Honor & Beauty

After six years representing His Britannic Majesty at Washington, Sir Esme Howard sailed away to England last week to become a bookbinder in a small way. At 66, age forced his retirement as British Ambassador and dean of the capital's diplomatic corps.

Of Sir Esme's service in the U. S., His Majesty may well be proud. He had taken hold of Anglo-U. S. relations when they were still War-snarled. He left them smooth and orderly. For his quiet success, many a friend believed he would be properly rewarded by his sovereign. Now only a Knight, he might well be advanced to a Baron and take the title of Lord Howard of Greystoke, since he was born at Greystoke Castle, Cumberland. Should the Labor Government overlook his Conservative politics and noble lineage, it might permit King George to make him Viscount Greystoke, even Viscount Cumberland.*

Sir Esme, intelligent and more widely informed than most diplomats, had acquired the art of spreading goodwill without getting his name unpleasantly into headlines. He was a graceful and indefatigable public speaker. He managed to reduce to a minimum those international controversies which keep an ambassador annoyingly busy at his job. The major issue between the U. S. and Britain, beside trade disputes, was Prohibition and its enforcement on the high seas, but Sir Esme on his departure insisted that this question never created "tension" between the two countries. His final achievement had been in setting the stage for the visit of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald to the U. S. last year.

Twice within the year he barely escaped notoriety: 1) when he announced that, as a friendly gesture, he would import under his diplomatic privilege no more liquors and wines for the British Embassy:/- 2) when as the dean of the diplomatic corps he announced that Mrs. Edward Everett Gann, half-sister of Vice President Charles Curtis, would be accorded all the social honors and attentions of No. 2 lady of the land without setting a precedent (TIME, April 22).

Sir Esme was pleased with his diplomatic handiwork. In a farewell speech he insisted that the relations between the U. S. and Britain were never better, that any idea of war between them was "fan tastic" and that those who predicted it were "already qualified for the insane asylum."

The Howard leavetaking was long and ceremonious. First there was the formal visit to the White House where Sir Esme read his letters of recall to President Hoover in the Blue Room, solemnly shook hands. Then he was escorted to the Union Station by the entire staff of the British Embassy and Acting Secretary of State Cotton. In New York he addressed the Pilgrims of the U. S., and to the British Chamber of Commerce he said: "The great art of diplomacy is patience, patience and again patience. . . . After 36 years of diplomatic service I am a tired man--terribly tired of the sound of my own voice." He then sailed at midnight on the S.S. Majestic.

Free from duty he will travel in Italy with Lady Isabella Howard, spend his leisure time learning to bind books as a hobby. His greatest contribution to the U. S. was the personal demonstration of attitude which few U. S. statesmen could express and which he best expressed in a speech last year at Princeton : "There is nothing, apart from the ever-important cultivation of the spiritual values, which your country and my country needs so much as the cultivation of esthetic values; not in the foolish and pretentious fashion of the esthetes of the Victorian era but in the straightforward manly fashion of many of the great artists of the Renaissance period. . . . Unfortunately I have never learned any handicraft but I hope to make good this defect when I retire to become an enthusiastic if perhaps a belated bookbinder. . . . Even if bookbinding is but a small thing I console myself by saying that to have bound one book really well is to have added to the stock of beautiful things in this world."

*But since Cumberland has once been a royal, ducal title, a mere Viscount would probably not assume it. /- Contrary to popular impression, the British Embassy never became "dry." Its cellars were amply stocked with liquor before the Howard ban became effective. Alcoholic drinks continued to be served by the Ambassador from this supply.

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