"The small boy was convalescing, and was engaged in playing on the floor with some tin ships, together with two or three pasteboard monitors and rams of my own manufacture. He was giving a vivid rendering of Farragut at Mobile Bay, from memories of how I had told the story. My pasteboard rams were fascinating--if a naval architect may be allowed to praise his own work--and as property they were equally divided between the little girl and the small boy. The little girl looked on with alert suspicion from the bed, for she was not yet convalescent enough to be allowed down on the floor. The small boy was busily reciting the phases of the fight, which now approached its climax, and the little girl evidently suspected that her monitor was destined to play the part of victim. "Little boy. 'And then they steamed bang into the monitor.' "Little girl. 'Brother, don't you sink my monitor!' "Little boy (without heeding and hurrying toward the climax). 'And the torpedo went at the monitor!' "Little girl. 'My monitor is not to sink!' "Little boy, dramatically; 'And bang the monitor sank!' "Little girl. 'It didn't do any such thing. My monitor always goes to bed at seven, and it's now quarter past. My monitor was in bed and couldn't sink!'"[26] [26] "Autobiography," p. 367. CHAPTER XVI THE GREAT AMERICAN Death closes all; but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done.... Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,-- One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield. Tennyson's _Ulysses_. Not many months after Roosevelt came back from South America, the Great War in Europe broke out. It is but dreaming now to surmise what might have been done in those fearful days of July 1914, when the German hordes were gathering for their attack upon the world. Once before, and singlehanded, this country had made the German Kaiser halt. Had there been resolution in the White House in 1914, could all the neutral nations have been rallied at our side, and could we have spoken in tones so decisive to the Hun that he would have drawn back even then, have left Belgium unravaged, and spared the world the misery of the next four years? It may be so; Germany did not expect to have to take on England as an enemy. If she had been told, _so that there was no mistaking our meaning_, that she would have us against her as well, then it might have been her part to hesitate, and finally put back her sword.