venality; the man behind the counter at the cigar store reads me part of a letter just come from his son, telling how he advanced over a pile of dead Germans and one of them grunted and turned under his feet-they (the English alone) are spending $25,000,000 a day to keep this march going over dead Germans; then comes a telegram predicting blue ruin for American importers and a cheerless Christmas for American children if a cargo of German toys be not quickly released at Rotterdam, and I dimly recall the benevolent unction with which American children last Christmas sent a shipload of toys to this side of the world—­many of them for German children—­to the tune of “God bless us all”—­do you wonder we often have to pinch ourselves to find out if we are we; and what year of the Lord is it?  What is the vital thing—­the killing of fifty people last night by a Zeppelin within sight of St. Paul’s on one side and of Westminster Abbey on the other, or is it making representations to Sir Edward Grey, who has hardly slept for a week because his despatches from Sofia, Athens, Belgrade, and Salonika come at all hours, each possibly reporting on which side a new government may throw its army—­to decide perhaps the fate of the canal leading to Asia, the vast British Asiatic empire at stake—­is it making representations to Sir Edward while his mind is thus occupied, that it is of the greatest importance to the United States Government that a particular German who is somewhere in this Kingdom shall be permitted to go to the United States because he knows how to dye sealskins and our sealskins are yet undyed and the winter is coming?  There will be no new sealskins here, for every man and woman must give half his income to keep the cigarman’s son marching over dead Germans, some of whom grunt and turn under his feet.  Dumba is at Falmouth to-day and gets just two lines in the newspapers.  Nothing and nobody gets three lines unless he or it in some way furthers the war.  Every morning the Washington despatches say that Mr. Lansing is about to send a long note to England.  England won’t read it till there comes a lull in the fighting or in the breathless diplomatic struggle with the Balkans.  London and the Government are now in much the same mood that Washington and Lincoln’s administration were in after Lee had crossed the Potomac on his way to Gettysburg.  Northcliffe, the Lord of Yellow Journals, but an uncommonly brilliant fellow, has taken to his bed from sheer nervous worry.  “The revelations that are imminent,” says he, “will shake the world—­the incompetence of the Government, the losses along the Dardanelles, the throwing away of British chances in the Balkans, perhaps the actual defeat of the Allies.”  I regard Lord Northcliffe less as an entity than as a symptom.  But he is always very friendly to us and he knows the United States better than any Englishman that I know except Bryce.  He and Bryce are both much concerned about our Note’s coming just “at this most