Fighting For Peace

power is due in part to natural sharpness, and in part to the innate pessimism of the Yankee mind, which considers the

tempest which lurked in the beautiful autumn and winter of 1913-14 in Europe. Looking back at them now, I can see that the sig

tulip-beds were ready to receive the little gray bulbs which would overflow April with a flood-tide of flowers. On the broad canals innumerable barges and sloops and motor-boats were leisurely passing, and on the little side-canals and ditches which drained the fields the duckweed spread its pale-emerald carpet undisturbed. In the woods-the tall woods of Holland-the elms and the lindens were putting on frosted gold,

emony in September. Situated before the entrance of that long, tree-embowered avenue which is called the Old Scheveningen Road, the edifice has an imposing exterior although a mixture of architects in the process of building has given it something the look of a glorified railway station. But the interior is altogether dignified and splendid, more palatial, in fact, than any of the royal residences. It is lined with costly marbles, rare Eastern woods, wonderful Japanese tapestries, and adorned with gifts

learned direction of M. Alberic Rolin. The late roses were blooming abundantly in the broad gardens of the palace. T

out the middle of October that I was invited there to lunch and to have my first au

d the Japanese Minister, Mr. Aimaro Sato, a very agreeable gentleman (and, by the way, an ardent angler), who now represents Japan at Washington. He talked a little, and with great good sense and feeling, of the desirability of a better under

and passed at once into an informal conversation in English. She speaks both languages fluently and well. Her first inquiry, according to royal custom, was about family matters; the number of the children; the health of the household; the finding of a comfortable house to live in at The Hague, and so on. There is something very homely and human in the good manners of a real court. Then the Queen

hyness of temperament is sometimes misinterpreted as a haughty reserve. But that is not correct. She is, in fact, most sincere and straightforward, devoted to her dut

. Our house had once been the palace of the Duchess of Saxe-Weimar, a princess of the Orange-Nassau family. But it was not at all showy, only comfortable and large. This was fortunate for our country when

nd friendly. There were dinners and dances and court receptions and fancy-dress balls-all of a discreet and moderate joyousness which New York and Newport, perhaps even Chicago and Hot Springs, would have called tame and rustic. The weather, for

; the arrangements for a proposed international congress on education in the autumn of 1914, forwarded; the Bryan treaty for a year of investigation before the beginning of hosti