Now this may all be a mere Christmas fancy—­a mere yarn about what might have been—­because we wouldn’t have sent ships here in our old mood; the crew would have missed one Sunday School.  But it’s this kind of thing that does the trick.  But this means the practice of courtesy, and we haven’t acquired the habit.  Two years or more ago the training ships from Annapolis with the cadets aboard anchored down the Thames and stayed several weeks and let the boys loose in England.  They go on such a voyage every two years to some country, you know.  The English didn’t know that fact and they took the visit as a special compliment.  Their old admirals were all greatly pleased, and I hear talk about that yet.  We ought to have two or three of our rear-admirals here on their fleet now.  Symington, of course, is a good fellow; but he’s a mere commander and attache—­not an admiral—­in other words, not any particular compliment or courtesy to the British Navy. (As soon as the war began, a Japanese admiral turned up here and he is here now.) We sent over two army captains as military observers.  The Russians sent a brigadier-general.  We ought to have sent General Wood.  You see the difference?  There was no courtesy in our method.  It would be the easiest and prettiest job in the world to swallow the whole British organization, lock, stock, and barrel—­King, Primate, Cabinet, Lords, and Commons, feathers and all, and to make ’em follow our courteous lead anywhere.  The President had them in this mood when the war started and for a long time after—­till the Lusitania seemed to be forgotten and till the lawyers began to write his Notes.  He can get ’em back, after the war ends, by several acts of courtesy—­if we could get into the habit of doing such things as sending generals and admirals as compliments to them.  The British Empire is ruled by a wily use of courtesies and decorations.  If I had the President himself to do the correspondence, if I had three or four fine generals and admirals and a good bishop or two, a thoroughbred senator or two and now and then a Supreme Court Justice to come on proper errands and be engineered here in the right way—­we could do or say anything we liked and they’d do whatever we’d say.  I’d undertake to underwrite the whole English-speaking world to keep peace, under our leadership.  Instead whereof, every move we now make is to follow them or to drive them.  The latter is impossible, and the former is unbecoming to us.

But to return to Christmas.—­I could go on writing for a week in this off-hand, slap-dash way, saying wise things flippantly.  But Christmas—­that’s the thing now.  Christmas!  What bloody irony it is on this side the world!  Still there will be many pleasant and touching things done.