A few days ago I went to London, chiefly to get clothing for Marie and to set on foot inquiries about her betrothed. Nothing seemed greatly changed, save that there were fewer people in the streets and the restaurants, and that many uniforms are in evidence. The theatres are open, and people are going about their work and their play in quite usual fashion, but their faces wear a different expression, an impersonal look, and a certain quiet exaltation. Oh, if the real England, that England that I know chiefly through the expression of her inmost self in her matchless literature, and through you, could only win over that other of high, excluding walls and ancient entailed rights of selfishness and of belittling snobbishness! You will admit that something needs righting in a social condition represented by the tale of the two sisters at Oxford,—one married to a tailor, one married to a University professor,—who did not dare speak to each other in the street for fear of consequences. I am hopelessly democratic; the wonderfully good manners of the perfectly trained English servant seem to me vastly higher, as human achievement, than the manner of the superior who speaks brutally to him. The surprised gratitude of many of the maids and scrub-women here when one addresses them as if they really were human beings is piteous.
Yet I know that though these things be true, they reflect but the surface, not the depths. Something in this crisis, something even in Peter's crude attacks, has roused a deep race instinct in me, long dormant. Though my forebears set sail for America in the 1630's, my sense of the identity of our destiny with that of England deepens every day. I am ceasing to say "your", and unconsciously slipping into "our"; perhaps I have been trying to criticize, to point out the things that are wrong, partly as a measure of self-protection, for I am growing sorry that the Revolutionary War ever happened! I long for England's victory in this war, knowing that she is right; I dimly suspect that I should long for it were she right or wrong; and I feel a little thrill of pride that my home is in this England of yours, of ours.
Even I, who am often indignant in watching the Englishman's manner toward those other Englishmen whom he considers his social inferiors, can discern his profound sense of responsibility toward them. Forgetting the mistakes of to-day, and thinking of the long development, one can but be aware in England of a stable, enduring spirituality, a practical idealism, unlike that of the earlier, idealistic Germany,—a something tangential, disassociated with life,—in that it is a constant sense of inner values working out in everyday ways and habits. Those mystical habits of dreaming fine things that are never done will not save the world. In my growing love for England, I am more and more aware of its disciplined, mellow civilization, treasuring the old and sacred in beliefs, in institutions, in buildings; its right, controlling habits; its thousand and one wise departures from the measure of rule and thumb; its uncodified, unformulated truth of action; its conduct far more logically right than its laws. In the very reproach oftenest brought against England I find the deepest reason for trusting her, that she allows human instinct a larger place and mere intellectual theory a smaller place than does any other nation in working out its destiny. I am deeply puzzled by my sense of the Englishman's wrong attitude toward his supposed inferior while I recognize that inner instinctive sense of necessary adjustments, that genius for living that makes them the best colonizers in the world and makes their rule the most lasting anywhere.
I consulted some of the chief authorities in the Belgian relief work in regard to Marie,—your England shows the real humanity at the heart of her in this magnificent hospitality to an outraged nation,—and I put advertisements into several papers. At home all was well, save that William the Conqueror had choked, trying to swallow a piece of English bacon too large for him, and was dead. So perish all who lust for conquest!
October 24. Two days ago came a domestic, not to say a social crisis. Two of the county ladies called on me, accompanied by the Vicaress; they must have been told, I think, of my uncle the banker! Forgive this gibe,—I could not resist making it; we always disputed, you remember, as to whether your countrymen or mine were the more devout worshippers of gold. To say truth, I have met these ladies at one or two committee meetings in our relief work, and I feel duly honoured by the call. I ring for Madge; Madge does not appear; going to the kitchen, I find it empty, the fire out, water dripping forlornly from the faucet. The coal in the sitting room grate I replenish myself and face the horror of the situation: three English ladies and no tea! No one knows better than I what blasphemy it would be to omit the sacred British rite of tea, which is even more established than the Established Church. Rising to the occasion, I heat water in a little copper kettle on the coals in the sitting room,—"So resourceful, as all Americans are," murmurs one lady. I concoct tea, and it proves very good tea indeed, served with appetizing little cakes from yesterday's baking. My guests go away mollified; not so am I! One of them had so many scathing things to say about England's policies at home and abroad, the political friendship with Russia, the desertion of Persia, the treatment of Ireland, the mismanagement of the present war, that I was driven to an attitude of defence. Surely there is something greater for English men and English women to do now than to stand aloof and criticize! When I told her that I thought it was a pity to confuse the soul of the English people with mistakes of contemporary statesmen, she looked at me blankly, nor could I make her understand. It is odd for me, who have so derided our Anglomaniacs and superficial imitators of the English, to come so hotly to the defence of England. I hardly know myself what is going on within me. It is the England-in-the-long-run that I reverence, the England of the great poetry, that soul of England full of "high-erected thoughts", of sunny faiths, and sweet humanities. And of course, through you too, I know its very best,—the breeding that makes no boast; its fine reserve; its self-control; its matchless, silent courage.
It is a chilly day; Don and the Atom cuddle side by side at the hearth; they are great friends now. Marie returns with bright eyes and red cheeks from a walk. Presently home comes Peter, who has been away on some errand of his own, to a fireless hearth and an empty room. Home and garden and adjacent field he searches in vain.
"She will 'ave gone to one of her friends, Miss," says Peter stoutly, proceeding to lay a fire.
I assent, but with misgiving. Madge had never failed before, nor had she even gone away for half an hour without telling me. As Peter helps me prepare a simple meal to serve instead of dinner, I turn the conversation toward military training and matters of war. My own contributions to the conversation, in regard to cavalry, infantry, and manœuvering I should not care to have Lord Kitchener hear. Very casually I remark that, if I were a man, I should like to be a soldier.
"Would you now, Miss?" Peter responds amiably, as he takes up the toasting-fork.
"There's a recruiting station at Shepperton," I suggest, as I cut the bread. "There are five thousand men encamped for training in Wellington Park; and I've been told that there are several hundred in the nearest village,—what is it, Silverlea? I hardly see how you can go about so much without seeing them."