They
are eyes that delight in seeing, eyes to seek a place in the first
row of the grand stand of world events, eyes that turn steadily
outward upon objective reality. Not the eyes of a visionary--House
got his visions of the brotherhood of man and the rest of it at
second-hand from Wilson--eyes that glow not with the internal fires
of a great soul, but with the intoxication of the spectacle.
And with the eyes nature had given House an unerring instinct for
getting where, with his small figure, he could see. The ego of the
passionate spectator is as peculiar as that of the book collector
or the curiosity hunter. Given a shoulder tall enough the
diminutive House perches upon it, like a small boy watching a
circus parade from his father's broad back, whether the shoulder be
Morton's in his youth, or Wilson's in his maturity.
Some have tried to explain House by saying that he had the vanity
of loving familiarity with the great; but I doubt if House cared
for kings, as kings, any more than a bibliomaniac cares for jade.
He wanted to see; and kings were merely tall objects on which to
perch and regard the spectacle.
He remained simple and unaffected by his contacts with Europe, did
none of the vulgar aping of the toady, coming away from the Peace
Conference an unconscious provincial, who said "Eye-talian" in the
comic-paper way, and Fiume pronouncing the first syllable as if he
were exclaiming "Fie! for shame!"--an unspoiled Texan who must have
cared as little what kings and potentates thought of him as a
newsboy watching a baseball game cares for the accidental company
of a bank president.
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