Do you know what I mean? Do you not know that International Club? Like many other secret societies, it is unaware of its own existence. But there is a sort of ring of celebrities known all over the world, and more important all over the world than any of them are at home. Even when they do not know one another, they talk about one another. Let me see if I can find a name that typifies them. Well, I have no thought of disrespect to the memory of a man I liked and admired personally, and who died with a tragic dignity fitted for one who had always longed to be a link between your country and mine; but I think the late W. T. Stead was the unconscious secretary of that unconscious International Club. The other members, roughly speaking, were Colonel Roosevelt, the German Emperor, Tolstoy, Cecil Rhodes, and somebody like Mr. Edison. In an interview with Roosevelt, Rhodes would be the most important man in England, the Kaiser (or Tolstoy) the most important man in Europe. In an interview with Rhodes, the Kaiser would be important, Mr. Edison more important, Mr. Stead rather important; Bulgaria and M. Poincaré not important at all. Interview the Kaiser, and you will probably find the only interviewer he remembers is Stead. Could Rhodes have been taken to Russia you would probably find the only Russian he had really heard of was Tolstoy. For the rest, the Nobel prize, the Harmsworth newspaper group, the Marconi inventions, the attempts at a universal language--all these strike the note. I forgot the British Empire, on which the sun never sets, a horribly unpoetical state of things. Think of having a native land without any sunsets! This International Club is breaking up. Men are more and more trusting men they know to have been honest in a small way; men faithful in one city to rule over many cities. Imperialists like Roosevelt and Rhodes stood for unrealities. Please observe that I do not for one moment say insincerities. Tolstoy was splendidly sincere; but the cult of him was an unreality to this extent, that it left large masses in America and England with a general idea that he was the only Christian in the east of Europe. Since then we have seen Christianity on the march as it was in the Middle Ages, a thing of thousands, ready for pilgrimage and crusade. I don’t ask you to like it if you don’t like it. I only say it’s jolly different from Tolstoy, and equally sincere. It is a reality on the spot. Well, just as Russia and the Slavs meant for us Tolstoy, so France and French literature meant for many of us Zola. Poincaré’s election represents a France that hates Zola more than the Balkans hate the Turk. The old definite, domestic, patriotic Frenchman has come to the top. I can’t help fancying that with you the old serious, self-governing, idealistic, and really republican American has come to the top, too. But there I speak of things I know not, and await your next letter with alarm. Faithfully yours, _G. K. Chesterton_.