He had spent the larger part of the time since that event at his country place in Northumberland, along the streams and the forests which had always given him his greatest pleasure, attempting to recover something of the health that he had lost in the ten years which he had spent as head of the British Foreign Office and bearing with characteristic cheerfulness and fortitude the tragedy of a gradually failing eyesight.

The American Declaration of War now came to Lord Grey as the complete justification of his policy.

The mainspring of that policy, as already explained, had been a determination to keep the friendship of the United States, and so shape events that the support of this country would ultimately be cast on the side of the Allies.

And now the great occasion for which he had prepared had come, and in Grey's mind this signified more than a help to England in soldiers and ships; it meant bringing together the two branches of a common race for the promotion of common ideals.
_From Viscount Grey of Fallodon_ Rosehall Post Office, Sutherland, April 8, 1917.
DEAR MR.

PAGE: This is a line that needs no answer to express my congratulations on President Wilson's address.