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diff --git a/2044-8.txt b/2044-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5c761db --- /dev/null +++ b/2044-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16912 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Education of Henry Adams, by Henry Adams + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Education of Henry Adams + +Author: Henry Adams + +Posting Date: December 15, 2011 [EBook #2044] +Release Date: January, 2000 +[Last updated: July 30, 2013] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS *** + + + + +Produced by Richard Fane + + + + + + + + + +The Education of Henry Adams + +by Henry Adams + + + + + +THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS + + CONTENTS + EDITOR'S PREFACE + PREFACE + I. QUINCY (1838-1848) + II. BOSTON (1848-1854) + III. WASHINGTON (1850-1854) + IV. HARVARD COLLEGE (1854-1858) + V. BERLIN (1858-1859) + VI. ROME (1859-1860) + VII. TREASON (1860-1861) + VIII. DIPLOMACY (1861) + IX. FOES OR FRIENDS (1862) + X. POLITICAL MORALITY (1862) + XI. THE BATTLE OF THE RAMS (1863) + XII. ECCENTRICITY (1863) + XIII. THE PERFECTION OF HUMAN SOCIETY (1864) + XIV. DILETTANTISM (1865-1866) + XV. DARWINISM (1867-1868) + XVI. THE PRESS (1868) + XVII. PRESIDENT GRANT (1869) + XVIII. FREE FIGHT (1869-1870) + XIX. CHAOS (1870) + XX. FAILURE (1871) + XXI. TWENTY YEARS AFTER (1892) + XXII. CHICAGO (1893) + XXIII. SILENCE (1894-1898) + XXIV. INDIAN SUMMER (1898-1899) + XXV. THE DYNAMO AND THE VIRGIN (1900) + XXVI. TWILIGHT (1901) + XXVII. TEUFELSDROCKH (1901) +XXVIII. THE HEIGHT OF KNOWLEDGE (1902) + XXIX. THE ABYSS OF IGNORANCE (1902) + XXX. VIS INERTIAE (1903) + XXXI. THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE (1903) + XXXII. VIS NOVA (1903-1904) +XXXIII. A DYNAMIC THEORY OF HISTORY (1904) + XXXIV. A LAW OF ACCELERATION (1904) + XXXV. NUNC AGE (1905) + + +EDITOR'S PREFACE + + THIS volume, written in 1905 as a sequel to the same author's +"Mont Saint Michel and Chartres," was privately printed, to the number +of one hundred copies, in 1906, and sent to the persons interested, for +their assent, correction, or suggestion. The idea of the two books was +thus explained at the end of Chapter XXIX: -- + + "Any schoolboy could see that man as a force must be measured +by motion from a fixed point. Psychology helped here by suggesting a +unit--the point of history when man held the highest idea of himself as +a unit in a unified universe. Eight or ten years of study had led Adams +to think he might use the century 1150-1250, expressed in Amiens +Cathedral and the Works of Thomas Aquinas, as the unit from which he +might measure motion down to his own time, without assuming anything as +true or untrue, except relation. The movement might be studied at once +in philosophy and mechanics. Setting himself to the task, he began a +volume which he mentally knew as 'Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres: a +Study of Thirteenth-Century Unity.' From that point he proposed to fix +a position for himself, which he could label: 'The Education of Henry +Adams: a Study of Twentieth-Century Multiplicity.' With the help of +these two points of relation, he hoped to project his lines forward and +backward indefinitely, subject to correction from any one who should +know better." + + The "Chartres" was finished and privately printed in 1904. The +"Education" proved to be more difficult. The point on which the author +failed to please himself, and could get no light from readers or +friends, was the usual one of literary form. Probably he saw it in +advance, for he used to say, half in jest, that his great ambition was +to complete St. Augustine's "Confessions," but that St. Augustine, like +a great artist, had worked from multiplicity to unity, while he, like a +small one, had to reverse the method and work back from unity to +multiplicity. The scheme became unmanageable as he approached his end. + + Probably he was, in fact, trying only to work into it his +favorite theory of history, which now fills the last three or four +chapters of the "Education," and he could not satisfy himself with his +workmanship. At all events, he was still pondering over the problem in +1910, when he tried to deal with it in another way which might be more +intelligible to students. He printed a small volume called "A Letter to +American Teachers," which he sent to his associates in the American +Historical Association, hoping to provoke some response. Before he +could satisfy himself even on this minor point, a severe illness in the +spring of 1912 put an end to his literary activity forever. + + The matter soon passed beyond his control. In 1913 the +Institute of Architects published the "Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres." +Already the "Education" had become almost as well known as the +"Chartres," and was freely quoted by every book whose author requested +it. The author could no longer withdraw either volume; he could no +longer rewrite either, and he could not publish that which he thought +unprepared and unfinished, although in his opinion the other was +historically purposeless without its sequel. In the end, he preferred +to leave the "Education" unpublished, avowedly incomplete, trusting +that it might quietly fade from memory. According to his theory of +history as explained in Chapters XXXIII and XXXIV, the teacher was at +best helpless, and, in the immediate future, silence next to +good-temper was the mark of sense. After midsummer, 1914, the rule was +made absolute. + + The Massachusetts Historical Society now publishes the +"Education" as it was printed in 1907, with only such marginal +corrections as the author made, and it does this, not in opposition to +the author's judgment, but only to put both volumes equally within +reach of students who have occasion to consult them. + +HENRY CABOT LODGE + +September, 1918 + + + +PREFACE + + JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU began his famous Confessions by a +vehement appeal to the Deity: "I have shown myself as I was; +contemptible and vile when I was so; good, generous, sublime when I was +so; I have unveiled my interior such as Thou thyself hast seen it, +Eternal Father! Collect about me the innumerable swarm of my fellows; +let them hear my confessions; let them groan at my unworthiness; let +them blush at my meannesses! Let each of them discover his heart in his +turn at the foot of thy throne with the same sincerity; and then let +any one of them tell thee if he dares: 'I was a better man!'" + + Jean Jacques was a very great educator in the manner of the +eighteenth century, and has been commonly thought to have had more +influence than any other teacher of his time; but his peculiar method +of improving human nature has not been universally admired. Most +educators of the nineteenth century have declined to show themselves +before their scholars as objects more vile or contemptible than +necessary, and even the humblest teacher hides, if possible, the faults +with which nature has generously embellished us all, as it did Jean +Jacques, thinking, as most religious minds are apt to do, that the +Eternal Father himself may not feel unmixed pleasure at our thrusting +under his eyes chiefly the least agreeable details of his creation. + + As an unfortunate result the twentieth century finds few recent +guides to avoid, or to follow. American literature offers scarcely one +working model for high education. The student must go back, beyond Jean +Jacques, to Benjamin Franklin, to find a model even of self-teaching. +Except in the abandoned sphere of the dead languages, no one has +discussed what part of education has, in his personal experience, +turned out to be useful, and what not. This volume attempts to discuss +it. + + As educator, Jean Jacques was, in one respect, easily first; he +erected a monument of warning against the Ego. Since his time, and +largely thanks to him, the Ego has steadily tended to efface itself, +and, for purposes of model, to become a manikin on which the toilet of +education is to be draped in order to show the fit or misfit of the +clothes. The object of study is the garment, not the figure. The tailor +adapts the manikin as well as the clothes to his patron's wants. The +tailor's object, in this volume, is to fit young men, in universities +or elsewhere, to be men of the world, equipped for any emergency; and +the garment offered to them is meant to show the faults of the +patchwork fitted on their fathers. + + At the utmost, the active-minded young man should ask of his +teacher only mastery of his tools. The young man himself, the subject +of education, is a certain form of energy; the object to be gained is +economy of his force; the training is partly the clearing away of +obstacles, partly the direct application of effort. Once acquired, the +tools and models may be thrown away. + + The manikin, therefore, has the same value as any other +geometrical figure of three or more dimensions, which is used for the +study of relation. For that purpose it cannot be spared; it is the only +measure of motion, of proportion, of human condition; it must have the +air of reality; must be taken for real; must be treated as though it +had life. Who knows? Possibly it had! + +February 16, 1907 + + + + +THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS + + + +CHAPTER I + +QUINCY (1838-1848) + + UNDER the shadow of Boston State House, turning its back on the +house of John Hancock, the little passage called Hancock Avenue runs, +or ran, from Beacon Street, skirting the State House grounds, to Mount +Vernon Street, on the summit of Beacon Hill; and there, in the third +house below Mount Vernon Place, February 16, 1838, a child was born, +and christened later by his uncle, the minister of the First Church +after the tenets of Boston Unitarianism, as Henry Brooks Adams. + + Had he been born in Jerusalem under the shadow of the Temple +and circumcised in the Synagogue by his uncle the high priest, under +the name of Israel Cohen, he would scarcely have been more distinctly +branded, and not much more heavily handicapped in the races of the +coming century, in running for such stakes as the century was to offer; +but, on the other hand, the ordinary traveller, who does not enter the +field of racing, finds advantage in being, so to speak, ticketed +through life, with the safeguards of an old, established traffic. +Safeguards are often irksome, but sometimes convenient, and if one +needs them at all, one is apt to need them badly. A hundred years +earlier, such safeguards as his would have secured any young man's +success; and although in 1838 their value was not very great compared +with what they would have had in 1738, yet the mere accident of +starting a twentieth-century career from a nest of associations so +colonial,--so troglodytic--as the First Church, the Boston State House, +Beacon Hill, John Hancock and John Adams, Mount Vernon Street and +Quincy, all crowding on ten pounds of unconscious babyhood, was so +queer as to offer a subject of curious speculation to the baby long +after he had witnessed the solution. What could become of such a child +of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when he should wake up to +find himself required to play the game of the twentieth? Had he been +consulted, would he have cared to play the game at all, holding such +cards as he held, and suspecting that the game was to be one of which +neither he nor any one else back to the beginning of time knew the +rules or the risks or the stakes? He was not consulted and was not +responsible, but had he been taken into the confidence of his parents, +he would certainly have told them to change nothing as far as concerned +him. He would have been astounded by his own luck. Probably no child, +born in the year, held better cards than he. Whether life was an honest +game of chance, or whether the cards were marked and forced, he could +not refuse to play his excellent hand. He could never make the usual +plea of irresponsibility. He accepted the situation as though he had +been a party to it, and under the same circumstances would do it again, +the more readily for knowing the exact values. To his life as a whole +he was a consenting, contracting party and partner from the moment he +was born to the moment he died. Only with that understanding--as a +consciously assenting member in full partnership with the society of +his age--had his education an interest to himself or to others. + + As it happened, he never got to the point of playing the game +at all; he lost himself in the study of it, watching the errors of the +players; but this is the only interest in the story, which otherwise +has no moral and little incident. A story of education--seventy years +of it--the practical value remains to the end in doubt, like other +values about which men have disputed since the birth of Cain and Abel; +but the practical value of the universe has never been stated in +dollars. Although every one cannot be a Gargantua-Napoleon-Bismarck and +walk off with the great bells of Notre Dame, every one must bear his +own universe, and most persons are moderately interested in learning +how their neighbors have managed to carry theirs. + + This problem of education, started in 1838, went on for three +years, while the baby grew, like other babies, unconsciously, as a +vegetable, the outside world working as it never had worked before, to +get his new universe ready for him. Often in old age he puzzled over +the question whether, on the doctrine of chances, he was at liberty to +accept himself or his world as an accident. No such accident had ever +happened before in human experience. For him, alone, the old universe +was thrown into the ash-heap and a new one created. He and his +eighteenth-century, troglodytic Boston were suddenly cut +apart--separated forever--in act if not in sentiment, by the opening of +the Boston and Albany Railroad; the appearance of the first Cunard +steamers in the bay; and the telegraphic messages which carried from +Baltimore to Washington the news that Henry Clay and James K. Polk were +nominated for the Presidency. This was in May, 1844; he was six years +old; his new world was ready for use, and only fragments of the old met +his eyes. + + Of all this that was being done to complicate his education, he +knew only the color of yellow. He first found himself sitting on a +yellow kitchen floor in strong sunlight. He was three years old when he +took this earliest step in education; a lesson of color. The second +followed soon; a lesson of taste. On December 3, 1841, he developed +scarlet fever. For several days he was as good as dead, reviving only +under the careful nursing of his family. When he began to recover +strength, about January 1, 1842, his hunger must have been stronger +than any other pleasure or pain, for while in after life he retained +not the faintest recollection of his illness, he remembered quite +clearly his aunt entering the sickroom bearing in her hand a saucer +with a baked apple. + + The order of impressions retained by memory might naturally be +that of color and taste, although one would rather suppose that the +sense of pain would be first to educate. In fact, the third +recollection of the child was that of discomfort. The moment he could +be removed, he was bundled up in blankets and carried from the little +house in Hancock Avenue to a larger one which his parents were to +occupy for the rest of their lives in the neighboring Mount Vernon +Street. The season was midwinter, January 10, 1842, and he never forgot +his acute distress for want of air under his blankets, or the noises of +moving furniture. + + As a means of variation from a normal type, sickness in +childhood ought to have a certain value not to be classed under any +fitness or unfitness of natural selection; and especially scarlet fever +affected boys seriously, both physically and in character, though they +might through life puzzle themselves to decide whether it had fitted or +unfitted them for success; but this fever of Henry Adams took greater +and greater importance in his eyes, from the point of view of +education, the longer he lived. At first, the effect was physical. He +fell behind his brothers two or three inches in height, and +proportionally in bone and weight. His character and processes of mind +seemed to share in this fining-down process of scale. He was not good +in a fight, and his nerves were more delicate than boys' nerves ought +to be. He exaggerated these weaknesses as he grew older. The habit of +doubt; of distrusting his own judgment and of totally rejecting the +judgment of the world; the tendency to regard every question as open; +the hesitation to act except as a choice of evils; the shirking of +responsibility; the love of line, form, quality; the horror of ennui; +the passion for companionship and the antipathy to society--all these +are well-known qualities of New England character in no way peculiar to +individuals but in this instance they seemed to be stimulated by the +fever, and Henry Adams could never make up his mind whether, on the +whole, the change of character was morbid or healthy, good or bad for +his purpose. His brothers were the type; he was the variation. + + As far as the boy knew, the sickness did not affect him at all, +and he grew up in excellent health, bodily and mental, taking life as +it was given; accepting its local standards without a difficulty, and +enjoying much of it as keenly as any other boy of his age. He seemed to +himself quite normal, and his companions seemed always to think him so. +Whatever was peculiar about him was education, not character, and came +to him, directly and indirectly, as the result of that +eighteenth-century inheritance which he took with his name. + + The atmosphere of education in which he lived was colonial, +revolutionary, almost Cromwellian, as though he were steeped, from his +greatest grandmother's birth, in the odor of political crime. +Resistance to something was the law of New England nature; the boy +looked out on the world with the instinct of resistance; for numberless +generations his predecessors had viewed the world chiefly as a thing to +be reformed, filled with evil forces to be abolished, and they saw no +reason to suppose that they had wholly succeeded in the abolition; the +duty was unchanged. That duty implied not only resistance to evil, but +hatred of it. Boys naturally look on all force as an enemy, and +generally find it so, but the New Englander, whether boy or man, in his +long struggle with a stingy or hostile universe, had learned also to +love the pleasure of hating; his joys were few. + + Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, had always +been the systematic organization of hatreds, and Massachusetts politics +had been as harsh as the climate. The chief charm of New England was +harshness of contrasts and extremes of sensibility--a cold that froze +the blood, and a heat that boiled it--so that the pleasure of +hating--one's self if no better victim offered--was not its rarest +amusement; but the charm was a true and natural child of the soil, not +a cultivated weed of the ancients. The violence of the contrast was +real and made the strongest motive of education. The double exterior +nature gave life its relative values. Winter and summer, cold and heat, +town and country, force and freedom, marked two modes of life and +thought, balanced like lobes of the brain. Town was winter confinement, +school, rule, discipline; straight, gloomy streets, piled with six feet +of snow in the middle; frosts that made the snow sing under wheels or +runners; thaws when the streets became dangerous to cross; society of +uncles, aunts, and cousins who expected children to behave themselves, +and who were not always gratified; above all else, winter represented +the desire to escape and go free. Town was restraint, law, unity. +Country, only seven miles away, was liberty, diversity, outlawry, the +endless delight of mere sense impressions given by nature for nothing, +and breathed by boys without knowing it. + + Boys are wild animals, rich in the treasures of sense, but the +New England boy had a wider range of emotions than boys of more equable +climates. He felt his nature crudely, as it was meant. To the boy Henry +Adams, summer was drunken. Among senses, smell was the strongest--smell +of hot pine-woods and sweet-fern in the scorching summer noon; of +new-mown hay; of ploughed earth; of box hedges; of peaches, lilacs, +syringas; of stables, barns, cow-yards; of salt water and low tide on +the marshes; nothing came amiss. Next to smell came taste, and the +children knew the taste of everything they saw or touched, from +pennyroyal and flagroot to the shell of a pignut and the letters of a +spelling-book--the taste of A-B, AB, suddenly revived on the boy's +tongue sixty years afterwards. Light, line, and color as sensual +pleasures, came later and were as crude as the rest. The New England +light is glare, and the atmosphere harshens color. The boy was a full +man before he ever knew what was meant by atmosphere; his idea of +pleasure in light was the blaze of a New England sun. His idea of color +was a peony, with the dew of early morning on its petals. The intense +blue of the sea, as he saw it a mile or two away, from the Quincy +hills; the cumuli in a June afternoon sky; the strong reds and greens +and purples of colored prints and children's picture-books, as the +American colors then ran; these were ideals. The opposites or +antipathies, were the cold grays of November evenings, and the thick, +muddy thaws of Boston winter. With such standards, the Bostonian could +not but develop a double nature. Life was a double thing. After a +January blizzard, the boy who could look with pleasure into the violent +snow-glare of the cold white sunshine, with its intense light and +shade, scarcely knew what was meant by tone. He could reach it only by +education. + + Winter and summer, then, were two hostile lives, and bred two +separate natures. Winter was always the effort to live; summer was +tropical license. Whether the children rolled in the grass, or waded in +the brook, or swam in the salt ocean, or sailed in the bay, or fished +for smelts in the creeks, or netted minnows in the salt-marshes, or +took to the pine-woods and the granite quarries, or chased muskrats and +hunted snapping-turtles in the swamps, or mushrooms or nuts on the +autumn hills, summer and country were always sensual living, while +winter was always compulsory learning. Summer was the multiplicity of +nature; winter was school. + + The bearing of the two seasons on the education of Henry Adams +was no fancy; it was the most decisive force he ever knew; it ran +though life, and made the division between its perplexing, warring, +irreconcilable problems, irreducible opposites, with growing emphasis +to the last year of study. From earliest childhood the boy was +accustomed to feel that, for him, life was double. Winter and summer, +town and country, law and liberty, were hostile, and the man who +pretended they were not, was in his eyes a schoolmaster--that is, a man +employed to tell lies to little boys. Though Quincy was but two hours' +walk from Beacon Hill, it belonged in a different world. For two +hundred years, every Adams, from father to son, had lived within sight +of State Street, and sometimes had lived in it, yet none had ever taken +kindly to the town, or been taken kindly by it. The boy inherited his +double nature. He knew as yet nothing about his great-grandfather, who +had died a dozen years before his own birth: he took for granted that +any great-grandfather of his must have always been good, and his +enemies wicked; but he divined his great-grandfather's character from +his own. Never for a moment did he connect the two ideas of Boston and +John Adams; they were separate and antagonistic; the idea of John Adams +went with Quincy. He knew his grandfather John Quincy Adams only as an +old man of seventy-five or eighty who was friendly and gentle with him, +but except that he heard his grandfather always called "the President," +and his grandmother "the Madam," he had no reason to suppose that his +Adams grandfather differed in character from his Brooks grandfather who +was equally kind and benevolent. He liked the Adams side best, but for +no other reason than that it reminded him of the country, the summer, +and the absence of restraint. Yet he felt also that Quincy was in a way +inferior to Boston, and that socially Boston looked down on Quincy. The +reason was clear enough even to a five-year old child. Quincy had no +Boston style. Little enough style had either; a simpler manner of life +and thought could hardly exist, short of cave-dwelling. The +flint-and-steel with which his grandfather Adams used to light his own +fires in the early morning was still on the mantelpiece of his study. +The idea of a livery or even a dress for servants, or of an evening +toilette, was next to blasphemy. Bathrooms, water-supplies, lighting, +heating, and the whole array of domestic comforts, were unknown at +Quincy. Boston had already a bathroom, a water-supply, a furnace, and +gas. The superiority of Boston was evident, but a child liked it no +better for that. + + The magnificence of his grandfather Brooks's house in Pearl +Street or South Street has long ago disappeared, but perhaps his +country house at Medford may still remain to show what impressed the +mind of a boy in 1845 with the idea of city splendor. The President's +place at Quincy was the larger and older and far the more interesting +of the two; but a boy felt at once its inferiority in fashion. It +showed plainly enough its want of wealth. It smacked of colonial age, +but not of Boston style or plush curtains. To the end of his life he +never quite overcame the prejudice thus drawn in with his childish +breath. He never could compel himself to care for nineteenth-century +style. He was never able to adopt it, any more than his father or +grandfather or great-grandfather had done. Not that he felt it as +particularly hostile, for he reconciled himself to much that was worse; +but because, for some remote reason, he was born an eighteenth-century +child. The old house at Quincy was eighteenth century. What style it +had was in its Queen Anne mahogany panels and its Louis Seize chairs +and sofas. The panels belonged to an old colonial Vassall who built the +house; the furniture had been brought back from Paris in 1789 or 1801 +or 1817, along with porcelain and books and much else of old diplomatic +remnants; and neither of the two eighteenth-century styles--neither +English Queen Anne nor French Louis Seize--was comfortable for a boy, +or for any one else. The dark mahogany had been painted white to suit +daily life in winter gloom. Nothing seemed to favor, for a child's +objects, the older forms. On the contrary, most boys, as well as +grown-up people, preferred the new, with good reason, and the child +felt himself distinctly at a disadvantage for the taste. + + Nor had personal preference any share in his bias. The Brooks +grandfather was as amiable and as sympathetic as the Adams grandfather. +Both were born in 1767, and both died in 1848. Both were kind to +children, and both belonged rather to the eighteenth than to the +nineteenth centuries. The child knew no difference between them except +that one was associated with winter and the other with summer; one with +Boston, the other with Quincy. Even with Medford, the association was +hardly easier. Once as a very young boy he was taken to pass a few days +with his grandfather Brooks under charge of his aunt, but became so +violently homesick that within twenty-four hours he was brought back in +disgrace. Yet he could not remember ever being seriously homesick again. + + The attachment to Quincy was not altogether sentimental or +wholly sympathetic. Quincy was not a bed of thornless roses. Even there +the curse of Cain set its mark. There as elsewhere a cruel universe +combined to crush a child. As though three or four vigorous brothers +and sisters, with the best will, were not enough to crush any child, +every one else conspired towards an education which he hated. From +cradle to grave this problem of running order through chaos, direction +through space, discipline through freedom, unity through multiplicity, +has always been, and must always be, the task of education, as it is +the moral of religion, philosophy, science, art, politics, and economy; +but a boy's will is his life, and he dies when it is broken, as the +colt dies in harness, taking a new nature in becoming tame. Rarely has +the boy felt kindly towards his tamers. Between him and his master has +always been war. Henry Adams never knew a boy of his generation to like +a master, and the task of remaining on friendly terms with one's own +family, in such a relation, was never easy. + + All the more singular it seemed afterwards to him that his +first serious contact with the President should have been a struggle of +will, in which the old man almost necessarily defeated the boy, but +instead of leaving, as usual in such defeats, a lifelong sting, left +rather an impression of as fair treatment as could be expected from a +natural enemy. The boy met seldom with such restraint. He could not +have been much more than six years old at the time--seven at the +utmost--and his mother had taken him to Quincy for a long stay with the +President during the summer. What became of the rest of the family he +quite forgot; but he distinctly remembered standing at the house door +one summer morning in a passionate outburst of rebellion against going +to school. Naturally his mother was the immediate victim of his rage; +that is what mothers are for, and boys also; but in this case the boy +had his mother at unfair disadvantage, for she was a guest, and had no +means of enforcing obedience. Henry showed a certain tactical ability +by refusing to start, and he met all efforts at compulsion by +successful, though too vehement protest. He was in fair way to win, and +was holding his own, with sufficient energy, at the bottom of the long +staircase which led up to the door of the President's library, when the +door opened, and the old man slowly came down. Putting on his hat, he +took the boy's hand without a word, and walked with him, paralyzed by +awe, up the road to the town. After the first moments of consternation +at this interference in a domestic dispute, the boy reflected that an +old gentleman close on eighty would never trouble himself to walk near +a mile on a hot summer morning over a shadeless road to take a boy to +school, and that it would be strange if a lad imbued with the passion +of freedom could not find a corner to dodge around, somewhere before +reaching the school door. Then and always, the boy insisted that this +reasoning justified his apparent submission; but the old man did not +stop, and the boy saw all his strategical points turned, one after +another, until he found himself seated inside the school, and obviously +the centre of curious if not malevolent criticism. Not till then did +the President release his hand and depart. + + The point was that this act, contrary to the inalienable rights +of boys, and nullifying the social compact, ought to have made him +dislike his grandfather for life. He could not recall that it had this +effect even for a moment. With a certain maturity of mind, the child +must have recognized that the President, though a tool of tyranny, had +done his disreputable work with a certain intelligence. He had shown no +temper, no irritation, no personal feeling, and had made no display of +force. Above all, he had held his tongue. During their long walk he had +said nothing; he had uttered no syllable of revolting cant about the +duty of obedience and the wickedness of resistance to law; he had shown +no concern in the matter; hardly even a consciousness of the boy's +existence. Probably his mind at that moment was actually troubling +itself little about his grandson's iniquities, and much about the +iniquities of President Polk, but the boy could scarcely at that age +feel the whole satisfaction of thinking that President Polk was to be +the vicarious victim of his own sins, and he gave his grandfather +credit for intelligent silence. For this forbearance he felt +instinctive respect. He admitted force as a form of right; he admitted +even temper, under protest; but the seeds of a moral education would at +that moment have fallen on the stoniest soil in Quincy, which is, as +every one knows, the stoniest glacial and tidal drift known in any +Puritan land. + + Neither party to this momentary disagreement can have felt +rancor, for during these three or four summers the old President's +relations with the boy were friendly and almost intimate. Whether his +older brothers and sisters were still more favored he failed to +remember, but he was himself admitted to a sort of familiarity which, +when in his turn he had reached old age, rather shocked him, for it +must have sometimes tried the President's patience. He hung about the +library; handled the books; deranged the papers; ransacked the drawers; +searched the old purses and pocket-books for foreign coins; drew the +sword-cane; snapped the travelling-pistols; upset everything in the +corners, and penetrated the President's dressing-closet where a row of +tumblers, inverted on the shelf, covered caterpillars which were +supposed to become moths or butterflies, but never did. The Madam bore +with fortitude the loss of the tumblers which her husband purloined for +these hatcheries; but she made protest when he carried off her best +cut-glass bowls to plant with acorns or peachstones that he might see +the roots grow, but which, she said, he commonly forgot like the +caterpillars. + + At that time the President rode the hobby of tree-culture, and +some fine old trees should still remain to witness it, unless they have +been improved off the ground; but his was a restless mind, and although +he took his hobbies seriously and would have been annoyed had his +grandchild asked whether he was bored like an English duke, he probably +cared more for the processes than for the results, so that his grandson +was saddened by the sight and smell of peaches and pears, the best of +their kind, which he brought up from the garden to rot on his shelves +for seed. With the inherited virtues of his Puritan ancestors, the +little boy Henry conscientiously brought up to him in his study the +finest peaches he found in the garden, and ate only the less perfect. +Naturally he ate more by way of compensation, but the act showed that +he bore no grudge. As for his grandfather, it is even possible that he +may have felt a certain self-reproach for his temporary role of +schoolmaster--seeing that his own career did not offer proof of the +worldly advantages of docile obedience--for there still exists +somewhere a little volume of critically edited Nursery Rhymes with the +boy's name in full written in the President's trembling hand on the +fly-leaf. Of course there was also the Bible, given to each child at +birth, with the proper inscription in the President's hand on the +fly-leaf; while their grandfather Brooks supplied the silver mugs. + + So many Bibles and silver mugs had to be supplied, that a new +house, or cottage, was built to hold them. It was "on the hill," five +minutes' walk above "the old house," with a far view eastward over +Quincy Bay, and northward over Boston. Till his twelfth year, the child +passed his summers there, and his pleasures of childhood mostly centred +in it. Of education he had as yet little to complain. Country schools +were not very serious. Nothing stuck to the mind except home +impressions, and the sharpest were those of kindred children; but as +influences that warped a mind, none compared with the mere effect of +the back of the President's bald head, as he sat in his pew on Sundays, +in line with that of President Quincy, who, though some ten years +younger, seemed to children about the same age. Before railways entered +the New England town, every parish church showed half-a-dozen of these +leading citizens, with gray hair, who sat on the main aisle in the best +pews, and had sat there, or in some equivalent dignity, since the time +of St. Augustine, if not since the glacial epoch. It was unusual for +boys to sit behind a President grandfather, and to read over his head +the tablet in memory of a President great-grandfather, who had "pledged +his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor" to secure the independence +of his country and so forth; but boys naturally supposed, without much +reasoning, that other boys had the equivalent of President +grandfathers, and that churches would always go on, with the +bald-headed leading citizens on the main aisle, and Presidents or their +equivalents on the walls. The Irish gardener once said to the child: +"You'll be thinkin' you'll be President too!" The casuality of the +remark made so strong an impression on his mind that he never forgot +it. He could not remember ever to have thought on the subject; to him, +that there should be a doubt of his being President was a new idea. +What had been would continue to be. He doubted neither about Presidents +nor about Churches, and no one suggested at that time a doubt whether a +system of society which had lasted since Adam would outlast one Adams +more. + + The Madam was a little more remote than the President, but more +decorative. She stayed much in her own room with the Dutch tiles, +looking out on her garden with the box walks, and seemed a fragile +creature to a boy who sometimes brought her a note or a message, and +took distinct pleasure in looking at her delicate face under what +seemed to him very becoming caps. He liked her refined figure; her +gentle voice and manner; her vague effect of not belonging there, but +to Washington or to Europe, like her furniture, and writing-desk with +little glass doors above and little eighteenth-century volumes in old +binding, labelled "Peregrine Pickle" or "Tom Jones" or "Hannah More." +Try as she might, the Madam could never be Bostonian, and it was her +cross in life, but to the boy it was her charm. Even at that age, he +felt drawn to it. The Madam's life had been in truth far from Boston. +She was born in London in 1775, daughter of Joshua Johnson, an American +merchant, brother of Governor Thomas Johnson of Maryland; and Catherine +Nuth, of an English family in London. Driven from England by the +Revolutionary War, Joshua Johnson took his family to Nantes, where they +remained till the peace. The girl Louisa Catherine was nearly ten years +old when brought back to London, and her sense of nationality must have +been confused; but the influence of the Johnsons and the services of +Joshua obtained for him from President Washington the appointment of +Consul in London on the organization of the Government in 1790. In 1794 +President Washington appointed John Quincy Adams Minister to The Hague. +He was twenty-seven years old when he returned to London, and found the +Consul's house a very agreeable haunt. Louisa was then twenty. + + At that time, and long afterwards, the Consul's house, far more +than the Minister's, was the centre of contact for travelling +Americans, either official or other. The Legation was a shifting point, +between 1785 and 1815; but the Consulate, far down in the City, near +the Tower, was convenient and inviting; so inviting that it proved +fatal to young Adams. Louisa was charming, like a Romney portrait, but +among her many charms that of being a New England woman was not one. +The defect was serious. Her future mother-in-law, Abigail, a famous New +England woman whose authority over her turbulent husband, the second +President, was hardly so great as that which she exercised over her +son, the sixth to be, was troubled by the fear that Louisa might not be +made of stuff stern enough, or brought up in conditions severe enough, +to suit a New England climate, or to make an efficient wife for her +paragon son, and Abigail was right on that point, as on most others +where sound judgment was involved; but sound judgment is sometimes a +source of weakness rather than of force, and John Quincy already had +reason to think that his mother held sound judgments on the subject of +daughters-in-law which human nature, since the fall of Eve, made Adams +helpless to realize. Being three thousand miles away from his mother, +and equally far in love, he married Louisa in London, July 26, 1797, +and took her to Berlin to be the head of the United States Legation. +During three or four exciting years, the young bride lived in Berlin; +whether she was happy or not, whether she was content or not, whether +she was socially successful or not, her descendants did not surely +know; but in any case she could by no chance have become educated there +for a life in Quincy or Boston. In 1801 the overthrow of the Federalist +Party drove her and her husband to America, and she became at last a +member of the Quincy household, but by that time her children needed +all her attention, and she remained there with occasional winters in +Boston and Washington, till 1809. Her husband was made Senator in 1803, +and in 1809 was appointed Minister to Russia. She went with him to St. +Petersburg, taking her baby, Charles Francis, born in 1807; but +broken-hearted at having to leave her two older boys behind. The life +at St. Petersburg was hardly gay for her; they were far too poor to +shine in that extravagant society; but she survived it, though her +little girl baby did not, and in the winter of 1814-15, alone with the +boy of seven years old, crossed Europe from St. Petersburg to Paris, in +her travelling-carriage, passing through the armies, and reaching Paris +in the Cent Jours after Napoleon's return from Elba. Her husband next +went to England as Minister, and she was for two years at the Court of +the Regent. In 1817 her husband came home to be Secretary of State, and +she lived for eight years in F Street, doing her work of entertainer +for President Monroe's administration. Next she lived four miserable +years in the White House. When that chapter was closed in 1829, she had +earned the right to be tired and delicate, but she still had fifteen +years to serve as wife of a Member of the House, after her husband went +back to Congress in 1833. Then it was that the little Henry, her +grandson, first remembered her, from 1843 to 1848, sitting in her +panelled room, at breakfast, with her heavy silver teapot and +sugar-bowl and cream-jug, which still exist somewhere as an heirloom of +the modern safety-vault. By that time she was seventy years old or +more, and thoroughly weary of being beaten about a stormy world. To the +boy she seemed singularly peaceful, a vision of silver gray, presiding +over her old President and her Queen Anne mahogany; an exotic, like her +Sevres china; an object of deference to every one, and of great +affection to her son Charles; but hardly more Bostonian than she had +been fifty years before, on her wedding-day, in the shadow of the Tower +of London. + + Such a figure was even less fitted than that of her old +husband, the President, to impress on a boy's mind, the standards of +the coming century. She was Louis Seize, like the furniture. The boy +knew nothing of her interior life, which had been, as the venerable +Abigail, long since at peace, foresaw, one of severe stress and little +pure satisfaction. He never dreamed that from her might come some of +those doubts and self-questionings, those hesitations, those rebellions +against law and discipline, which marked more than one of her +descendants; but he might even then have felt some vague instinctive +suspicion that he was to inherit from her the seeds of the primal sin, +the fall from grace, the curse of Abel, that he was not of pure New +England stock, but half exotic. As a child of Quincy he was not a true +Bostonian, but even as a child of Quincy he inherited a quarter taint +of Maryland blood. Charles Francis, half Marylander by birth, had +hardly seen Boston till he was ten years old, when his parents left him +there at school in 1817, and he never forgot the experience. He was to +be nearly as old as his mother had been in 1845, before he quite +accepted Boston, or Boston quite accepted him. + + A boy who began his education in these surroundings, with +physical strength inferior to that of his brothers, and with a certain +delicacy of mind and bone, ought rightly to have felt at home in the +eighteenth century and should, in proper self-respect, have rebelled +against the standards of the nineteenth. The atmosphere of his first +ten years must have been very like that of his grandfather at the same +age, from 1767 till 1776, barring the battle of Bunker Hill, and even +as late as 1846, the battle of Bunker Hill remained actual. The tone of +Boston society was colonial. The true Bostonian always knelt in +self-abasement before the majesty of English standards; far from +concealing it as a weakness, he was proud of it as his strength. The +eighteenth century ruled society long after 1850. Perhaps the boy began +to shake it off rather earlier than most of his mates. + + Indeed this prehistoric stage of education ended rather +abruptly with his tenth year. One winter morning he was conscious of a +certain confusion in the house in Mount Vernon Street, and gathered, +from such words as he could catch, that the President, who happened to +be then staying there, on his way to Washington, had fallen and hurt +himself. Then he heard the word paralysis. After that day he came to +associate the word with the figure of his grandfather, in a +tall-backed, invalid armchair, on one side of the spare bedroom +fireplace, and one of his old friends, Dr. Parkman or P. P. F. Degrand, +on the other side, both dozing. + + The end of this first, or ancestral and Revolutionary, chapter +came on February 21, 1848--and the month of February brought life and +death as a family habit--when the eighteenth century, as an actual and +living companion, vanished. If the scene on the floor of the House, +when the old President fell, struck the still simple-minded American +public with a sensation unusually dramatic, its effect on a +ten-year-old boy, whose boy-life was fading away with the life of his +grandfather, could not be slight. One had to pay for Revolutionary +patriots; grandfathers and grandmothers; Presidents; diplomats; Queen +Anne mahogany and Louis Seize chairs, as well as for Stuart portraits. +Such things warp young life. Americans commonly believed that they +ruined it, and perhaps the practical common-sense of the American mind +judged right. Many a boy might be ruined by much less than the emotions +of the funeral service in the Quincy church, with its surroundings of +national respect and family pride. By another dramatic chance it +happened that the clergyman of the parish, Dr. Lunt, was an unusual +pulpit orator, the ideal of a somewhat austere intellectual type, such +as the school of Buckminster and Channing inherited from the old +Congregational clergy. His extraordinarily refined appearance, his +dignity of manner, his deeply cadenced voice, his remarkable English +and his fine appreciation, gave to the funeral service a character that +left an overwhelming impression on the boy's mind. He was to see many +great functions--funerals and festival--in after-life, till his only +thought was to see no more, but he never again witnessed anything +nearly so impressive to him as the last services at Quincy over the +body of one President and the ashes of another. + + The effect of the Quincy service was deepened by the official +ceremony which afterwards took place in Faneuil Hall, when the boy was +taken to hear his uncle, Edward Everett, deliver a Eulogy. Like all Mr. +Everett's orations, it was an admirable piece of oratory, such as only +an admirable orator and scholar could create; too good for a +ten-year-old boy to appreciate at its value; but already the boy knew +that the dead President could not be in it, and had even learned why he +would have been out of place there; for knowledge was beginning to come +fast. The shadow of the War of 1812 still hung over State Street; the +shadow of the Civil War to come had already begun to darken Faneuil +Hall. No rhetoric could have reconciled Mr. Everett's audience to his +subject. How could he say there, to an assemblage of Bostonians in the +heart of mercantile Boston, that the only distinctive mark of all the +Adamses, since old Sam Adams's father a hundred and fifty years before, +had been their inherited quarrel with State Street, which had again and +again broken out into riot, bloodshed, personal feuds, foreign and +civil war, wholesale banishments and confiscations, until the history +of Florence was hardly more turbulent than that of Boston? How could he +whisper the word Hartford Convention before the men who had made it? +What would have been said had he suggested the chance of Secession and +Civil War? + + Thus already, at ten years old, the boy found himself standing +face to face with a dilemma that might have puzzled an early Christian. +What was he?