'guard the frontiers' in Art would be to bring back the Dark Ages. The most sincere love of one's own country should never teach one to be disdainful of les autres."
"You are going to Nationalist Turkey," he replied, "you will find yourself right up against Chauvinism all the time."
"I don't believe it. Forgive me, I really think you exaggerate. And besides—with my strong sympathies for the Turks!—I have always found Orientals the most broad-minded men."
Then I brought back the talk to Pierre Loti. "Why do you say that he dislikes England so much?" I asked. "He does object to golf near the Pyramids; he is a little sarcastic about 'Messrs. Thos. Cook & Co., Egypt, Ltd.,' forgetting what it means to travel without them; he dislikes our Government for its pro-Greek policy and its injustice towards the Turks. As an Englishwoman I agree. And, like him, too, I regard New York as the nearest earthly approach to hell! We certainly do not hate America; only its noise, its materialism, and its advertising.
"I knew Pierre Loti best, perhaps, at his charming Basque home in Hendaye—thanks to my friendship with his heroines, Melek and Zeyneb. I know, at one time, he resented what seemed to him our Edward VII.'s 'interference' in French affairs. But that master of diplomats never gave his advice unasked; and, when he was told of the great Frenchman's hostility, Pierre Loti was promptly invited to Windsor, and they became the best of friends. Would he were with us now, that he might but talk with the Ministers of both nations!
"After Windsor, Loti, I'm sure, would have spared his sarcasm. 'There is one thing left now,' he once declared. 'We must appeal to H.M. Edward VII. He only can do what he likes in France!' The French Admiralty had just refused him permission to carry away from one of their ships the table on which he had written the 'Désenchantées.'"
The captain, it seemed, was ready to waive this point.
