At this time we saw much of Sir William Willcocks, the eminent British engineer, who had just returned from Bagdad where he was employed by the Turkish Government in the construction and supervision of irrigation works in Mesopotamia. It was he who projected and designed the Assuan Dam across the Nile. He told me he was born to his work, as his father, Captain W. Willcocks, was engaged in it in India.
In June I wrote the Department of State requesting a leave of absence toward the end of September or beginning of October, with permission to return home. In answer I received a cable from the assistant secretary to the effect that the railway concessions of the Ottoman American Development Company were to come up in Parliament in November, and asking if it would be convenient for me to take my leave earlier so as to be back in Turkey by November 1st. I replied in a confidential letter that it was my intention, upon my return to America, to confer with the President and the Secretary of State regarding my release from this post, in accordance with my understanding when I accepted the appointment. I decided to wait until the arrival of the new secretary of the embassy, Mr. Hoffman Philip, and before leaving I took pains to make him thoroughly familiar with the work of the embassy so that no ground might be lost pending my resignation.
On leaving Constantinople we desired a few days' rest in the mountains. At the suggestion, therefore, of our minister to Roumania, J. Ridgely Carter, we planned to go to Sinaia, the Roumanian summer capital, which he thought we should find agreeable in every way, so on September 3d we left Turkey for Roumania.
Sinaia we found not only very beautiful, but most enjoyable. We were invited to the Palace a number of times. The Court being in mourning, all entertaining was informal and more intimate. The King reminded me of the late Edmund Clarence Stedman in general appearance. The Queen, known to all the world as "Carmen Sylva," was a striking personality, tall, rather heavily built, with silver gray hair and a high complexion, strong, mobile features, and a very spiritual expression. She spoke English, French, and German with equal fluency, so that it was difficult to tell which was the most natural to her.
The Queen told me how she happened to choose Carmen Sylva for a pen-name: The woods always appealed to her; their stillness and beauty inspired her. When she began to publish her work, at the age of thirty-five, she asked a certain German writer to tell her the Latin word for "woods"; that gave her "sylva." Next she asked the Latin word for "bird," but that did not suit her. Then the word for "song" suggested itself, "carmen." The combination appealed to her poetic sense, and she adopted it.
At luncheon one day our conversation drifted to poetry and American poets. The Queen seemed to know all our bards, even the minor ones, several of whom I had not heard of myself. I happened to quote, as near as I could recall it, a couplet from a little poem that Joaquin Miller wrote when Peter Cooper died:
All one can hold in his cold right hand
Is what he has given away.
She was most enthusiastic about that sentiment and said she considered it real poetry. She repeated it several times so as to remember it.
"Whenever any one gives me a beautiful thought, I never forget him," she said, turning to me in her unaffected manner. I appreciated her delicate compliment.