--where was he going? Even then he felt that something was +wrong, but he concluded that it must be Boston. Quincy had always been +right, for Quincy represented a moral principle--the principle of +resistance to Boston. His Adams ancestors must have been right, since +they were always hostile to State Street. If State Street was wrong, +Quincy must be right! Turn the dilemma as he pleased, he still came +back on the eighteenth century and the law of Resistance; of Truth; of +Duty, and of Freedom. He was a ten-year-old priest and politician. He +could under no circumstances have guessed what the next fifty years had +in store, and no one could teach him; but sometimes, in his old age, he +wondered--and could never decide--whether the most clear and certain +knowledge would have helped him. Supposing he had seen a New York +stock-list of 1900, and had studied the statistics of railways, +telegraphs, coal, and steel--would he have quitted his +eighteenth-century, his ancestral prejudices, his abstract ideals, his +semi-clerical training, and the rest, in order to perform an expiatory +pilgrimage to State Street, and ask for the fatted calf of his +grandfather Brooks and a clerkship in the Suffolk Bank? + + Sixty years afterwards he was still unable to make up his mind. +Each course had its advantages, but the material advantages, looking +back, seemed to lie wholly in State Street. + + + +CHAPTER II + +BOSTON (1848-1854) + + PETER CHARDON BROOKS, the other grandfather, died January 1, +1849, bequeathing what was supposed to be the largest estate in Boston, +about two million dollars, to his seven surviving children: four +sons--Edward, Peter Chardon, Gorham, and Sydney; three +daughters--Charlotte, married to Edward Everett; Ann, married to +Nathaniel Frothingham, minister of the First Church; and Abigail Brown, +born April 25, 1808, married September 3, 1829, to Charles Francis +Adams, hardly a year older than herself. Their first child, born in +1830, was a daughter, named Louisa Catherine, after her Johnson +grandmother; the second was a son, named John Quincy, after his +President grandfather; the third took his father's name, Charles +Francis; while the fourth, being of less account, was in a way given to +his mother, who named him Henry Brooks, after a favorite brother just +lost. More followed, but these, being younger, had nothing to do with +the arduous process of educating. + + The Adams connection was singularly small in Boston, but the +family of Brooks was singularly large and even brilliant, and almost +wholly of clerical New England stock. One might have sought long in +much larger and older societies for three brothers-in-law more +distinguished or more scholarly than Edward Everett, Dr. Frothingham, +and Mr. Adams. One might have sought equally long for seven +brothers-in-law more unlike. No doubt they all bore more or less the +stamp of Boston, or at least of Massachusetts Bay, but the shades of +difference amounted to contrasts. Mr. Everett belonged to Boston hardly +more than Mr. Adams. One of the most ambitious of Bostonians, he had +broken bounds early in life by leaving the Unitarian pulpit to take a +seat in Congress where he had given valuable support to J. Q. Adams's +administration; support which, as a social consequence, led to the +marriage of the President's son, Charles Francis, with Mr. Everett's +youngest sister-in-law, Abigail Brooks. The wreck of parties which +marked the reign of Andrew Jackson had interfered with many promising +careers, that of Edward Everett among the rest, but he had risen with +the Whig Party to power, had gone as Minister to England, and had +returned to America with the halo of a European reputation, and +undisputed rank second only to Daniel Webster as the orator and +representative figure of Boston. The other brother-in-law, Dr. +Frothingham, belonged to the same clerical school, though in manner +rather the less clerical of the two. Neither of them had much in common +with Mr. Adams, who was a younger man, greatly biassed by his father, +and by the inherited feud between Quincy and State Street; but personal +relations were friendly as far as a boy could see, and the innumerable +cousins went regularly to the First Church every Sunday in winter, and +slept through their uncle's sermons, without once thinking to ask what +the sermons were supposed to mean for them. For two hundred years the +First Church had seen the same little boys, sleeping more or less +soundly under the same or similar conditions, and dimly conscious of +the same feuds; but the feuds had never ceased, and the boys had always +grown up to inherit them. Those of the generation of 1812 had mostly +disappeared in 1850; death had cleared that score; the quarrels of John +Adams, and those of John Quincy Adams were no longer acutely personal; +the game was considered as drawn; and Charles Francis Adams might then +have taken his inherited rights of political leadership in succession +to Mr. Webster and Mr. Everett, his seniors. Between him and State +Street the relation was more natural than between Edward Everett and +State Street; but instead of doing so, Charles Francis Adams drew +himself aloof and renewed the old war which had already lasted since +1700. He could not help it. With the record of J. Q. Adams fresh in the +popular memory, his son and his only representative could not make +terms with the slave-power, and the slave-power overshadowed all the +great Boston interests. No doubt Mr. Adams had principles of his own, +as well as inherited, but even his children, who as yet had no +principles, could equally little follow the lead of Mr. Webster or even +of Mr. Seward. They would have lost in consideration more than they +would have gained in patronage. They were anti-slavery by birth, as +their name was Adams and their home was Quincy. No matter how much they +had wished to enter State Street, they felt that State Street never +would trust them, or they it. Had State Street been Paradise, they must +hunger for it in vain, and it hardly needed Daniel Webster to act as +archangel with the flaming sword, to order them away from the door. + + Time and experience, which alter all perspectives, altered this +among the rest, and taught the boy gentler judgment, but even when only +ten years old, his face was already fixed, and his heart was stone, +against State Street; his education was warped beyond recovery in the +direction of Puritan politics. Between him and his patriot grandfather +at the same age, the conditions had changed little. The year 1848 was +like enough to the year 1776 to make a fair parallel. The parallel, as +concerned bias of education, was complete when, a few months after the +death of John Quincy Adams, a convention of anti-slavery delegates met +at Buffalo to organize a new party and named candidates for the general +election in November: for President, Martin Van Buren; for +Vice-President, Charles Francis Adams. + + For any American boy the fact that his father was running for +office would have dwarfed for the time every other excitement, but even +apart from personal bias, the year 1848, for a boy's road through life, +was decisive for twenty years to come. There was never a side-path of +escape. The stamp of 1848 was almost as indelible as the stamp of 1776, +but in the eighteenth or any earlier century, the stamp mattered less +because it was standard, and every one bore it; while men whose lives +were to fall in the generation between 1865 and 1900 had, first of all, +to get rid of it, and take the stamp that belonged to their time. This +was their education. To outsiders, immigrants, adventurers, it was +easy, but the old Puritan nature rebelled against change. The reason it +gave was forcible. The Puritan thought his thought higher and his moral +standards better than those of his successors. So they were. He could +not be convinced that moral standards had nothing to do with it, and +that utilitarian morality was good enough for him, as it was for the +graceless. Nature had given to the boy Henry a character that, in any +previous century, would have led him into the Church; he inherited +dogma and a priori thought from the beginning of time; and he scarcely +needed a violent reaction like anti-slavery politics to sweep him back +into Puritanism with a violence as great as that of a religious war. + + Thus far he had nothing to do with it; his education was +chiefly inheritance, and during the next five or six years, his father +alone counted for much. If he were to worry successfully through life's +quicksands, he must depend chiefly on his father's pilotage; but, for +his father, the channel lay clear, while for himself an unknown ocean +lay beyond. His father's business in life was to get past the dangers +of the slave-power, or to fix its bounds at least. The task done, he +might be content to let his sons pay for the pilotage; and it mattered +little to his success whether they paid it with their lives wasted on +battle-fields or in misdirected energies and lost opportunity. The +generation that lived from 1840 to 1870 could do very well with the old +forms of education; that which had its work to do between 1870 and 1900 +needed something quite new. + + His father's character was therefore the larger part of his +education, as far as any single person affected it, and for that +reason, if for no other, the son was always a much interested critic of +his father's mind and temper. Long after his death as an old man of +eighty, his sons continued to discuss this subject with a good deal of +difference in their points of view. To his son Henry, the quality that +distinguished his father from all the other figures in the family +group, was that, in his opinion, Charles Francis Adams possessed the +only perfectly balanced mind that ever existed in the name. For a +hundred years, every newspaper scribbler had, with more or less obvious +excuse, derided or abused the older Adamses for want of judgment. They +abused Charles Francis for his judgment. Naturally they never attempted +to assign values to either; that was the children's affair; but the +traits were real. Charles Francis Adams was singular for mental +poise--absence of self-assertion or self-consciousness--the faculty of +standing apart without seeming aware that he was alone--a balance of +mind and temper that neither challenged nor avoided notice, nor +admitted question of superiority or inferiority, of jealousy, of +personal motives, from any source, even under great pressure. This +unusual poise of judgment and temper, ripened by age, became the more +striking to his son Henry as he learned to measure the mental faculties +themselves, which were in no way exceptional either for depth or range. +Charles Francis Adams's memory was hardly above the average; his mind +was not bold like his grandfather's or restless like his father's, or +imaginative or oratorical--still less mathematical; but it worked with +singular perfection, admirable self-restraint, and instinctive mastery +of form. Within its range it was a model. + + The standards of Boston were high, much affected by the old +clerical self-respect which gave the Unitarian clergy unusual social +charm. Dr. Channing, Mr. Everett, Dr. Frothingham. Dr. Palfrey, +President Walker, R. W. Emerson, and other Boston ministers of the same +school, would have commanded distinction in any society; but the +Adamses had little or no affinity with the pulpit, and still less with +its eccentric offshoots, like Theodore Parker, or Brook Farm, or the +philosophy of Concord. Besides its clergy, Boston showed a literary +group, led by Ticknor, Prescott, Longfellow, Motley, O. W. Holmes; but +Mr. Adams was not one of them; as a rule they were much too Websterian. +Even in science Boston could claim a certain eminence, especially in +medicine, but Mr. Adams cared very little for science. He stood alone. +He had no master--hardly even his father. He had no scholars--hardly +even his sons. + + Almost alone among his Boston contemporaries, he was not +English in feeling or in sympathies. Perhaps a hundred years of acute +hostility to England had something to do with this family trait; but in +his case it went further and became indifference to social distinction. +Never once in forty years of intimacy did his son notice in him a trace +of snobbishness. He was one of the exceedingly small number of +Americans to whom an English duke or duchess seemed to be indifferent, +and royalty itself nothing more than a slightly inconvenient presence. +This was, it is true, rather the tone of English society in his time, +but Americans were largely responsible for changing it, and Mr. Adams +had every possible reason for affecting the manner of a courtier even +if he did not feel the sentiment. Never did his son see him flatter or +vilify, or show a sign of envy or jealousy; never a shade of vanity or +self-conceit. Never a tone of arrogance! Never a gesture of pride! + + The same thing might perhaps have been said of John Quincy +Adams, but in him his associates averred that it was accompanied by +mental restlessness and often by lamentable want of judgment. No one +ever charged Charles Francis Adams with this fault. The critics charged +him with just the opposite defect. They called him cold. No doubt, such +perfect poise--such intuitive self-adjustment--was not maintained by +nature without a sacrifice of the qualities which would have upset it. +No doubt, too, that even his restless-minded, introspective, +self-conscious children who knew him best were much too ignorant of the +world and of human nature to suspect how rare and complete was the +model before their eyes. A coarser instrument would have impressed them +more. Average human nature is very coarse, and its ideals must +necessarily be average. The world never loved perfect poise. What the +world does love is commonly absence of poise, for it has to be amused. +Napoleons and Andrew Jacksons amuse it, but it is not amused by perfect +balance. Had Mr. Adams's nature been cold, he would have followed Mr. +Webster, Mr. Everett, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Winthrop in the lines of +party discipline and self-interest. Had it been less balanced than it +was, he would have gone with Mr. Garrison, Mr. Wendell Phillips, Mr. +Edmund Quincy, and Theodore Parker, into secession. Between the two +paths he found an intermediate one, distinctive and characteristic--he +set up a party of his own. + + This political party became a chief influence in the education +of the boy Henry in the six years 1848 to 1854, and violently affected +his character at the moment when character is plastic. The group of men +with whom Mr. Adams associated himself, and whose social centre was the +house in Mount Vernon Street, numbered only three: Dr. John G. Palfrey, +Richard H. Dana, and Charles Sumner. Dr. Palfrey was the oldest, and in +spite of his clerical education, was to a boy often the most agreeable, +for his talk was lighter and his range wider than that of the others; +he had wit, or humor, and the give-and-take of dinner-table exchange. +Born to be a man of the world, he forced himself to be clergyman, +professor, or statesman, while, like every other true Bostonian, he +yearned for the ease of the Athenaeum Club in Pall Mall or the +Combination Room at Trinity. Dana at first suggested the opposite; he +affected to be still before the mast, a direct, rather bluff, vigorous +seaman, and only as one got to know him better one found the man of +rather excessive refinement trying with success to work like a +day-laborer, deliberately hardening his skin to the burden, as though +he were still carrying hides at Monterey. Undoubtedly he succeeded, for +his mind and will were robust, but he might have said what his lifelong +friend William M. Evarts used to say: "I pride myself on my success in +doing not the things I like to do, but the things I don't like to do." +Dana's ideal of life was to be a great Englishman, with a seat on the +front benches of the House of Commons until he should be promoted to +the woolsack; beyond all, with a social status that should place him +above the scuffle of provincial and unprofessional annoyances; but he +forced himself to take life as it came, and he suffocated his longings +with grim self-discipline, by mere force of will. Of the four men, Dana +was the most marked. Without dogmatism or self-assertion, he seemed +always to be fully in sight, a figure that completely filled a +well-defined space. He, too, talked well, and his mind worked close to +its subject, as a lawyer's should; but disguise and silence it as he +liked, it was aristocratic to the tenth generation. + + In that respect, and in that only, Charles Sumner was like him, +but Sumner, in almost every other quality, was quite different from his +three associates--altogether out of line. He, too, adored English +standards, but his ambition led him to rival the career of Edmund +Burke. No young Bostonian of his time had made so brilliant a start, +but rather in the steps of Edward Everett than of Daniel Webster. As an +orator he had achieved a triumph by his oration against war; but Boston +admired him chiefly for his social success in England and on the +Continent; success that gave to every Bostonian who enjoyed it a halo +never acquired by domestic sanctity. Mr. Sumner, both by interest and +instinct, felt the value of his English connection, and cultivated it +the more as he became socially an outcast from Boston society by the +passions of politics. He was rarely without a pocket-full of letters +from duchesses or noblemen in England. Having sacrificed to principle +his social position in America, he clung the more closely to his +foreign attachments. The Free Soil Party fared ill in Beacon Street. +The social arbiters of Boston--George Ticknor and the rest--had to +admit, however unwillingly, that the Free Soil leaders could not mingle +with the friends and followers of Mr. Webster. Sumner was socially +ostracized, and so, for that matter, were Palfrey, Dana, Russell, +Adams, and all the other avowed anti-slavery leaders, but for them it +mattered less, because they had houses and families of their own; while +Sumner had neither wife nor household, and, though the most socially +ambitious of all, and the most hungry for what used to be called polite +society, he could enter hardly half-a-dozen houses in Boston. +Longfellow stood by him in Cambridge, and even in Beacon Street he +could always take refuge in the house of Mr. Lodge, but few days passed +when he did not pass some time in Mount Vernon Street. Even with that, +his solitude was glacial, and reacted on his character. He had nothing +but himself to think about. His superiority was, indeed, real and +incontestable; he was the classical ornament of the anti-slavery party; +their pride in him was unbounded, and their admiration outspoken. + + The boy Henry worshipped him, and if he ever regarded any older +man as a personal friend, it was Mr. Sumner. The relation of Mr. Sumner +in the household was far closer than any relation of blood. None of the +uncles approached such intimacy. Sumner was the boy's ideal of +greatness; the highest product of nature and art. The only fault of +such a model was its superiority which defied imitation. To the +twelve-year-old boy, his father, Dr. Palfrey, Mr. Dana, were men, more +or less like what he himself might become; but Mr. Sumner was a +different order--heroic. + + As the boy grew up to be ten or twelve years old, his father +gave him a writing-table in one of the alcoves of his Boston library, +and there, winter after winter, Henry worked over his Latin Grammar and +listened to these four gentlemen discussing the course of anti-slavery +politics. The discussions were always serious; the Free Soil Party took +itself quite seriously; and they were habitual because Mr. Adams had +undertaken to edit a newspaper as the organ of these gentlemen, who +came to discuss its policy and expression. At the same time Mr. Adams +was editing the "Works" of his grandfather John Adams, and made the boy +read texts for proof-correction. In after years his father sometimes +complained that, as a reader of Novanglus and Massachusettensis, Henry +had shown very little consciousness of punctuation; but the boy +regarded this part of school life only as a warning, if he ever grew up +to write dull discussions in the newspapers, to try to be dull in some +different way from that of his great-grandfather. Yet the discussions +in the Boston Whig were carried on in much the same style as those of +John Adams and his opponent, and appealed to much the same society and +the same habit of mind. The boy got as little education, fitting him +for his own time, from the one as from the other, and he got no more +from his contact with the gentlemen themselves who were all types of +the past. + + Down to 1850, and even later, New England society was still +directed by the professions. Lawyers, physicians, professors, merchants +were classes, and acted not as individuals, but as though they were +clergymen and each profession were a church. In politics the system +required competent expression; it was the old Ciceronian idea of +government by the best that produced the long line of New England +statesmen. They chose men to represent them because they wanted to be +well represented, and they chose the best they had. Thus Boston chose +Daniel Webster, and Webster took, not as pay, but as honorarium, the +cheques raised for him by Peter Harvey from the Appletons, Perkinses, +Amorys, Searses, Brookses, Lawrences, and so on, who begged him to +represent them. Edward Everett held the rank in regular succession to +Webster. Robert C. Winthrop claimed succession to Everett. Charles +Sumner aspired to break the succession, but not the system. The Adamses +had never been, for any length of time, a part of this State +succession; they had preferred the national service, and had won all +their distinction outside the State, but they too had required State +support and had commonly received it. The little group of men in Mount +Vernon Street were an offshoot of this system; they were statesmen, not +politicians; they guided public opinion, but were little guided by it. + + The boy naturally learned only one lesson from his saturation +in such air. He took for granted that this sort of world, more or less +the same that had always existed in Boston and Massachusetts Bay, was +the world which he was to fit. Had he known Europe he would have +learned no better. The Paris of Louis Philippe, Guizot, and de +Tocqueville, as well as the London of Robert Peel, Macaulay, and John +Stuart Mill, were but varieties of the same upper-class bourgeoisie +that felt instinctive cousinship with the Boston of Ticknor, Prescott, +and Motley. Even the typical grumbler Carlyle, who cast doubts on the +real capacity of the middle class, and who at times thought himself +eccentric, found friendship and alliances in Boston--still more in +Concord. The system had proved so successful that even Germany wanted +to try it, and Italy yearned for it. England's middle-class government +was the ideal of human progress. + + Even the violent reaction after 1848, and the return of all +Europe to military practices, never for a moment shook the true faith. +No one, except Karl Marx, foresaw radical change. What announced it? +The world was producing sixty or seventy million tons of coal, and +might be using nearly a million steam-horsepower, just beginning to +make itself felt. All experience since the creation of man, all divine +revelation or human science, conspired to deceive and betray a +twelve-year-old boy who took for granted that his ideas, which were +alone respectable, would be alone respected. + + Viewed from Mount Vernon Street, the problem of life was as +simple as it was classic. Politics offered no difficulties, for there +the moral law was a sure guide. Social perfection was also sure, +because human nature worked for Good, and three instruments were all +she asked--Suffrage, Common Schools, and Press. On these points doubt +was forbidden. Education was divine, and man needed only a correct +knowledge of facts to reach perfection: + + "Were half the power that fills the world with terror, + Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, + Given to redeem the human mind from error, + There were no need of arsenals nor forts." + +Nothing quieted doubt so completely as the mental calm of the Unitarian +clergy. In uniform excellence of life and character, moral and +intellectual, the score of Unitarian clergymen about Boston, who +controlled society and Harvard College, were never excelled. They +proclaimed as their merit that they insisted on no doctrine, but +taught, or tried to teach, the means of leading a virtuous, useful, +unselfish life, which they held to be sufficient for salvation. For +them, difficulties might be ignored; doubts were waste of thought; +nothing exacted solution. Boston had solved the universe; or had +offered and realized the best solution yet tried. The problem was +worked out. + + Of all the conditions of his youth which afterwards puzzled the +grown-up man, this disappearance of religion puzzled him most. The boy +went to church twice every Sunday; he was taught to read his Bible, and +he learned religious poetry by heart; he believed in a mild deism; he +prayed; he went through all the forms; but neither to him nor to his +brothers or sisters was religion real. Even the mild discipline of the +Unitarian Church was so irksome that they all threw it off at the first +possible moment, and never afterwards entered a church. The religious +instinct had vanished, and could not be revived, although one made in +later life many efforts to recover it. That the most powerful emotion +of man, next to the sexual, should disappear, might be a personal +defect of his own; but that the most intelligent society, led by the +most intelligent clergy, in the most moral conditions he ever knew, +should have solved all the problems of the universe so thoroughly as to +have quite ceased making itself anxious about past or future, and +should have persuaded itself that all the problems which had convulsed +human thought from earliest recorded time, were not worth discussing, +seemed to him the most curious social phenomenon he had to account for +in a long life. The faculty of turning away one's eyes as one +approaches a chasm is not unusual, and Boston showed, under the lead of +Mr. Webster, how successfully it could be done in politics; but in +politics a certain number of men did at least protest. In religion and +philosophy no one protested. Such protest as was made took forms more +simple than the silence, like the deism of Theodore Parker, and of the +boy's own cousin Octavius Frothingham, who distressed his father and +scandalized Beacon Street by avowing scepticism that seemed to solve no +old problems, and to raise many new ones. The less aggressive protest +of Ralph Waldo Emerson, was, from an old-world point of view, less +serious. It was naif. + + The children reached manhood without knowing religion, and with +the certainty that dogma, metaphysics, and abstract philosophy were not +worth knowing. So one-sided an education could have been possible in no +other country or time, but it became, almost of necessity, the more +literary and political. As the children grew up, they exaggerated the +literary and the political interests. They joined in the dinner-table +discussions and from childhood the boys were accustomed to hear, almost +every day, table-talk as good as they were ever likely to hear again. +The eldest child, Louisa, was one of the most sparkling creatures her +brother met in a long and varied experience of bright women. The oldest +son, John, was afterwards regarded as one of the best talkers in Boston +society, and perhaps the most popular man in the State, though apt to +be on the unpopular side. Palfrey and Dana could be entertaining when +they pleased, and though Charles Sumner could hardly be called light in +hand, he was willing to be amused, and smiled grandly from time to +time; while Mr. Adams, who talked relatively little, was always a good +listener, and laughed over a witticism till he choked. + + By way of educating and amusing the children, Mr. Adams read +much aloud, and was sure to read political literature, especially when +it was satirical, like the speeches of Horace Mann and the "Epistles" +of "Hosea Biglow," with great delight to the youth. So he read +Longfellow and Tennyson as their poems appeared, but the children took +possession of Dickens and Thackeray for themselves. Both were too +modern for tastes founded on Pope and Dr. Johnson. The boy Henry soon +became a desultory reader of every book he found readable, but these +were commonly eighteenth-century historians because his father's +library was full of them. In the want of positive instincts, he drifted +into the mental indolence of history. So too, he read shelves of +eighteenth-century poetry, but when his father offered his own set of +Wordsworth as a gift on condition of reading it through, he declined. +Pope and Gray called for no mental effort; they were easy reading; but +the boy was thirty years old before his education reached Wordsworth. + + This is the story of an education, and the person or persons +who figure in it are supposed to have values only as educators or +educated. The surroundings concern it only so far as they affect +education. Sumner, Dana, Palfrey, had values of their own, like Hume, +Pope, and Wordsworth, which any one may study in their works; here all +appear only as influences on the mind of a boy very nearly the average +of most boys in physical and mental stature. The influence was wholly +political and literary. His father made no effort to force his mind, +but left him free play, and this was perhaps best. Only in one way his +father rendered him a great service by trying to teach him French and +giving him some idea of a French accent. Otherwise the family was +rather an atmosphere than an influence. The boy had a large and +overpowering set of brothers and sisters, who were modes or replicas of +the same type, getting the same education, struggling with the same +problems, and solving the question, or leaving it unsolved much in the +same way. They knew no more than he what they wanted or what to do for +it, but all were conscious that they would like to control power in +some form; and the same thing could be said of an ant or an elephant. +Their form was tied to politics or literature. They amounted to one +individual with half-a-dozen sides or facets; their temperaments +reacted on each other and made each child more like the other. This was +also education, but in the type, and the Boston or New England type was +well enough known. What no one knew was whether the individual who +thought himself a representative of this type, was fit to deal with +life. + + As far as outward bearing went, such a family of turbulent +children, given free rein by their parents, or indifferent to check, +should have come to more or less grief. Certainly no one was strong +enough to control them, least of all their mother, the queen-bee of the +hive, on whom nine-tenths of the burden fell, on whose strength they +all depended, but whose children were much too self-willed and +self-confident to take guidance from her, or from any one else, unless +in the direction they fancied. Father and mother were about equally +helpless. Almost every large family in those days produced at least one +black sheep, and if this generation of Adamses escaped, it was as much +a matter of surprise to them as to their neighbors. By some happy +chance they grew up to be decent citizens, but Henry Adams, as a brand +escaped from the burning, always looked back with astonishment at their +luck. The fact seemed to prove that they were born, like birds, with a +certain innate balance. Home influences alone never saved the New +England boy from ruin, though sometimes they may have helped to ruin +him; and the influences outside of home were negative. If school +helped, it was only by reaction. The dislike of school was so strong as +to be a positive gain. The passionate hatred of school methods was +almost a method in itself. Yet the day-school of that time was +respectable, and the boy had nothing to complain of. In fact, he never +complained. He hated it because he was here with a crowd of other boys +and compelled to learn by memory a quantity of things that did not +amuse him. His memory was slow, and the effort painful. For him to +conceive that his memory could compete for school prizes with machines +of two or three times its power, was to prove himself wanting not only +in memory, but flagrantly in mind. He thought his mind a good enough +machine, if it were given time to act, but it acted wrong if hurried. +Schoolmasters never gave time. + + In any and all its forms, the boy detested school, and the +prejudice became deeper with years. He always reckoned his school-days, +from ten to sixteen years old, as time thrown away. Perhaps his needs +turned out to be exceptional, but his existence was exceptional. +Between 1850 and 1900 nearly every one's existence was exceptional. For +success in the life imposed on him he needed, as afterwards appeared, +the facile use of only four tools: Mathematics, French, German, and +Spanish. With these, he could master in very short time any special +branch of inquiry, and feel at home in any society. Latin and Greek, he +could, with the help of the modern languages, learn more completely by +the intelligent work of six weeks than in the six years he spent on +them at school. These four tools were necessary to his success in life, +but he never controlled any one of them. + + Thus, at the outset, he was condemned to failure more or less +complete in the life awaiting him, but not more so than his companions. +Indeed, had his father kept the boy at home, and given him half an +hour's direction every day, he would have done more for him than school +ever could do for them. Of course, school-taught men and boys looked +down on home-bred boys, and rather prided themselves on their own +ignorance, but the man of sixty can generally see what he needed in +life, and in Henry Adams's opinion it was not school. + + Most school experience was bad. Boy associations at fifteen +were worse than none. Boston at that time offered few healthy resources +for boys or men. The bar-room and billiard-room were more familiar than +parents knew. As a rule boys could skate and swim and were sent to +dancing-school; they played a rudimentary game of baseball, football, +and hockey; a few could sail a boat; still fewer had been out with a +gun to shoot yellow-legs or a stray wild duck; one or two may have +learned something of natural history if they came from the neighborhood +of Concord; none could ride across country, or knew what shooting with +dogs meant. Sport as a pursuit was unknown. Boat-racing came after +1850. For horse-racing, only the trotting-course existed. Of all +pleasures, winter sleighing was still the gayest and most popular. From +none of these amusements could the boy learn anything likely to be of +use to him in the world. Books remained as in the eighteenth century, +the source of life, and as they came out--Thackeray, Dickens, Bulwer, +Tennyson, Macaulay, Carlyle, and the rest--they were devoured; but as +far as happiness went, the happiest hours of the boy's education were +passed in summer lying on a musty heap of Congressional Documents in +the old farmhouse at Quincy, reading "Quentin Durward," "Ivanhoe," and +"The Talisman," and raiding the garden at intervals for peaches and +pears. On the whole he learned most then. + + + +CHAPTER III + +WASHINGTON (1850-1854) + + EXCEPT for politics, Mount Vernon Street had the merit of +leaving the boy-mind supple, free to turn with the world, and if one +learned next to nothing, the little one did learn needed not to be +unlearned. The surface was ready to take any form that education should +cut into it, though Boston, with singular foresight, rejected the old +designs. What sort of education was stamped elsewhere, a Bostonian had +no idea, but he escaped the evils of other standards by having no +standard at all; and what was true of school was true of society. +Boston offered none that could help outside. Every one now smiles at +the bad taste of Queen Victoria and Louis Philippe--the society of the +forties--but the taste was only a reflection of the social slack-water +between a tide passed, and a tide to come. Boston belonged to neither, +and hardly even to America. Neither aristocratic nor industrial nor +social, Boston girls and boys were not nearly as unformed as English +boys and girls, but had less means of acquiring form as they grew +older. Women counted for little as models. Every boy, from the age of +seven, fell in love at frequent intervals with some girl--always more +or less the same little girl--who had nothing to teach him, or he to +teach her, except rather familiar and provincial manners, until they +married and bore children to repeat the habit. The idea of attaching +one's self to a married woman, or of polishing one's manners to suit +the standards of women of thirty, could hardly have entered the mind of +a young Bostonian, and would have scandalized his parents. From women +the boy got the domestic virtues and nothing else. He might not even +catch the idea that women had more to give. The garden of Eden was +hardly more primitive. + + To balance this virtue, the Puritan city had always hidden a +darker side. Blackguard Boston was only too educational, and to most +boys much the more interesting. A successful blackguard must enjoy +great physical advantages besides a true vocation, and Henry Adams had +neither; but no boy escaped some contact with vice of a very low form. +Blackguardism came constantly under boys' eyes, and had the charm of +force and freedom and superiority to culture or decency. One might fear +it, but no one honestly despised it. Now and then it asserted itself as +education more roughly than school ever did. One of the commonest +boy-games of winter, inherited directly from the eighteenth-century, +was a game of war on Boston Common. In old days the two hostile forces +were called North-Enders and South-Enders. In 1850 the North-Enders +still survived as a legend, but in practice it was a battle of the +Latin School against all comers, and the Latin School, for snowball, +included all the boys of the West End. Whenever, on a half-holiday, the +weather was soft enough to soften the snow, the Common was apt to be +the scene of a fight, which began in daylight with the Latin School in +force, rushing their opponents down to Tremont Street, and which +generally ended at dark by the Latin School dwindling in numbers and +disappearing. As the Latin School grew weak, the roughs and young +blackguards grew strong. As long as snowballs were the only weapon, no +one was much hurt, but a stone may be put in a snowball, and in the +dark a stick or a slungshot in the hands of a boy is as effective as a +knife. One afternoon the fight had been long and exhausting. The boy +Henry, following, as his habit was, his bigger brother Charles, had +taken part in the battle, and had felt his courage much depressed by +seeing one of his trustiest leaders, Henry Higginson--"Bully Hig," his +school name--struck by a stone over the eye, and led off the field +bleeding in rather a ghastly manner. As night came on, the Latin School +was steadily forced back to the Beacon Street Mall where they could +retreat no further without disbanding, and by that time only a small +band was left, headed by two heroes, Savage and Marvin. A dark mass of +figures could be seen below, making ready for the last rush, and rumor +said that a swarm of blackguards from the slums, led by a grisly terror +called Conky Daniels, with a club and a hideous reputation, was going +to put an end to the Beacon Street cowards forever. Henry wanted to run +away with the others, but his brother was too big to run away, so they +stood still and waited immolation. The dark mass set up a shout, and +rushed forward. The Beacon Street boys turned and fled up the steps, +except Savage and Marvin and the few champions who would not run. The +terrible Conky Daniels swaggered up, stopped a moment with his +body-guard to swear a few oaths at Marvin, and then swept on and chased +the flyers, leaving the few boys untouched who stood their ground. The +obvious moral taught that blackguards were not so black as they were +painted; but the boy Henry had passed through as much terror as though +he were Turenne or Henri IV, and ten or twelve years afterwards when +these same boys were fighting and falling on all the battle-fields of +Virginia and Maryland, he wondered whether their education on Boston +Common had taught Savage and Marvin how to die. + + If violence were a part of complete education, Boston was not +incomplete. The idea of violence was familiar to the anti-slavery +leaders as well as to their followers. Most of them suffered from it. +Mobs were always possible. Henry never happened to be actually +concerned in a mob, but he, like every other boy, was sure to be on +hand wherever a mob was expected, and whenever he heard Garrison or +Wendell Phillips speak, he looked for trouble. Wendell Phillips on a +platform was a model dangerous for youth. Theodore Parker in his pulpit +was not much safer. Worst of all, the execution of the Fugitive Slave +Law in Boston--the sight of Court Square packed with bayonets, and his +own friends obliged to line the streets under arms as State militia, in +order to return a negro to slavery--wrought frenzy in the brain of a +fifteen-year-old, eighteenth-century boy from Quincy, who wanted to +miss no reasonable chance of mischief. + + One lived in the atmosphere of the Stamp Act, the Tea Tax, and +the Boston Massacre. Within Boston, a boy was first an +eighteenth-century politician, and afterwards only a possibility; +beyond Boston the first step led only further into politics. After +February, 1848, but one slight tie remained of all those that, since +1776, had connected Quincy with the outer world. The Madam stayed in +Washington, after her husband's death, and in her turn was struck by +paralysis and bedridden. From time to time her son Charles, whose +affection and sympathy for his mother in her many tribulations were +always pronounced, went on to see her, and in May, 1850, he took with +him his twelve-year-old son. The journey was meant as education, and as +education it served the purpose of fixing in memory the stage of a +boy's thought in 1850. He could not remember taking special interest in +the railroad journey or in New York; with railways and cities he was +familiar enough. His first impression was the novelty of crossing New +York Bay and finding an English railway carriage on the Camden and +Amboy Railroad. This was a new world; a suggestion of corruption in the +simple habits of American life; a step to exclusiveness never +approached in Boston; but it was amusing. The boy rather liked it. At +Trenton the train set him on board a steamer which took him to +Philadelphia where he smelt other varieties of town life; then again by +boat to Chester, and by train to Havre de Grace; by boat to Baltimore +and thence by rail to Washington. This was the journey he remembered. +The actual journey may have been quite different, but the actual +journey has no interest for education. The memory was all that +mattered; and what struck him most, to remain fresh in his mind all his +lifetime, was the sudden change that came over the world on entering a +slave State. He took education politically. The mere raggedness of +outline could not have seemed wholly new, for even Boston had its +ragged edges, and the town of Quincy was far from being a vision of +neatness or good-repair; in truth, he had never seen a finished +landscape; but Maryland was raggedness of a new kind. The railway, +about the size and character of a modern tram, rambled through unfenced +fields and woods, or through village streets, among a haphazard variety +of pigs, cows, and negro babies, who might all have used the cabins for +pens and styes, had the Southern pig required styes, but who never +showed a sign of care. This was the boy's impression of what slavery +caused, and, for him, was all it taught. Coming down in the early +morning from his bedroom in his grandmother's house--still called the +Adams Building in--F Street and venturing outside into the air reeking +with the thick odor of the catalpa trees, he found himself on an +earth-road, or village street, with wheel-tracks meandering from the +colonnade of the Treasury hard by, to the white marble columns and +fronts of the Post Office and Patent Office which faced each other in +the distance, like white Greek temples in the abandoned gravel-pits of +a deserted Syrian city. Here and there low wooden houses were scattered +along the streets, as in other Southern villages, but he was chiefly +attracted by an unfinished square marble shaft, half-a-mile below, and +he walked down to inspect it before breakfast. His aunt drily remarked +that, at this rate, he would soon get through all the sights; but she +could not guess--having lived always in Washington--how little the +sights of Washington had to do with its interest. + + The boy could not have told her; he was nowhere near an +understanding of himself. The more he was educated, the less he +understood. Slavery struck him in the face; it was a nightmare; a +horror; a crime; the sum of all wickedness! Contact made it only more +repulsive. He wanted to escape, like the negroes, to free soil. Slave +States were dirty, unkempt, poverty-stricken, ignorant, vicious! He had +not a thought but repulsion for it; and yet the picture had another +side. The May sunshine and shadow had