others were delightful. This is the whole point--I can't and won't go
back to what I left here two years ago. My day for platitudes and
pouring tea for men, who are contemptible enough to make Society their
profession, is over. I am going to know the real men of my country. It
is incredible that there are not men in that Senate as well worth
talking to as any I met in England. The other day I picked up a bound
copy of the Congressional Record in a book-shop. It was frantically
interesting."

"It must have been! But, my dear--of course I understand, darling,
your desire for a new intellectual occupation; you always were so
clever--but you can't, you really can't know these men. They are--they
are--politicians. We never have known politicians. They are dreadful
people, who have come from low origins and would probably call me
'marm.'"

"You are all wrong, Molly. I bought a copy of the Congressional
Directory a day or two ago, and have read the biography of every
Senator. Nine-tenths of them are educated men; if only a few attended
the big Universities, the rest went to the colleges of their State.
That is enough for an American of brains. And most of them are
lawyers; others served in the war, and several have distinguished
records. They cannot be boors, whether they have blue blood in them or
not. I'm sick of blue blood, anyway. Vienna was the deadliest place I
ever visited. What makes London interesting is its red streak of
plebeianism;--well, I repeat, I think it really dreadful that we
should not know even by name the men who make our laws, who are making
history, who may be called upon at any moment to decide our fate among
nations. I feel a silly little fool."