But I don't
want to flatter myself. Perhaps the passport to Hay's heart in my case
was my love of Lincoln, for that he soon saw was real and not assumed.
Anyway, Hay and I soon began to see a great deal of each other, and he
paid me the compliment of confiding in me throughout the war between
Spain and America. He would have liked to avoid that war and did his
very best to do so, but I knew that all the time he felt it was
inevitable. I remember well his saying to me that the positions of the
United States and Spain were like two railway engines on the same track,
neither of which would give way and both of which were advancing. You
might delay the collision, but you could not prevent it, unless one
train cleared out of the way of the other, and to this neither side in
control would agree. Therefore, a collision had to come,--and come it
did.
Hay loved his tenure of office in England and greatly regretted that he
had to accede to Mr. McKinley's request that he should go back and
become Secretary of State. He knew the work would be too much for him,
and told me so quite simply and unaffectedly, but he was never a man to
shirk a duty. During his term of office, he and I were constantly in
touch with each other by letter.
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