something to do with it; the +thickness of foliage and the heavy smells had more; the sense of +atmosphere, almost new, had perhaps as much again; and the brooding +indolence of a warm climate and a negro population hung in the +atmosphere heavier than the catalpas. The impression was not simple, +but the boy liked it: distinctly it remained on his mind as an +attraction, almost obscuring Quincy itself. The want of barriers, of +pavements, of forms; the looseness, the laziness; the indolent Southern +drawl; the pigs in the streets; the negro babies and their mothers with +bandanas; the freedom, openness, swagger, of nature and man, soothed +his Johnson blood. Most boys would have felt it in the same way, but +with him the feeling caught on to an inheritance. The softness of his +gentle old grandmother as she lay in bed and chatted with him, did not +come from Boston. His aunt was anything rather than Bostonian. He did +not wholly come from Boston himself. Though Washington belonged to a +different world, and the two worlds could not live together, he was not +sure that he enjoyed the Boston world most. Even at twelve years old he +could see his own nature no more clearly than he would at twelve +hundred, if by accident he should happen to live so long. + + His father took him to the Capitol and on the floor of the +Senate, which then, and long afterwards, until the era of tourists, was +freely open to visitors. The old Senate Chamber resembled a pleasant +political club. Standing behind the Vice-President's chair, which is +now the Chief Justice's, the boy was presented to some of the men whose +names were great in their day, and as familiar to him as his own. Clay +and Webster and Calhoun were there still, but with them a Free Soil +candidate for the Vice-Presidency had little to do; what struck boys +most was their type. Senators were a species; they all wore an air, as +they wore a blue dress coat or brass buttons; they were Roman. The type +of Senator in 1850 was rather charming at its best, and the Senate, +when in good temper, was an agreeable body, numbering only some sixty +members, and affecting the airs of courtesy. Its vice was not so much a +vice of manners or temper as of attitude. The statesman of all periods +was apt to be pompous, but even pomposity was less offensive than +familiarity--on the platform as in the pulpit--and Southern pomposity, +when not arrogant, was genial and sympathetic, almost quaint and +childlike in its simple-mindedness; quite a different thing from the +Websterian or Conklinian pomposity of the North. The boy felt at ease +there, more at home than he had ever felt in Boston State House, though +his acquaintance with the codfish in the House of Representatives went +back beyond distinct recollection. Senators spoke kindly to him, and +seemed to feel so, for they had known his family socially; and, in +spite of slavery, even J. Q. Adams in his later years, after he ceased +to stand in the way of rivals, had few personal enemies. Decidedly the +Senate, pro-slavery though it were, seemed a friendly world. + + This first step in national politics was a little like the walk +before breakfast; an easy, careless, genial, enlarging stride into a +fresh and amusing world, where nothing was finished, but where even the +weeds grew rank. The second step was like the first, except that it led +to the White House. He was taken to see President Taylor. Outside, in a +paddock in front, "Old Whitey," the President's charger, was grazing, +as they entered; and inside, the President was receiving callers as +simply as if he were in the paddock too. The President was friendly, +and the boy felt no sense of strangeness that he could ever recall. In +fact, what strangeness should he feel? The families were intimate; so +intimate that their friendliness outlived generations, civil war, and +all sorts of rupture. President Taylor owed his election to Martin Van +Buren and the Free Soil Party. To him, the Adamses might still be of +use. As for the White House, all the boy's family had lived there, and, +barring the eight years of Andrew Jackson's reign, had been more or +less at home there ever since it was built. The boy half thought he +owned it, and took for granted that he should some day live in it. He +felt no sensation whatever before Presidents. A President was a matter +of course in every respectable family; he had two in his own; three, if +he counted old Nathaniel Gorham, who, was the oldest and first in +distinction. Revolutionary patriots, or perhaps a Colonial Governor, +might be worth talking about, but any one could be President, and some +very shady characters were likely to be. Presidents, Senators, +Congressmen, and such things were swarming in every street. + + Every one thought alike whether they had ancestors or not. No +sort of glory hedged Presidents as such, and, in the whole country, one +could hardly have met with an admission of respect for any office or +name, unless it were George Washington. That was--to all appearance +sincerely--respected. People made pilgrimages to Mount Vernon and made +even an effort to build Washington a monument. The effort had failed, +but one still went to Mount Vernon, although it was no easy trip. Mr. +Adams took the boy there in a carriage and pair, over a road that gave +him a complete Virginia education for use ten years afterwards. To the +New England mind, roads, schools, clothes, and a clean face were +connected as part of the law of order or divine system. Bad roads meant +bad morals. The moral of this Virginia road was clear, and the boy +fully learned it. Slavery was wicked, and slavery was the cause of this +road's badness which amounted to social crime--and yet, at the end of +the road and product of the crime stood Mount Vernon and George +Washington. + + Luckily boys accept contradictions as readily as their elders +do, or this boy might have become prematurely wise. He had only to +repeat what he was told--that George Washington stood alone. Otherwise +this third step in his Washington education would have been his last. +On that line, the problem of progress was not soluble, whatever the +optimists and orators might say--or, for that matter, whatever they +might think. George Washington could not be reached on Boston lines. +George Washington was a primary, or, if Virginians liked it better, an +ultimate relation, like the Pole Star, and amid the endless restless +motion of every other visible point in space, he alone remained steady, +in the mind of Henry Adams, to the end. All the other points shifted +their bearings; John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, even John +Marshall, took varied lights, and assumed new relations, but Mount +Vernon always remained where it was, with no practicable road to reach +it; and yet, when he got there, Mount Vernon was only Quincy in a +Southern setting. No doubt it was much more charming, but it was the +same eighteenth-century, the same old furniture, the same old patriot, +and the same old President. + + The boy took to it instinctively. The broad Potomac and the +coons in the trees, the bandanas and the box-hedges, the bedrooms +upstairs and the porch outside, even Martha Washington herself in +memory, were as natural as the tides and the May sunshine; he had only +enlarged his horizon a little; but he never thought to ask himself or +his father how to deal with the moral problem that deduced George +Washington from the sum of all wickedness. In practice, such trifles as +contradictions in principle are easily set aside; the faculty of +ignoring them makes the practical man; but any attempt to deal with +them seriously as education is fatal. Luckily Charles Francis Adams +never preached and was singularly free from cant. He may have had views +of his own, but he let his son Henry satisfy himself with the simple +elementary fact that George Washington stood alone. + + Life was not yet complicated. Every problem had a solution, +even the negro. The boy went back to Boston more political than ever, +and his politics were no longer so modern as the eighteenth century, +but took a strong tone of the seventeenth. Slavery drove the whole +Puritan community back on its Puritanism. The boy thought as +dogmatically as though he were one of his own ancestors. The Slave +power took the place of Stuart kings and Roman popes. Education could +go no further in that course, and ran off into emotion; but, as the boy +gradually found his surroundings change, and felt himself no longer an +isolated atom in a hostile universe, but a sort of herring-fry in a +shoal of moving fish, he began to learn the first and easier lessons of +practical politics. Thus far he had seen nothing but eighteenth-century +statesmanship. America and he began, at the same time, to become aware +of a new force under the innocent surface of party machinery. Even at +that early moment, a rather slow boy felt dimly conscious that he might +meet some personal difficulties in trying to reconcile +sixteenth-century principles and eighteenth-century statesmanship with +late nineteenth-century party organization. The first vague sense of +feeling an unknown living obstacle in the dark came in 185l. + + The Free Soil conclave in Mount Vernon Street belonged, as +already said, to the statesman class, and, like Daniel Webster, had +nothing to do with machinery. Websters or Sewards depended on others +for machine work and money--on Peter Harveys and Thurlow Weeds, who +spent their lives in it, took most of the abuse, and asked no reward. +Almost without knowing it, the subordinates ousted their employers and +created a machine which no one but themselves could run. In 1850 things +had not quite reached that point. The men who ran the small Free Soil +machine were still modest, though they became famous enough in their +own right. Henry Wilson, John B. Alley, Anson Burlingame, and the other +managers, negotiated a bargain with the Massachusetts Democrats giving +the State to the Democrats and a seat in the Senate to the Free +Soilers. With this bargain Mr. Adams and his statesman friends would +have nothing to do, for such a coalition was in their eyes much like +jockeys selling a race. They did not care to take office as pay for +votes sold to pro-slavery Democrats. Theirs was a correct, not to say +noble, position; but, as a matter of fact, they took the benefit of the +sale, for the coalition chose Charles Sumner as its candidate for the +Senate, while George S. Boutwell was made Governor for the Democrats. +This was the boy's first lesson in practical politics, and a sharp one; +not that he troubled himself with moral doubts, but that he learned the +nature of a flagrantly corrupt political bargain in which he was too +good to take part, but not too good to take profit. Charles Sumner +happened to be the partner to receive these stolen goods, but between +his friend and his father the boy felt no distinction, and, for him, +there was none. He entered into no casuistry on the matter. His friend +was right because his friend, and the boy shared the glory. The +question of education did not rise while the conflict lasted. Yet every +one saw as clearly then as afterwards that a lesson of some sort must +be learned and understood, once for all. The boy might ignore, as a +mere historical puzzle, the question how to deduce George Washington +from the sum of all wickedness, but he had himself helped to deduce +Charles Sumner from the sum of political corruption. On that line, too, +education could go no further. Tammany Hall stood at the end of the +vista. + + Mr. Alley, one of the strictest of moralists, held that his +object in making the bargain was to convert the Democratic Party to +anti-slavery principles, and that he did it. Henry Adams could rise to +no such moral elevation. He was only a boy, and his object in +supporting the coalition was that of making his friend a Senator. It +was as personal as though he had helped to make his friend a +millionaire. He could never find a way of escaping immoral conclusions, +except by admitting that he and his father and Sumner were wrong, and +this he was never willing to do, for the consequences of this admission +were worse than those of the other. Thus, before he was fifteen years +old, he had managed to get himself into a state of moral confusion from +which he never escaped. As a politician, he was already corrupt, and he +never could see how any practical politician could be less corrupt than +himself. + + Apology, as he understood himself, was cant or cowardice. At +the time he never even dreamed that he needed to apologize, though the +press shouted it at him from every corner, and though the Mount Vernon +Street conclave agreed with the press; yet he could not plead +ignorance, and even in the heat of the conflict, he never cared to +defend the coalition. Boy as he was, he knew enough to know that +something was wrong, but his only interest was the election. Day after +day, the General Court balloted; and the boy haunted the gallery, +following the roll-call, and wondered what Caleb Cushing meant by +calling Mr. Sumner a "one-eyed abolitionist." Truly the difference in +meaning with the phrase "one-ideaed abolitionist," which was Mr. +Cushing's actual expression, is not very great, but neither the one nor +the other seemed to describe Mr. Sumner to the boy, who never could +have made the error of classing Garrison and Sumner together, or +mistaking Caleb Cushing's relation to either. Temper ran high at that +moment, while Sumner every day missed his election by only one or two +votes. At last, April 24, 1851, standing among the silent crowd in the +gallery, Henry heard the vote announced which gave Sumner the needed +number. Slipping under the arms of the bystanders, he ran home as hard +as he could, and burst into the dining-room where Mr. Sumner was seated +at table with the family. He enjoyed the glory of telling Sumner that +he was elected; it was probably the proudest moment in the life of +either. + + The next day, when the boy went to school, he noticed numbers +of boys and men in the streets wearing black crepe on their arm. He +knew few Free Soil boys in Boston; his acquaintances were what he +called pro-slavery; so he thought proper to tie a bit of white silk +ribbon round his own arm by way of showing that his friend Mr. Sumner +was not wholly alone. This little piece of bravado passed unnoticed; no +one even cuffed his ears; but in later life he was a little puzzled to +decide which symbol was the more correct. No one then dreamed of four +years' war, but every one dreamed of secession. The symbol for either +might well be matter of doubt. + + This triumph of the Mount Vernon Street conclave capped the +political climax. The boy, like a million other American boys, was a +politician, and what was worse, fit as yet to be nothing else. He +should have been, like his grandfather, a protege of George Washington, +a statesman designated by destiny, with nothing to do but look directly +ahead, follow orders, and march. On the contrary, he was not even a +Bostonian; he felt himself shut out of Boston as though he were an +exile; he never thought of himself as a Bostonian; he never looked +about him in Boston, as boys commonly do wherever they are, to select +the street they like best, the house they want to live in, the +profession they mean to practise. Always he felt himself somewhere +else; perhaps in Washington with its social ease; perhaps in Europe; +and he watched with vague unrest from the Quincy hills the smoke of the +Cunard steamers stretching in a long line to the horizon, and +disappearing every other Saturday or whatever the day might be, as +though the steamers were offering to take him away, which was precisely +what they were doing. + + Had these ideas been unreasonable, influences enough were at +hand to correct them; but the point of the whole story, when Henry +Adams came to look back on it, seemed to be that the ideas were more +than reasonable; they were the logical, necessary, mathematical result +of conditions old as history and fixed as fate--invariable sequence in +man's experience. The only idea which would have been quite +unreasonable scarcely entered his mind. This was the thought of going +westward and growing up with the country. That he was not in the least +fitted for going West made no objection whatever, since he was much +better fitted than most of the persons that went. The convincing reason +for staying in the East was that he had there every advantage over the +West. He could not go wrong. The West must inevitably pay an enormous +tribute to Boston and New York. One's position in the East was the best +in the world for every purpose that could offer an object for going +westward. If ever in history men had been able to calculate on a +certainty for a lifetime in advance, the citizens of the great Eastern +seaports could do it in 1850 when their railway systems were already +laid out. Neither to a politician nor to a business-man nor to any of +the learned professions did the West promise any certain advantage, +while it offered uncertainties in plenty. + + At any other moment in human history, this education, including +its political and literary bias, would have been not only good, but +quite the best. Society had always welcomed and flattered men so +endowed. Henry Adams had every reason to be well pleased with it, and +not ill-pleased with himself. He had all he wanted. He saw no reason +for thinking that any one else had more. He finished with school, not +very brilliantly, but without finding fault with the sum of his +knowledge. Probably he knew more than his father, or his grandfather, +or his great-grandfather had known at sixteen years old. Only on +looking back, fifty years later, at his own figure in 1854, and +pondering on the needs of the twentieth century, he wondered whether, +on the whole the boy of 1854 stood nearer to the thought of 1904, or to +that of the year 1. He found himself unable to give a sure answer. The +calculation was clouded by the undetermined values of twentieth-century +thought, but the story will show his reasons for thinking that, in +essentials like religion, ethics, philosophy; in history, literature, +art; in the concepts of all science, except perhaps mathematics, the +American boy of 1854 stood nearer the year 1 than to the year 1900. The +education he had received bore little relation to the education he +needed. Speaking as an American of 1900, he had as yet no education at +all. He knew not even where or how to begin. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +HARVARD COLLEGE (1854-1858) + + ONE day in June, 1854, young Adams walked for the last time +down the steps of Mr. Dixwell's school in Boylston Place, and felt no +sensation but one of unqualified joy that this experience was ended. +Never before or afterwards in his life did he close a period so long as +four years without some sensation of loss--some sentiment of habit--but +school was what in after life he commonly heard his friends denounce as +an intolerable bore. He was born too old for it. The same thing could +be said of most New England boys. Mentally they never were boys. Their +education as men should have begun at ten years old. They were fully +five years more mature than the English or European boy for whom +schools were made. For the purposes of future advancement, as +afterwards appeared, these first six years of a possible education were +wasted in doing imperfectly what might have been done perfectly in one, +and in any case would have had small value. The next regular step was +Harvard College. He was more than glad to go. For generation after +generation, Adamses and Brookses and Boylstons and Gorhams had gone to +Harvard College, and although none of them, as far as known, had ever +done any good there, or thought himself the better for it, custom, +social ties, convenience, and, above all, economy, kept each generation +in the track. Any other education would have required a serious effort, +but no one took Harvard College seriously. All went there because their +friends went there, and the College was their ideal of social +self-respect. + + Harvard College, as far as it educated at all, was a mild and +liberal school, which sent young men into the world with all they +needed to make respectable citizens, and something of what they wanted +to make useful ones. Leaders of men it never tried to make. Its ideals +were altogether different. The Unitarian clergy had given to the +College a character of moderation, balance, judgment, restraint, what +the French called mesure; excellent traits, which the College attained +with singular success, so that its graduates could commonly be +recognized by the stamp, but such a type of character rarely lent +itself to autobiography. In effect, the school created a type but not a +will. Four years of Harvard College, if successful, resulted in an +autobiographical blank, a mind on which only a water-mark had been +stamped. + + The stamp, as such things went, was a good one. The chief +wonder of education is that it does not ruin everybody concerned in it, +teachers and taught. Sometimes in after life, Adams debated whether in +fact it had not ruined him and most of his companions, but, +disappointment apart, Harvard College was probably less hurtful than +any other university then in existence. It taught little, and that +little ill, but it left the mind open, free from bias, ignorant of +facts, but docile. The graduate had few strong prejudices. He knew +little, but his mind remained supple, ready to receive knowledge. + + What caused the boy most disappointment was the little he got +from his mates. Speaking exactly, he got less than nothing, a result +common enough in education. Yet the College Catalogue for the years +1854 to 1861 shows a list of names rather distinguished in their time. +Alexander Agassiz and Phillips Brooks led it; H. H. Richardson and O. +W. Holmes helped to close it. As a rule the most promising of all die +early, and never get their names into a Dictionary of Contemporaries, +which seems to be the only popular standard of success. Many died in +the war. Adams knew them all, more or less; he felt as much regard, and +quite as much respect for them then, as he did after they won great +names and were objects of a vastly wider respect; but, as help towards +education, he got nothing whatever from them or they from him until +long after they had left college. Possibly the fault was his, but one +would like to know how many others shared it. Accident counts for much +in companionship as in marriage. Life offers perhaps only a score of +possible companions, and it is mere chance whether they meet as early +as school or college, but it is more than a chance that boys brought up +together under like conditions have nothing to give each other. The +Class of 1858, to which Henry Adams belonged, was a typical collection +of young New Englanders, quietly penetrating and aggressively +commonplace; free from meannesses, jealousies, intrigues, enthusiasms, +and passions; not exceptionally quick; not consciously skeptical; +singularly indifferent to display, artifice, florid expression, but not +hostile to it when it amused them; distrustful of themselves, but +little disposed to trust any one else; with not much humor of their +own, but full of readiness to enjoy the humor of others; negative to a +degree that in the long run became positive and triumphant. Not harsh +in manners or judgment, rather liberal and open-minded, they were still +as a body the most formidable critics one would care to meet, in a long +life exposed to criticism. They never flattered, seldom praised; free +from vanity, they were not intolerant of it; but they were +objectiveness itself; their attitude was a law of nature; their +judgment beyond appeal, not an act either of intellect or emotion or of +will, but a sort of gravitation. + + This was Harvard College incarnate, but even for Harvard +College, the Class of 1858 was somewhat extreme. Of unity this band of +nearly one hundred young men had no keen sense, but they had equally +little energy of repulsion. They were pleasant to live with, and above +the average of students--German, French, English, or what not--but +chiefly because each individual appeared satisfied to stand alone. It +seemed a sign of force; yet to stand alone is quite natural when one +has no passions; still easier when one has no pains. + + Into this unusually dissolvent medium, chance insisted on +enlarging Henry Adams's education by tossing a trio of Virginians as +little fitted for it as Sioux Indians to a treadmill. By some further +affinity, these three outsiders fell into relation with the Bostonians +among whom Adams as a schoolboy belonged, and in the end with Adams +himself, although they and he knew well how thin an edge of friendship +separated them in 1856 from mortal enmity. One of the Virginians was +the son of Colonel Robert E. Lee, of the Second United States Cavalry; +the two others who seemed instinctively to form a staff for Lee, were +town-Virginians from Petersburg. A fourth outsider came from Cincinnati +and was half Kentuckian, N. L. Anderson, Longworth on the mother's +side. For the first time Adams's education brought him in contact with +new types and taught him their values. He saw the New England type +measure itself with another, and he was part of the process. + + Lee, known through life as "Roony," was a Virginian of the +eighteenth century, much as Henry Adams was a Bostonian of the same +age. Roony Lee had changed little from the type of his grandfather, +Light Horse Harry. Tall, largely built, handsome, genial, with liberal +Virginian openness towards all he liked, he had also the Virginian +habit of command and took leadership as his natural habit. No one cared +to contest it. None of the New Englanders wanted command. For a year, +at least, Lee was the most popular and prominent young man in his +class, but then seemed slowly to drop into the background. The habit of +command was not enough, and the Virginian had little else. He was +simple beyond analysis; so simple that even the simple New England +student could not realize him. No one knew enough to know how ignorant +he was; how childlike; how helpless before the relative complexity of a +school. As an animal, the Southerner seemed to have every advantage, +but even as an animal he steadily lost ground. + + The lesson in education was vital to these young men, who, +within ten years, killed each other by scores in the act of testing +their college conclusions. Strictly, the Southerner had no mind; he had +temperament. He was not a scholar; he had no intellectual training; he +could not analyze an idea, and he could not even conceive of admitting +two; but in life one could get along very well without ideas, if one +had only the social instinct. Dozens of eminent statesmen were men of +Lee's type, and maintained themselves well enough in the legislature, +but college was a sharper test. The Virginian was weak in vice itself, +though the Bostonian was hardly a master of crime. The habits of +neither were good; both were apt to drink hard and to live low lives; +but the Bostonian suffered less than the Virginian. Commonly the +Bostonian could take some care of himself even in his worst stages, +while the Virginian became quarrelsome and dangerous. When a Virginian +had brooded a few days over an imaginary grief and substantial whiskey, +none of his Northern friends could be sure that he might not be +waiting, round the corner, with a knife or pistol, to revenge insult by +the dry light of delirium tremens; and when things reached this +condition, Lee had to exhaust his authority over his own staff. Lee was +a gentleman of the old school, and, as every one knows, gentlemen of +the old school drank almost as much as gentlemen of the new school; but +this was not his trouble. He was sober even in the excessive violence +of political feeling in those years; he kept his temper and his friends +under control. + + Adams liked the Virginians. No one was more obnoxious to them, +by name and prejudice; yet their friendship was unbroken and even warm. +At a moment when the immediate future posed no problem in education so +vital as the relative energy and endurance of North and South, this +momentary contact with Southern character was a sort of education for +its own sake; but this was not all. No doubt the self-esteem of the +Yankee, which tended naturally to self-distrust, was flattered by +gaining the slow conviction that the Southerner, with his slave-owning +limitations, was as little fit to succeed in the struggle of modern +life as though he were still a maker of stone axes, living in caves, +and hunting the bos primigenius, and that every quality in which he was +strong, made him weaker; but Adams had begun to fear that even in this +respect one eighteenth-century type might not differ deeply from +another. Roony Lee had changed little from the Virginian of a century +before; but Adams was himself a good deal nearer the type of his +great-grandfather than to that of a railway superintendent. He was +little more fit than the Virginians to deal with a future America which +showed no fancy for the past. Already Northern society betrayed a +preference for economists over diplomats or soldiers--one might even +call it a jealousy--against which two eighteenth-century types had +little chance to live, and which they had in common to fear. + + Nothing short of this curious sympathy could have brought into +close relations two young men so hostile as Roony Lee and Henry Adams, +but the chief difference between them as collegians consisted only in +their difference of scholarship: Lee was a total failure; Adams a +partial one. Both failed, but Lee felt his failure more sensibly, so +that he gladly seized the chance of escape by accepting a commission +offered him by General Winfield Scott in the force then being organized +against the Mormons. He asked Adams to write his letter of acceptance, +which flattered Adams's vanity more than any Northern compliment could +do, because, in days of violent political bitterness, it showed a +certain amount of good temper. The diplomat felt his profession. + + If the student got little from his mates, he got little more +from his masters. The four years passed at college were, for his +purposes, wasted. Harvard College was a good school, but at bottom what +the boy disliked most was any school at all. He did not want to be one +in a hundred--one per cent of an education. He regarded himself as the +only person for whom his education had value, and he wanted the whole +of it. He got barely half of an average. Long afterwards, when the +devious path of life led him back to teach in his turn what no student +naturally cared or needed to know, he diverted some dreary hours of +faculty-meetings by looking up his record in the class-lists, and found +himself graded precisely in the middle. In the one branch he most +needed--mathematics--barring the few first scholars, failure was so +nearly universal that no attempt at grading could have had value, and +whether he stood fortieth or ninetieth must have been an accident or +the personal favor of the professor. Here his education failed +lamentably. At best he could never have been a mathematician; at worst +he would never have cared to be one; but he needed to read mathematics, +like any other universal language, and he never reached the alphabet. + + Beyond two or three Greek plays, the student got nothing from +the ancient languages. Beyond some incoherent theories of free-trade +and protection, he got little from Political Economy. He could not +afterwards remember to have heard the name of Karl Marx mentioned, or +the title of "Capital." He was equally ignorant of Auguste Comte. These +were the two writers of his time who most influenced its thought. The +bit of practical teaching he afterwards reviewed with most curiosity +was the course in Chemistry, which taught him a number of theories that +befogged his mind for a lifetime. The only teaching that appealed to +his imagination was a course of lectures by Louis Agassiz on the +Glacial Period and Paleontology, which had more influence on his +curiosity than the rest of the college instruction altogether. The +entire work of the four years could have been easily put into the work +of any four months in after life. + + Harvard College was a negative force, and negative forces have +value. Slowly it weakened the violent political bias of childhood, not +by putting interests in its place, but by mental habits which had no +bias at all. It would also have weakened the literary bias, if Adams +had been capable of finding other amusement, but the climate kept him +steady to desultory and useless reading, till he had run through +libraries of volumes which he forgot even to their title-pages. Rather +by instinct than by guidance, he turned to writing, and his professors +or tutors occasionally gave his English composition a hesitating +approval; but in that branch, as in all the rest, even when he made a +long struggle for recognition, he never convinced his teachers that his +abilities, at their best, warranted placing him on the rank-list, among +the first third of his class. Instructors generally reach a fairly +accurate gauge of their scholars' powers. Henry Adams himself held the +opinion that his instructors were very nearly right, and when he became +a professor in his turn, and made mortifying mistakes in ranking his +scholars, he still obstinately insisted that on the whole, he was not +far wrong. Student or professor, he accepted the negative standard +because it was the standard of the school. + + He never knew what other students thought of it, or what they +thought they gained from it; nor would their opinion have much affected +his. From the first, he wanted to be done with it, and stood watching +vaguely for a path and a direction. The world outside seemed large, but +the paths that led into it were not many and lay mostly through Boston, +where he did not want to go. As it happened, by pure chance, the first +door of escape that seemed to offer a hope led into Germany, and James +Russell Lowell opened it. + + Lowell, on succeeding Longfellow as Professor of +Belles-Lettres, had duly gone to Germany, and had brought back whatever +he found to bring. The literary world then agreed that truth survived +in Germany alone, and Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, Renan, Emerson, with +scores of popular followers, taught the German faith. The literary +world had revolted against the yoke of coming capitalism--its +money-lenders, its bank directors, and its railway magnates. Thackeray +and Dickens followed Balzac in scratching and biting the unfortunate +middle class with savage ill-temper, much as the middle class had +scratched and bitten the Church and Court for a hundred years before. +The middle class had the power, and held its coal and iron well in +hand, but the satirists and idealists seized the press, and as they +were agreed that the Second Empire was a disgrace to France and a +danger to England, they turned to Germany because at that moment +Germany was neither economical nor military, and a hundred years behind +western Europe in the simplicity of its standard. German thought, +method, honesty, and even taste, became the standards of scholarship. +Goethe was raised to the rank of Shakespeare--Kant ranked as a +law-giver above Plato. All serious scholars were obliged to become +German, for German thought was revolutionizing criticism. Lowell had +followed the rest, not very enthusiastically, but with sufficient +conviction, and invited his scholars to join him. Adams was glad to +accept the invitation, rather for the sake of cultivating Lowell than +Germany, but still in perfect good faith. It was the first serious +attempt he had made to direct his own education, and he was sure of +getting some education out of it; not perhaps anything that he +expected, but at least a path. + + Singularly circuitous and excessively wasteful of energy the +path proved to be, but the student could never see what other was open +to him. He could have done no better had he foreseen every stage of his +coming life, and he would probably have done worse. The preliminary +step was pure gain. James Russell Lowell had brought back from Germany +the only new and valuable part of its universities, the habit of +allowing students to read with him privately in his study. Adams asked +the privilege, and used it to read a little, and to talk a great deal, +for the personal contact pleased and flattered him, as that of older +men ought to flatter and please the young even when they altogether +exaggerate its value. Lowell was a new element in the boy's life. As +practical a New Englander as any, he leaned towards the Concord faith +rather than towards Boston where he properly belonged; for Concord, in +the dark days of 1856, glowed with pure light. Adams approached it in +much the same spirit as he would have entered a Gothic Cathedral, for +he well knew that the priests regarded him as only a worm. To the +Concord Church all Adamses were minds of dust and emptiness, devoid of +feeling, poetry or imagination; little higher than the common scourings +of State Street; politicians of doubtful honesty; natures of narrow +scope; and already, at eighteen years old, Henry had begun to feel +uncertainty about so many matters more important than Adamses that his +mind rebelled against no discipline merely personal, and he was ready +to admit his unworthiness if only he might penetrate the shrine. The +influence of Harvard College was beginning to have its effect. He was +slipping away from fixed principles; from Mount Vernon Street; from +Quincy; from the eighteenth century; and his first steps led toward +Concord. + + He never reached Concord, and to Concord Church he, like the +rest of mankind who accepted a material universe, remained always an +insect, or something much lower--a man. It was surely no fault of his +that the universe seemed to him real; perhaps--as Mr. Emerson justly +said--it was so; in spite of the long-continued effort of a lifetime, +he perpetually fell back into the heresy that if anything universal was +unreal, it was himself and not the appearances; it was the poet and not +the banker; it was his own thought, not the thing that moved it. He did +not lack the wish to be transcendental. Concord seemed to him, at one +time, more real than Quincy; yet in truth Russell Lowell was as little +transcendental as Beacon Street. From him the boy got no revolutionary +thought whatever--objective or subjective as they used to call it--but +he got good-humored encouragement to do what amused him, which +consisted in passing two years in Europe after finishing the four years +of Cambridge. + + The result seemed small in proportion to the effort, but it was +the only positive result he could ever trace to the influence of +Harvard College, and he had grave doubts whether Harvard College +influenced even that. Negative results in plenty he could trace, but he +tended towards negation on his own account, as one side of the New +England mind had always done, and even there he could never feel sure +that Harvard College had more than reflected a weakness. In his opinion +the education was not serious, but in truth hardly any Boston student +took it seriously, and none of them seemed sure that President Walker +himself, or President Felton after him, took it more seriously than the +students. For them all, the college offered chiefly advantages vulgarly +called social, rather than mental. + + Unluckily for this particular boy, social advantages were his +only capital in life. Of money he had not much, of mind not more, but +he could be quite certain that, barring his own faults, his social +position would never be questioned. What he needed was a career in +which social position had value. Never in his life would he have to +explain who he was; never would he have need of acquaintance to +strengthen his social standing; but he needed greatly some one to show +him how to use the acquaintance he cared to make. He made no +acquaintance in college which proved to have the smallest use in after +life. All his Boston friends he knew before, or would have known in any +case, and contact of Bostonian with Bostonian was the last education +these young men needed. Cordial and intimate as their college relations +were, they all flew off in different directions the moment they took +their degrees. Harvard College remained a tie, indeed, but a tie little +stronger than Beacon Street and not so strong as State Street. +Strangers might perhaps gain something from the college if they were +hard pressed for social connections. A student like H. H. Richardson, +who came from far away New Orleans, and had his career before him to +chase rather than to guide, might make valuable friendships at college. +Certainly Adams made no acquaintance there that he valued in after life +so much as Richardson, but still more certainly the college relation +had little to do with the later friendship. Life is a narrow valley, +and the roads run close together. Adams would have attached himself to +Richardson in any case, as he attached himself to John LaFarge or +Augustus St. Gaudens or Clarence King or John Hay, none of whom were at +Harvard College. The valley of life grew more and more narrow with +years, and certain men with common tastes were bound to come together. +Adams knew only that he would have felt himself on a more equal footing +with them had he been less ignorant, and had he not thrown away ten +years of early life in acquiring what he might have acquired in one. + + Socially or intellectually, the college was for him negative +and in some ways mischievous. The most tolerant man of the world could +not see good in the lower habits of the students, but the vices were +less harmful than the virtues. The habit of drinking--though the mere +recollection of it made him doubt his own veracity, so fantastic it +seemed in later life--may have done no great or permanent harm; but the +habit of looking at life as a social relation--an affair of +society--did no good. It cultivated a weakness which needed no +cultivation. If it had helped to make men of the world, or give the +manners and instincts of any profession--such as temper, patience, +courtesy, or a faculty of profiting by the social defects of +opponents--it would have been education better worth having than +mathematics or languages; but so far as it helped to make anything, it +helped only to make the college standard permanent through life. The +Bostonian educated at Harvard College remained a collegian, if he stuck +only to what the college gave him. If parents went on generation after +generation, sending their children to Harvard College for the sake of +its social advantages, they perpetuated an inferior social type, quite +as ill-fitted as the Oxford type for success in the next generation. + + Luckily the old social standard of the college, as President +Walker or James Russell Lowell still showed it, was admirable, and if +it had little practical value or personal influence on the mass of +students, at least it preserved the tradition for those who liked it. +The Harvard graduate was neither American nor European, nor even wholly +Yankee; his admirers were few, and critics his many; perhaps his worst +weakness was his self-criticism and self-consciousness; but his ambitions, +social or intellectual, were necessarily cheap even though they might +be negative. Afraid of such serious risks, and still more afraid of +personal ridicule, he seldom made a great failure of life, and nearly +always led a life more or less worth living. So Henry Adams, well aware +that he could not succeed as a scholar, and finding his social position +beyond improvement or need of effort, betook himself to the single +ambition which otherwise would scarcely have seemed a true outcome of +the college, though it was the last remnant of the old Unitarian +supremacy. He took to the pen. He wrote. + + The College Magazine printed his work, and the College +Societies listened to his addresses. Lavish of praise the readers were +not; the audiences, too, listened in silence; but this was all the +encouragement any Harvard collegian had a reasonable hope to receive; +grave silence was a form of patience that meant possible future +acceptance; and Henry Adams went on writing. No one cared enough to +criticise, except himself who soon began to suffer from reaching his +own limits. He found that he could not be this--or that--or the other; +always precisely the things he wanted to be. He had not wit or scope or +force. Judges always ranked him beneath a rival, if he had any; and he +believed the judges were right. His work seemed to him thin, +commonplace, feeble. At times he felt his own weakness so fatally that +he could not go on; when he had nothing to say, he could not say it, +and he found that he had very little to say at best. Much that he then +wrote must be still in existence in print or manuscript, though he +never cared to see it again, for he felt no doubt that it was in +reality just what he thought it. At best it showed only a feeling for +form; an instinct of exclusion. Nothing shocked--not even its weakness. + + Inevitably an effort leads to an ambition--creates it--and +at that time the ambition of the literary student, which almost took +place of the regular prizes of scholarship, was that of being chosen as +the representative of his class--Class Orator--at the close of their +course. This was political as well as literary success, and precisely +the sort of eighteenth-century combination that fascinated an +eighteenth century boy. The idea lurked in his mind, at first as a +dream, in no way serious or even possible, for he stood outside the +number of what were known as popular men. Year by year, his position +seemed to improve, or perhaps his rivals disappeared, until at last, to +his own great astonishment, he found himself a candidate. The habits of +the college permitted no active candidacy; he and his rivals had not a +word to say for or against themselves, and he was never even consulted +on the subject; he was not present at any of the proceedings, and how +it happened he never could quite divine, but it did happen, that one +evening on returning from Boston he received notice of his election, +after a very close contest, as Class Orator over the head of the first +scholar, who was undoubtedly a better orator and a more popular man. In +politics the success of the poorer candidate is common enough, and +Henry Adams was a fairly trained politician, but he never understood +how he managed to defeat not only a more capable but a more popular +rival. + + To him the election seemed a miracle. This was no mock-modesty; +his head was as clear as ever it was in an indifferent canvass, and he +knew his rivals and their following as well as he knew himself. What he +did not know, even after four years of education, was Harvard College. +What he could never measure was the bewildering impersonality of the +men, who, at twenty years old, seemed to set no value either on +official or personal standards. Here were nearly a hundred young men +who had lived together intimately during four of the most +impressionable years of life, and who, not only once but again and +again, in different ways, deliberately, seriously, dispassionately, +chose as their representatives precisely those of their companions who +seemed least to represent them. As far as these