The scholarly Lowell, the courtly Bayard, the companionable Hay, the ever-humorous Choate, had set a standard for American Ambassadors which had made the place a difficult one for their successors.

Though Page had characteristics in common with all these men, his personality had its own distinctive tang; and it was something new to the political and social life of London.

And the British capital, which is extremely exacting and even merciless in its demands upon its important personages, had found it vastly entertaining.

"I didn't know there could be anything so American as Page except Mark Twain," a British literary man once remarked; and it was probably this strong American quality, this directness and even breeziness of speech and of method, this absence of affectation, this almost openly expressed contempt for finesse and even for tradition, combined with those other traits which we like to think of as American--an upright purpose, a desire to serve not only his own country but mankind--which made the British public look upon Page as one of the most attractive and useful figures in a war-torn Europe.
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.