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267 6 I Return to Paris with Ambassador Page and Guglielmo Marconi. Wilson’s Supreme Test. DECEMBER 6 Rome again, with mild, sunny weather, evenings like pleasant Amherst Octobers, and mornings such as this, cool, moist, and sunny, as in Amherst Mays. Leaves yet unfallen, or falling, and not wholly dead—glorious in places in their coloring. But Rome gives no such thrill on this visit as it gave before, for I am longing to be at home. I lunched today with Mr. and Mrs. Peter Jay20 —First Secretary of the Embassy—and afterwards took a walk down into the town and back with Mr. Page, the Ambassador. A charming and delightful old man! He tells me he is going to leave Rome in April and go home and write stories for children. A novel first, perhaps, and articles on Italy, but after that stories for children. It is a charming idea, but one wonders; so many old men plan but never execute. Mr. Page has worked hard here and in the years of the war and will be glad of a rest. He is going to Paris on Sunday to meet President Wilson. He requested orders to proceed there from the Department of State, but, failing to get them, he is going anyway. What a pressure there will be on Wilson there in Paris! Will anyone see him more than two minutes at a time? Nearly every man I meet wants to get to Wilson with his explanation first, before somebody else has corrupted him. I suppose Wilson has made his parting speech to Congress and is on his way to Europe. Great preparations are being made for him. Probably no other 20. Peter Augustus Jay (1877–1930) was a career diplomat who was the great-great-grandson of John Jay, once a Minister to France and the first U.S. Chief Justice. 268 | The Paris Peace Conference visitor in Europe will ever have such a reception. I have, curiously, a feeling of doom in the coming to Europe of Wilson. He occupies a pinnacle too high. The earth forces are too strong. All the old, ugly depths, hating change, hating light, will suck him down. He is now approaching the supreme test of his triumph and his popularity. They are dizzy heights he walks upon, and no man has long breathed that rarified atmosphere and lived. For all peoples are cruel with their heroes. They will pull them apart to see if they have mere sawdust inside, or are good hard heroic material all the way through. People are so accustomed to being deceived that they will accept no leader as truly heroic until he has been subjected to the ultimate test. Does he talk well; does he sit nobly on his cloud? They are skeptical. Talk is cheap. They must see him act. It is not enough for him to remark in the words of Nehemiah, “I am doing a great work so that I cannot come down.” They will demand that he come down; they will insist upon seeing how he behaves when the mob elbows him. Who cannot stand triumph? Let us see him in disgrace, with the crowd reviling him. They become impatient with his justness, fret at his idealism, chafe under his discipline, and finally, the last test having been passed, they will turn upon and rend him. They will even crucify him. Will the memory of him live through all that? Then let it live! We will bow a knee to him forever afterwards. There are strong reasons given in America even by his friends (his enemies are fierce in their attacks) why Mr. Wilson should not come here. They say he should remain in his high place and speak to the world. He should not make himself common. He should be the far-off sounding board for great ideas. But he knows; he knows instinctively that he cannot remain. His genius as a leader teaches him that. People grow tired of gods in clouds and easily turn again to the worship of the ancient idols. No, he must come down. And though he work miracles, be assured that in proportion as the miracles are wonderful, they will finally persecute him! It is the law! I had intended to remain in Italy during all of December, but had prepared what seemed to me a very important report on the Italian situation for the President that I was afraid would not reach...

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