Orators and Marshals +had any position at all in a collegiate sense, it was that of +indifference to the college. Henry Adams never professed the smallest +faith in universities of any kind, either as boy or man, nor had he the +faintest admiration for the university graduate, either in Europe or in +America; as a collegian he was only known apart from his fellows by his +habit of standing outside the college; and yet the singular fact +remained that this commonplace body of young men chose him repeatedly +to express his and their commonplaces. Secretly, of course, the +successful candidate flattered himself--and them--with the hope that +they might perhaps not be so commonplace as they thought themselves; +but this was only another proof that all were identical. They saw in +him a representative--the kind of representative they wanted--and he +saw in them the most formidable array of judges he could ever meet, +like so many mirrors of himself, an infinite reflection of his own +shortcomings. + + All the same, the choice was flattering; so flattering that it +actually shocked his vanity; and would have shocked it more, if +possible, had he known that it was to be the only flattery of the sort +he was ever to receive. The function of Class Day was, in the eyes of +nine-tenths of the students, altogether the most important of the +college, and the figure of the Orator was the most conspicuous in the +function. Unlike the Orators at regular Commencements, the Class Day +Orator stood alone, or had only the Poet for rival. Crowded into the +large church, the students, their families, friends, aunts, uncles and +chaperones, attended all the girls of sixteen or twenty who wanted to +show their summer dresses or fresh complexions, and there, for an hour +or two, in a heat that might have melted bronze, they listened to an +Orator and a Poet in clergyman's gowns, reciting such platitudes as +their own experience and their mild censors permitted them to utter. +What Henry Adams said in his Class Oration of 1858 he soon forgot to +the last word, nor had it the least value for education; but he +naturally remembered what was said of it. He remembered especially one +of his eminent uncles or relations remarking that, as the work of so +young a man, the oration was singularly wanting in enthusiasm. The +young man--always in search of education--asked himself whether, +setting rhetoric aside, this absence of enthusiasm was a defect or a +merit, since, in either case, it was all that Harvard College taught, +and all that the hundred young men, whom he was trying to represent, +expressed. Another comment threw more light on the effect of the +college education. One of the elderly gentlemen noticed the orator's +"perfect self-possession." Self-possession indeed! If Harvard College +gave nothing else, it gave calm. For four years each student had been +obliged to figure daily before dozens of young men who knew each other +to the last fibre. One had done little but read papers to Societies, or +act comedy in the Hasty Pudding, not to speak of regular exercises, and +no audience in future life would ever be so intimately and terribly +intelligent as these. Three-fourths of the graduates would rather have +addressed the Council of Trent or the British Parliament than have +acted Sir Anthony Absolute or Dr. Ollapod before a gala audience of the +Hasty Pudding. Self-possession was the strongest part of Harvard +College, which certainly taught men to stand alone, so that nothing +seemed stranger to its graduates than the paroxysms of terror before +the public which often overcame the graduates of European universities. +Whether this was, or was not, education, Henry Adams never knew. He was +ready to stand up before any audience in America or Europe, with nerves +rather steadier for the excitement, but whether he should ever have +anything to say, remained to be proved. As yet he knew nothing. +Education had not begun. + + + +CHAPTER V + +BERLIN (1858-1859) + + A FOURTH child has the strength of his weakness. Being of no +great value, he may throw himself away if he likes, and never be +missed. Charles Francis Adams, the father, felt no love for Europe, +which, as he and all the world agreed, unfitted Americans for America. +A captious critic might have replied that all the success he or his +father or his grandfather achieved was chiefly due to the field that +Europe gave them, and it was more than likely that without the help of +Europe they would have all remained local politicians or lawyers, like +their neighbors, to the end. Strictly followed, the rule would have +obliged them never to quit Quincy; and, in fact, so much more timid are +parents for their children than for themselves, that Mr. and Mrs. Adams +would have been content to see their children remain forever in Mount +Vernon Street, unexposed to the temptations of Europe, could they have +relied on the moral influences of Boston itself. Although the parents +little knew what took place under their eyes, even the mothers saw +enough to make them uneasy. Perhaps their dread of vice, haunting past +and present, worried them less than their dread of daughters-in-law or +sons-in-law who might not fit into the somewhat narrow quarters of +home. On all sides were risks. Every year some young person alarmed the +parental heart even in Boston, and although the temptations of Europe +were irresistible, removal from the temptations of Boston might be +imperative. The boy Henry wanted to go to Europe; he seemed well +behaved, when any one was looking at him; he observed conventions, when +he could not escape them; he was never quarrelsome, towards a superior; +his morals were apparently good, and his moral principles, if he had +any, were not known to be bad. Above all, he was timid and showed a +certain sense of self-respect, when in public view. What he was at +heart, no one could say; least of all himself; but he was probably +human, and no worse than some others. Therefore, when he presented to +an exceedingly indulgent father and mother his request to begin at a +German university the study of the Civil Law--although neither he nor +they knew what the Civil Law was, or any reason for his studying +it--the parents dutifully consented, and walked with him down to the +railway-station at Quincy to bid him good-bye, with a smile which he +almost thought a tear. + + Whether the boy deserved such indulgence, or was worth it, he +knew no more than they, or than a professor at Harvard College; but +whether worthy or not, he began his third or fourth attempt at +education in November, 1858, by sailing on the steamer Persia, the +pride of Captain Judkins and the Cunard Line; the newest, largest and +fastest steamship afloat. He was not alone. Several of his college +companions sailed with him, and the world looked cheerful enough until, +on the third day, the world--as far as concerned the young man--ran +into a heavy storm. He learned then a lesson that stood by him better +than any university teaching ever did--the meaning of a November gale +on the mid-Atlantic--which, for mere physical misery, passed endurance. +The subject offered him material for none but serious treatment; he +could never see the humor of sea-sickness; but it united itself with a +great variety of other impressions which made the first month of travel +altogether the rapidest school of education he had yet found. The +stride in knowledge seemed gigantic. One began at last to see that a great +many impressions were needed to make very little education, but how +many could be crowded into one day without making any education at all, +became the pons asinorum of tourist mathematics. How many would turn +out to be wrong whether any could turn out right, was ultimate wisdom. + + The ocean, the Persia, Captain Judkins, and Mr. G. P. R. James, +the most distinguished passenger, vanished one Sunday morning in a +furious gale in the Mersey, to make place for the drearier picture of a +Liverpool street as seen from the Adelphi coffee-room in November murk, +followed instantly by the passionate delights of Chester and the +romance of red-sandstone architecture. Millions of Americans have felt +this succession of emotions. Possibly very young and ingenuous tourists +feel them still, but in days before tourists, when the romance was a +reality, not a picture, they were overwhelming. When the boys went out +to Eaton Hall, they were awed, as Thackeray or Dickens would have felt +in the presence of a Duke. The very name of Grosvenor struck a note of +grandeur. The long suite of lofty, gilded rooms with their gilded +furniture; the portraits; the terraces; the gardens, the landscape; the +sense of superiority in the England of the fifties, actually set the +rich nobleman apart, above Americans and shopkeepers. Aristocracy was +real. So was the England of Dickens. Oliver Twist and Little Nell +lurked in every churchyard shadow, not as shadow but alive. Even +Charles the First was not very shadowy, standing on the tower to see +his army defeated. Nothing thereabouts had very much changed since he +lost his battle and his head. An eighteenth-century American boy fresh +from Boston naturally took it all for education, and was amused at this +sort of lesson. At least he thought he felt it. + + Then came the journey up to London through Birmingham and the +Black District, another lesson, which needed much more to be rightly +felt. The plunge into darkness lurid with flames; the sense of unknown +horror in this weird gloom which then existed nowhere else, and never +had existed before, except in volcanic craters; the violent contrast +between this dense, smoky, impenetrable darkness, and the soft green +charm that one glided into, as one emerged--the revelation of an +unknown society of the pit--made a boy uncomfortable, though he had no +idea that Karl Marx was standing there waiting for him, and that sooner +or later the process of education would have to deal with Karl Marx +much more than with Professor Bowen of Harvard College or his Satanic +free-trade majesty John Stuart Mill. The Black District was a practical +education, but it was infinitely far in the distance. The boy ran away +from it, as he ran away from everything he disliked. + + Had he known enough to know where to begin he would have seen +something to study, more vital than the Civil Law, in the long, muddy, +dirty, sordid, gas-lit dreariness of Oxford Street as his dingy +four-wheeler dragged its weary way to Charing Cross. He did notice one +peculiarity about it worth remembering. London was still London. A +certain style dignified its grime; heavy, clumsy, arrogant, +purse-proud, but not cheap; insular but large; barely tolerant of an +outside world, and absolutely self-confident. The boys in the streets +made such free comments on the American clothes and figures, that the +travellers hurried to put on tall hats and long overcoats to escape +criticism. No stranger had rights even in the Strand. The eighteenth +century held its own. History muttered down Fleet Street, like Dr. +Johnson, in Adams's ear; Vanity Fair was alive on Piccadilly in yellow +chariots with coachmen in wigs, on hammer-cloths; footmen with canes, +on the footboard, and a shrivelled old woman inside; half the great +houses, black with London smoke, bore large funereal hatchments; every +one seemed insolent, and the most insolent structures in the world were +the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England. In November, 1858, London +was still vast, but it was the London of the eighteenth century that an +American felt and hated. + + Education went backward. Adams, still a boy, could not guess +how intensely intimate this London grime was to become to him as a man, +but he could still less conceive himself returning to it fifty years +afterwards, noting at each turn how the great city grew smaller as it +doubled in size; cheaper as it quadrupled its wealth; less imperial as +its empire widened; less dignified as it tried to be civil. He liked it +best when he hated it. Education began at the end, or perhaps would end +at the beginning. Thus far it had remained in the eighteenth century, +and the next step took it back to the sixteenth. He crossed to Antwerp. +As the Baron Osy steamed up the Scheldt in the morning mists, a +travelling band on deck began to play, and groups of peasants, working +along the fields, dropped their tools to join in dancing. Ostade and +Teniers were as much alive as they ever were, and even the Duke of Alva +was still at home. The thirteenth-century cathedral towered above a +sixteenth-century mass of tiled roofs, ending abruptly in walls and a +landscape that had not changed. The taste of the town was thick, rich, +ripe, like a sweet wine; it was mediaeval, so that Rubens seemed +modern; it was one of the strongest and fullest flavors that ever +touched the young man's palate; but he might as well have drunk out his +excitement in old Malmsey, for all the education he got from it. Even +in art, one can hardly begin with Antwerp Cathedral and the Descent +from the Cross. He merely got drunk on his emotions, and had then to +get sober as he best could. He was terribly sober when he saw Antwerp +half a century afterwards. One lesson he did learn without suspecting +that he must immediately lose it. He felt his middle ages and the +sixteenth century alive. He was young enough, and the towns were dirty +enough--unimproved, unrestored, untouristed--to retain the sense of +reality. As a taste or a smell, it was education, especially because it +lasted barely ten years longer; but it was education only sensual. He +never dreamed of trying to educate himself to the Descent from the +Cross. He was only too happy to feel himself kneeling at the foot of +the Cross; he learned only to loathe the sordid necessity of getting up +again, and going about his stupid business. + + This was one of the foreseen dangers of Europe, but it vanished +rapidly enough to reassure the most anxious of parents. Dropped into +Berlin one morning without guide or direction, the young man in search +of education floundered in a mere mess of misunderstandings. He could +never recall what he expected to find, but whatever he expected, it had +no relation with what it turned out to be. A student at twenty takes +easily to anything, even to Berlin, and he would have accepted the +thirteenth century pure and simple since his guides assured him that +this was his right path; but a week's experience left him dazed and +dull. Faith held out, but the paths grew dim. Berlin astonished him, +but he had no lack of friends to show him all the amusement it had to +offer. Within a day or two he was running about with the rest to +beer-cellars and music-halls and dance-rooms, smoking bad tobacco, +drinking poor beer, and eating sauerkraut and sausages as though he +knew no better. This was easy. One can always descend the social +ladder. The trouble came when he asked for the education he was +promised. His friends took him to be registered as a student of the +university; they selected his professors and courses; they showed him +where to buy the Institutes of Gaius and several German works on the +Civil Law in numerous volumes; and they led him to his first lecture. + + His first lecture was his last. The young man was not very +quick, and he had almost religious respect for his guides and advisers; +but he needed no more than one hour to satisfy him that he had made +another failure in education, and this time a fatal one. That the +language would require at least three months' hard work before he could +touch the Law was an annoying discovery; but the shock that upset him +was the discovery of the university itself. He had thought Harvard +College a torpid school, but it was instinct with life compared with +all that he could see of the University of Berlin. The German students +were strange animals, but their professors were beyond pay. The mental +attitude of the university was not of an American world. What sort of +instruction prevailed in other branches, or in science, Adams had no +occasion to ask, but in the Civil Law he found only the lecture system +in its deadliest form as it flourished in the thirteenth century. The +professor mumbled his comments; the students made, or seemed to make, +notes; they could have learned from books or discussion in a day more +than they could learn from him in a month, but they must pay his fees, +follow his course, and be his scholars, if they wanted a degree. To an +American the result was worthless. He could make no use of the Civil +Law without some previous notion of the Common Law; but the student who +knew enough of the Common Law to understand what he wanted, had only to +read the Pandects or the commentators at his ease in America, and be +his own professor. Neither the method nor the matter nor the manner +could profit an American education. + + This discovery seemed to shock none of the students. They went +to the lectures, made notes, and read textbooks, but never pretended to +take their professor seriously. They were much more serious in reading +Heine. They knew no more than Heine what good they were getting, beyond +the Berlin accent--which was bad; and the beer--which was not to +compare with Munich; and the dancing--which was better at Vienna. They +enjoyed the beer and music, but they refused to be responsible for the +education. Anyway, as they defended themselves, they were learning the +language. + + So the young man fell back on the language, and being slow at +languages, he found himself falling behind all his friends, which +depressed his spirits, the more because the gloom of a Berlin winter +and of Berlin architecture seemed to him a particular sort of gloom +never attained elsewhere. One day on the Linden he caught sight of +Charles Sumner in a cab, and ran after him. Sumner was then recovering +from the blows of the South Carolinian cane or club, and he was pleased +to find a young worshipper in the remote Prussian wilderness. They +dined together and went to hear "William Tell" at the Opera. Sumner +tried to encourage his friend about his difficulties of language: "I +came to Berlin," or Rome, or whatever place it was, as he said with his +grand air of mastery, "I came to Berlin, unable to say a word in the +language; and three months later when I went away, I talked it to my +cabman." Adams felt himself quite unable to attain in so short a time +such social advantages, and one day complained of his trials to Mr. +Robert Apthorp, of Boston, who was passing the winter in Berlin for the +sake of its music. Mr. Apthorp told of his own similar struggle, and +how he had entered a public school and sat for months with +ten-year-old-boys, reciting their lessons and catching their phrases. +The idea suited Adams's desperate frame of mind. At least it ridded him +of the university and the Civil Law and American associations in +beer-cellars. Mr. Apthorp took the trouble to negotiate with the +head-master of the Friedrichs-Wilhelm-Werdersches Gymnasium for +permission to Henry Adams to attend the school as a member of the +Ober-tertia, a class of boys twelve or thirteen years old, and there +Adams went for three months as though he had not always avoided high +schools with singular antipathy. He never did anything else so foolish +but he was given a bit of education which served him some purpose in +life. + + It was not merely the language, though three months passed in +such fashion would teach a poodle enough to talk with a cabman, and +this was all that foreign students could expect to do, for they never +by any chance would come in contact with German society, if German +society existed, about which they knew nothing. Adams never learned to +talk German well, but the same might be said of his English, if he +could believe Englishmen. He learned not to annoy himself on this +account. His difficulties with the language gradually ceased. He +thought himself quite Germanized in 1859. He even deluded himself with +the idea that he read it as though it were English, which proved that +he knew little about it; but whatever success he had in his own +experiment interested him less than his contact with German education. + + He had revolted at the American school and university; he had +instantly rejected the German university; and as his last experience of +education he tried the German high school. The experiment was +hazardous. In 1858 Berlin was a poor, keen-witted, provincial town, +simple, dirty, uncivilized, and in most respects disgusting. Life was +primitive beyond what an American boy could have imagined. Overridden +by military methods and bureaucratic pettiness, Prussia was only +beginning to free her hands from internal bonds. Apart from discipline, +activity scarcely existed. The future Kaiser Wilhelm I, regent for his +insane brother King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, seemed to pass his time +looking at the passers-by from the window of his modest palace on the +Linden. German manners, even at Court, were sometimes brutal, and +German thoroughness at school was apt to be routine. Bismarck himself +was then struggling to begin a career against the inertia of the German +system. The condition of Germany was a scandal and nuisance to every +earnest German, all whose energies were turned to reforming it from top +to bottom; and Adams walked into a great public school to get educated, +at precisely the time when the Germans wanted most to get rid of the +education they were forced to follow. As an episode in the search for +education, this adventure smacked of Heine. + + The school system has doubtless changed, and at all events the +schoolmasters are probably long ago dead; the story has no longer a +practical value, and had very little even at the time; one could at +least say in defence of the German school that it was neither very +brutal nor very immoral. The head-master was excellent in his Prussian +way, and the other instructors were not worse than in other schools; it +was their system that struck the systemless American with horror. The +arbitrary training given to the memory was stupefying; the strain that +the memory endured was a form of torture; and the feats that the boys +performed, without complaint, were pitiable. No other faculty than the +memory seemed to be recognized. Least of all was any use made of +reason, either analytic, synthetic, or dogmatic. The German government +did not encourage reasoning. + + All State education is a sort of dynamo machine for polarizing +the popular mind; for turning and holding its lines of force in the +direction supposed to be most effective for State purposes. The German +machine was terribly efficient. Its effect on the children was +pathetic. The Friedrichs-Wilhelm-Werdersches Gymnasium was an old +building in the heart of Berlin which served the educational needs of +the small tradesmen or bourgeoisie of the neighborhood; the children +were Berliner-kinder if ever there were such, and of a class suspected +of sympathy and concern in the troubles of 1848. None was noble or +connected with good society. Personally they were rather sympathetic +than not, but as the objects of education they were proofs of nearly +all the evils that a bad system could give. Apparently Adams, in his +rigidly illogical pursuit, had at last reached his ideal of a viciously +logical education. The boys' physique showed it first, but their +physique could not be wholly charged to the school. German food was bad +at best, and a diet of sauerkraut, sausage, and beer could never be +good; but it was not the food alone that made their faces white and +their flesh flabby. They never breathed fresh air; they had never heard +of a playground; in all Berlin not a cubic inch of oxygen was admitted +in winter into an inhabited building; in the school every room was +tightly closed and had no ventilation; the air was foul beyond all +decency; but when the American opened a window in the five minutes +between hours, he violated the rules and was invariably rebuked. As +long as cold weather lasted, the windows were shut. If the boys had a +holiday, they were apt to be taken on long tramps in the Thiergarten or +elsewhere, always ending in over-fatigue, tobacco-smoke, sausages, and +beer. With this, they were required to prepare daily lessons that would +have quickly broken down strong men of a healthy habit, and which they +could learn only because their minds were morbid. The German university +had seemed a failure, but the German high school was something very +near an indictable nuisance. + + Before the month of April arrived, the experiment of German +education had reached this point. Nothing was left of it except the +ghost of the Civil Law shut up in the darkest of closets, never to +gibber again before any one who could repeat the story. The derisive +Jew laughter of Heine ran through the university and everything else in +Berlin. Of course, when one is twenty years old, life is bound to be +full, if only of Berlin beer, although German student life was on the +whole the thinnest of beer, as an American looked on it, but though +nothing except small fragments remained of the education that had been +so promising--or promised--this is only what most often happens in +life, when by-products turn out to be more valuable than staples. The +German university and German law were failures; German society, in an +American sense, did not exist, or if it existed, never showed itself to +an American; the German theatre, on the other hand, was excellent, and +German opera, with the ballet, was almost worth a journey to Berlin; +but the curious and perplexing result of the total failure of German +education was that the student's only clear gain--his single step to a +higher life--came from time wasted; studies neglected; vices indulged; +education reversed;--it came from the despised beer-garden and +music-hall; and it was accidental, unintended, unforeseen. + + When his companions insisted on passing two or three afternoons +in the week at music-halls, drinking beer, smoking German tobacco, and +looking at fat German women knitting, while an orchestra played dull +music, Adams went with them for the sake of the company, but with no +pretence of enjoyment; and when Mr. Apthorp gently protested that he +exaggerated his indifference, for of course he enjoyed Beethoven, Adams +replied simply that he loathed Beethoven; and felt a slight surprise +when Mr. Apthorp and the others laughed as though they thought it +humor. He saw no humor in it. He supposed that, except musicians, every +one thought Beethoven a bore, as every one except mathematicians +thought mathematics a bore. Sitting thus at his beer-table, mentally +impassive, he was one day surprised to notice that his mind followed +the movement of a Sinfonie. He could not have been more astonished had +he suddenly read a new language. Among the marvels of education, this +was the most marvellous. A prison-wall that barred his senses on one +great side of life, suddenly fell, of its own accord, without so much +as his knowing when it happened. Amid the fumes of coarse tobacco and +poor beer, surrounded by the commonest of German Haus-frauen, a new +sense burst out like a flower in his life, so superior to the old +senses, so bewildering, so astonished at its own existence, that he +could not credit it, and watched it as something apart, accidental, and +not to be trusted. He slowly came to admit that Beethoven had partly +become intelligible to him, but he was the more inclined to think that +Beethoven must be much overrated as a musician, to be so easily +followed. This could not be called education, for he had never so much +as listened to the music. He had been thinking of other things. Mere +mechanical repetition of certain sounds had stuck to his unconscious +mind. Beethoven might have this power, but not Wagner, or at all events +not the Wagner later than "Tannhauser." Near forty years passed before +he reached the "Gotterdammerung." + + One might talk of the revival of an atrophied sense--the +mechanical reaction of a sleeping consciousness--but no other sense +awoke. His sense of line and color remained as dull as ever, and as far +as ever below the level of an artist. His metaphysical sense did not +spring into life, so that his mind could leap the bars of German +expression into sympathy with the idealities of Kant and Hegel. +Although he insisted that his faith in German thought and literature +was exalted, he failed to approach German thought, and he shed never a +tear of emotion over the pages of Goethe and Schiller. When his father +rashly ventured from time to time to write him a word of common sense, +the young man would listen to no sense at all, but insisted that Berlin +was the best of educations in the best of Germanies; yet, when, at +last, April came, and some genius suggested a tramp in Thuringen, his +heart sang like a bird; he realized what a nightmare he had suffered, +and he made up his mind that, wherever else he might, in the infinities +of space and time, seek for education, it should not be again in Berlin. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +ROME (1859-1860) + + THE tramp in Thuringen lasted four-and-twenty hours. By the end +of the first walk, his three companions--John Bancroft, James J. +Higginson, and B. W. Crowninshield, all Boston and Harvard College like +himself--were satisfied with what they had seen, and when they sat down +to rest on the spot where Goethe had written-- + + "Warte nur! balde + Rubest du auch!"-- + +the profoundness of the thought and the wisdom of the advice affected +them so strongly that they hired a wagon and drove to Weimar the same +night. They were all quite happy and lighthearted in the first fresh +breath of leafless spring, and the beer was better than at Berlin, but +they were all equally in doubt why they had come to Germany, and not +one of them could say why they stayed. Adams stayed because he did not +want to go home, and he had fears that his father's patience might be +exhausted if he asked to waste time elsewhere. + + They could not think that their education required a return to +Berlin. A few days at Dresden in the spring weather satisfied them that +Dresden was a better spot for general education than Berlin, and +equally good for reading Civil Law. They were possibly right. There was +nothing to study in Dresden, and no education to be gained, but the +Sistine Madonna and the Correggios were famous; the theatre and opera +were sometimes excellent, and the Elbe was prettier than the Spree. +They could always fall back on the language. So he took a room in the +household of the usual small government clerk with the usual plain +daughters, and continued the study of the language. Possibly one might +learn something more by accident, as one had learned something of +Beethoven. For the next eighteen months the young man pursued +accidental education, since he could pursue no other; and by great good +fortune, Europe and America were too busy with their own affairs to +give much attention to his. Accidental education had every chance in +its favor, especially because nothing came amiss. + + Perhaps the chief obstacle to the youth's education, now that +he had come of age, was his honesty; his simple-minded faith in his +intentions. Even after Berlin had become a nightmare, he still +persuaded himself that his German education was a success. He loved, or +thought he loved the people, but the Germany he loved was the +eighteenth-century which the Germans were ashamed of, and were +destroying as fast as they could. Of the Germany to come, he knew +nothing. Military Germany was his abhorrence. What he liked was the +simple character; the good-natured sentiment; the musical and +metaphysical abstraction; the blundering incapacity of the German for +practical affairs. At that time everyone looked on Germany as incapable +of competing with France, England or America in any sort of organized +energy. Germany had no confidence in herself, and no reason to feel it. +She had no unity, and no reason to want it. She never had unity. Her +religious and social history, her economical interests, her military +geography, her political convenience, had always tended to eccentric +rather than concentric motion. Until coal-power and railways were +created, she was mediaeval by nature and geography, and this was what +Adams, under the teachings of Carlyle and Lowell, liked. + + He was in a fair way to do himself lasting harm, floundering +between worlds passed and worlds coming, which had a habit of crushing +men who stayed too long at the points of contact. Suddenly the Emperor +Napoleon declared war on Austria and raised a confused point of morals +in the mind of Europe. France was the nightmare of Germany, and even at +Dresden one looked on the return of Napoleon to Leipsic as the most +likely thing in the world. One morning the government clerk, in whose +family Adams was staying, rushed into his room to consult a map in +order that he might measure the distance from Milan to Dresden. The +third Napoleon had reached Lombardy, and only fifty or sixty years had +passed since the first Napoleon had begun his military successes from +an Italian base. + + An enlightened young American, with eighteenth-century tastes +capped by fragments of a German education and the most excellent +intentions, had to make up his mind about the moral value of these +conflicting forces. France was the wicked spirit of moral politics, and +whatever helped France must be so far evil. At that time Austria was +another evil spirit. Italy was the prize they disputed, and for at +least fifteen hundred years had been the chief object of their greed. +The question of sympathy had disturbed a number of persons during that +period. The question of morals had been put in a number of +cross-lights. Should one be Guelph or Ghibelline? No doubt, one was +wiser than one's neighbors who had found no way of settling this +question since the days of the cave-dwellers, but ignorance did better +to discard the attempt to be wise, for wisdom had been singularly +baffled by the problem. Better take sides first, and reason about it +for the rest of life. + + Not that Adams felt any real doubt about his sympathies or +wishes. He had not been German long enough for befogging his mind to +that point, but the moment was decisive for much to come, especially +for political morals. His morals were the highest, and he clung to them +to preserve his self-respect; but steam and electricity had brought +about new political and social concentrations, or were making them +necessary in the line of his moral principles--freedom, education, +economic development and so forth--which required association with +allies as doubtful as Napoleon III, and robberies with violence on a +very extensive scale. As long as he could argue that his opponents were +wicked, he could join in robbing and killing them without a qualm; but +it might happen that the good were robbed. Education insisted on +finding a moral foundation for robbery. He could hope to begin life in +the character of no animal more moral than a monkey unless he could +satisfy himself when and why robbery and murder were a virtue and duty. +Education founded on mere self-interest was merely Guelph and +Ghibelline over again--Machiavelli translated into American. + +Luckily for him he had a sister much brighter than he ever was--though +he thought himself a rather superior person--who after marrying Charles +Kuhn, of Philadelphia, had come to Italy, and, like all good Americans +and English, was hotly Italian. In July, 1859, she was at Thun in +Switzerland, and there Henry Adams joined them. Women have, commonly, a +very positive moral sense; that which they will, is right; that which +they reject, is wrong; and their will, in most cases, ends by settling +the moral. Mrs. Kuhn had a double superiority. She not only adored +Italy, but she cordially disliked Germany in all its varieties. She saw +no gain in helping her brother to be Germanized, and she wanted him +much to be civilized. She was the first young woman he was ever +intimate with--quick, sensitive, wilful, or full of will, energetic, +sympathetic and intelligent enough to supply a score of men with +ideas--and he was delighted to give her the reins--to let her drive him +where she would. It was his first experiment in giving the reins to a +woman, and he was so much pleased with the results that he never wanted +to take them back. In after life he made a general law of +experience--no woman had ever driven him wrong; no man had ever driven +him right. + + Nothing would satisfy Mrs. Kuhn but to go to the seat of war as +soon as the armistice was declared. Wild as the idea seemed, nothing +was easier. The party crossed the St. Gothard and reached Milan, +picturesque with every sort of uniform and every sign of war. To young +Adams this first plunge into Italy passed Beethoven as a piece of +accidental education. Like music, it differed from other education in +being, not a means of pursuing life, but one of the ends attained. +Further, on these lines, one could not go. It had but one defect--that +of attainment. Life had no richer impression to give; it offers barely +half-a-dozen such, and the intervals seem long. Exactly what they teach +would puzzle a Berlin jurist; yet they seem to have an economic value, +since most people would decline to part with even their faded memories +except at a valuation ridiculously extravagant. They were also what men +pay most for; but one's ideas become hopelessly mixed in trying to +reduce such forms of education to a standard of exchangeable value, +and, as in political economy, one had best disregard altogether what +cannot be stated in equivalents. The proper equivalent of pleasure is +pain, which is also a form of education. + + Not satisfied with Milan, Mrs. Kuhn insisted on invading the +enemy's country, and the carriage was chartered for Innsbruck by way of +the Stelvio Pass. The Valtellina, as the carriage drove up it, showed +war. Garibaldi's Cacciatori were the only visible inhabitants. No one +could say whether the pass was open, but in any case no carriage had +yet crossed. At the inns the handsome young officers in command of the +detachments were delighted to accept invitations to dinner and to talk +all the evening of their battles to the charming patriot who sparkled +with interest and flattery, but not one of them knew whether their +enemies, the abhorred Austrian Jagers, would let the travellers through +their lines. As a rule, gaiety was not the character failing in any +party that Mrs. Kuhn belonged to, but when at last, after climbing what +was said to be the finest carriage-pass in Europe, the carriage turned +the last shoulder, where the glacier of the Ortler Spitze tumbled its +huge mass down upon the road, even Mrs. Kuhn gasped when she was driven +directly up to the barricade and stopped by the double line of sentries +stretching on either side up the mountains, till the flash of the gun +barrels was lost in the flash of the snow. For accidental education the +picture had its value. The earliest of these pictures count for most, +as first impressions must, and Adams never afterwards cared much for +landscape education, except perhaps in the tropics for the sake of the +contrast. As education, that chapter, too, was read, and set aside. + + The handsome blond officers of the Jagers were not to be beaten +in courtesy by the handsome young olive-toned officers of the +Cacciatori. The eternal woman as usual, when she is young, pretty, and +engaging, had her way, and the barricade offered no resistance. In +fifteen minutes the carriage was rolling down to Mals, swarming with +German soldiers and German fleas, worse than the Italian; and German +language, thought, and atmosphere, of which young Adams, thanks to his +glimpse of Italy, never again felt quite the old confident charm. + + Yet he could talk to his cabman and conscientiously did his +cathedrals, his Rhine, and whatever his companions suggested. Faithful +to his self-contracted scheme of passing two winters in study of the +Civil Law, he went back to Dresden with a letter to the Frau Hofrathin +von Reichenbach, in whose house Lowell and other Americans had pursued +studies more or less serious. In those days, "The Initials" was a new +book. The charm which its clever author had laboriously woven over +Munich gave also a certain reflected light to Dresden. Young Adams had +nothing to do but take fencing-lessons, visit the galleries and go to +the theatre; but his social failure in the line of "The Initials," was +humiliating and he succumbed to it. The Frau Hofrathin herself was +sometimes roused to huge laughter at the total discomfiture and +helplessness of the young American in the face of her society. Possibly +an education may be the wider and the richer for a large experience of +the world; Raphael Pumpelly and Clarence King, at about the same time, +were enriching their education by a picturesque intimacy with the +manners of the Apaches and Digger Indians. All experience is an arch, +to build upon. Yet Adams admitted himself unable to guess what use his +second winter in Germany was to him, or what he expected it to be. Even +the doctrine of accidental education broke down. There were no +accidents in Dresden. As soon as the winter was over, he closed and +locked the German door with a long breath of relief, and took the road +to Italy. He had then pursued his education, as it pleased him, for +eighteen months, and in spite of the infinite variety of new +impressions which had packed themselves into his mind, he knew no more, +for his practical purposes, than the day he graduated. He had made no +step towards a profession. He was as ignorant as a schoolboy of +society. He was unfit for any career in Europe, and unfitted for any +career in America, and he had not natural intelligence enough to see +what a mess he had thus far made of his education. + + By twisting life to follow accidental and devious paths, one +might perhaps find some use for accidental and devious knowledge, but +this had been no part of Henry Adams's plan when he chose the path most +admired by the best judges, and followed it till he found it led +nowhere. Nothing had been further from his mind when he started in +November, 1858, than to become a tourist, but a mere tourist, and +nothing else, he had become in April, 1860, when he joined his sister +in Florence. His father had been in the right. The young man felt a +little sore about it. Supposing his father asked him, on his return, +what equivalent he had brought back for the time and money put into his +experiment! The only possible answer would be: "Sir, I am a tourist!" + + The answer was not what he had meant it to be, and he was not +likely to better it by asking his father, in turn, what equivalent his +brothers or cousins or friends at home had got out of the same time and +money spent in Boston. All they had put into the law was certainly +thrown away, but were they happier in science? In theory one might say, +with some show of proof, that a pure, scientific education was alone +correct; yet many of his friends who took it, found reason to complain +that it was anything but a pure, scientific world in which they lived. + + Meanwhile his father had quite enough perplexities of his own, +without seeking more in his son's errors. His Quincy district had sent +him to Congress, and in the spring of 1860 he was in the full confusion +of nominating candidates for the Presidential election in November. He +supported Mr. Seward. The Republican Party was an unknown force, and +the Democratic Party was torn to pieces. No one could see far into the +future. Fathers could blunder as well as sons, and, in 1860, every one +was conscious of being dragged along paths much less secure than those +of the European tourist. For the time, the young man was safe from +interference, and went on his way with a light heart to take whatever +chance fragments of education God or the devil was pleased to give him, +for he knew no longer the good from the bad. + + He had of both sorts more than he knew how to use. Perhaps the +most useful purpose he set himself to serve was that of his pen, for he +wrote long letters, during the next three months, to his brother +Charles, which his brother caused to be printed in the Boston Courier; +and the exercise was good for him. He had little to say, and said it +not very well, but that mattered less. The habit of expression leads to +the search for something to express. Something remains as a residuum of +the commonplace itself, if one strikes out every commonplace in the +expression. Young men as a rule saw little in Italy, or anywhere else, +and in after life when Adams began to learn what some men could see, he +shrank into corners of shame at the thought that he should have +betrayed his own inferiority as though it were his pride, while he +invited his neighbors to measure and admire; but it was still the +nearest approach he had yet made to an intelligent act. + + For the rest, Italy was mostly an emotion and the emotion +naturally centred in Rome. The American parent, curiously enough, while +bitterly hostile to Paris, seemed rather disposed to accept Rome as +legitimate education, though abused; but to young men seeking education +in a serious spirit, taking for granted that everything had a cause, +and that nature tended to an end, Rome was altogether the most violent +vice in the world, and Rome before 1870 was seductive beyond +resistance. The month of May, 1860, was divine. No doubt other young +men, and occasionally young women, have passed the month of May in Rome +since then, and conceive that the charm continues to exist. Possibly it +does--in them--but in 1860 the lights and shadows were still mediaeval, +and mediaeval Rome was alive; the shadows breathed and glowed, full of +soft forms felt by lost senses. No sand-blast of science had yet +skinned off the epidermis of history, thought, and feeling. The +pictures were uncleaned, the churches unrestored, the ruins +unexcavated. Mediaeval Rome was sorcery. Rome was the worst spot on +earth to teach nineteenth-century youth what to do with a +twentieth-century world. One's emotions in Rome were one's private +affair, like one's glass of absinthe before dinner in the Palais Royal; +they must be hurtful, else they could not have been so intense; and +they were surely immoral, for no one, priest or politician, could +honestly read in the ruins of Rome any other certain lesson than that +they were evidence of the just judgments of an outraged God against all +the doings of man. This moral unfitted young men for every sort of +useful activity; it made Rome a gospel of anarchy and vice; the last +place under the sun for educating the young; yet it was, by common +consent, the only spot that the young--of either sex and every +race--passionately, perversely, wickedly loved. + + Boys never see a conclusion; only on the edge of the grave can +man conclude anything; but the first impulse given to the boy is apt to +lead or drive him for the rest of his life into conclusion after +conclusion that he never dreamed of reaching. One looked idly enough at +the Forum or at St. Peter's, but one never forgot the look, and it +never ceased reacting. To a young Bostonian, fresh from Germany, Rome +seemed a pure emotion, quite free from economic or actual values, and +he could not in reason or common sense foresee that it was mechanically +piling up conundrum after conundrum in his educational path, which +seemed unconnected but that he had got to connect; that seemed +insoluble but had got to be somehow solved. Rome was not a beetle to be +dissected and dropped; not a bad French novel to be read in a railway +train and thrown out of the window after other bad French novels, the +morals of which could never approach the immorality of Roman history. +Rome was actual; it was England; it was going to be America. Rome could +not be fitted into an orderly, middle-class, Bostonian, systematic +scheme of evolution. No law of progress applied to it. Not even +time-sequences--the last refuge of helpless historians--had value for +it. The Forum no more led to the Vatican than the Vatican to the Forum. +Rienzi, Garibaldi, Tiberius Gracchus, Aurelian might be mixed up in any +relation of time, along with a thousand more, and never lead to a +sequence. The great word Evolution had not yet, in 1860, made a new +religion of history, but the old religion had preached the same +doctrine for a thousand years without finding in the entire history of +Rome anything but flat contradiction. + + Of course both priests and evolutionists bitterly denied this +heresy, but what they affirmed or denied in 1860 had very little +importance indeed for 1960. Anarchy lost no ground meanwhile. The +problem became only the more fascinating. Probably it was more vital in +May, 1860, than it had been in October, 1764, when the idea of writing +the Decline and Fall of the city first started to the mind of Gibbon, +"in the close of the evening, as I sat musing in the Church of the +Zoccolanti or Franciscan Friars, while they were singing Vespers in the +Temple of Jupiter, on the ruins of the Capitol." Murray's Handbook had +the grace to quote this passage from Gibbon's "Autobiography," which +led Adams more than once to sit at sunset on the steps of the Church of +Santa Maria di Ara Coeli, curiously wondering that not an inch had been +gained by Gibbon--or all the historians since--towards explaining the +Fall. The mystery remained unsolved; the charm remained intact. Two +great experiments of Western civilization had left there the chief +monuments of their failure, and nothing proved that the city might not +still survive to express the failure of a third. + + The young man had no idea what he was doing. The thought of +posing for a Gibbon never entered his mind. He was a tourist, even to +the depths of his sub-consciousness, and it was well for him that he +should be nothing else, for even the greatest of men cannot sit with +dignity, "in the close of evening, among the ruins of the Capitol," +unless they have something quite original to say about it. Tacitus +could do it; so could Michael Angelo; and so, at a pinch, could Gibbon, +though in figure hardly heroic; but, in sum, none of them could say +very much more than the tourist, who went on repeating to himself the +eternal question:--Why! Why!! Why!!!