was one that Page insisted on attending to himself.  The City of Cleveland was organizing some kind of a meeting dedicated to closer relations with Great Britain, and the Mayor wrote Page asking him to speak.  The last thing which Page wrote with his own hand was his reply to this invitation; and it is an impressive fact that his final written word should have dealt with the subject that had been so close to his heart for the preceding five years.

     To Harry L. Davis, Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio

I deeply regret my health will not permit me to attend any public function for some time to come; for I deeply appreciate your invitation on behalf of the City of Cleveland for the meeting on December 7th, and have a profound sympathy with its purpose to bring the two great English-speaking worlds as close together as possible, so that each shall thoroughly understand the courage and sacrifice and ideals of the other.  This is the greatest political task of the future.  For such a complete and lasting understanding is the only basis for the continued, progress of civilization.  I am proud to be associated in your thought, Mr. Mayor, with so fitting and happy an occasion, and only physical inability could cause absence.

     Sincerely,
     WALTER H. PAGE.

Page’s improvement was only temporary; a day or two after this letter was written he began to sink rapidly; it was therefore decided to grant his strongest wish and take him to North Carolina.  He arrived in Pinehurst on December 12th, so weak that his son Frank had to carry him in his arms from the train.

“Well, Frank,” said Page, with a slightly triumphant smile, “I did get here after all, didn’t I?”

He lingered for a few days and died, at eight o’clock in the evening, on December 21st, in his sixty-fourth year.  He suffered no pain.  He was buried in the Page family plot in the Bethesda Cemetery near Aberdeen.

He was as much of a war casualty as was his nephew Allison Page, who lost his life with his face to the German machine guns in Belleau Wood.

THE END

APPENDIX

SCRAPS FROM UNFINISHED DIARIES

Page was not methodical in keeping diaries.  His documents, however, reveal that he took many praiseworthy resolutions in this direction.  They include a large number of bulky books, each labelled “Diary” and inscribed with the year whose events were to be recorded.  The outlook is a promising one; but when the books are opened they reveal only fragmentary good intentions.  Entries are kept up for a few days, and then the work comes to an end.  These volumes contain many scraps of interesting writing, however, which are worth preserving; some of them are herewith presented in haphazard fashion, with no attempt at order in subject matter.

1913