Occasionally in the City of the Sultan there arose strange and peculiar incidents. I had a call one day from Monsignor Bonetti, the papal delegate, who had a summer residence near mine. He said it had been reported to him that a Roman priest named Brann, who had left his position in America about a year before because of some moral delinquencies, had arrived in Turkey within a few days. He was doubtless under an assumed name, but Bonetti had heard that the renegade priest was among our missionaries, and requested that I make inquiry. I asked him what he proposed doing should the priest be found. He said he wanted to counsel him to return to the church. The missionaries with whom I spoke gave me every assistance, but the priest had evidently not come among them, for he could not be found.
A number of distinguished people, European and American, visited Constantinople during the winter of 1898-99. Lord Rosebery arrived in his mother's yacht and was the guest of the British ambassador, Sir Nicholas O'Conor. We had the pleasure of meeting him several times at dinner. In a conversation I had with him he expressed great admiration for America and said that at one time he was on the point of becoming an American. I remember particularly his remark to the effect that he believed America and England, by coöperating, would control the world for the interests of the world, without having to fight a battle; that the peace and welfare of the world were in their hands, and sooner or later it must come.
We talked about our respective forms of government, parliamentary and congressional. He thought McKinley wise in referring all questions, during and since the Spanish-American War, to Congress. To quote his own words: "He is sailing on unknown seas, and it is wise to let the representative body do the steering."
He asked whether I was an ambassador or a minister. I explained to him that the President desired to raise the mission to an embassy, but as the law stood we were dependent upon the initiative of the Sultan. He said that during his incumbency as prime minister he had much to do with having the United States name an ambassador to London; he took special care that Great Britain should be the first nation to send an ambassador to Washington and to receive an American ambassador.
He spoke in a complimentary manner of Secretary Hay and said he should have remained in London, especially as it seemed to be his preference. He spoke of the ambassadorship of Edward J. Phelps and said he had heard him make some of the ablest public speeches he ever listened to; they were effective not only in what they expressed, but in their reserve. He thought public speaking in America was more finished than in England, of a higher order or better grounded from the standpoint of oratory: "We can't speak as you do."
I replied that one had only to point to him as an example to disprove that complimentary comparison. But he thought hardly anybody ever read his speeches.
Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, of Philadelphia, and his wife, together with the great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton, Philip Schuyler, and his wife, came to Constantinople. We saw much of them. The Mitchells had just lost their daughter.
Dr. Mitchell, who was regarded as the leading authority on nervous diseases—if I mistake not it was he who first introduced the rest cure, at any rate so far as America is concerned—was very anxious to see something of a Turkish household, which was not easily possible by reason of the seclusion of Turkish women. It happened that Tewfik Pasha, Minister of Foreign Affairs, had often spoken to me about the illness of his wife, who seemed to be suffering from some nervous ailment. She was a German-Swiss whom he had married while ambassador at Berlin, but their ménage was kept purely Turkish. Here, then, was my opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: I should satisfy Dr. Mitchell's curiosity by rendering Tewfik Pasha a service. In speaking to the Pasha I explained, of course, that Dr. Mitchell would accept no fee, that he would give his services as a favor to me and an act of courtesy to him. Dr. Mitchell was able to prescribe with excellent effect for Mme. Tewfik, and the Pasha was very grateful indeed.