--as his neighbor, the blind +beggar, might do, sitting next him, on the church steps. No one ever +had answered the question to the satisfaction of any one else; yet +every one who had either head or heart, felt that sooner or later he +must make up his mind what answer to accept. Substitute the word +America for the word Rome, and the question became personal. + + Perhaps Henry learned something in Rome, though he never knew +it, and never sought it. Rome dwarfs teachers. The greatest men of the +age scarcely bore the test of posing with Rome for a background. +Perhaps Garibaldi--possibly even Cavour--could have sat "in the close +of the evening, among the ruins of the Capitol," but one hardly saw +Napoleon III there, or Palmerston or Tennyson or Longfellow. One +morning, Adams happened to be chatting in the studio of Hamilton Wilde, +when a middle-aged Englishman came in, evidently excited, and told of +the shock he had just received, when riding near the Circus Maximus, at +coming unexpectedly on the guillotine, where some criminal had been put +to death an hour or two before. The sudden surprise had quite overcome +him; and Adams, who seldom saw the point of a story till time had +blunted it, listened sympathetically to learn what new form of grim +horror had for the moment wiped out the memory of two thousand years of +Roman bloodshed, or the consolation, derived from history and +statistics, that most citizens of Rome seemed to be the better for +guillotining. Only by slow degrees, he grappled the conviction that the +victim of the shock was Robert Browning; and, on the background of the +Circus Maximus, the Christian martyrs flaming as torches, and the +morning's murderer on the block, Browning seemed rather in place, as a +middle-aged gentlemanly English Pippa Passes; while afterwards, in the +light of Belgravia dinner-tables, he never made part of his background +except by effacement. Browning might have sat with Gibbon, among the +ruins, and few Romans would have smiled. + + Yet Browning never revealed the poetic depths of Saint Francis; +William Story could not touch the secret of Michael Angelo, and Mommsen +hardly said all that one felt by instinct in the lives of Cicero and +Caesar. They taught what, as a rule, needed no teaching, the lessons of +a rather cheap imagination and cheaper politics. Rome was a bewildering +complex of ideas, experiments, ambitions, energies; without her, the +Western world was pointless and fragmentary; she gave heart and unity +to it all; yet Gibbon might have gone on for the whole century, sitting +among the ruins of the Capitol, and no one would have passed, capable +of telling him what it meant. Perhaps it meant nothing. + + So it ended; the happiest month of May that life had yet +offered, fading behind the present, and probably beyond the past, +somewhere into abstract time, grotesquely out of place with the Berlin +scheme or a Boston future. Adams explained to himself that he was +absorbing knowledge. He would have put it better had he said that +knowledge was absorbing him. He was passive. In spite of swarming +impressions he knew no more when he left Rome than he did when he +entered it. As a marketable object, his value was less. His next step +went far to convince him that accidental education, whatever its +economical return might be, was prodigiously successful as an object in +itself. Everything conspired to ruin his sound scheme of life, and to +make him a vagrant as well as pauper. He went on to Naples, and there, +in the hot June, heard rumors that Garibaldi and his thousand were +about to attack Palermo. Calling on the American Minister, Chandler of +Pennsylvania, he was kindly treated, not for his merit, but for his +name, and Mr. Chandler amiably consented to send him to the seat of war +as bearer of despatches to Captain Palmer of the American sloop of war +Iroquois. Young Adams seized the chance, and went to Palermo in a +government transport filled with fleas, commanded by a charming Prince +Caracciolo. + + He told all about it to the Boston Courier; where the narrative +probably exists to this day, unless the files of the Courier have +wholly perished; but of its bearing on education the Courier did not +speak. He himself would have much liked to know whether it had any +bearing whatever, and what was its value as a post-graduate course. +Quite apart from its value as life attained, realized, capitalized, it +had also a certain value as a lesson in something, though Adams could +never classify the branch of study. Loosely, the tourist called it +knowledge of men, but it was just the reverse; it was knowledge of +one's ignorance of men. Captain Palmer of the Iroquois, who was a +friend of the young man's uncle, Sydney Brooks, took him with the +officers of the ship to make an evening call on Garibaldi, whom they +found in the Senate House towards sunset, at supper with his +picturesque and piratic staff, in the full noise and color of the +Palermo revolution. As a spectacle, it belonged to Rossini and the +Italian opera, or to Alexandre Dumas at the least, but the spectacle +was not its educational side. Garibaldi left the table, and, sitting +down at the window, had a few words of talk with Captain Palmer and +young Adams. At that moment, in the summer of 1860, Garibaldi was +certainly the most serious of the doubtful energies in the world; the +most essential to gauge rightly. Even then society was dividing between +banker and anarchist. One or the other, Garibaldi must serve. Himself a +typical anarchist, sure to overshadow Europe and alarm empires bigger +than Naples, his success depended on his mind; his energy was beyond +doubt. + + Adams had the chance to look this sphinx in the eyes, and, for +five minutes, to watch him like a wild animal, at the moment of his +greatest achievement and most splendid action. One saw a +quiet-featured, quiet-voiced man in a red flannel shirt; absolutely +impervious; a type of which Adams knew nothing. Sympathetic it was, and +one felt that it was simple; one suspected even that it might be +childlike, but could form no guess of its intelligence. In his own eyes +Garibaldi might be a Napoleon or a Spartacus; in the hands of Cavour he +might become a Condottiere; in the eyes of history he might, like the +rest of the world, be only the vigorous player in the game he did not +understand. The student was none the wiser. + + This compound nature of patriot and pirate had illumined +Italian history from the beginning, and was no more intelligible to +itself than to a young American who had no experience in double +natures. In the end, if the "Autobiography" tells truth, Garibaldi saw +and said that he had not understood his own acts; that he had been an +instrument; that he had served the purposes of the class he least +wanted to help; yet in 1860 he thought himself the revolution anarchic, +Napoleonic, and his ambition was unbounded. What should a young +Bostonian have made of a character like this, internally alive with +childlike fancies, and externally quiet, simple, almost innocent; +uttering with apparent conviction the usual commonplaces of popular +politics that all politicians use as the small change of their +intercourse with the public; but never betraying a thought? + + Precisely this class of mind was to be the toughest problem of +Adams's practical life, but he could never make anything of it. The +lesson of Garibaldi, as education, seemed to teach the extreme +complexity of extreme simplicity; but one could have learned this from +a glow-worm. One did not need the vivid recollection of the low-voiced, +simple-mannered, seafaring captain of Genoese adventurers and Sicilian +brigands, supping in the July heat and Sicilian dirt and revolutionary +clamor, among the barricaded streets of insurgent Palermo, merely in +order to remember that simplicity is complex. + + Adams left the problem as he found it, and came north to +stumble over others, less picturesque but nearer. He squandered two or +three months on Paris. From the first he had avoided Paris, and had +wanted no French influence in his education. He disapproved of France +in the lump. A certain knowledge of the language one must have; enough +to order dinner and buy a theatre ticket; but more he did not seek. He +disliked the Empire and the Emperor particularly, but this was a +trifle; he disliked most the French mind. To save himself the trouble +of drawing up a long list of all that he disliked, he disapproved of +the whole, once for all, and shut them figuratively out of his life. +France was not serious, and he was not serious in going there. + + He did this in good faith, obeying the lessons his teachers had +taught him; but the curious result followed that, being in no way +responsible for the French and sincerely disapproving them, he felt +quite at liberty to enjoy to the full everything he disapproved. Stated +thus crudely, the idea sounds derisive; but, as a matter of fact, +several thousand Americans passed much of their time there on this +understanding. They sought to take share in every function that was +open to approach, as they sought tickets to the opera, because they +were not a part of it. Adams did like the rest. All thought of serious +education had long vanished. He tried to acquire a few French idioms, +without even aspiring to master a subjunctive, but he succeeded better +in acquiring a modest taste for Bordeaux and Burgundy and one or two +sauces; for the Trois Freres Provencaux and Voisin's and Philippe's and +the Cafe Anglais; for the Palais Royal Theatre, and the Varietes and +the Gymnase; for the Brohans and Bressant, Rose Cheri and Gil Perez, +and other lights of the stage. His friends were good to him. Life was +amusing. Paris rapidly became familiar. In a month or six weeks he +forgot even to disapprove of it; but he studied nothing, entered no +society, and made no acquaintance. Accidental education went far in +Paris, and one picked up a deal of knowledge that might become useful; +perhaps, after all, the three months passed there might serve better +purpose than the twenty-one months passed elsewhere; but he did not +intend it--did not think it--and looked at it as a momentary and +frivolous vacation before going home to fit himself for life. +Therewith, after staying as long as he could and spending all the money +he dared, he started with mixed emotions but no education, for home. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +TREASON (1860-1861) + + WHEN, forty years afterwards, Henry Adams looked back over his +adventures in search of knowledge, he asked himself whether fortune or +fate had ever dealt its cards quite so wildly to any of his known +antecessors as when it led him to begin the study of law and to vote +for Abraham Lincoln on the same day. + + He dropped back on Quincy like a lump of lead; he rebounded +like a football, tossed into space by an unknown energy which played +with all his generation as a cat plays with mice. The simile is none +too strong. Not one man in America wanted the Civil War, or expected or +intended it. A small minority wanted secession. The vast majority +wanted to go on with their occupations in peace. Not one, however +clever or learned, guessed what happened. Possibly a few Southern +loyalists in despair might dream it as an impossible chance; but none +planned it. + + As for Henry Adams, fresh from Europe and chaos of another +sort, he plunged at once into a lurid atmosphere of politics, quite +heedless of any education or forethought. His past melted away. The +prodigal was welcomed home, but not even his father asked a malicious +question about the Pandects. At the utmost, he hinted at some shade of +prodigality by quietly inviting his son to act as private secretary +during the winter in Washington, as though any young man who could +afford to throw away two winters on the Civil Law could afford to read +Blackstone for another winter without a master. The young man was +beyond satire, and asked only a pretext for throwing all education to +the east wind. November at best is sad, and November at Quincy had been +from earliest childhood the least gay of seasons. Nowhere else does the +uncharitable autumn wreak its spite so harshly on the frail wreck of +the grasshopper summer; yet even a Quincy November seemed temperate +before the chill of a Boston January. + + This was saying much, for the November of 1860 at Quincy stood +apart from other memories as lurid beyond description. Although no one +believed in civil war, the air reeked of it, and the Republicans +organized their clubs and parades as Wide-Awakes in a form military in +all things except weapons. Henry reached home in time to see the last +of these processions, stretching in ranks of torches along the +hillside, file down through the November night; to the Old House, where +Mr. Adams, their Member of Congress, received them, and, let them +pretend what they liked, their air was not that of innocence. + + Profoundly ignorant, anxious, and curious, the young man packed +his modest trunk again, which had not yet time to be unpacked, and +started for Washington with his family. Ten years had passed since his +last visit, but very little had changed. As in 1800 and 1850, so in +1860, the same rude colony was camped in the same forest, with the same +unfinished Greek temples for work rooms, and sloughs for roads. The +Government had an air of social instability and incompleteness that +went far to support the right of secession in theory as in fact; but +right or wrong, secession was likely to be easy where there was so +little to secede from. The Union was a sentiment, but not much more, +and in December, 1860, the sentiment about the Capitol was chiefly +hostile, so far as it made itself felt. John Adams was better off in +Philadelphia in 1776 than his great-grandson Henry in 1860 in +Washington. + + Patriotism ended by throwing a halo over the Continental +Congress, but over the close of the Thirty-sixth Congress in 1860-61, +no halo could be thrown by any one who saw it. Of all the crowd +swarming in Washington that winter, young Adams was surely among the +most ignorant and helpless, but he saw plainly that the knowledge +possessed by everybody about him was hardly greater than his own. Never +in a long life did he seek to master a lesson so obscure. Mr. Sumner +was given to saying after Oxenstiern: "Quantula sapientia mundus +regitur!" Oxenstiern talked of a world that wanted wisdom; but Adams +found himself seeking education in a world that seemed to him both +unwise and ignorant. The Southern secessionists were certainly +unbalanced in mind--fit for medical treatment, like other victims of +hallucination--haunted by suspicion, by idees fixes, by violent morbid +excitement; but this was not all. They were stupendously ignorant of +the world. As a class, the cotton-planters were mentally one-sided, +ill-balanced, and provincial to a degree rarely known. They were a +close society on whom the new fountains of power had poured a stream of +wealth and slaves that acted like oil on flame. They showed a young +student his first object-lesson of the way in which excess of power +worked when held by inadequate hands. + + This might be a commonplace of 1900, but in 1860 it was +paradox. The Southern statesmen were regarded as standards of +statesmanship, and such standards barred education. Charles Sumner's +chief offence was his insistence on Southern ignorance, and he stood a +living proof of it. To this school, Henry Adams had come for a new +education, and the school was seriously, honestly, taken by most of the +world, including Europe, as proper for the purpose, although the Sioux +Indians would have taught less mischief. From such contradictions among +intelligent people, what was a young man to learn? + + He could learn nothing but cross-purpose. The old and typical +Southern gentleman developed as cotton-planter had nothing to teach or +to give, except warning. Even as example to be avoided, he was too +glaring in his defiance of reason, to help the education of a +reasonable being. No one learned a useful lesson from the Confederate +school except to keep away from it. Thus, at one sweep, the whole field +of instruction south of the Potomac was shut off; it was overshadowed +by the cotton planters, from whom one could learn nothing but bad +temper, bad manners, poker, and treason. + + Perforce, the student was thrown back on Northern precept and +example; first of all, on his New England surroundings. Republican +houses were few in Washington, and Mr. and Mrs. Adams aimed to create a +social centre for New Englanders. They took a house on I Street, +looking over Pennsylvania Avenue, well out towards Georgetown--the +Markoe house--and there the private secretary began to learn his social +duties, for the political were confined to committee-rooms and lobbies +of the Capitol. He had little to do, and knew not how to do it rightly, +but he knew of no one who knew more. + + The Southern type was one to be avoided; the New England type +was one's self. It had nothing to show except one's own features. +Setting aside Charles Sumner, who stood quite alone and was the boy's +oldest friend, all the New Englanders were sane and steady men, +well-balanced, educated, and free from meanness or intrigue--men whom +one liked to act with, and who, whether graduates or not, bore the +stamp of Harvard College. Anson Burlingame was one exception, and +perhaps Israel Washburn another; but as a rule the New Englander's +strength was his poise which almost amounted to a defect. He offered no +more target for love than for hate; he attracted as little as he +repelled; even as a machine, his motion seemed never accelerated. The +character, with its force or feebleness, was familiar; one knew it to +the core; one was it--had been run in the same mould. + + There remained the Central and Western States, but there the +choice of teachers was not large and in the end narrowed itself to +Preston King, Henry Winter Davis, Owen Lovejoy, and a few other men +born with social faculty. Adams took most kindly to Henry J. Raymond, +who came to view the field for the New York Times, and who was a man of +the world. The average Congressman was civil enough, but had nothing to +ask except offices, and nothing to offer but the views of his district. +The average Senator was more reserved, but had not much more to say, +being always excepting one or two genial natures, handicapped by his +own importance. + + Study it as one might, the hope of education, till the arrival +of the President-elect, narrowed itself to the possible influence of +only two men--Sumner and Seward. + + Sumner was then fifty years old. Since his election as Senator +in 1851 he had passed beyond the reach of his boy friend, and, after +his Brooks injuries, his nervous system never quite recovered its tone; +but perhaps eight or ten years of solitary existence as Senator had +most to do with his development. No man, however strong, can serve ten +years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything +else. All the dogmatic stations in life have the effect of fixing a +certain stiffness of attitude forever, as though they mesmerized the +subject. Yet even among Senators there were degrees in dogmatism, from +the frank South Carolinian brutality, to that of Webster, Benton, Clay, +or Sumner himself, until in extreme cases, like Conkling, it became +Shakespearian and bouffe--as Godkin used to call it--like Malvolio. +Sumner had become dogmatic like the rest, but he had at least the merit +of qualities that warranted dogmatism. He justly thought, as Webster +had thought before him, that his great services and sacrifices, his +superiority in education, his oratorical power, his political +experience, his representative character at the head of the whole New +England contingent, and, above all, his knowledge of the world, made +him the most important member of the Senate; and no Senator had ever +saturated himself more thoroughly with the spirit and temper of the +body. + + Although the Senate is much given to admiring in its members a +superiority less obvious or quite invisible to outsiders, one Senator +seldom proclaims his own inferiority to another, and still more seldom +likes to be told of it. Even the greatest Senators seemed to inspire +little personal affection in each other, and betrayed none at all. +Sumner had a number of rivals who held his judgment in no high esteem, +and one of these was Senator Seward. The two men would have disliked +each other by instinct had they lived in different planets. Each was +created only for exasperating the other; the virtues of one were the +faults of his rival, until no good quality seemed to remain of either. +That the public service must suffer was certain, but what were the +sufferings of the public service compared with the risks run by a young +mosquito--a private secretary--trying to buzz admiration in the ears of +each, and unaware that each would impatiently slap at him for belonging +to the other? Innocent and unsuspicious beyond what was permitted even +in a nursery, the private secretary courted both. + + Private secretaries are servants of a rather low order, whose +business is to serve sources of power. The first news of a professional +kind, imparted to private secretary Adams on reaching Washington, was +that the President-elect, Abraham Lincoln, had selected Mr. Seward for +his Secretary of State, and that Seward was to be the medium for +communicating his wishes to his followers. Every young man naturally +accepted the wishes of Mr. Lincoln as orders, the more because he could +see that the new President was likely to need all the help that several +million young men would be able to give, if they counted on having any +President at all to serve. Naturally one waited impatiently for the +first meeting with the new Secretary of State. + + Governor Seward was an old friend of the family. He professed +to be a disciple and follower of John Quincy Adams. He had been Senator +since 1849, when his responsibilities as leader had separated him from +the Free Soil contingent, for, in the dry light of the first Free Soil +faith, the ways of New York politics Thurlow Weed had not won favor; +but the fierce heat which welded the Republican Party in 1856 melted +many such barriers, and when Mr. Adams came to Congress in December, +1859, Governor Seward instantly renewed his attitude of family friend, +became a daily intimate in the household, and lost no chance of forcing +his fresh ally to the front. + + A few days after their arrival in December, 1860, the Governor, +as he was always called, came to dinner, alone, as one of the family, +and the private secretary had the chance he wanted to watch him as +carefully as one generally watches men who dispose of one's future. A +slouching, slender figure; a head like a wise macaw; a beaked nose; +shaggy eyebrows; unorderly hair and clothes; hoarse voice; offhand +manner; free talk, and perpetual cigar, offered a new type--of western +New York--to fathom; a type in one way simple because it was only +double--political and personal; but complex because the political had +become nature, and no one could tell which was the mask and which the +features. At table, among friends, Mr. Seward threw off restraint, or +seemed to throw it off, in reality, while in the world he threw it off, +like a politician, for effect. In both cases he chose to appear as a +free talker, who loathed pomposity and enjoyed a joke; but how much was +nature and how much was mask, he was himself too simple a nature to +know. Underneath the surface he was conventional after the conventions +of western New York and Albany. Politicians thought it +unconventionality. Bostonians thought it provincial. Henry Adams +thought it charming. From the first sight, he loved the Governor, who, +though sixty years old, had the youth of his sympathies. He noticed +that Mr. Seward was never petty or personal; his talk was large; he +generalized; he never seemed to pose for statesmanship; he did not +require an attitude of prayer. What was more unusual--almost singular +and quite eccentric--he had some means, unknown to other Senators, of +producing the effect of unselfishness. + + Superficially Mr. Seward and Mr. Adams were contrasts; +essentially they were much alike. Mr. Adams was taken to be rigid, but +the Puritan character in all its forms could be supple enough when it +chose; and in Massachusetts all the Adamses had been attacked in +succession as no better than political mercenaries. Mr. Hildreth, in +his standard history, went so far as to echo with approval the charge +that treachery was hereditary in the family. Any Adams had at least to +be thick-skinned, hardened to every contradictory epithet that virtue +could supply, and, on the whole, armed to return such attentions; but +all must have admitted that they had invariably subordinated local to +national interests, and would continue to do so, whenever forced to +choose. C. F. Adams was sure to do what his father had done, as his +father had followed the steps of John Adams, and no doubt thereby +earned his epithets. + + The inevitable followed, as a child fresh from the nursery +should have had the instinct to foresee, but the young man on the edge +of life never dreamed. What motives or emotions drove his masters on +their various paths he made no pretence of guessing; even at that age +he preferred to admit his dislike for guessing motives; he knew only +his own infantile ignorance, before which he stood amazed, and his +innocent good-faith, always matter of simple-minded surprise. Critics +who know ultimate truth will pronounce judgment on history; all that +Henry Adams ever saw in man was a reflection of his own ignorance, and +he never saw quite so much of it as in the winter of 1860-61. Every one +knows the story; every one draws what conclusion suits his temper, and +the conclusion matters now less than though it concerned the merits of +Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; but in 1861 the conclusion made the +sharpest lesson of life; it was condensed and concentrated education. + + Rightly or wrongly the new President and his chief advisers in +Washington decided that, before they could administer the Government, +they must make sure of a government to administer, and that this chance +depended on the action of Virginia. The whole ascendancy of the winter +wavered between the effort of the cotton States to drag Virginia out, +and the effort of the new President to keep Virginia in. Governor +Seward representing the Administration in the Senate took the lead; Mr. +Adams took the lead in the House; and as far as a private secretary +knew, the party united on its tactics. In offering concessions to the +border States, they had to run the risk, or incur the certainty, of +dividing their own party, and they took this risk with open eyes. As +Seward himself, in his gruff way, said at dinner, after Mr. Adams and +he had made their speeches: "If there's no secession now, you and I are +ruined." + + They won their game; this was their affair and the affair of +the historians who tell their story; their private secretaries had +nothing to do with it except to follow their orders. On that side a +secretary learned nothing and had nothing to learn. The sudden arrival +of Mr. Lincoln in Washington on February 23, and the language of his +inaugural address, were the final term of the winter's tactics, and +closed the private secretary's interest in the matter forever. Perhaps +he felt, even then, a good deal more interest in the appearance of +another private secretary, of his own age, a young man named John Hay, +who lighted on LaFayette Square at the same moment. Friends are born, +not made, and Henry never mistook a friend except when in power. From +the first slight meeting in February and March, 1861, he recognized Hay +as a friend, and never lost sight of him at the future crossing of +their paths; but, for the moment, his own task ended on March 4 when +Hay's began. The winter's anxieties were shifted upon new shoulders, +and Henry gladly turned back to Blackstone. He had tried to make +himself useful, and had exerted energy that seemed to him portentous, +acting in secret as newspaper correspondent, cultivating a large +acquaintance and even haunting ballrooms where the simple, +old-fashioned, Southern tone was pleasant even in the atmosphere of +conspiracy and treason. The sum was next to nothing for education, +because no one could teach; all were as ignorant as himself; none knew +what should be done, or how to do it; all were trying to learn and were +more bent on asking than on answering questions. The mass of ignorance +in Washington was lighted up by no ray of knowledge. Society, from top +to bottom, broke down. + + From this law there was no exception, unless, perhaps, that of +old General Winfield Scott, who happened to be the only military figure +that looked equal to the crisis. No one else either looked it, or was +it, or could be it, by nature or training. Had young Adams been told +that his life was to hang on the correctness of his estimate of the new +President, he would have lost. He saw Mr. Lincoln but once; at the +melancholy function called an Inaugural Ball. Of course he looked +anxiously for a sign of character. He saw a long, awkward figure; a +plain, ploughed face; a mind, absent in part, and in part evidently +worried by white kid gloves; features that expressed neither +self-satisfaction nor any other familiar Americanism, but rather the +same painful sense of becoming educated and of needing education that +tormented a private secretary; above all a lack of apparent force. Any +private secretary in the least fit for his business would have thought, +as Adams did, that no man living needed so much education as the new +President but that all the education he could get would not be enough. + + As far as a young man of anxious temperament could see, no one +in Washington was fitted for his duties; or rather, no duties in March +were fitted for the duties in April. The few people who thought they +knew something were more in error than those who knew nothing. +Education was matter of life and death, but all the education in the +world would have helped nothing. Only one man in Adams's reach seemed +to him supremely fitted by knowledge and experience to be an adviser +and friend. This was Senator Sumner; and there, in fact, the young +man's education began; there it ended. + + Going over the experience again, long after all the great +actors were dead, he struggled to see where he had blundered. In the +effort to make acquaintances, he lost friends, but he would have liked +much to know whether he could have helped it. He had necessarily +followed Seward and his father; he took for granted that his business +was obedience, discipline, and silence; he supposed the party to +require it, and that the crisis overruled all personal doubts. He was +thunderstruck to learn that Senator Sumner privately denounced the +course, regarded Mr. Adams as betraying the principles of his life, and +broke off relations with his family. + + Many a shock was Henry Adams to meet in the course of a long +life passed chiefly near politics and politicians, but the profoundest +lessons are not the lessons of reason; they are sudden strains that +permanently warp the mind. He cared little or nothing about the point +in discussion; he was even willing to admit that Sumner might be right, +though in all great emergencies he commonly found that every one was +more or less wrong; he liked lofty moral principle and cared little for +political tactics; he felt a profound respect for Sumner himself; but +the shock opened a chasm in life that never closed, and as long as life +lasted, he found himself invariably taking for granted, as a political +instinct, with out waiting further experiment--as he took for granted +that arsenic poisoned--the rule that a friend in power is a friend lost. + + On his own score, he never admitted the rupture, and never +exchanged a word with Mr. Sumner on the subject, then or afterwards, +but his education--for good or bad--made an enormous stride. One has to +deal with all sorts of unexpected morals in life, and, at this moment, +he was looking at hundreds of Southern gentlemen who believed +themselves singularly honest, but who seemed to him engaged in the +plainest breach of faith and the blackest secret conspiracy, yet they +did not disturb his education. History told of little else; and not one +rebel defection--not even Robert E. Lee's--cost young Adams a personal +pang; but Sumner's struck home. + + This, then, was the result of the new attempt at education, +down to March 4, 1861; this was all; and frankly, it seemed to him +hardly what he wanted. The picture of Washington in March, 1861, +offered education, but not the kind of education that led to good. The +process that Matthew Arnold described as wandering between two worlds, +one dead, the other powerless to be born, helps nothing. Washington was +a dismal school. Even before the traitors had flown, the vultures +descended on it in swarms that darkened the ground, and tore the +carrion of political patronage into fragments and gobbets of fat and +lean, on the very steps of the White House. Not a man there knew what +his task was to be, or was fitted for it; every one without exception, +Northern or Southern, was to learn his business at the cost of the +public. Lincoln, Seward, Sumner, and the rest, could give no help to +the young man seeking education; they knew less than he; within six +weeks they were all to be taught their duties by the uprising of such +as he, and their education was to cost a million lives and ten thousand +million dollars, more or less, North and South, before the country +could recover its balance and movement. Henry was a helpless victim, +and, like all the rest, he could only wait for he knew not what, to +send him he knew not where. + + With the close of the session, his own functions ended. Ceasing +to be private secretary he knew not what else to do but return with his +father and mother to Boston in the middle of March, and, with childlike +docility, sit down at a desk in the law-office of Horace Gray in Court +Street, to begin again: "My Lords and Gentlemen"; dozing after a two +o'clock dinner, or waking to discuss politics with the future Justice. +There, in ordinary times, he would have remained for life, his attempt +at education in treason having, like all the rest, disastrously failed. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +DIPLOMACY (1861) + + HARDLY a week passed when the newspapers announced that +President Lincoln had selected Charles Francis Adams as his Minister to +England. Once more, silently, Henry put Blackstone back on its shelf. +As Friar Bacon's head sententiously announced many centuries before: +Time had passed! The Civil Law lasted a brief day; the Common Law +prolonged its shadowy existence for a week. The law, altogether, as +path of education, vanished in April, 1861, leaving a million young men +planted in the mud of a lawless world, to begin a new life without +education at all. They asked few questions, but if they had asked +millions they would have got no answers. No one could help. Looking +back on this moment of crisis, nearly fifty years afterwards, one could +only shake one's white beard in silent horror. Mr. Adams once more +intimated that he thought himself entitled to the services of one of +his sons, and he indicated Henry as the only one who could be spared +from more serious duties. Henry packed his trunk again without a word. +He could offer no protest. Ridiculous as he knew himself about to be in +his new role, he was less ridiculous than his betters. He was at least +no public official, like the thousands of improvised secretaries and +generals who crowded their jealousies and intrigues on the President. +He was not a vulture of carrion--patronage. He knew that his father's +appointment was the result of Governor Seward's personal friendship; he +did not then know that Senator Sumner had opposed it, or the reasons +which Sumner alleged for thinking it unfit; but he could have supplied +proofs enough had Sumner asked for them, the strongest and most +decisive being that, in his opinion, Mr. Adams had chosen a private +secretary far more unfit than his chief. That Mr. Adams was unfit might +well be, since it was hard to find a fit appointment in the list of +possible candidates, except Mr. Sumner himself; and no one knew so well +as this experienced Senator that the weakest of all Mr. Adams's proofs +of fitness was his consent to quit a safe seat in Congress for an +exceedingly unsafe seat in London with no better support than Senator +Sumner, at the head of the Foreign Relations Committee, was likely to +give him. In the family history, its members had taken many a dangerous +risk, but never before had they taken one so desperate. + + The private secretary troubled himself not at all about the +unfitness of any one; he knew too little; and, in fact, no one, except +perhaps Mr. Sumner, knew more. The President and Secretary of State +knew least of all. As Secretary of Legation the Executive appointed the +editor of a Chicago newspaper who had applied for the Chicago +Post-Office; a good fellow, universally known as Charley Wilson, who +had not a thought of staying in the post, or of helping the Minister. +The Assistant Secretary was inherited from Buchanan's time, a hard +worker, but socially useless. Mr. Adams made no effort to find +efficient help; perhaps he knew no name to suggest; perhaps he knew too +much of Washington, but he could hardly have hoped to find a staff of +strength in his son. + + The private secretary was more passive than his father, for he +knew not where to turn. Sumner alone could have smoothed his path by +giving him letters of introduction, but if Sumner wrote letters, it was +not with the effect of smoothing paths. No one, at that moment, was +engaged in smoothing either paths or people. The private secretary was +no worse off than his neighbors except in being called earlier into +service. On April 13 the storm burst and rolled several hundred +thousand young men like Henry Adams into the surf of a wild ocean, all +helpless like himself, to be beaten about for four years by the waves +of war. Adams still had time to watch the regiments form ranks before +Boston State House in the April evenings and march southward, quietly +enough, with the air of business they wore from their cradles, but with +few signs or sounds of excitement. He had time also to go down the +harbor to see his brother Charles quartered in Fort Independence before +being thrown, with a hundred thousand more, into the furnace of the +Army of the Potomac to get educated in a fury of fire. Few things were +for the moment so trivial in importance as the solitary private +secretary crawling down to the wretched old Cunard steamer Niagara at +East Boston to start again for Liverpool. This time the pitcher of +education had gone to the fountain once too often; it was fairly +broken; and the young man had got to meet a hostile world without +defence--or arms. + + The situation did not seem even comic, so ignorant was the +world of its humors; yet Minister Adams sailed for England, May 1, +1861, with much the same outfit as Admiral Dupont would have enjoyed if +the Government had sent him to attack Port Royal with one cabin-boy in +a rowboat. Luckily for the cabin-boy, he was alone. Had Secretary +Seward and Senator Sumner given to Mr. Adams the rank of Ambassador and +four times his salary, a palace in London, a staff of trained +secretaries, and personal letters of introduction to the royal family +and the whole peerage, the private secretary would have been cabin-boy +still, with the extra burden of many masters; he was the most fortunate +person in the party, having for master only his father who never +fretted, never dictated, never disciplined, and whose idea of American +diplomacy was that of the eighteenth century. Minister Adams remembered +how his grandfather had sailed from Mount Wollaston in midwinter, 1778, +on the little frigate Boston, taking his eleven-year-old son John +Quincy with him, for secretary, on a diplomacy of adventure that had +hardly a parallel for success. He remembered how John Quincy, in 1809, +had sailed for Russia, with himself, a baby of two years old, to cope +with Napoleon and the Czar Alexander single-handed, almost as much of +an adventurer as John Adams before him, and almost as successful. He +thought it natural that the Government should send him out as an +adventurer also, with a twenty-three-year-old son, and he did not even +notice that he left not a friend behind him. No doubt he could depend +on Seward, but on whom could Seward depend? Certainly not on the +Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations. Minister Adams had no +friend in the Senate; he could hope for no favors, and he asked none. +He thought it right to play the adventurer as his father and +grandfather had done before him, without a murmur. This was a lofty +view, and for him answered his objects, but it bore hard on cabin-boys, +and when, in time, the young man realized what had happened, he felt it +as a betrayal. He modestly thought himself unfit for the career of +adventurer, and judged his father to be less fit than himself. For the +first time America was posing as the champion of legitimacy and order. +Her representatives should know how to play their role; they should +wear the costume; but, in the mission attached to Mr. Adams in 1861, +the only rag of legitimacy or order was the private secretary, whose +stature was not sufficient to impose awe on the Court and Parliament of +Great Britain. + + One inevitable effect of this lesson was to make a victim of +the scholar and to turn him into a harsh judge of his masters. If they +overlooked him, he could hardly overlook them, since they stood with +their whole weight on his body. By way of teaching him quickly, they +sent out their new Minister to Russia in the same ship. Secretary +Seward had occasion to learn the merits of Cassius M. Clay in the +diplomatic service, but Mr. Seward's education profited less than the +private secretary's, Cassius Clay as a teacher having no equal though +possibly some rivals. No young man, not in Government pay, could be +asked to draw, from such lessons, any confidence in himself, and it was +notorious that, for the next two years, the persons were few indeed who +felt, or had reason to feel, any sort of confidence in the Government; +fewest of all among those who were in it. At home, for the most part, +young men went to the war, grumbled and died; in England they might +grumble or not; no one listened. + + Above all, the private secretary could not grumble to his +chief. He knew surprisingly little, but that much he did know. He never +labored so hard to learn a language as he did to hold his tongue, and +it affected him for life. The habit of reticence--of talking without +meaning--is never effaced. He had to begin it at once. He was already +an adept when the party landed at Liverpool, May 13, 1861, and went +instantly up to London: a family of early Christian martyrs about to be +flung into an arena of lions, under the glad eyes of Tiberius +Palmerston. Though Lord Palmerston would have laughed his peculiar +Palmerston laugh at figuring as Tiberius, he would have seen only +evident resemblance in the Christian martyrs, for he had already +arranged the ceremony. + + Of what they had to expect, the Minister knew no more than his +son. What he or Mr. Seward or Mr. Sumner may have thought is the affair +of history and their errors concern historians. The errors of a private +secretary concerned no one but himself, and were a large part of his +education. He thought on May 12 that he was going to a friendly +Government and people, true to the anti-slavery principles which had +been their steadiest profession. For a hundred years the chief effort +of his family had aimed at bringing the Government of England into +intelligent cooperation with the objects and interests of America. His +father was about to make a new effort, and this time the chance of +success was promising. The slave States had been the chief apparent +obstacle to good understanding. As for the private secretary himself, +he was, like all Bostonians, instinctively English. He could not +conceive the idea of a hostile England. He supposed himself, as one of +the members of a famous anti-slavery family, to be welcome everywhere +in the British Islands. + + On May 13, he met the official announcement that England +recognized the belligerency of the Confederacy. This beginning of a new +education tore up