CHAPTER III 



The Mind's Eye 



I 



WAS born August 19, 1884, on the island of Martha's 

 Vineyard. My mother went there to visit her mother, and 

 I arrived unexpectedly. When I was six weeks old my 

 father and mother went to Ireland on business, and I went 

 along in a bureau drawer of the old Cunard liner U?nbria — 

 my peregrinations began early. Father went back and 

 forth to Europe several times a year. He had succeeded 

 his father as a director of William Barbour and Son, 

 the firm founded by his great-grandfather, which had linen 

 mills near Lisburn in Ireland. 



When I was eight years old we made a long tour through 

 Europe. I remember vividly the terror caused by the chol- 

 era outbreak in Hamburg that year. We were visiting at 

 Mr. Fritz Krupp's house at Essen, an extraordinary estab- 

 lishment. The house was a palace, the gardens enormous. 

 The place was entirely self-contained, Mr. Krupp even 

 having his own fire department. I think his Arab horses 

 impressed me more than anything else, although I remem- 

 ber staring with wonderment at a room stacked high with 

 Oriental rugs. Mr. Krupp, who had been an old friend and 

 schoolmate of my father in Germany, explained that the 

 Sultan of Turkey was often short of cash and occasionally 

 paid for his munitions in commodities. We had a wonder- 

 ful time pestering our governess by doing everything mis- 

 chievous we could think of; my brother Rob and I tipped 



