There was a certain ruggedness in Page’s exterior which the British regarded as distinctly in keeping with this American flavour.  The Ambassador was not a handsome man.  To one who had heard much of the liveliness of his conversation and presence a first impression was likely to be disappointing.  His figure at this time was tall, gaunt, and lean—­and he steadily lost weight during his service in England; his head was finely shaped—­it was large, with a high forehead, his thin gray hair rather increasing its intellectual aspect; and his big frank brown eyes reflected that keen zest for life, that unsleeping interest in everything about him, that ever-working intelligence and sympathy which were the man’s predominant traits.  But a very large nose at first rather lessened the pleasing effects of his other features, and a rather weather-beaten, corrugated face gave a preliminary suggestion of roughness.  Yet Page had only to begin talking and the impression immediately changed.  “He puts his mind to yours,” Dr. Johnson said, describing the sympathetic qualities of a friend, and the same was true of Page.  Half a dozen sentences, spoken in his quick, soft, and ingratiating accents, accompanied by the most genial smile, at once converted the listener into a friend.  Few men have ever lived who more quickly responded to this human relationship.  The Ambassador, at the simple approach of a human being, became as a man transformed.  Tired though he might be, low in spirits as he not infrequently was, the press of a human hand at once changed him into an animated and radiating companion.  This responsiveness deceived all his friends in the days of his last illness.  His intimates who dropped in to see Page invariably went away much encouraged and spread optimistic reports about his progress.  A few minutes’ conversation with Page would deceive even his physicians.  The explanation was a simple one:  the human presence had an electric effect upon him, and it is a revealing sidelight on Page’s character that almost any man or woman could produce this result.  As an editor, the readiness with which he would listen to suggestions from the humblest source was a constant astonishment to his associates.  The office boy had as accessible an approach to Page as had his partners.  He never treated an idea, even a grotesque one, with contempt; he always had time to discuss it, to argue it out, and no one ever left his presence thinking that he had made an absurd proposal.  Thus Page had a profound respect for a human being simply because he was a human being; the mere fact that a man, woman, or child lived and breathed, had his virtues and his failings, constituted in Page’s imagination a tremendous fact.  He could not wound such a living creature any more than he could wound a flower or a tree; consequently he treated every person as an important member of the universe.  Not infrequently, indeed, he stormed at public men, but his thunder, after all, was not very terrifying; his remarks about