by the roots nearly all that was left of Harvard +College and Germany. He had to learn--the sooner the better--that his +ideas were the reverse of truth; that in May, 1861, no one in +England--literally no one--doubted that Jefferson Davis had made or +would make a nation, and nearly all were glad of it, though not often +saying so. They mostly imitated Palmerston who, according to Mr. +Gladstone, "desired the severance as a diminution of a dangerous power, +but prudently held his tongue." The sentiment of anti-slavery had +disappeared. Lord John Russell, as Foreign Secretary, had received the +rebel emissaries, and had decided to recognize their belligerency +before the arrival of Mr. Adams in order to fix the position of the +British Government in advance. The recognition of independence would +then become an understood policy; a matter of time and occasion. + + Whatever Minister Adams may have felt, the first effect of this +shock upon his son produced only a dullness of comprehension--a sort of +hazy inability to grasp the missile or realize the blow. Yet he +realized that to his father it was likely to be fatal. The chances were +great that the whole family would turn round and go home within a few +weeks. The horizon widened out in endless waves of confusion. When he +thought over the subject in the long leisure of later life, he grew +cold at the idea of his situation had his father then shown himself +what Sumner thought him to be--unfit for his post. That the private +secretary was unfit for his--trifling though it were--was proved by his +unreflecting confidence in his father. It never entered his mind that +his father might lose his nerve or his temper, and yet in a subsequent +knowledge of statesmen and diplomats extending over several +generations, he could not certainly point out another who could have +stood such a shock without showing it. He passed this long day, and +tedious journey to London, without once thinking of the possibility +that his father might make a mistake. Whatever the Minister thought, +and certainly his thought was not less active than his son's, he showed +no trace of excitement. His manner was the same as ever; his mind and +temper were as perfectly balanced; not a word escaped; not a nerve +twitched. + + The test was final, for no other shock so violent and sudden +could possibly recur. The worst was in full sight. For once the private +secretary knew his own business, which was to imitate his father as +closely as possible and hold his tongue. Dumped thus into Maurigy's +Hotel at the foot of Regent Street, in the midst of a London season, +without a friend or even an acquaintance, he preferred to laugh at his +father's bewilderment before the waiter's "'amhandheggsir" for +breakfast, rather than ask a question or express a doubt. His +situation, if taken seriously, was too appalling to face. Had he known +it better, he would only have thought it worse. + + Politically or socially, the outlook was desperate, beyond +retrieving or contesting. Socially, under the best of circumstances, a +newcomer in London society needs years to establish a position, and +Minister Adams had not a week or an hour to spare, while his son had +not even a remote chance of beginning. Politically the prospect looked +even worse, and for Secretary Seward and Senator Sumner it was so; but +for the Minister, on the spot, as he came to realize exactly where he +stood, the danger was not so imminent. Mr. Adams was always one of the +luckiest of men, both in what he achieved and in what he escaped. The +blow, which prostrated Seward and Sumner, passed over him. Lord John +Russell had acted--had probably intended to act--kindly by him in +forestalling his arrival. The blow must have fallen within three +months, and would then have broken him down. The British Ministers were +a little in doubt still--a little ashamed of themselves--and certain to +wait the longer for their next step in proportion to the haste of their +first. + + This is not a story of the diplomatic adventures of Charles +Francis Adams, but of his son Henry's adventures in search of an +education, which, if not taken too seriously, tended to humor. The +father's position in London was not altogether bad; the son's was +absurd. Thanks to certain family associations, Charles Francis Adams +naturally looked on all British Ministers as enemies; the only public +occupation of all Adamses for a hundred and fifty years at least, in +their brief intervals of quarrelling with State Street, had been to +quarrel with Downing Street; and the British Government, well used to a +liberal unpopularity abroad, even when officially rude liked to be +personally civil. All diplomatic agents are liable to be put, so to +speak, in a corner, and are none the worse for it. Minister Adams had +nothing in especial to complain of; his position was good while it +lasted, and he had only the chances of war to fear. The son had no such +compensations. Brought over in order to help his father, he could +conceive no way of rendering his father help, but he was clear that his +father had got to help him. To him, the Legation was social ostracism, +terrible beyond anything he had known. Entire solitude in the great +society of London was doubly desperate because his duties as private +secretary required him to know everybody and go with his father and +mother everywhere they needed escort. He had no friend, or even enemy, +to tell him to be patient. Had any one done it, he would surely have +broken out with the reply that patience was the last resource of fools +as well as of sages; if he was to help his father at all, he must do it +at once, for his father would never so much need help again. In fact he +never gave his father the smallest help, unless it were as a footman, +clerk, or a companion for the younger children. + + He found himself in a singular situation for one who was to be +useful. As he came to see the situation closer, he began to doubt +whether secretaries were meant to be useful. Wars were too common in +diplomacy to disturb the habits of the diplomat. Most secretaries +detested their chiefs, and wished to be anything but useful. At the St. +James's Club, to which the Minister's son could go only as an invited +guest, the most instructive conversation he ever heard among the young +men of his own age who hung about the tables, more helpless than +himself, was: "Quel chien de pays!" or, "Que tu es beau aujourd'hui, +mon cher!" No one wanted to discuss affairs; still less to give or get +information. That was the affair of their chiefs, who were also slow to +assume work not specially ordered from their Courts. If the American +Minister was in trouble to-day, the Russian Ambassador was in trouble +yesterday, and the Frenchman would be in trouble to-morrow. It would +all come in the day's work. There was nothing professional in worry. +Empires were always tumbling to pieces and diplomats were always +picking them up. + + This was his whole diplomatic education, except that he found +rich veins of jealousy running between every chief and his staff. His +social education was more barren still, and more trying to his vanity. +His little mistakes in etiquette or address made him writhe with +torture. He never forgot the first two or three social functions he +attended: one an afternoon at Miss Burdett Coutts's in Stratton Place, +where he hid himself in the embrasure of a window and hoped that no one +noticed him; another was a garden-party given by the old anti-slavery +Duchess Dowager of Sutherland at Chiswick, where the American Minister +and Mrs. Adams were kept in conversation by the old Duchess till every +one else went away except the young Duke and his cousins, who set to +playing leap-frog on the lawn. At intervals during the next thirty +years Henry Adams continued to happen upon the Duke, who, singularly +enough, was always playing leap-frog. Still another nightmare he +suffered at a dance given by the old Duchess Dowager of Somerset, a +terrible vision in castanets, who seized him and forced him to perform +a Highland fling before the assembled nobility and gentry, with the +daughter of the Turkish Ambassador for partner. This might seem +humorous to some, but to him the world turned to ashes. + + When the end of the season came, the private secretary had not +yet won a private acquaintance, and he hugged himself in his solitude +when the story of the battle of Bull Run appeared in the Times. He felt +only the wish to be more private than ever, for Bull Run was a worse +diplomatic than military disaster. All this is history and can be read +by public schools if they choose; but the curious and unexpected +happened to the Legation, for the effect of Bull Run on them was almost +strengthening. They no longer felt doubt. For the next year they went +on only from week to week, ready to leave England at once, and never +assuming more than three months for their limit. Europe was waiting to +see them go. So certain was the end that no one cared to hurry it. + + So far as a private secretary could see, this was all that saved +his father. For many months he looked on himself as lost or finished in +the character of private secretary; and as about to begin, without +further experiment, a final education in the ranks of the Army of the +Potomac where he would find most of his friends enjoying a much +pleasanter life than his own. With this idea uppermost in his mind, he +passed the summer and the autumn, and began the winter. Any winter in +London is a severe trial; one's first winter is the most trying; but +the month of December, 1861, in Mansfield Street, Portland Place, would +have gorged a glutton of gloom. + + One afternoon when he was struggling to resist complete nervous +depression in the solitude of Mansfield Street, during the absence of +the Minister and Mrs. Adams on a country visit, Reuter's telegram +announcing the seizure of Mason and Slidell from a British mail-steamer +was brought to the office. All three secretaries, public and private +were there--nervous as wild beasts under the long strain on their +endurance--and all three, though they knew it to be not merely their +order of departure--not merely diplomatic rupture--but a declaration of +war--broke into shouts of delight. They were glad to face the end. They +saw it and cheered it! Since England was waiting only for its own +moment to strike, they were eager to strike first. + + They telegraphed the news to the Minister, who was staying with +Monckton Milnes at Fryston in Yorkshire. How Mr. Adams took it, is told +in the "Lives" of Lord Houghton and William E. Forster who was one of +the Fryston party. The moment was for him the crisis of his diplomatic +career; for the secretaries it was merely the beginning of another +intolerable delay, as though they were a military outpost waiting +orders to quit an abandoned position. At the moment of sharpest +suspense, the Prince Consort sickened and died. Portland Place at +Christmas in a black fog was never a rosy landscape, but in 1861 the +most hardened Londoner lost his ruddiness. The private secretary had +one source of comfort denied to them--he should not be private +secretary long. + + He was mistaken--of course! He had been mistaken at every +point of his education, and, on this point, he kept up the same mistake +for nearly seven years longer, always deluded by the notion that the +end was near. To him the Trent Affair was nothing but one of many +affairs which he had to copy in a delicate round hand into his books, +yet it had one or two results personal to him which left no trace on +the Legation records. One of these, and to him the most important, was +to put an end forever to the idea of being "useful." Hitherto, as an +independent and free citizen, not in the employ of the Government, he +had kept up his relations with the American press. He had written +pretty frequently to Henry J. Raymond, and Raymond had used his letters +in the New York Times. He had also become fairly intimate with the two +or three friendly newspapers in London, the Daily News, the Star, the +weekly Spectator; and he had tried to give them news and views that +should have a certain common character, and prevent clash. He had even +gone down to Manchester to study the cotton famine, and wrote a long +account of his visit which his brother Charles had published in the +Boston Courier. Unfortunately it was printed with his name, and +instantly came back upon him in the most crushing shape possible--that +of a long, satirical leader in the London Times. Luckily the Times did +not know its victim to be a part, though not an official, of the +Legation, and lost the chance to make its satire fatal; but he +instantly learned the narrowness of his escape from old Joe Parkes, one +of the traditional busy-bodies of politics, who had haunted London +since 1830, and who, after rushing to the Times office, to tell them +all they did not know about Henry Adams, rushed to the Legation to tell +Adams all he did not want to know about the Times. For a moment Adams +thought his "usefulness" at an end in other respects than in the press, +but a day or two more taught him the value of obscurity. He was totally +unknown; he had not even a club; London was empty; no one thought twice +about the Times article; no one except Joe Parkes ever spoke of it; and +the world had other persons--such as President Lincoln, Secretary +Seward, and Commodore Wilkes--for constant and favorite objects of +ridicule. Henry Adams escaped, but he never tried to be useful again. +The Trent Affair dwarfed individual effort. His education at least had +reached the point of seeing its own proportions. "Surtout point de +zele!" Zeal was too hazardous a profession for a Minister's son to +pursue, as a volunteer manipulator, among Trent Affairs and rebel +cruisers. He wrote no more letters and meddled with no more newspapers, +but he was still young, and felt unkindly towards the editor of the +London Times. + + Mr. Delane lost few opportunities of embittering him, and he +felt little or no hope of repaying these attentions; but the Trent +Affair passed like a snowstorm, leaving the Legation, to its surprise, +still in place. Although the private secretary saw in this delay--which +he attributed to Mr. Seward's good sense--no reason for changing his +opinion about the views of the British Government, he had no choice but +to sit down again at his table, and go on copying papers, filing +letters, and reading newspaper accounts of the incapacity of Mr. +Lincoln and the brutality of Mr. Seward--or vice versa. The heavy +months dragged on and winter slowly turned to spring without improving +his position or spirits. Socially he had but one relief; and, to the +end of life, he never forgot the keen gratitude he owed for it. During +this tedious winter and for many months afterwards, the only gleams of +sunshine were on the days he passed at Walton-on-Thames as the guest of +Mr. and Mrs. Russell Sturgis at Mount Felix. + + His education had unfortunately little to do with bankers, +although old George Peabody and his partner, Junius Morgan, were strong +allies. Joshua Bates was devoted, and no one could be kinder than +Thomas Baring, whose little dinners in Upper Grosvenor Street were +certainly the best in London; but none offered a refuge to compare with +Mount Felix, and, for the first time, the refuge was a liberal +education. Mrs. Russell Sturgis was one of the women to whom an +intelligent boy attaches himself as closely as he can. Henry Adams was +not a very intelligent boy, and he had no knowledge of the world, but +he knew enough to understand that a cub needed shape. The kind of +education he most required was that of a charming woman, and Mrs. +Russell Sturgis, a dozen years older than himself, could have +good-naturedly trained a school of such, without an effort, and with +infinite advantage to them. Near her he half forgot the anxieties of +Portland Place. During two years of miserable solitude, she was in this +social polar winter, the single source of warmth and light. + + Of course the Legation itself was home, and, under such +pressure, life in it could be nothing but united. All the inmates made +common cause, but this was no education. One lived, but was merely +flayed alive. Yet, while this might be exactly true of the younger +members of the household, it was not quite so with the Minister and +Mrs. Adams. Very slowly, but quite steadily, they gained foothold. For +some reason partly connected with American sources, British society had +begun with violent social prejudice against Lincoln, Seward, and all +the Republican leaders except Sumner. Familiar as the whole tribe of +Adamses had been for three generations with the impenetrable stupidity +of the British mind, and weary of the long struggle to teach it its own +interests, the fourth generation could still not quite persuade itself +that this new British prejudice was natural. The private secretary +suspected that Americans in New York and Boston had something to do +with it. The Copperhead was at home in Pall Mall. Naturally the +Englishman was a coarse animal and liked coarseness. Had Lincoln and +Seward been the ruffians supposed, the average Englishman would have +liked them the better. The exceedingly quiet manner and the +unassailable social position of Minister Adams in no way conciliated +them. They chose to ignore him, since they could not ridicule him. Lord +John Russell set the example. Personally the Minister was to be kindly +treated; politically he was negligible; he was there to be put aside. +London and Paris imitated Lord John. Every one waited to see Lincoln +and his hirelings disappear in one vast debacle. All conceived that the +Washington Government would soon crumble, and that Minister Adams would +vanish with the rest. + + This situation made Minister Adams an exception among +diplomats. European rulers for the most part fought and treated as +members of one family, and rarely had in view the possibility of total +extinction; but the Governments and society of Europe, for a year at +least, regarded the Washington Government as dead, and its Ministers as +nullities. Minister Adams was better received than most nullities +because he made no noise. Little by little, in private, society took +the habit of accepting him, not so much as a diplomat, but rather as a +member of opposition, or an eminent counsel retained for a foreign +Government. He was to be received and considered; to be cordially +treated as, by birth and manners, one of themselves. This curiously +English way of getting behind a stupidity gave the Minister every +possible advantage over a European diplomat. Barriers of race, +language, birth, habit, ceased to exist. Diplomacy held diplomats apart +in order to save Governments, but Earl Russell could not hold Mr. Adams +apart. He was undistinguishable from a Londoner. In society few +Londoners were so widely at home. None had such double personality and +corresponding double weight. + + The singular luck that took him to Fryston to meet the shock of +the Trent Affair under the sympathetic eyes of Monckton Milnes and +William E. Forster never afterwards deserted him. Both Milnes and +Forster needed support and were greatly relieved to be supported. They +saw what the private secretary in May had overlooked, the hopeless +position they were in if the American Minister made a mistake, and, +since his strength was theirs, they lost no time in expressing to all +the world their estimate of the Minister's character. Between them the +Minister was almost safe. + + One might discuss long whether, at that moment, Milnes or +Forster were the more valuable ally, since they were influences of +different kinds. Monckton Milnes was a social power in London, possibly +greater than Londoners themselves quite understood, for in London +society as elsewhere, the dull and the ignorant made a large majority, +and dull men always laughed at Monckton Milnes. Every bore was used to +talk familiarly about "Dicky Milnes," the "cool of the evening"; and of +course he himself affected social eccentricity, challenging ridicule +with the indifference of one who knew himself to be the first wit in +London, and a maker of men--of a great many men. A word from him went +far. An invitation to his breakfast-table went farther. Behind his +almost Falstaffian mask and laugh of Silenus, he carried a fine, broad, +and high intelligence which no one questioned. As a young man he had +written verses, which some readers thought poetry, and which were +certainly not altogether prose. Later, in Parliament he made speeches, +chiefly criticised as too good for the place and too high for the +audience. Socially, he was one of two or three men who went everywhere, +knew everybody, talked of everything, and had the ear of Ministers; but +unlike most wits, he held a social position of his own that ended in a +peerage, and he had a house in Upper Brook Street to which most clever +people were exceedingly glad of admission. His breakfasts were famous, +and no one liked to decline his invitations, for it was more dangerous +to show timidity than to risk a fray. He was a voracious reader, a +strong critic, an art connoisseur in certain directions, a collector of +books, but above all he was a man of the world by profession, and loved +the contacts--perhaps the collisions--of society. Not even Henry +Brougham dared do the things he did, yet Brougham defied rebuff. Milnes +was the good-nature of London; the Gargantuan type of its refinement +and coarseness; the most universal figure of May Fair. + + Compared with him, figures like Hayward, or Delane, or +Venables, or Henry Reeve were quite secondary, but William E. Forster +stood in a different class. Forster had nothing whatever to do with May +Fair. Except in being a Yorkshireman he was quite the opposite of +Milnes. He had at that time no social or political position; he never +had a vestige of Milnes's wit or variety; he was a tall, rough, +ungainly figure, affecting the singular form of self-defense which the +Yorkshiremen and Lancashiremen seem to hold dear--the exterior +roughness assumed to cover an internal, emotional, almost sentimental +nature. Kindly he had to be, if only by his inheritance from a Quaker +ancestry, but he was a Friend one degree removed. Sentimental and +emotional he must have been, or he could never have persuaded a +daughter of Dr. Arnold to marry him. Pure gold, without a trace of base +metal; honest, unselfish, practical; he took up the Union cause and +made himself its champion, as a true Yorkshireman was sure to do, +partly because of his Quaker anti-slavery convictions, and partly +because it gave him a practical opening in the House. As a new member, +he needed a field. + + Diffidence was not one of Forster's weaknesses. His practical +sense and his personal energy soon established him in leadership, and +made him a powerful champion, not so much for ornament as for work. +With such a manager, the friends of the Union in England began to take +heart. Minister Adams had only to look on as his true champions, the +heavy-weights, came into action, and even the private secretary caught +now and then a stray gleam of encouragement as he saw the ring begin to +clear for these burly Yorkshiremen to stand up in a prize-fight likely +to be as brutal as ever England had known. Milnes and Forster were not +exactly light-weights, but Bright and Cobden were the hardest hitters +in England, and with them for champions the Minister could tackle even +Lord Palmerston without much fear of foul play. + + In society John Bright and Richard Cobden were never seen, and +even in Parliament they had no large following. They were classed as +enemies of order,--anarchists,--and anarchists they were if hatred of +the so-called established orders made them so. About them was no sort +of political timidity. They took bluntly the side of the Union against +Palmerston whom they hated. Strangers to London society, they were at +home in the American Legation, delightful dinner-company, talking +always with reckless freedom. Cobden was the milder and more +persuasive; Bright was the more dangerous to approach; but the private +secretary delighted in both, and nourished an ardent wish to see them +talk the same language to Lord John Russell from the gangway of the +House. + + With four such allies as these, Minister Adams stood no longer +quite helpless. For the second time the British Ministry felt a little +ashamed of itself after the Trent Affair, as well it might, and +disposed to wait before moving again. Little by little, friends +gathered about the Legation who were no fair-weather companions. The +old anti-slavery, Exeter Hall, Shaftesbury clique turned out to be an +annoying and troublesome enemy, but the Duke of Argyll was one of the +most valuable friends the Minister found, both politically and +socially, and the Duchess was as true as her mother. Even the private +secretary shared faintly in the social profit of this relation, and +never forgot dining one night at the Lodge, and finding himself after +dinner engaged in instructing John Stuart Mill about the peculiar +merits of an American protective system. In spite of all the +probabilities, he convinced himself that it was not the Duke's claret +which led him to this singular form of loquacity; he insisted that it +was the fault of Mr. Mill himself who led him on by assenting to his +point of view. Mr. Mill took no apparent pleasure in dispute, and in +that respect the Duke would perhaps have done better; but the secretary +had to admit that though at other periods of life he was sufficiently +and even amply snubbed by Englishmen, he could never recall a single +occasion during this trying year, when he had to complain of rudeness. + + Friendliness he found here and there, but chiefly among his +elders; not among fashionable or socially powerful people, either men +or women; although not even this rule was quite exact, for Frederick +Cavendish's kindness and intimate relations made Devonshire House +almost familiar, and Lyulph Stanley's ardent Americanism created a +certain cordiality with the Stanleys of Alderley whose house was one of +the most frequented in London. Lorne, too, the future Argyll, was +always a friend. Yet the regular course of society led to more literary +intimacies. Sir Charles Trevelyan's house was one of the first to which +young Adams was asked, and with which his friendly relations never +ceased for near half a century, and then only when death stopped them. +Sir Charles and Lady Lyell were intimates. Tom Hughes came into close +alliance. By the time society began to reopen its doors after the death +of the Prince Consort, even the private secretary occasionally saw a +face he knew, although he made no more effort of any kind, but silently +waited the end. Whatever might be the advantages of social relations to +his father and mother, to him the whole business of diplomacy and +society was futile. He meant to go home. + + + +CHAPTER IX + +FOES OR FRIENDS (1862) + + OF the year 1862 Henry Adams could never think without a +shudder. The war alone did not greatly distress him; already in his +short life he was used to seeing people wade in blood, and he could +plainly discern in history, that man from the beginning had found his +chief amusement in bloodshed; but the ferocious joy of destruction at +its best requires that one should kill what one hates, and young Adams +neither hated nor wanted to kill his friends the rebels, while he +wanted nothing so much as to wipe England off the earth. Never could +any good come from that besotted race! He was feebly trying to save his +own life. Every day the British Government deliberately crowded him one +step further into the grave. He could see it; the Legation knew it; no +one doubted it; no one thought of questioning it. The Trent Affair +showed where Palmerston and Russell stood. The escape of the rebel +cruisers from Liverpool was not, in a young man's eyes, the sign of +hesitation, but the proof of their fixed intention to intervene. Lord +Russell's replies to Mr. Adams's notes were discourteous in their +indifference, and, to an irritable young private secretary of +twenty-four, were insolent in their disregard of truth. Whatever forms +of phrase were usual in public to modify the harshness of invective, in +private no political opponent in England, and few political friends, +hesitated to say brutally of Lord John Russell that he lied. This was +no great reproach, for, more or less, every statesman lied, but the +intensity of the private secretary's rage sprang from his belief that +Russell's form of defence covered intent to kill. Not for an instant +did the Legation draw a free breath. The suspense was hideous and +unendurable. + + The Minister, no doubt, endured it, but he had support and +consideration, while his son had nothing to think about but his friends +who were mostly dying under McClellan in the swamps about Richmond, or +his enemies who were exulting in Pall Mall. He bore it as well as he +could till midsummer, but, when the story of the second Bull Run +appeared, he could bear it no longer, and after a sleepless night, +walking up and down his room without reflecting that his father was +beneath him, he announced at breakfast his intention to go home into +the army. His mother seemed to be less impressed by the announcement +than by the walking over her head, which was so unlike her as to +surprise her son. His father, too, received the announcement quietly. +No doubt they expected it, and had taken their measures in advance. In +those days, parents got used to all sorts of announcements from their +children. Mr. Adams took his son's defection as quietly as he took Bull +Run; but his son never got the chance to go. He found obstacles +constantly rising in his path. The remonstrances of his brother +Charles, who was himself in the Army of the Potomac, and whose opinion +had always the greatest weight with Henry, had much to do with delaying +action; but he felt, of his own accord, that if he deserted his post in +London, and found the Capuan comforts he expected in Virginia where he +would have only bullets to wound him, he would never forgive himself +for leaving his father and mother alone to be devoured by the wild +beasts of the British amphitheatre. This reflection might not have +stopped him, but his father's suggestion was decisive. The Minister +pointed out that it was too late for him to take part in the actual +campaign, and that long before next spring they would all go home +together. + + + The young man had copied too many affidavits about rebel +cruisers to miss the point of this argument, so he sat down again to +copy some more. Consul Dudley at Liverpool provided a continuous +supply. Properly, the affidavits were no business of the private +secretary, but practically the private secretary did a second +secretary's work, and was glad to do it, if it would save Mr. Seward +the trouble of sending more secretaries of his own selection to help +the Minister. The work was nothing, and no one ever complained of it; +not even Moran, the Secretary of Legation after the departure of +Charley Wilson, though he might sit up all night to copy. Not the work, +but the play exhausted. The effort of facing a hostile society was bad +enough, but that of facing friends was worse. After terrific disasters +like the seven days before Richmond and the second Bull Run, friends +needed support; a tone of bluff would have been fatal, for the average +mind sees quickest through a bluff; nothing answers but candor; yet +private secretaries never feel candid, however much they feel the +reverse, and therefore they must affect candor; not always a simple act +when one is exasperated, furious, bitter, and choking with tears over +the blunders and incapacity of one's Government. If one shed tears, +they must be shed on one's pillow. Least of all, must one throw extra +strain on the Minister, who had all he could carry without being +fretted in his family. One must read one's Times every morning over +one's muffin without reading aloud--"Another disastrous Federal +Defeat"; and one might not even indulge in harmless profanity. +Self-restraint among friends required much more effort than keeping a +quiet face before enemies. Great men were the worst blunderers. One day +the private secretary smiled, when standing with the crowd in the +throne-room while the endless procession made bows to the royal family, +at hearing, behind his shoulder, one Cabinet Minister remark gaily to +another: "So the Federals have got another licking!" The point of the +remark was its truth. Even a private secretary had learned to control +his tones and guard his features and betray no joy over the "lickings" +of an enemy--in the enemy's presence. + + London was altogether beside itself on one point, in especial; +it created a nightmare of its own, and gave it the shape of Abraham +Lincoln. Behind this it placed another demon, if possible more +devilish, and called it Mr. Seward. In regard to these two men, English +society seemed demented. Defence was useless; explanation was vain; one +could only let the passion exhaust itself. One's best friends were as +unreasonable as enemies, for the belief in poor Mr. Lincoln's brutality +and Seward's ferocity became a dogma of popular faith. The last time +Henry Adams saw Thackeray, before his sudden death at Christmas in +1863, was in entering the house of Sir Henry Holland for an evening +reception. Thackeray was pulling on his coat downstairs, laughing +because, in his usual blind way, he had stumbled into the wrong house +and not found it out till he shook hands with old Sir Henry, whom he +knew very well, but who was not the host he expected. Then his tone +changed as he spoke of his--and Adams's--friend, Mrs. Frank Hampton, of +South Carolina, whom he had loved as Sally Baxter and painted as Ethel +Newcome. Though he had never quite forgiven her marriage, his warmth of +feeling revived when he heard that she had died of consumption at +Columbia while her parents and sister were refused permission to pass +through the lines to see her. In speaking of it, Thackeray's voice +trembled and his eyes filled with tears. The coarse cruelty of Lincoln +and his hirelings was notorious. He never doubted that the Federals +made a business of harrowing the tenderest feelings of +women--particularly of women--in order to punish their opponents. On +quite insufficient evidence he burst into violent reproach. Had Adams +carried in his pocket the proofs that the reproach was unjust, he would +have gained nothing by showing them. At that moment Thackeray, and all +London society with him, needed the nervous relief of expressing +emotion; for if Mr. Lincoln was not what they said he--was what were +they? + + For like reason, the members of the Legation kept silence, even +in private, under the boorish Scotch jibes of Carlyle. If Carlyle was +wrong, his diatribes would give his true measure, and this measure +would be a low one, for Carlyle was not likely to be more sincere or +more sound in one thought than in another. The proof that a philosopher +does not know what he is talking about is apt to sadden his followers +before it reacts on himself. Demolition of one's idols is painful, and +Carlyle had been an idol. Doubts cast on his stature spread far into +general darkness like shadows of a setting sun. Not merely the idols +fell, but also the habit of faith. If Carlyle, too, was a fraud, what +were his scholars and school? + + Society as a rule was civil, and one had no more reason to +complain than every other diplomatist has had, in like conditions, but +one's few friends in society were mere ornament. The Legation could not +dream of contesting social control. The best they could do was to +escape mortification, and by this time their relations were good enough +to save the Minister's family from that annoyance. Now and then, the +fact could not be wholly disguised that some one had refused to +meet--or to receive--the Minister; but never an open insult, or any +expression of which the Minister had to take notice. Diplomacy served +as a buffer in times of irritation, and no diplomat who knew his +business fretted at what every diplomat--and none more commonly than +the English--had to expect; therefore Henry Adams, though not a +diplomat and wholly unprotected, went his way peacefully enough, seeing +clearly that society cared little to make his acquaintance, but seeing +also no reason why society should discover charms in him of which he +was himself unconscious. He went where he was asked; he was always +courteously received; he was, on the whole, better treated than at +Washington; and he held his tongue. + + For a thousand reasons, the best diplomatic house in London was +Lord Palmerston's, while Lord John Russell's was one of the worst. Of +neither host could a private secretary expect to know anything. He +might as well have expected to know the Grand Lama. Personally Lord +Palmerston was the last man in London that a cautious private secretary +wanted to know. Other Prime Ministers may perhaps have lived who +inspired among diplomatists as much distrust as Palmerston, and yet +between Palmerston's word and Russell's word, one hesitated to decide, +and gave years of education to deciding, whether either could be +trusted, or how far. The Queen herself in her famous memorandum of +August 12, 1850, gave her opinion of Palmerston in words that differed +little from words used by Lord John Russell, and both the Queen and +Russell said in substance only what Cobden and Bright said in private. +Every diplomatist agreed with them, yet the diplomatic standard of +trust seemed to be other than the parliamentarian. No professional +diplomatists worried about falsehoods. Words were with them forms of +expression which varied with individuals, but falsehood was more or +less necessary to all. The worst liars were the candid. What +diplomatists wanted to know was the motive that lay beyond the +expression. In the case of Palmerston they were unanimous in warning +new colleagues that they might expect to be sacrificed by him to any +momentary personal object. Every new Minister or Ambassador at the +Court of St. James received this preliminary lesson that he must, if +possible, keep out of Palmerston's reach. The rule was not secret or +merely diplomatic. The Queen herself had emphatically expressed the +same opinion officially. If Palmerston had an object to gain, he would +go down to the House of Commons and betray or misrepresent a foreign +Minister, without concern for his victim. No one got back on him with a +blow equally mischievous--not even the Queen--for, as old Baron Brunnow +described him: "C'est une peau de rhinocere!" Having gained his point, +he laughed, and his public laughed with him, for the usual British--or +American--public likes to be amused, and thought it very amusing to see +these beribboned and bestarred foreigners caught and tossed and gored +on the horns of this jovial, slashing, devil-may-care British bull. + + Diplomatists have no right to complain of mere lies; it is +their own fault, if, educated as they are, the lies deceive them; but +they complain bitterly of traps. Palmerston was believed to lay traps. +He was the enfant terrible of the British Government. On the other +hand, Lady Palmerston was believed to be good and loyal. All the +diplomats and their wives seemed to think so, and took their troubles +to her, believing that she would try to help them. For this reason +among others, her evenings at home--Saturday Reviews, they were +called--had great vogue. An ignorant young American could not be +expected to explain it. Cambridge House was no better for entertaining +than a score of others. Lady Palmerston was no longer young or +handsome, and could hardly at any age have been vivacious. The people +one met there were never smart and seldom young; they were largely +diplomatic, and diplomats are commonly dull; they were largely +political, and politicians rarely decorate or beautify an evening +party; they were sprinkled with literary people, who are notoriously +unfashionable; the women were of course ill-dressed and middle-aged; +the men looked mostly bored or out of place; yet, beyond a doubt, +Cambridge House was the best, and perhaps the only political house in +London, and its success was due to Lady Palmerston, who never seemed to +make an effort beyond a friendly recognition. As a lesson in social +education, Cambridge House gave much subject for thought. First or +last, one was to know dozens of statesmen more powerful and more +agreeable than Lord Palmerston; dozens of ladies more beautiful and +more painstaking than Lady Palmerston; but no political house so +successful as Cambridge House. The world never explains such riddles. +The foreigners said only that Lady Palmerston was "sympathique." + + The small fry of the Legations were admitted there, or +tolerated, without a further effort to recognize their existence, but +they were pleased because rarely tolerated anywhere else, and there +they could at least stand in a corner and look at a bishop or even a +duke. This was the social diversion of young Adams. No one knew +him--not even the lackeys. The last Saturday evening he ever attended, +he gave his name as usual at the foot of the staircase, and was rather +disturbed to hear it shouted up as "Mr. Handrew Hadams!" He tried to +correct it, and the footman shouted more loudly: "Mr. Hanthony Hadams!" +With some temper he repeated the correction, and was finally announced +as "Mr. Halexander Hadams," and under this name made his bow for the +last time to Lord Palmerston who certainly knew no better. + + Far down the staircase one heard Lord Palmerston's laugh as he +stood at the door receiving his guests, talking probably to one of his +henchmen, Delane, Borthwick, or Hayward, who were sure to be near. The +laugh was singular, mechanical, wooden, and did not seem to disturb his +features. "Ha! ... Ha! ... Ha!" Each was a slow, deliberate +ejaculation, and all were in the same tone, as though he meant to say: +"Yes! ... Yes! ... Yes!" by way of assurance. It was a laugh of 1810 +and the Congress of Vienna. Adams would have much liked to stop a +moment and ask whether William Pitt and the Duke of Wellington had +laughed so; but young men attached to foreign Ministers asked no +questions at all of Palmerston and their chiefs asked as few as +possible. One made the usual bow and received the usual glance of +civility; then passed on to Lady Palmerston, who was always kind in +manner, but who wasted no remarks; and so to Lady Jocelyn with her +daughter, who commonly had something friendly to say; then went through +the diplomatic corps, Brunnow, Musurus, Azeglio, Apponyi, Van de Weyer, +Bille, Tricoupi, and the rest, finally dropping into the hands of some +literary accident as strange there as one's self. The routine varied +little. There was no attempt at entertainment. Except for the desperate +isolation of these two first seasons, even secretaries would have found +the effort almost as mechanical as a levee at St. James's Palace. + + Lord Palmerston was not Foreign Secretary; he was Prime +Minister, but he loved foreign affairs and could no more resist scoring +a point in diplomacy than in whist. Ministers of foreign powers, +knowing his habits, tried to hold him at arms'-length, and, to do this, +were obliged to court the actual Foreign Secretary, Lord John Russell, +who, on July 30, 1861, was called up to the House of Lords as an earl. +By some process of personal affiliation, Minister Adams succeeded in +persuading himself that he could trust Lord Russell more safely than +Lord Palmerston. His son, being young and ill-balanced in temper, +thought there was nothing to choose. Englishmen saw little difference +between them, and Americans were bound to follow English experience in +English character. Minister Adams had much to learn, although with him +as well as with his son, the months of education began to count as +aeons. + + Just as Brunnow predicted, Lord Palmerston made his rush at +last, as unexpected as always, and more furiously than though still a +private secretary of twenty-four. Only a man who had been young with +the battle of Trafalgar could be fresh and jaunty to that point, but +Minister Adams was not in a position to sympathize with octogenarian +youth and found himself in a danger as critical as that of his numerous +predecessors. It was late one after noon in June, 1862, as the private +secretary returned, with the Minister, from some social function, that +he saw his father pick up a note from his desk and read it in silence. +Then he said curtly: "Palmerston wants a quarrel!" This was the point +of the incident as he felt it. Palmerston wanted a quarrel; he must not +be gratified; he must be stopped. The matter of quarrel was General +Butler's famous woman-order at New Orleans, but the motive was the +belief in President Lincoln's brutality that had taken such deep root +in the British mind. Knowing Palmerston's habits, the Minister took for +granted that he meant to score a diplomatic point by producing this +note in the House of Commons. If he did this at once, the Minister was +lost; the quarrel was made; and one new victim to Palmerston's passion +for popularity was sacrificed. + + The moment was nervous--as far as the private secretary knew, +quite the most critical moment in the records of American +diplomacy--but the story belongs to history, not to education, and can +be read there by any one who cares to read it. As a part of Henry +Adams's education it had a value distinct from history. That his father +succeeded in muzzling Palmerston without a public scandal, was well +enough for the Minister, but was not enough for a private secretary who +liked going to Cambridge House, and was puzzled to reconcile +contradictions. That Palmerston had wanted a quarrel was obvious; why, +then, did he submit so tamely to being made the victim of the quarrel? +The correspondence that followed his note was conducted feebly on his +side, and he allowed the United States Minister to close it by a +refusal to receive further communications from him except through Lord +Russell. The step was excessively strong, for it broke off private +relations as well as public, and cost even the private secretary his +invitations to Cambridge House. Lady Palmerston tried her best, but the +two ladies found no resource except tears. They had to do with American +Minister perplexed in the extreme. Not that Mr. Adams lost his temper, +for he never felt such a weight of responsibility, and was never more +cool; but he could conceive no other way of protecting his Government, +not to speak of himself, than to force Lord Russell to interpose. He +believed that Palmerston's submission and silence were due to Russell. +Perhaps he was right; at the time, his son had no doubt of it, though +afterwards he felt less sure. Palmerston wanted a quarrel; the motive +seemed evident; yet when the quarrel was made, he backed out of it; for +some reason it seemed that he did not want it--at least, not then. He +never showed resentment against Mr. Adams at the time or afterwards. He +never began another quarrel. Incredible as it seemed, he behaved like a +well-bred gentleman who felt himself in the wrong. Possibly this change +may have been due to Lord Russell's remonstrances, but the private +secretary would have felt his education in politics more complete had +he ever finally made up his mind whether Palmerston was more angry with +General Butler, or more