The first plenipotentiary of one of the principal lesser states was for months refused an audience, to the delight of his political adversaries, who made the most of the circumstance at home.  An eminent diplomatist who possessed considerable claims to be vouchsafed an interview was put off from week to week, until at last, by dint of perseverance, as it seemed to him, the President consented to see him.  The diplomatist, pleased at his success, informed a friend that the following Wednesday would be the memorable day.  “But are you not aware,” asked the friend, “that on that day the President will be on the high seas on his way back to the United States?” He was not aware of it.  But when he learned that the audience had been deliberately fixed for a day when Mr. Wilson would no longer be in France he felt aggrieved.

In Italy the President’s progress was a veritable triumph.  Emperors and kings had roused no such enthusiasm.  One might fancy him a deity unexpectedly discovered under the outward appearance of a mortal and now being honored as the god that he was by ecstatic worshipers.  Everything he did was well done, everything he said was nobly conceived and worthy of being treasured up.  In these dispositions a few brief months wrought a vast difference.

In this respect an instructive comparison might be made between Tsar Alexander I at the Vienna Congress and the President of the United States at the Conference of Paris.  The Russian monarch arrived in the Austrian capital with the halo of a Moses focusing the hopes of all the peoples of Europe.  His reputation for probity, public spirit, and lofty aspirations had won for him the good-will and the anticipatory blessings of war-weary nations.  He, too, was a mystic, believed firmly in occult influences, so firmly indeed that he accepted the fitful guidance of an ecstatic lady whose intuition was supposed to transcend the sagacity of professional statesmen.  And yet the Holy Alliance was the supreme outcome of his endeavors, as the League of Nations was that of Mr. Wilson’s.  In lieu of universal peace all eastern Europe was still warring and revolting in September and the general outlook was disquieting.  The disheartening effect of the contrast between the promise and the achievement of the American statesman was felt throughout the world.  But Mr. Wilson has the solace to know that people hardly ever reach their goal—­though they sometimes advance fairly near to it.  They either die on the way or else it changes or they do.

It was doubtless a noble ambition that moved the Prime Ministers of the Great Powers and the chief of the North American Republic to give their own service to the Conference as heads of their respective missions.  For they considered themselves to be the best equipped for the purpose, and they were certainly free from such prejudices as professional traditions and a confusing knowledge of details might be supposed to engender.  But in almost every respect it was a grievous mistake