He himself deplored the stenographer as a deterrent to good writing; the habit of dictating, he argued, led to wordiness and general looseness of thought.

Practically all the letters published in these volumes were therefore the painstaking work of Page's own pen.

His handwriting was so beautiful and clear that, in his editorial days, the printers much preferred it as "copy" to typewritten matter.

This habit is especially surprising in view of the Ambassador's enormous epistolary output.

It must be remembered that the letters included in the present book are only a selection from the vast number that he wrote during his five years in England; many of these letters fill twenty and thirty pages of script; the labour involved in turning them out; day after day, seems fairly astounding.