatesques; but there is nothing, ever, that one wouldn't do for any one of them; they become at once such children of history, such creatures of distinction....
Ever your affectionate
HENRY.