annoyed at himself, for committing what was in +both cases an unpardonable betise. + + At the time, the question was hardly raised, for no one doubted +Palmerston's attitude or his plans. The season was near its end, and +Cambridge House was soon closed. The Legation had troubles enough +without caring to publish more. The tide of English feeling ran so +violently against it that one could only wait to see whether General +McClellan would bring it relief. The year 1862 was a dark spot in Henry +Adams's life, and the education it gave was mostly one that he gladly +forgot. As far as he was aware, he made no friends; he could hardly +make enemies; yet towards the close of the year he was flattered by an +invitation from Monckton Milnes to Fryston, and it was one of many acts +of charity towards the young that gave Milnes immortality. Milnes made +it his business to be kind. Other people criticised him for his manner +of doing it, but never imitated him. Naturally, a dispirited, +disheartened private secretary was exceedingly grateful, and never +forgot the kindness, but it was chiefly as education that this first +country visit had value. Commonly, country visits are much alike, but +Monckton Milnes was never like anybody, and his country parties served +his purpose of mixing strange elements. Fryston was one of a class of +houses that no one sought for its natural beauties, and the winter +mists of Yorkshire were rather more evident for the absence of the +hostess on account of them, so that the singular guests whom Milnes +collected to enliven his December had nothing to do but astonish each +other, if anything could astonish such men. Of the five, Adams alone +was tame; he alone added nothing to the wit or humor, except as a +listener; but they needed a listener and he was useful. Of the +remaining four, Milnes was the oldest, and perhaps the sanest in spite +of his superficial eccentricities, for Yorkshire sanity was true to a +standard of its own, if not to other conventions; yet even Milnes +startled a young American whose Boston and Washington mind was still +fresh. He would not have been startled by the hard-drinking, +horse-racing Yorkshireman of whom he had read in books; but Milnes +required a knowledge of society and literature that only himself +possessed, if one were to try to keep pace with him. He had sought +contact with everybody and everything that Europe could offer. He knew +it all from several points of view, and chiefly as humorous. + + The second of the party was also of a certain age; a quiet, +well-mannered, singularly agreeable gentleman of the literary class. +When Milnes showed Adams to his room to dress for dinner, he stayed a +moment to say a word about this guest, whom he called Stirling of Keir. +His sketch closed with the hint that Stirling was violent only on one +point--hatred of Napoleon III. On that point, Adams was himself +sensitive, which led him to wonder how bad the Scotch gentleman might +be. The third was a man of thirty or thereabouts, whom Adams had +already met at Lady Palmerston's carrying his arm in a sling. His +figure and bearing were sympathetic--almost pathetic--with a certain +grave and gentle charm, a pleasant smile, and an interesting story. He +was Lawrence Oliphant, just from Japan, where he had been wounded in +the fanatics' attack on the British Legation. He seemed exceptionally +sane and peculiarly suited for country houses, where every man would +enjoy his company, and every woman would adore him. He had not then +published "Piccadilly"; perhaps he was writing it; while, like all the +young men about the Foreign Office, he contributed to The Owl. + + The fourth was a boy, or had the look of one, though in fact a +year older than Adams himself. He resembled in action--and in this +trait, was remotely followed, a generation later, by another famous +young man, Robert Louis Stevenson--a tropical bird, high-crested, +long-beaked, quick-moving, with rapid utterance and screams of humor, +quite unlike any English lark or nightingale. One could hardly call him +a crimson macaw among owls, and yet no ordinary contrast availed. +Milnes introduced him as Mr. Algernon Swinburne. The name suggested +nothing. Milnes was always unearthing new coins and trying to give them +currency. He had unearthed Henry Adams who knew himself to be worthless +and not current. When Milnes lingered a moment in Adams's room to add +that Swinburne had written some poetry, not yet published, of really +extraordinary merit, Adams only wondered what more Milnes would +discover, and whether by chance he could discover merit in a private +secretary. He was capable of it. + + In due course this party of five men sat down to dinner with +the usual club manners of ladyless dinner-tables, easy and formal at +the same time. Conversation ran first to Oliphant who told his dramatic +story simply, and from him the talk drifted off into other channels, +until Milnes thought it time to bring Swinburne out. Then, at last, if +never before, Adams acquired education. What he had sought so long, he +found; but he was none the wiser; only the more astonished. For once, +too, he felt at ease, for the others were no less astonished than +himself, and their astonishment grew apace. For the rest of the evening +Swinburne figured alone; the end of dinner made the monologue only +freer, for in 1862, even when ladies were not in the house, smoking was +forbidden, and guests usually smoked in the stables or the kitchen; but +Monckton Milnes was a licensed libertine who let his guests smoke in +Adams's bedroom, since Adams was an American-German barbarian ignorant +of manners; and there after dinner all sat--or lay--till far into the +night, listening to the rush of Swinburne's talk. In a long experience, +before or after, no one ever approached it; yet one had heard accounts +of the best talking of the time, and read accounts of talkers in all +time, among the rest, of Voltaire, who seemed to approach nearest the +pattern. + + That Swinburne was altogether new to the three types of +men-of-the-world before him; that he seemed to them quite original, +wildly eccentric, astonishingly gifted, and convulsingly droll, Adams +could see; but what more he was, even Milnes hardly dared say. They +could not believe his incredible memory and knowledge of literature, +classic, mediaeval, and modern; his faculty of reciting a play of +Sophocles or a play of Shakespeare, forward or backward, from end to +beginning; or Dante, or Villon, or Victor Hugo. They knew not what to +make of his rhetorical recitation of his own unpublished +ballads--"Faustine"; the "Four Boards of the Coffin Lid"; the "Ballad +of Burdens"--which he declaimed as though they were books of the Iliad. +It was singular that his most appreciative listener should have been +the author only of pretty verses like "We wandered by the brook-side," +and "She seemed to those that saw them meet"; and who never cared to +write in any other tone; but Milnes took everything into his +sympathies, including Americans like young Adams whose standards were +stiffest of all, while Swinburne, though millions of ages far from +them, united them by his humor even more than by his poetry. The story +of his first day as a member of Professor Stubbs's household was +professionally clever farce, if not high comedy, in a young man who +could write a Greek ode or a Provençal chanson as easily as an English +quatrain. + + Late at night when the symposium broke up, Stirling of Keir +wanted to take with him to his chamber a copy of "Queen Rosamund," the +only volume Swinburne had then published, which was on the library +table, and Adams offered to light him down with his solitary bedroom +candle. All the way, Stirling was ejaculating explosions of wonder, +until at length, at the foot of the stairs and at the climax of his +imagination, he paused, and burst out: "He's a cross between the devil +and the Duke of Argyll!" + + To appreciate the full merit of this description, a judicious +critic should have known both, and Henry Adams knew only one--at least +in person--but he understood that to a Scotchman the likeness meant +something quite portentous, beyond English experience, supernatural, +and what the French call moyenageux, or mediaeval with a grotesque +turn. That Stirling as well as Milnes should regard Swinburne as a +prodigy greatly comforted Adams, who lost his balance of mind at first +in trying to imagine that Swinburne was a natural product of Oxford, as +muffins and pork-pies of London, at once the cause and effect of +dyspepsia. The idea that one has actually met a real genius dawns +slowly on a Boston mind, but it made entry at last. + + Then came the sad reaction, not from Swinburne whose genius +never was in doubt, but from the Boston mind which, in its uttermost +flights, was never moyenageux. One felt the horror of Longfellow and +Emerson, the doubts of Lowell and the humor of Holmes, at the wild +Walpurgis-night of Swinburne's talk. What could a shy young private +secretary do about it? Perhaps, in his good nature, Milnes thought that +Swinburne might find a friend in Stirling or Oliphant, but he could +hardly have fancied Henry Adams rousing in him even an interest. Adams +could no more interest Algernon Swinburne than he could interest +Encke's comet. To Swinburne he could be no more than a worm. The +quality of genius was an education almost ultimate, for one touched +there the limits of the human mind on that side; but one could only +receive; one had nothing to give--nothing even to offer. + + Swinburne tested him then and there by one of his favorite +tests--Victor Hugo for to him the test of Victor Hugo was the surest +and quickest of standards. French poetry is at best a severe exercise +for foreigners; it requires extraordinary knowledge of the language and +rare refinement of ear to appreciate even the recitation of French +verse; but unless a poet has both, he lacks something of poetry. Adams +had neither. To the end of his life he never listened to a French +recitation with pleasure, or felt a sense of majesty in French verse; +but he did not care to proclaim his weakness, and he tried to evade +Swinburne's vehement insistence by parading an affection for Alfred de +Musset. Swinburne would have none of it; de Musset was unequal; he did +not sustain himself on the wing. + + Adams would have given a world or two, if he owned one, to +sustain himself on the wing like de Musset, or even like Hugo; but his +education as well as his ear was at fault, and he succumbed. Swinburne +tried him again on Walter Savage Landor. In truth the test was the +same, for Swinburne admired in Landor's English the qualities that he +felt in Hugo's French; and Adams's failure was equally gross, for, when +forced to despair, he had to admit that both Hugo and Landor bored him. +Nothing more was needed. One who could feel neither Hugo nor Landor was +lost. + + The sentence was just and Adams never appealed from it. He knew +his inferiority in taste as he might know it in smell. Keenly mortified +by the dullness of his senses and instincts, he knew he was no +companion for Swinburne; probably he could be only an annoyance; no +number of centuries could ever educate him to Swinburne's level, even +in technical appreciation; yet he often wondered whether there was +nothing he had to offer that was worth the poet's acceptance. Certainly +such mild homage as the American insect would have been only too happy +to bring, had he known how, was hardly worth the acceptance of any one. +Only in France is the attitude of prayer possible; in England it became +absurd. Even Monckton Milnes, who felt the splendors of Hugo and +Landor, was almost as helpless as an American private secretary in +personal contact with them. Ten years afterwards Adams met him at the +Geneva Conference, fresh from Paris, bubbling with delight at a call he +had made on Hugo: "I was shown into a large room," he said, "with women +and men seated in chairs against the walls, and Hugo at one end +throned. No one spoke. At last Hugo raised his voice solemnly, and +uttered the words: 'Quant a moi, je crois en Dieu!' Silence followed. +Then a woman responded as if in deep meditation: 'Chose sublime! un +Dieu qui croit en Dieu!"' + + With the best of will, one could not do this in London; the +actors had not the instinct of the drama; and yet even a private +secretary was not wholly wanting in instinct. As soon as he reached +town he hurried to Pickering's for a copy of "Queen Rosamund," and at +that time, if Swinburne was not joking, Pickering had sold seven +copies. When the "Poems and Ballads" came out, and met their great +success and scandal, he sought one of the first copies from Moxon. If +he had sinned and doubted at all, he wholly repented and did penance +before "Atalanta in Calydon," and would have offered Swinburne a solemn +worship as Milnes's female offered Hugo, if it would have pleased the +poet. Unfortunately it was worthless. + + The three young men returned to London, and each went his own +way. Adams's interest in making friends was something desperate, but +"the London season," Milnes used to say, "is a season for making +acquaintances and losing friends"; there was no intimate life. Of +Swinburne he saw no more till Monckton Milnes summoned his whole array +of Frystonians to support him in presiding at the dinner of the +Authors' Fund, when Adams found himself seated next to Swinburne, +famous then, but no nearer. They never met again. Oliphant he met +oftener; all the world knew and loved him; but he too disappeared in +the way that all the world knows. Stirling of Keir, after one or two +efforts, passed also from Adams's vision into Sir William +Stirling-Maxwell. The only record of his wonderful visit to Fryston may +perhaps exist still in the registers of the St. James's Club, for +immediately afterwards Milnes proposed Henry Adams for membership, and +unless his memory erred, the nomination was seconded by Tricoupi and +endorsed by Laurence Oliphant and Evelyn Ashley. The list was a little +singular for variety, but on the whole it suggested that the private +secretary was getting on. + + + +CHAPTER X + +POLITICAL MORALITY (1862) + + ON Moran's promotion to be Secretary, Mr. Seward inquired +whether Minister Adams would like the place of Assistant Secretary for +his son. It was the first--and last--office ever offered him, if indeed +he could claim what was offered in fact to his father. To them both, +the change seemed useless. Any young man could make some sort of +Assistant Secretary; only one, just at that moment, could make an +Assistant Son. More than half his duties were domestic; they sometimes +required long absences; they always required independence of the +Government service. His position was abnormal. The British Government +by courtesy allowed the son to go to Court as Attache, though he was +never attached, and after five or six years' toleration, the decision +was declared irregular. In the Legation, as private secretary, he was +liable to do Secretary's work. In society, when official, he was +attached to the Minister; when unofficial, he was a young man without +any position at all. As the years went on, he began to find advantages +in having no position at all except that of young man. Gradually he +aspired to become a gentleman; just a member of society like the rest. +The position was irregular; at that time many positions were irregular; +yet it lent itself to a sort of irregular education that seemed to be +the only sort of education the young man was ever to get. + + Such as it was, few young men had more. The spring and summer +of 1863 saw a great change in Secretary Seward's management of foreign +affairs. Under the stimulus of danger, he too got education. He felt, +at last, that his official representatives abroad needed support. +Officially he could give them nothing but despatches, which were of no +great value to any one; and at best the mere weight of an office had +little to do with the public. Governments were made to deal with +Governments, not with private individuals or with the opinions of +foreign society. In order to affect European opinion, the weight of +American opinion had to be brought to bear personally, and had to be +backed by the weight of American interests. Mr. Seward set vigorously +to work and sent over every important American on whom he could lay his +hands. All came to the Legation more or less intimately, and Henry +Adams had a chance to see them all, bankers or bishops, who did their +work quietly and well, though, to the outsider, the work seemed wasted +and the "influential classes" more indurated with prejudice than ever. +The waste was only apparent; the work all told in the end, and +meanwhile it helped education. + + Two or three of these gentlemen were sent over to aid the +Minister and to cooperate with him. The most interesting of these was +Thurlow Weed, who came to do what the private secretary himself had +attempted two years before, with boyish ignorance of his own powers. +Mr. Weed took charge of the press, and began, to the amused +astonishment of the secretaries, by making what the Legation had +learned to accept as the invariable mistake of every amateur diplomat; +he wrote letters to the London Times. Mistake or not, Mr. Weed soon got +into his hands the threads of management, and did quietly and smoothly +all that was to be done. With his work the private secretary had no +connection; it was he that interested. Thurlow Weed was a complete +American education in himself. His mind was naturally strong and +beautifully balanced; his temper never seemed ruffled; his manners were +carefully perfect in the style of benevolent simplicity, the tradition +of Benjamin Franklin. He was the model of political management and +patient address; but the trait that excited enthusiasm in a private +secretary was his faculty of irresistibly conquering confidence. Of all +flowers in the garden of education, confidence was becoming the rarest; +but before Mr. Weed went away, young Adams followed him about not only +obediently--for obedience had long since become a blind instinct--but +rather with sympathy and affection, much like a little dog. + + The sympathy was not due only to Mr. Weed's skill of +management, although Adams never met another such master, or any one +who approached him; nor was the confidence due to any display of +professions, either moral or social, by Mr. Weed. The trait that +astounded and confounded cynicism was his apparent unselfishness. +Never, in any man who wielded such power, did Adams meet anything like +it. The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of +self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim's sympathies; a +diseased appetite, like a passion for drink or perverted tastes; one +can scarcely use expressions too strong to describe the violence of +egotism it stimulates; and Thurlow Weed was one of the exceptions; a +rare immune. He thought apparently not of himself, but of the person he +was talking with. He held himself naturally in the background. He was +not jealous. He grasped power, but not office. He distributed offices +by handfuls without caring to take them. He had the instinct of empire: +he gave, but he did not receive. This rare superiority to the +politicians he controlled, a trait that private secretaries never met +in the politicians themselves, excited Adams's wonder and curiosity, +but when he tried to get behind it, and to educate himself from the +stores of Mr. Weed's experience, he found the study still more +fascinating. Management was an instinct with Mr. Weed; an object to be +pursued for its own sake, as one plays cards; but he appeared to play +with men as though they were only cards; he seemed incapable of feeling +himself one of them. He took them and played them for their face-value; +but once, when he had told, with his usual humor, some stories of his +political experience which were strong even for the Albany lobby, the +private secretary made bold to ask him outright: "Then, Mr. Weed, do +you think that no politician can be trusted?" Mr. Weed hesitated for a +moment; then said in his mild manner: "I never advise a young man to +begin by thinking so." + + This lesson, at the time, translated itself to Adams in a moral +sense, as though Mr. Weed had said: "Youth needs illusions!" As he grew +older he rather thought that Mr. Weed looked on it as a question of how +the game should be played. Young men most needed experience. They could +not play well if they trusted to a general rule. Every card had a +relative value. Principles had better be left aside; values were +enough. Adams knew that he could never learn to play politics in so +masterly a fashion as this: his education and his nervous system +equally forbade it, although he admired all the more the impersonal +faculty of the political master who could thus efface himself and his +temper in the game. He noticed that most of the greatest politicians in +history had seemed to regard men as counters. The lesson was the more +interesting because another famous New Yorker came over at the same +time who liked to discuss the same problem. Secretary Seward sent +William M. Evarts to London as law counsel, and Henry began an +acquaintance with Mr. Evarts that soon became intimate. Evarts was as +individual as Weed was impersonal; like most men, he cared little for +the game, or how it was played, and much for the stakes, but he played +it in a large and liberal way, like Daniel Webster, "a great advocate +employed in politics." Evarts was also an economist of morals, but with +him the question was rather how much morality one could afford. "The +world can absorb only doses of truth," he said; "too much would kill +it." One sought education in order to adjust the dose. + + The teachings of Weed and Evarts were practical, and the +private secretary's life turned on their value. England's power of +absorbing truth was small. Englishmen, such as Palmerston, Russell, +Bethell, and the society represented by the Times and Morning Post, as +well as the Tories represented by Disraeli, Lord Robert Cecil, and the +Standard, offered a study in education that sickened a young student +with anxiety. He had begun--contrary to Mr. Weed's advice--by taking +their bad faith for granted. Was he wrong? To settle this point became +the main object of the diplomatic education so laboriously pursued, at +a cost already stupendous, and promising to become ruinous. Life +changed front, according as one thought one's self dealing with honest +men or with rogues. + + Thus far, the private secretary felt officially sure of +dishonesty. The reasons that satisfied him had not altogether satisfied +his father, and of course his father's doubts gravely shook his own +convictions, but, in practice, if only for safety, the Legation put +little or no confidence in Ministers, and there the private secretary's +diplomatic education began. The recognition of belligerency, the +management of the Declaration of Paris, the Trent Affair, all +strengthened the belief that Lord Russell had started in May, 1861, +with the assumption that the Confederacy was established; every step he +had taken proved his persistence in the same idea; he never would +consent to put obstacles in the way of recognition; and he was waiting +only for the proper moment to interpose. All these points seemed so +fixed--so self-evident--that no one in the Legation would have doubted +or even discussed them except that Lord Russell obstinately denied the +whole charge, and persisted in assuring Minister Adams of his honest +and impartial neutrality. + + With the insolence of youth and zeal, Henry Adams jumped at once to the +conclusion that Earl Russell--like other statesmen--lied; and, although +the Minister thought differently, he had to act as though Russell were +false. Month by month the demonstration followed its mathematical +stages; one of the most perfect educational courses in politics and +diplomacy that a young man ever had a chance to pursue. The most costly +tutors in the world were provided for him at public expense--Lord +Palmerston, Lord Russell, Lord Westbury, Lord Selborne, Mr. Gladstone, +Lord Granville, and their associates, paid by the British Government; +William H. Seward, Charles Francis Adams, William Maxwell Evarts, +Thurlow Weed, and other considerable professors employed by the +American Government; but there was only one student to profit by this +immense staff of teachers. The private secretary alone sought education. + + To the end of his life he labored over the lessons then taught. +Never was demonstration more tangled. Hegel's metaphysical doctrine of +the identity of opposites was simpler and easier to understand. Yet the +stages of demonstration were clear. They began in June, 1862, after the +escape of one rebel cruiser, by the remonstrances of the Minister +against the escape of "No. 290," which was imminent. Lord Russell +declined to act on the evidence. New evidence was sent in every few +days, and with it, on July 24, was included Collier's legal opinion: +"It appears difficult to make out a stronger case of infringement of +the Foreign Enlistment Act, which, if not enforced on this occasion, is +little better than a dead letter." Such language implied almost a +charge of collusion with the rebel agents--an intent to aid the +Confederacy. In spite of the warning, Earl Russell let the ship, four +days afterwards, escape. + + Young Adams had nothing to do with law; that was business of +his betters. His opinion of law hung on his opinion of lawyers. In +spite of Thurlow Weed's advice, could one afford to trust human nature +in politics? History said not. Sir Robert Collier seemed to hold that +Law agreed with History. For education the point was vital. If one +could not trust a dozen of the most respected private characters in the +world, composing the Queen's Ministry, one could trust no mortal man. + + Lord Russell felt the force of this inference, and undertook to +disprove it. His effort lasted till his death. At first he excused +himself by throwing the blame on the law officers. This was a +politician's practice, and the lawyers overruled it. Then he pleaded +guilty to criminal negligence, and said in his "Recollections":--"I +assent entirely to the opinion of the Lord Chief Justice of England +that the Alabama ought to have been detained during the four days I was +waiting for the opinion of the law officers. But I think that the fault +was not that of the commissioners of customs, it was my fault as +Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs." This concession brought all +parties on common ground. Of course it was his fault! The true issue +lay not in the question of his fault, but of his intent. To a young +man, getting an education in politics, there could be no sense in +history unless a constant course of faults implied a constant motive. + + For his father the question was not so abstruse; it was a +practical matter of business to be handled as Weed or Evarts handled +their bargains and jobs. Minister Adams held the convenient belief +that, in the main, Russell was true, and the theory answered his +purposes so well that he died still holding it. His son was seeking +education, and wanted to know whether he could, in politics, risk +trusting any one. Unfortunately no one could then decide; no one knew +the facts. Minister Adams died without knowing them. Henry Adams was an +older man than his father in 1862, before he learned a part of them. +The most curious fact, even then, was that Russell believed in his own +good faith and that Argyll believed in it also. + + Argyll betrayed a taste for throwing the blame on Bethell, Lord +Westbury, then Lord Chancellor, but this escape helped Adams not at +all. On the contrary, it complicated the case of Russell. In England, +one half of society enjoyed throwing stones at Lord Palmerston, while +the other half delighted in flinging mud at Earl Russell, but every one +of every party united in pelting Westbury with every missile at hand. +The private secretary had no doubts about him, for he never professed +to be moral. He was the head and heart of the whole rebel contention, +and his opinions on neutrality were as clear as they were on morality. +The private secretary had nothing to do with him, and regretted it, for +Lord Westbury's wit and wisdom were great; but as far as his authority +went he affirmed the law that in politics no man should be trusted. + + Russell alone insisted on his honesty of intention and +persuaded both the Duke and the Minister to believe him. Every one in +the Legation accepted his assurances as the only assertions they could +venture to trust. They knew he expected the rebels to win in the end, +but they believed he would not actively interpose to decide it. On +that--on nothing else--they rested their frail hopes of remaining a day +longer in England. Minister Adams remained six years longer in England; +then returned to America to lead a busy life till he died in 1886 still +holding the same faith in Earl Russell, who had died in 1878. In 1889, +Spencer Walpole published the official life of Earl Russell, and told a +part of the story which had never been known to the Minister and which +astounded his son, who burned with curiosity to know what his father +would have said of it. + + The story was this: The Alabama escaped, by Russell's confessed +negligence, on July 28, 1862. In America the Union armies had suffered +great disasters before Richmond and at the second Bull Run, August +29-30, followed by Lee's invasion of Maryland, September 7, the news of +which, arriving in England on September 14, roused the natural idea +that the crisis was at hand. The next news was expected by the +Confederates to announce the fall of Washington or Baltimore. +Palmerston instantly, September 14, wrote to Russell: "If this should +happen, would it not be time for us to consider whether in such a state +of things England and France might not address the contending parties +and recommend an arrangement on the basis of separation?" + + This letter, quite in the line of Palmerston's supposed +opinions, would have surprised no one, if it had been communicated to +the Legation; and indeed, if Lee had captured Washington, no one could +have blamed Palmerston for offering intervention. Not Palmerston's +letter but Russell's reply, merited the painful attention of a young +man seeking a moral standard for judging politicians:-- + +GOTHA, September, 17, 1862 + + MY DEAR PALMERSTON:-- + + Whether the Federal army is destroyed or not, it is clear + that it is driven back to Washington and has made no progress + in subduing the insurgent States. Such being the case, I agree + with you that the time is come for offering mediation to the + United States Government with a view to the recognition of the + independence of the Confederates. I agree further that in case + of failure, we ought ourselves to recognize the Southern States + as an independent State. For the purpose of taking so important + a step, I think we must have a meeting of the Cabinet. The 23d + or 30th would suit me for the meeting. + + We ought then, if we agree on such a step, to propose it + first to France, and then on the part of England and France, to + Russia and other powers, as a measure decided upon by us. + + We ought to make ourselves safe in Canada, not by sending + more troops there, but by concentrating those we have in a few + defensible posts before the winter sets in.... + + Here, then, appeared in its fullest force, the practical +difficulty in education which a mere student could never overcome; a +difficulty not in theory, or knowledge, or even want of experience, but +in the sheer chaos of human nature. Lord Russell's course had been +consistent from the first, and had all the look of rigid determination +to recognize the Southern Confederacy "with a view" to breaking up the +Union. His letter of September 17 hung directly on his encouragement of +the Alabama and his protection of the rebel navy; while the whole of +his plan had its root in the Proclamation of Belligerency, May 13, +1861. The policy had every look of persistent forethought, but it took +for granted the deliberate dishonesty of three famous men: Palmerston, +Russell, and Gladstone. This dishonesty, as concerned Russell, was +denied by Russell himself, and disbelieved by Argyll, Forster, and most +of America's friends in England, as well as by Minister Adams. What the +Minister would have thought had he seen this letter of September 17, +his son would have greatly liked to know, but he would have liked still +more to know what the Minister would have thought of Palmerston's +answer, dated September 23:-- + + ... It is evident that a great conflict is taking place to + the northwest of Washington, and its issue must have a great + effect on the state of affairs. If the Federals sustain a great + defeat, they may be at once ready for mediation, and the iron + should be struck while it is hot. If, on the other hand, they + should have the best of it, we may wait a while and see what + may follow... + + The roles were reversed. Russell wrote what was expected from +Palmerston, or even more violently; while Palmerston wrote what was +expected from Russell, or even more temperately. The private +secretary's view had been altogether wrong, which would not have much +surprised even him, but he would have been greatly astonished to learn +that the most confidential associates of these men knew little more +about their intentions than was known in the Legation. The most trusted +member of the Cabinet was Lord Granville, and to him Russell next +wrote. Granville replied at once decidedly opposing recognition of the +Confederacy, and Russell sent the reply to Palmerston, who returned it +October 2, with the mere suggestion of waiting for further news from +America. At the same time Granville wrote to another member of the +Cabinet, Lord Stanley of Alderley, a letter published forty years +afterwards in Granville's "Life" (I, 442) to the private secretary +altogether the most curious and instructive relic of the whole lesson +in politics: + + ... I have written to Johnny my reasons for thinking it + decidedly premature. I, however, suspect you will settle to do + so. Pam., Johnny, and Gladstone would be in favor of it, and + probably Newcastle. I do not know about the others. It appears + to me a great mistake.... + + Out of a Cabinet of a dozen members, Granville, the best +informed of them all, could pick only three who would favor +recognition. Even a private secretary thought he knew as much as this, +or more. Ignorance was not confined to the young and insignificant, nor +were they the only victims of blindness. Granville's letter made only +one point clear. He knew of no fixed policy or conspiracy. If any +existed, it was confined to Palmerston, Russell, Gladstone, and perhaps +Newcastle. In truth, the Legation knew, then, all that was to be known, +and the true fault of education was to suspect too much. + + By that time, October 3, news of Antietam and of Lee's retreat +into Virginia had reached London. The Emancipation Proclamation +arrived. Had the private secretary known all that Granville or +Palmerston knew, he would surely have thought the danger past, at least +for a time, and any man of common sense would have told him to stop +worrying over phantoms. This healthy lesson would have been worth much +for practical education, but it was quite upset by the sudden rush of a +new actor upon the stage with a rhapsody that made Russell seem sane, +and all education superfluous. + + This new actor, as every one knows, was William Ewart +Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. If, in the domain of the +world's politics, one point was fixed, one value ascertained, one +element serious, it was the British Exchequer; and if one man lived who +could be certainly counted as sane by overwhelming interest, it was the +man who had in charge the finances of England. If education had the +smallest value, it should have shown its force in Gladstone, who was +educated beyond all record of English training. From him, if from no +one else, the poor student could safely learn. + + Here is what he learned! Palmerston notified Gladstone, +September 24, of the proposed intervention: "If I am not mistaken, you +would be inclined to approve such a course." Gladstone replied the next +day: "He was glad to learn what the Prime Minister had told him; and +for two reasons especially he desired that the proceedings should be +prompt: the first was the rapid progress of the Southern arms and the +extension of the area of Southern feeling; the second was the risk of +violent impatience in the cotton-towns of Lancashire such as would +prejudice the dignity and disinterestedness of the proffered mediation." + + Had the puzzled student seen this letter, he must have +concluded from it that the best educated statesman England ever +produced did not know what he was talking about, an assumption which +all the world would think quite inadmissible from a private +secretary--but this was a trifle. Gladstone having thus arranged, with +Palmerston and Russell, for intervention in the American war, reflected +on the subject for a fortnight from September 25 to October 7, when he +was to speak on the occasion of a great dinner at Newcastle. He decided +to announce the Government's policy with all the force his personal and +official authority could give it. This decision was no sudden impulse; +it was the result of deep reflection pursued to the last moment. On the +morning of October 7, he entered in his diary: "Reflected further on +what I should say about Lancashire and America, for both these subjects +are critical." That evening at dinner, as the mature fruit of his long +study, he deliberately pronounced the famous phrase:-- + + ... We know quite well that the people of the Northern States + have not yet drunk of the cup--they are still trying to hold + it far from their lips--which all the rest of the world see + they nevertheless must drink of. We may have our own opinions + about slavery; we may be for or against the South; but there is + no doubt that Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South + have made an army; they are making, it appears, a navy; and + they have made, what is more than either, they have made a + nation.... + + Looking back, forty years afterwards, on this episode, one +asked one's self painfully what sort of a lesson a young man should +have drawn, for the purposes of his education, from this world-famous +teaching of a very great master. In the heat of passion at the moment, +one drew some harsh moral conclusions: Were they incorrect? Posed +bluntly as rules of conduct, they led to the worst possible practices. +As morals, one could detect no shade of difference between Gladstone +and Napoleon except to the advantage of Napoleon. The private secretary +saw none; he accepted the teacher in that sense; he took his lesson of +political morality as learned, his notice to quit as duly served, and +supposed his education to be finished. + + Every one thought so, and the whole City was in a turmoil. Any +intelligent education ought to end when it is complete. One would then +feel fewer hesitations and would handle a surer world. The +old-fashioned logical drama required unity and sense; the actual drama +is a pointless puzzle, without even an intrigue. When the curtain fell +on Gladstone's speech, any student had the right to suppose the drama +ended; none could have affirmed that it was about to begin; that one's +painful lesson was thrown away. + + Even after forty years, most people would refuse to believe it; +they would still insist that Gladstone, Russell, and Palmerston were +true villains of melodrama. The evidence against Gladstone in special +seemed overwhelming. The word "must" can never be used by a responsible +Minister of one Government towards another, as Gladstone used it. No +one knew so well as he that he and his own officials and friends at +Liverpool were alone "making" a rebel navy, and that Jefferson Davis +had next to nothing to do with it. As Chancellor of the Exchequer he +was the Minister most interested in knowing that Palmerston, Russell, +and himself were banded together by mutual pledge to make the +Confederacy a nation the next week, and that the Southern leaders had +as yet no hope of "making a nation" but in them. Such thoughts occurred +to every one at the moment and time only added to their force. Never in +the history of political turpitude had any brigand of modern +civilization offered a worse example. The proof of it was that it +outraged even Palmerston, who immediately put up Sir George Cornewall +Lewis to repudiate the Chancellor of the Exchequer, against whom he +turned his press at the same time. Palmerston had no notion of letting +his hand be forced by Gladstone. + + Russell did nothing of the kind; if he agreed with Palmerston, +he followed Gladstone. Although he had just created a new evangel of +non-intervention for Italy, and preached it like an apostle, he +preached the gospel of intervention in America as though he were a +mouthpiece of the Congress of Vienna. On October 13, he issued his call +for the Cabinet to meet, on October 23, for discussion of the "duty of +Europe to ask both parties, in the most friendly and conciliatory +terms, to agree to a suspension of arms." Meanwhile Minister Adams, +deeply perturbed and profoundly anxious, would betray no sign of alarm, +and purposely delayed to ask explanation. The howl of anger against +Gladstone became louder every day, for every one knew that the Cabinet +was called for October 23, and then could not fail to decide its policy +about the United States. Lord Lyons put off his departure for America +till October 25 expressly to share in the conclusions to be discussed +on October 23. When Minister Adams at last requested an interview, +Russell named October 23 as the day. To the last moment every act of +Russell showed that, in his mind, the intervention was still in doubt. + + When Minister Adams, at the interview, suggested that an +explanation was due him, he watched Russell with natural interest, and +reported thus: + + ... His lordship took my allusion at once, though not + without a slight indication of embarrassment. He said that Mr. + Gladstone had been evidently much misunderstood. I must have + seen in the newspapers the letters which contained his later + explanations. That he had certain opinions in regard to the + nature of the struggle in America, as on all public questions, + just as other Englishmen had, was natural enough. And it was + the fashion here for public men to express such as they held in + their public addresses. Of course it was not for him to disavow + anything on the part of Mr. Gladstone; but he had no idea that + in saying what he had, there was a serious intention to justify + any of the inferences that had been drawn from it of a + disposition in the Government now to adopt a new policy.... + + A student trying to learn the processes of politics in a free +government could not but ponder long on the moral to be drawn from this +"explanation" of Mr. Gladstone by Earl Russell. The point set for study +as the first condition of political life, was whether any politician +could be believed or trusted. The question which a private secretary +asked himself, in copying this despatch of October 24, 1862, was +whether his father believed, or should believe, one word of Lord +Russell's "embarrassment." The "truth" was not known for thirty years, +but when published, seemed to be the reverse of Earl Russell's +statement. Mr. Gladstone's speech had been drawn out by Russell's own +policy of intervention and had no sense except to declare the +"disposition in the Government now to adopt" that new policy. Earl +Russell never disavowed Gladstone, although Lord Palmerston and Sir +George Cornewall Lewis instantly did so. As far as the curious student +could penetrate the mystery, Gladstone exactly expressed Earl Russell's +intent. + + As political education, this lesson was to be crucial; it would +decide the law of life. All these gentlemen were superlatively +honorable; if one could not believe them, Truth in politics might be +ignored as a delusion. Therefore the student felt compelled to reach +some sort of idea that should serve to bring the case within a general +law. Minister Adams felt the same compulsion. He bluntly told Russell +that while he was "willing to acquit" Gladstone of "any deliberate +intention to bring on the worst effects," he was bound to say that +Gladstone was doing it quite as certainly as if he had one; and to this +charge, which struck more sharply at Russell's secret policy than at +Gladstone's public defence of it, Russell replied as well as he could:-- + + ... His lordship intimated as guardedly as possible that Lord + Palmerston and other members of the Government regretted the + speech, and Mr. Gladstone himself was not disinclined to + correct, as far as he could, the misinterpretation which had + been made of it. It was still their intention to adhere to the + rule of perfect neutrality in the struggle, and to let it come + to its natural end without the smallest interference, direct or + otherwise. But he could not say what circumstances might happen + from month to month in the future. I observed that the policy + he mentioned was satisfactory to us, and asked if I was to + understand him as saying that no change of it was now proposed. + To which he gave his assent.... + +Minister Adams never knew more. He retained his belief that Russell +could be trusted, but that Palmerston could not. This was the +diplomatic tradition, especially held by the Russian diplomats. +Possibly it was sound, but it helped in no way the education of a +private secretary. The cat's-paw theory offered no safer clue, than the +frank, old-fashioned, honest theory of villainy. Neither the one nor +the other was reasonable. + + No one ever told the Minister that Earl Russell, only a few +hours before, had asked the Cabinet to intervene, and that the Cabinet +had refused. The Minister was led to believe that the Cabinet meeting +was not held, and that its decision was informal. Russell's biographer +said that, "with this memorandum [of Russell's, dated October 13] the +Cabinet assembled from all parts of the country on October 23; but ... +members of the Cabinet doubted the policy of moving, or moving at that +time." The Duke of Newcastle and Sir George Grey joined Granville in +opposition. As far as known, Russell and Gladstone stood alone. +"Considerations such as these prevented the matter being pursued any +further." + + Still no one has distinctly said that this decision was formal; +perhaps the unanimity of opposition made the formal Cabinet +unnecessary; but it is certain that, within an hour or two before or +after this decision, "his lordship said [to the United States Minister] +that the policy of the Government was to adhere to a strict neutrality +and to leave this struggle to settle itself." When Mr. Adams, not +satisfied even with this positive assurance, pressed for a categorical +answer: "I asked him if I was to understand that policy as not now to +be changed; he said: Yes!" + + John Morley's comment on this matter, in the "Life of +Gladstone," forty years afterwards, would have interested the Minister, +as well as his private secretary: "If this relation be accurate," said +Morley of a relation officially published at the time, and never +questioned, "then the Foreign Secretary did not construe