Page:Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy (1918).djvu/182

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162
DRAMATIC MOMENTS

much as certain of his kind are now working to damage the United States in war from that same body.

The demand of Lord Lyon and the ancient American doctrine on the one hand, and the people flushed with triumph, a new hero and the human booty on the other—this was the problem of seven days for Seward.

The records of the time, including the public press, the thunder of Congress, the innumerable speeches before assemblies, and the diaries and biographies of the many historic figures on the stage reveal only one man quite calm and placid through it all. He sat in the White House, and outraged decency by relating anecdotes which he considered apropos of the situation. When told in tragic tones that there would surely be war between England and the United States his reply was a parable:

"My father had a neighbour from whom he was separated by a fence. On each side of that fence there were two savage dogs, who kept running backward and forward along the