strict +neutrality as excluding what diplomatists call good offices." For a +vital lesson in politics, Earl Russell's construction of neutrality +mattered little to the student, who asked only Russell's intent, and +cared only to know whether his construction had any other object than +to deceive the Minister. + + In the grave one can afford to be lavish of charity, and +possibly Earl Russell may have been honestly glad to reassure his +personal friend Mr. Adams; but to one who is still in the world even if +not of it, doubts are as plenty as days. Earl Russell totally deceived +the private secretary, whatever he may have done to the Minister. The +policy of abstention was not settled on October 23. Only the next day, +October 24, Gladstone circulated a rejoinder to G. C. Lewis, insisting +on the duty of England, France, and Russia to intervene by +representing, "with moral authority and force, the opinion of the +civilized world upon the conditions of the case." Nothing had been +decided. By some means, scarcely accidental, the French Emperor was led +to think that his influence might turn the scale, and only ten days +after Russell's categorical "Yes!" Napoleon officially invited him to +say "No!" He was more than ready to do so. Another Cabinet meeting was +called for November 11, and this time Gladstone himself reports the +debate: + + Nov. 11. We have had our Cabinet to-day and meet again + tomorrow. I am afraid we shall do little or nothing in the + business of America. But I will send you definite intelligence. + Both Lords Palmerston and Russell are right. + + Nov. 12. The United States affair has ended and not well. Lord + Russell rather turned tail. He gave way without resolutely + fighting out his battle. However, though we decline for the + moment, the answer is put upon grounds and in terms which leave + the matter very open for the future. + + Nov. 13. I think the French will make our answer about America + public; at least it is very possible. But I hope they may not + take it as a positive refusal, or at any rate that they may + themselves act in the matter. It will be clear that we concur + with them, that the war should cease. Palmerston gave to + Russell's proposal a feeble and half-hearted support. + + Forty years afterwards, when every one except himself, who +looked on at this scene, was dead, the private secretary of 1862 read +these lines with stupor, and hurried to discuss them with John Hay, who +was more astounded than himself. All the world had been at +cross-purposes, had misunderstood themselves and the situation, had +followed wrong paths, drawn wrong conclusions, had known none of the +facts. One would have done better to draw no conclusions at all. One's +diplomatic education was a long mistake. + + These were the terms of this singular problem as they presented +themselves to the student of diplomacy in 1862: Palmerston, on +September 14, under the impression that the President was about to be +driven from Washington and the Army of the Potomac dispersed, suggested +to Russell that in such a case, intervention might be feasible. Russell +instantly answered that, in any case, he wanted to intervene and should +call a Cabinet for the purpose. Palmerston hesitated; Russell insisted; +Granville protested. Meanwhile the rebel army was defeated at Antietam, +September 17, and driven out of Maryland. Then Gladstone, October 7, +tried to force Palmerston's hand by treating the intervention as a fait +accompli. Russell assented, but Palmerston put up Sir George Cornewall +Lewis to contradict Gladstone and treated him sharply in the press, at +the very moment when Russell was calling a Cabinet to make Gladstone's +words good. On October 23, Russell assured Adams that no change in +policy was now proposed. On the same day he had proposed it, and was +voted down. Instantly Napoleon III appeared as the ally of Russell and +Gladstone with a proposition which had no sense except as a bribe to +Palmerston to replace America, from pole to pole, in her old dependence +on Europe, and to replace England in her old sovereignty of the seas, +if Palmerston would support France in Mexico. The young student of +diplomacy, knowing Palmerston, must have taken for granted that +Palmerston inspired this motion and would support it; knowing Russell +and his Whig antecedents, he would conceive that Russell must oppose +it; knowing Gladstone and his lofty principles, he would not doubt that +Gladstone violently denounced the scheme. If education was worth a +straw, this was the only arrangement of persons that a trained student +would imagine possible, and it was the arrangement actually assumed by +nine men out of ten, as history. In truth, each valuation was false. +Palmerston never showed favor to the scheme and gave it only "a feeble +and half-hearted support." Russell gave way without resolutely fighting +out "his battle." The only resolute, vehement, conscientious champion +of Russell, Napoleon, and Jefferson Davis was Gladstone. + + Other people could afford to laugh at a young man's blunders, +but to him the best part of life was thrown away if he learned such a +lesson wrong. Henry James had not yet taught the world to read a volume +for the pleasure of seeing the lights of his burning-glass turned on +alternate sides of the same figure. Psychological study was still +simple, and at worst--or at best--English character was never subtile. +Surely no one would believe that complexity was the trait that confused +the student of Palmerston, Russell, and Gladstone. Under a very strong +light human nature will always appear complex and full of +contradictions, but the British statesman would appear, on the whole, +among the least complex of men. + + Complex these gentlemen were not. Disraeli alone might, by +contrast, be called complex, but Palmerston, Russell, and Gladstone +deceived only by their simplicity. Russell was the most interesting to +a young man because his conduct seemed most statesmanlike. Every act of +Russell, from April, 1861, to November, 1862, showed the clearest +determination to break up the Union. The only point in Russell's +character about which the student thought no doubt to be possible was +its want of good faith. It was thoroughly dishonest, but strong. +Habitually Russell said one thing and did another. He seemed +unconscious of his own contradictions even when his opponents pointed +them out, as they were much in the habit of doing, in the strongest +language. As the student watched him deal with the Civil War in +America, Russell alone showed persistence, even obstinacy, in a +definite determination, which he supported, as was necessary, by the +usual definite falsehoods. The young man did not complain of the +falsehoods; on the contrary, he was vain of his own insight in +detecting them; but he was wholly upset by the idea that Russell should +think himself true. + + Young Adams thought Earl Russell a statesman of the old school, +clear about his objects and unscrupulous in his methods--dishonest but +strong. Russell ardently asserted that he had no objects, and that +though he might be weak he was above all else honest. Minister Adams +leaned to Russell personally and thought him true, but officially, in +practice, treated him as false. Punch, before 1862, commonly drew +Russell as a schoolboy telling lies, and afterwards as prematurely +senile, at seventy. Education stopped there. No one, either in or out +of England, ever offered a rational explanation of Earl Russell. + + Palmerston was simple--so simple as to mislead the student +altogether--but scarcely more consistent. The world thought him +positive, decided, reckless; the record proved him to be cautious, +careful, vacillating. Minister Adams took him for pugnacious and +quarrelsome; the "Lives" of Russell, Gladstone, and Granville show him +to have been good-tempered, conciliatory, avoiding quarrels. He +surprised the Minister by refusing to pursue his attack on General +Butler. He tried to check Russell. He scolded Gladstone. He discouraged +Napoleon. Except Disraeli none of the English statesmen were so +cautious as he in talking of America. Palmerston told no falsehoods; +made no professions; concealed no opinions; was detected in no +double-dealing. The most mortifying failure in Henry Adams's long +education was that, after forty years of confirmed dislike, distrust, +and detraction of Lord Palmerston, he was obliged at last to admit +himself in error, and to consent in spirit--for by that time he was +nearly as dead as any of them--to beg his pardon. + + Gladstone was quite another story, but with him a student's +difficulties were less because they were shared by all the world +including Gladstone himself. He was the sum of contradictions. The +highest education could reach, in this analysis, only a reduction to +the absurd, but no absurdity that a young man could reach in 1862 would +have approached the level that Mr. Gladstone admitted, avowed, +proclaimed, in his confessions of 1896, which brought all reason and +all hope of education to a still-stand:-- + + I have yet to record an undoubted error, the most singular and + palpable, I may add the least excusable of them all, especially + since it was committed so late as in the year 1862 when I had + outlived half a century ... I declared in the heat of the + American struggle that Jefferson Davis had made a nation.... + Strange to say, this declaration, most unwarrantable to be made + by a Minister of the Crown with no authority other than his + own, was not due to any feeling of partisanship for the South + or hostility to the North.... I really, though most + strangely, believed that it was an act of friendliness to all + America to recognize that the struggle was virtually at an end. + ... That my opinion was founded upon a false estimate of the + facts was the very least part of my fault. I did not perceive + the gross impropriety of such an utterance from a Cabinet + Minister of a power allied in blood and language, and bound to + loyal neutrality; the case being further exaggerated by the + fact that we were already, so to speak, under indictment before + the world for not (as was alleged) having strictly enforced the + laws of neutrality in the matter of the cruisers. My offence + was indeed only a mistake, but one of incredible grossness, and + with such consequences of offence and alarm attached to it, + that my failing to perceive them justly exposed me to very + severe blame. It illustrates vividly that incapacity which my + mind so long retained, and perhaps still exhibits, an + incapacity of viewing subjects all round.... + + Long and patiently--more than patiently--sympathetically, +did the private secretary, forty years afterwards in the twilight of a +life of study, read and re-read and reflect upon this confession. Then, +it seemed, he had seen nothing correctly at the time. His whole theory +of conspiracy--of policy--of logic and connection in the affairs of +man, resolved itself into "incredible grossness." He felt no rancor, +for he had won the game; he forgave, since he must admit, the +"incapacity of viewing subjects all round" which had so nearly cost him +life and fortune; he was willing even to believe. He noted, without +irritation, that Mr. Gladstone, in his confession, had not alluded to +the understanding between Russell, Palmerston, and himself; had even +wholly left out his most "incredible" act, his ardent support of +Napoleon's policy, a policy which even Palmerston and Russell had +supported feebly, with only half a heart. All this was indifferent. +Granting, in spite of evidence, that Gladstone had no set plan of +breaking up the Union; that he was party to no conspiracy; that he saw +none of the results of his acts which were clear to every one else; +granting in short what the English themselves seemed at last to +conclude--that Gladstone was not quite sane; that Russell was verging +on senility; and that Palmerston had lost his nerve--what sort of +education should have been the result of it? How should it have +affected one's future opinions and acts? + + Politics cannot stop to study psychology. Its methods are +rough; its judgments rougher still. All this knowledge would not have +affected either the Minister or his son in 1862. The sum of the +individuals would still have seemed, to the young man, one +individual--a single will or intention--bent on breaking up the Union +"as a diminution of a dangerous power." The Minister would still have +found his interest in thinking Russell friendly and Palmerston hostile. +The individual would still have been identical with the mass. The +problem would have been the same; the answer equally obscure. Every +student would, like the private secretary, answer for himself alone. + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE BATTLE OF THE RAMS (1863) + + MINISTER ADAMS troubled himself little about what he did not +see of an enemy. His son, a nervous animal, made life a terror by +seeing too much. Minister Adams played his hand as it came, and seldom +credited his opponents with greater intelligence than his own. Earl +Russell suited him; perhaps a certain personal sympathy united them; +and indeed Henry Adams never saw Russell without being amused by his +droll likeness to John Quincy Adams. Apart from this shadowy personal +relation, no doubt the Minister was diplomatically right; he had +nothing to lose and everything to gain by making a friend of the +Foreign Secretary, and whether Russell were true or false mattered +less, because, in either case, the American Legation could act only as +though he were false. Had the Minister known Russell's determined +effort to betray and ruin him in October, 1862, he could have scarcely +used stronger expressions than he did in 1863. Russell must have been +greatly annoyed by Sir Robert Collier's hint of collusion with the +rebel agents in the Alabama Case, but he hardened himself to hear the +same innuendo repeated in nearly every note from the Legation. As time +went on, Russell was compelled, though slowly, to treat the American +Minister as serious. He admitted nothing so unwillingly, for the +nullity or fatuity of the Washington Government was his idee fixe; but +after the failure of his last effort for joint intervention on November +12, 1862, only one week elapsed before he received a note from Minister +Adams repeating his charges about the Alabama, and asking in very plain +language for redress. Perhaps Russell's mind was naturally slow to +understand the force of sudden attack, or perhaps age had affected it; +this was one of the points that greatly interested a student, but young +men have a passion for regarding their elders as senile, which was only +in part warranted in this instance by observing that Russell's +generation were mostly senile from youth. They had never got beyond +1815. Both Palmerston and Russell were in this case. Their senility was +congenital, like Gladstone's Oxford training and High Church illusions, +which caused wild eccentricities in his judgment. Russell could not +conceive that he had misunderstood and mismanaged Minister Adams from +the start, and when after November 12 he found himself on the +defensive, with Mr Adams taking daily a stronger tone, he showed mere +confusion and helplessness. + + Thus, whatever the theory, the action of diplomacy had to be +the same. Minister Adams was obliged to imply collusion between Russell +and the rebels. He could not even stop at criminal negligence. If, by +an access of courtesy, the Minister were civil enough to admit that the +escape of the Alabama had been due to criminal negligence, he could +make no such concession in regard to the ironclad rams which the Lairds +were building; for no one could be so simple as to believe that two +armored ships-of-war could be built publicly, under the eyes of the +Government, and go to sea like the Alabama, without active and +incessant collusion. The longer Earl Russell kept on his mask of +assumed ignorance, the more violently in the end, the Minister would +have to tear it off. Whatever Mr. Adams might personally think of Earl +Russell, he must take the greatest possible diplomatic liberties with +him if this crisis were allowed to arrive. + + As the spring of 1863 drew on, the vast field cleared itself +for action. A campaign more beautiful--better suited for training the +mind of a youth eager for training--has not often unrolled itself for +study, from the beginning, before a young man perched in so commanding +a position. Very slowly, indeed, after two years of solitude, one began +to feel the first faint flush of new and imperial life. One was +twenty-five years old, and quite ready to assert it; some of one's +friends were wearing stars on their collars; some had won stars of a +more enduring kind. At moments one's breath came quick. One began to +dream the sensation of wielding unmeasured power. The sense came, like +vertigo, for an instant, and passed, leaving the brain a little dazed, +doubtful, shy. With an intensity more painful than that of any +Shakespearean drama, men's eyes were fastened on the armies in the +field. Little by little, at first only as a shadowy chance of what +might be, if things could be rightly done, one began to feel that, +somewhere behind the chaos in Washington power was taking shape; that +it was massed and guided as it had not been before. Men seemed to have +learned their business--at a cost that ruined--and perhaps too late. A +private secretary knew better than most people how much of the new +power was to be swung in London, and almost exactly when; but the +diplomatic campaign had to wait for the military campaign to lead. The +student could only study. + + Life never could know more than a single such climax. In that +form, education reached its limits. As the first great blows began to +fall, one curled up in bed in the silence of night, to listen with +incredulous hope. As the huge masses struck, one after another, with +the precision of machinery, the opposing mass, the world shivered. Such +development of power was unknown. The magnificent resistance and the +return shocks heightened the suspense. During the July days Londoners +were stupid with unbelief. They were learning from the Yankees how to +fight. + + An American saw in a flash what all this meant to England, for +one's mind was working with the acceleration of the machine at home; +but Englishmen were not quick to see their blunders. One had ample time +to watch the process, and had even a little time to gloat over the +repayment of old scores. News of Vicksburg and Gettysburg reached +London one Sunday afternoon, and it happened that Henry Adams was asked +for that evening to some small reception at the house of Monckton +Milnes. He went early in order to exchange a word or two of +congratulation before the rooms should fill, and on arriving he found +only the ladies in the drawing-room; the gentlemen were still sitting +over their wine. Presently they came in, and, as luck would have it, +Delane of the Times came first. When Milnes caught sight of his young +American friend, with a whoop of triumph he rushed to throw both arms +about his neck and kiss him on both cheeks. Men of later birth who knew +too little to realize the passions of 1863--backed by those of +1813--and reenforced by those of 1763--might conceive that such +publicity embarrassed a private secretary who came from Boston and +called himself shy; but that evening, for the first time in his life, +he happened not to be thinking of himself. He was thinking of Delane, +whose eye caught his, at the moment of Milnes's embrace. Delane +probably regarded it as a piece of Milnes's foolery; he had never heard +of young Adams, and never dreamed of his resentment at being ridiculed +in the Times; he had no suspicion of the thought floating in the mind +of the American Minister's son, for the British mind is the slowest of +all minds, as the files of the Times proved, and the capture of +Vicksburg had not yet penetrated Delane's thick cortex of fixed ideas. +Even if he had read Adams's thought, he would have felt for it only the +usual amused British contempt for all that he had not been taught at +school. It needed a whole generation for the Times to reach Milnes's +standpoint. + + Had the Minister's son carried out the thought, he would surely +have sought an introduction to Delane on the spot, and assured him that +he regarded his own personal score as cleared off--sufficiently +settled, then and there--because his father had assumed the debt, and +was going to deal with Mr. Delane himself. "You come next!" would have +been the friendly warning. For nearly a year the private secretary had +watched the board arranging itself for the collision between the +Legation and Delane who stood behind the Palmerston Ministry. Mr. Adams +had been steadily strengthened and reenforced from Washington in view +of the final struggle. The situation had changed since the Trent +Affair. The work was efficiently done; the organization was fairly +complete. No doubt, the Legation itself was still as weakly manned and +had as poor an outfit as the Legations of Guatemala or Portugal. +Congress was always jealous of its diplomatic service, and the Chairman +of the Committee of Foreign Relations was not likely to press +assistance on the Minister to England. For the Legation not an +additional clerk was offered or asked. The Secretary, the Assistant +Secretary, and the private secretary did all the work that the Minister +did not do. A clerk at five dollars a week would have done the work as +well or better, but the Minister could trust no clerk; without express +authority he could admit no one into the Legation; he strained a point +already by admitting his son. Congress and its committees were the +proper judges of what was best for the public service, and if the +arrangement seemed good to them, it was satisfactory to a private +secretary who profited by it more than they did. A great staff would +have suppressed him. The whole Legation was a sort of improvised, +volunteer service, and he was a volunteer with the rest. He was rather +better off than the rest, because he was invisible and unknown. Better +or worse, he did his work with the others, and if the secretaries made +any remarks about Congress, they made no complaints, and knew that none +would have received a moment's attention. + + If they were not satisfied with Congress, they were satisfied +with Secretary Seward. Without appropriations for the regular service, +he had done great things for its support. If the Minister had no +secretaries, he had a staff of active consuls; he had a well-organized +press; efficient legal support; and a swarm of social allies permeating +all classes. All he needed was a victory in the field, and Secretary +Stanton undertook that part of diplomacy. Vicksburg and Gettysburg +cleared the board, and, at the end of July, 1863, Minister Adams was +ready to deal with Earl Russell or Lord Palmerston or Mr. Gladstone or +Mr. Delane, or any one else who stood in his way; and by the necessity +of the case, was obliged to deal with all of them shortly. + + Even before the military climax at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, +the Minister had been compelled to begin his attack; but this was +history, and had nothing to do with education. The private secretary +copied the notes into his private books, and that was all the share he +had in the matter, except to talk in private. + + No more volunteer services were needed; the volunteers were in +a manner sent to the rear; the movement was too serious for +skirmishing. All that a secretary could hope to gain from the affair +was experience and knowledge of politics. He had a chance to measure +the motive forces of men; their qualities of character; their +foresight; their tenacity of purpose. + + In the Legation no great confidence was felt in stopping the +rams. Whatever the reason, Russell seemed immovable. Had his efforts +for intervention in September, 1862, been known to the Legation in +September, 1863 the Minister must surely have admitted that Russell +had, from the first, meant to force his plan of intervention on his +colleagues. Every separate step since April, 1861, led to this final +coercion. Although Russell's hostile activity of 1862 was still +secret--and remained secret for some five-and-twenty years--his animus +seemed to be made clear by his steady refusal to stop the rebel +armaments. Little by little, Minister Adams lost hope. With loss of +hope came the raising of tone, until at last, after stripping Russell +of every rag of defence and excuse, he closed by leaving him loaded +with connivance in the rebel armaments, and ended by the famous +sentence: "It would be superfluous in me to point out to your lordship +that this is war!" + +What the Minister meant by this remark was his own affair; what the +private secretary understood by it, was a part of his education. Had +his father ordered him to draft an explanatory paragraph to expand the +idea as he grasped it, he would have continued thus:-- + + "It would be superfluous: 1st. Because Earl Russell not only +knows it already, but has meant it from the start. 2nd Because it is +the only logical and necessary consequence of his unvarying action. 3d. +Because Mr. Adams is not pointing out to him that 'this is war,' but is +pointing it out to the world, to complete the record." + + This would have been the matter-of-fact sense in which the +private secretary copied into his books the matter-of-fact statement +with which, without passion or excitement, the Minister announced that +a state of war existed. To his copying eye, as clerk, the words, though +on the extreme verge of diplomatic propriety, merely stated a fact, +without novelty, fancy, or rhetoric. The fact had to be stated in order +to make clear the issue. The war was Russell's war--Adams only accepted +it. + + Russell's reply to this note of September 5 reached the +Legation on September 8, announcing at last to the anxious secretaries +that "instructions have been issued which will prevent the departure of +the two ironclad vessels from Liverpool." The members of the modest +Legation in Portland Place accepted it as Grant had accepted the +capitulation of Vicksburg. The private secretary conceived that, as +Secretary Stanton had struck and crushed by superior weight the rebel +left on the Mississippi, so Secretary Seward had struck and crushed the +rebel right in England, and he never felt a doubt as to the nature of +the battle. Though Minister Adams should stay in office till he were +ninety, he would never fight another campaign of life and death like +this; and though the private secretary should covet and attain every +office in the gift of President or people, he would never again find +education to compare with the life-and-death alternative of this +two-year-and-a-half struggle in London, as it had racked and +thumb-screwed him in its shifting phases; but its practical value as +education turned on his correctness of judgment in measuring the men +and their forces. He felt respect for Russell as for Palmerston because +they represented traditional England and an English policy, respectable +enough in itself, but which, for four generations, every Adams had +fought and exploited as the chief source of his political fortunes. As +he understood it, Russell had followed this policy steadily, ably, even +vigorously, and had brought it to the moment of execution. Then he had +met wills stronger than his own, and, after persevering to the last +possible instant, had been beaten. Lord North and George Canning had a +like experience. This was only the idea of a boy, but, as far as he +ever knew, it was also the idea of his Government. For once, the +volunteer secretary was satisfied with his Government. Commonly the +self-respect of a secretary, private or public, depends on, and is +proportional to, the severity of his criticism, but in this case the +English campaign seemed to him as creditable to the State Department as +the Vicksburg campaign to the War Department, and more decisive. It was +well planned, well prepared, and well executed. He could never discover +a mistake in it. Possibly he was biassed by personal interest, but his +chief reason for trusting his own judgment was that he thought himself +to be one of only half a dozen persons who knew something about it. +When others criticised Mr. Seward, he was rather indifferent to their +opinions because he thought they hardly knew what they were talking +about, and could not be taught without living over again the London +life of 1862. To him Secretary Seward seemed immensely strong and +steady in leadership; but this was no discredit to Russell or +Palmerston or Gladstone. They, too, had shown power, patience and +steadiness of purpose. They had persisted for two years and a half in +their plan for breaking up the Union, and had yielded at last only in +the jaws of war. After a long and desperate struggle, the American +Minister had trumped their best card and won the game. + + Again and again, in after life, he went back over the ground to +see whether he could detect error on either side. He found none. At +every stage the steps were both probable and proved. All the more he +was disconcerted that Russell should indignantly and with growing +energy, to his dying day, deny and resent the axiom of Adams's whole +contention, that from the first he meant to break up the Union. Russell +affirmed that he meant nothing of the sort; that he had meant nothing +at all; that he meant to do right; that he did not know what he meant. +Driven from one defence after another, he pleaded at last, like +Gladstone, that he had no defence. Concealing all he could +conceal--burying in profound secrecy his attempt to break up the Union +in the autumn of 1862--he affirmed the louder his scrupulous good +faith. What was worse for the private secretary, to the total derision +and despair of the lifelong effort for education, as the final result +of combined practice, experience, and theory--he proved it. + + Henry Adams had, as he thought, suffered too much from Russell +to admit any plea in his favor; but he came to doubt whether this +admission really favored him. Not until long after Earl Russell's death +was the question reopened. Russell had quitted office in 1866; he died +in 1878; the biography was published in 1889. During the Alabama +controversy and the Geneva Conference in 1872, his course as Foreign +Secretary had been sharply criticised, and he had been compelled to see +England pay more than L3,000,000 penalty for his errors. On the other +hand, he brought forward--or his biographer for him--evidence tending +to prove that he was not consciously dishonest, and that he had, in +spite of appearances, acted without collusion, agreement, plan, or +policy, as far as concerned the rebels. He had stood alone, as was his +nature. Like Gladstone, he had thought himself right. + + In the end, Russell entangled himself in a hopeless ball of +admissions, denials, contradictions, and resentments which led even his +old colleagues to drop his defence, as they dropped Gladstone's; but +this was not enough for the student of diplomacy who had made a certain +theory his law of life, and wanted to hold Russell up against himself; +to show that he had foresight and persistence of which he was unaware. +The effort became hopeless when the biography in 1889 published papers +which upset all that Henry Adams had taken for diplomatic education; +yet he sat down once more, when past sixty years old, to see whether he +could unravel the skein. + + Of the obstinate effort to bring about an armed intervention, +on the lines marked out by Russell's letter to Palmerston from Gotha, +17 September, 1862, nothing could be said beyond Gladstone's plea in +excuse for his speech in pursuance of the same effort, that it was "the +most singular and palpable error," "the least excusable," "a mistake of +incredible grossness," which passed defence; but while Gladstone threw +himself on the mercy of the public for his speech, he attempted no +excuse for Lord Russell who led him into the "incredible grossness" of +announcing the Foreign Secretary's intent. Gladstone's offence, +"singular and palpable," was not the speech alone, but its cause--the +policy that inspired the speech. "I weakly supposed ... I really, +though most strangely, believed that it was an act of friendliness." +Whatever absurdity Gladstone supposed, Russell supposed nothing of the +sort. Neither he nor Palmerston "most strangely believed" in any +proposition so obviously and palpably absurd, nor did Napoleon delude +himself with philanthropy. Gladstone, even in his confession, mixed up +policy, speech, motives, and persons, as though he were trying to +confuse chiefly himself. + + There Gladstone's activity seems to have stopped. He did not +reappear in the matter of the rams. The rebel influence shrank in 1863, +as far as is known, to Lord Russell alone, who wrote on September 1 +that he could not interfere in any way with those vessels, and thereby +brought on himself Mr. Adams's declaration of war on September 5. A +student held that, in this refusal, he was merely following his policy +of September, 1862, and of every step he had taken since 1861. + + The student was wrong. Russell proved that he had been feeble, +timid, mistaken, senile, but not dishonest. The evidence is convincing. +The Lairds had built these ships in reliance on the known opinion of +the law-officers that the statute did not apply, and a jury would not +convict. Minister Adams replied that, in this case, the statute should +be amended, or the ships stopped by exercise of the political power. +Bethell rejoined that this would be a violation of neutrality; one must +preserve the status quo. Tacitly Russell connived with Laird, and, had +he meant to interfere, he was bound to warn Laird that the defect of +the statute would no longer protect him, but he allowed the builders to +go on till the ships were ready for sea. Then, on September 3, two days +before Mr. Adams's "superfluous" letter, he wrote to Lord Palmerston +begging for help; "The conduct of the gentlemen who have contracted for +the two ironclads at Birkenhead is so very suspicious,"--he began, and +this he actually wrote in good faith and deep confidence to Lord +Palmerston, his chief, calling "the conduct" of the rebel agents +"suspicious" when no one else in Europe or America felt any suspicion +about it, because the whole question turned not on the rams, but on the +technical scope of the Foreign Enlistment Act,--"that I have thought it +necessary to direct that they should be detained," not, of course, +under the statute, but on the ground urged by the American Minister, of +international obligation above the statute. "The Solicitor General has +been consulted and concurs in the measure as one of policy though not +of strict law. We shall thus test the law, and, if we have to pay +damages, we have satisfied the opinion which prevails here as well as +in America that that kind of neutral hostility should not be allowed to +go on without some attempt to stop it." + + For naivete that would be unusual in an unpaid attache of +Legation, this sudden leap from his own to his opponent's ground, after +two years and a half of dogged resistance, might have roused Palmerston +to inhuman scorn, but instead of derision, well earned by Russell's old +attacks on himself, Palmerston met the appeal with wonderful loyalty. +"On consulting the law officers he found that there was no lawful +ground for meddling with the ironclads," or, in unprofessional +language, that he could trust neither his law officers nor a Liverpool +jury; and therefore he suggested buying the ships for the British Navy. +As proof of "criminal negligence" in the past, this suggestion seemed +decisive, but Russell, by this time, was floundering in other troubles +of negligence, for he had neglected to notify the American Minister. He +should have done so at once, on September 3. Instead he waited till +September 4, and then merely said that the matter was under "serious +and anxious consideration." This note did not reach the Legation till +three o'clock on the afternoon of September 5--after the "superfluous" +declaration of war had been sent. Thus, Lord Russell had sacrificed the +Lairds: had cost his Ministry the price of two ironclads, besides the +Alabama Claims--say, in round numbers, twenty million dollars--and had +put himself in the position of appearing to yield only to a threat of +war. Finally he wrote to the Admiralty a letter which, from the +American point of view, would have sounded youthful from an Eton +schoolboy:-- + +September 14, 1863. + MY DEAR DUKE:-- + + It is of the utmost importance and urgency that the ironclads + building at Birkenhead should not go to America to break the + blockade. They belong to Monsieur Bravay of Paris. If you will + offer to buy them on the part of the Admiralty you will get + money's worth if he accepts your offer; and if he does not, it + will be presumptive proof that they are already bought by the + Confederates. I should state that we have suggested to the + Turkish Government to buy them; but you can easily settle that + matter with the Turks.... + + The hilarity of the secretaries in Portland Place would have +been loud had they seen this letter and realized the muddle of +difficulties into which Earl Russell had at last thrown himself under +the impulse of the American Minister; but, nevertheless, these letters +upset from top to bottom the results of the private secretary's +diplomatic education forty years after he had supposed it complete. +They made a picture different from anything he had conceived and +rendered worthless his whole painful diplomatic experience. + + To reconstruct, when past sixty, an education useful for any +practical purpose, is no practical problem, and Adams saw no use in +attacking it as only theoretical. He no longer cared whether he +understood human nature or not; he understood quite as much of it as he +wanted; but he found in the "Life of Gladstone" (II, 464) a remark +several times repeated that gave him matter for curious thought. "I +always hold," said Mr. Gladstone, "that politicians are the men whom, +as a rule, it is most difficult to comprehend"; and he added, by way of +strengthening it: "For my own part, I never have thus understood, or +thought I understood, above one or two." + + Earl Russell was certainly not one of the two. + + Henry Adams thought he also had understood one or two; but the +American type was more familiar. Perhaps this was the sufficient result +of his diplomatic education; it seemed to be the whole. + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ECCENTRICITY (1863) + + KNOWLEDGE of human nature is the beginning and end of political +education, but several years of arduous study in the neighborhood of +Westminster led Henry Adams to think that knowledge of English human +nature had little or no value outside of England. In Paris, such a +habit stood in one's way; in America, it roused all the instincts of +native jealousy. The English mind was one-sided, eccentric, +systematically unsystematic, and logically illogical. The less one knew +of it, the better. + + This heresy, which scarcely would have been allowed to +penetrate a Boston mind--it would, indeed, have been shut out by +instinct as a rather foolish exaggeration--rested on an experience +which Henry Adams gravely thought he had a right to think +conclusive--for him. That it should be conclusive for any one else +never occurred to him, since he had no thought of educating anybody +else. For him--alone--the less English education he got, the better! + + For several years, under the keenest incitement to +watchfulness, he observed the English mind in contact with itself and +other minds. Especially with the American the contact was interesting +because the limits and defects of the American mind were one of the +favorite topics of the European. From the old-world point of view, the +American had no mind; he had an economic thinking-machine which could +work only on a fixed line. The American mind exasperated the European +as a buzz-saw might exasperate a pine forest. The English mind disliked +the French mind because it was antagonistic, unreasonable, perhaps +hostile, but recognized it as at least a thought. The American mind was +not a thought at all; it was a convention, superficial, narrow, and +ignorant; a mere cutting instrument, practical, economical, sharp, and +direct. + + The English themselves hardly conceived that their mind was +either economical, sharp, or direct; but the defect that most struck an +American was its enormous waste in eccentricity. Americans needed and +used their whole energy, and applied it with close economy; but English +society was eccentric by law and for sake of the eccentricity itself. + + The commonest phrase overheard at an English club or +dinner-table was that So-and-So "is quite mad." It was no offence to +So-and-So; it hardly distinguished him from his fellows; and when +applied to a public man, like Gladstone, it was qualified by epithets +much more forcible. Eccentricity was so general as to become hereditary +distinction. It made the chief charm of English society as well as its +chief terror. + + The American delighted in Thackeray as a satirist, but +Thackeray quite justly maintained that he was not a satirist at all, +and that his pictures of English society were exact and good-natured. +The American, who could not believe it, fell back on Dickens, who, at +all events, had the vice of exaggeration to extravagance, but Dickens's +English audience thought the exaggeration rather in manner or style, +than in types. Mr. Gladstone himself went to see Sothern act Dundreary, +and laughed till his face was distorted--not because Dundreary was +exaggerated, but because he was ridiculously like the types that +Gladstone had seen--or might have seen--in any club in Pall Mall. +Society swarmed with exaggerated characters; it contained little else. + + Often this eccentricity bore all the marks of strength; perhaps +it was actual exuberance of force, a birthmark of genius. Boston +thought so. The Bostonian called it national character--native +vigor--robustness--honesty--courage. He respected and feared it. +British self-assertion, bluff, brutal, blunt as it was, seemed to him a +better and nobler thing than the acuteness of the Yankee or the polish +of the Parisian. Perhaps he was right. + + These questions of taste, of feeling, of inheritance, need no +settlement. Every one carries his own inch-rule of taste, and amuses +himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels. Whatever +others thought, the cleverest Englishmen held that the national +eccentricity needed correction, and were beginning to correct it. The +savage satires of Dickens and the gentler ridicule of Matthew Arnold +against the British middle class were but a part of the rebellion, for +the middle class were no worse than their neighbors in the eyes of an +American in 1863; they were even a very little better in the sense that +one could appeal to their interests, while a university man, like +Gladstone, stood outside of argument. From none of them could a young +American afford to borrow ideas. + + The private secretary, like every other Bostonian, began by +regarding British eccentricity as a force. Contact with it, in the +shape of Palmerston, Russell, and Gladstone, made him hesitate; he saw +his own national type--his father, Weed, Evarts, for instance--deal +with the British, and show itself certainly not the weaker; certainly +sometimes the stronger. Biassed though he were, he could hardly be +biassed to such a degree as to mistake the effects of force on others, +and while--labor as he might--Earl Russell and his state papers seemed +weak to a secretary, he could not see that they seemed strong to +Russell's own followers. Russell might be dishonest or he might be +merely obtuse--the English type might be brutal or might be only +stupid--but strong, in either case, it was not, nor did it seem strong +to Englishmen. + +Eccentricity was not always a force; Americans were deeply interested +in deciding whether it was always a weakness. Evidently, on the +hustings or in Parliament, among eccentricities, eccentricity was at +home; but in private society the question was not easy to answer. That +English society was infinitely more amusing because of its +eccentricities, no one denied. Barring the atrocious insolence and +brutality which Englishmen and especially Englishwomen showed to each +other--very rarely, indeed, to foreigners--English society was much +more easy and tolerant than American. One must expect to be treated +with exquisite courtesy this week and be totally forgotten the next, +but this was the way of the world, and education consisted in learning +to turn one's back on others with the same unconscious indifference +that others showed among themselves. The smart of wounded vanity lasted +no long time with a young man about town who had little vanity to +smart, and who, in his own country, would have found himself in no +better position. He had nothing to complain of. No one was ever brutal +to him. On the contrary, he was much better treated than ever he was +likely to be in Boston--let alone New York or Washington--and if his +reception varied inconceivably between extreme courtesy and extreme +neglect, it merely proved that he had become, or was becoming, at home. +Not from a sense of personal griefs or disappointments did he labor +over this part of the social problem, but only because his education +was becoming English, and the further it went, the less it promised. + + By natural affinity the social eccentrics commonly sympathized +with political eccentricity. The English mind took naturally to +rebellion--when foreign--and it felt particular confidence in the +Southern Confederacy because of its combined attributes--foreign +rebellion of English blood--which came nearer ideal eccentricity than +could be reached by Poles, Hungarians, Italians or Frenchmen. All the +English eccentrics rushed into the ranks of rebel sympathizers, leaving +few but well-balanced minds to attach themselves to the cause of the +Union. None of the English leaders on the Northern side were marked +eccentrics. William E. Forster was a practical, hard-headed +Yorkshireman, whose chief ideals in politics took shape as working +arrangements on an economical base. Cobden, considering the one-sided +conditions of his life, was remarkably well balanced. John Bright was +stronger in his expressions than either of them, but with all his +self-assertion he stuck to his point, and his point was practical. He +did not, like Gladstone, box the compass of thought; "furiously +earnest," as Monckton Milnes said, "on both sides of every question"; +he was rather, on the whole, a consistent conservative of the old +Commonwealth type, and seldom had to defend inconsistencies. Monckton +Milnes himself was regarded as an eccentric, chiefly by those who did +not know him, but his fancies and hobbies were only ideas a little in +advance of the time; his manner was eccentric, but not his mind, as any +one could see who read a page of his poetry. None of them, except +Milnes, was a university man. As a rule, the Legation was troubled very +little, if at all, by indiscretions, extravagances, or contradictions +among its English friends. Their work was largely judicious, practical, +well considered, and almost too cautious. The "cranks" were all rebels, +and the list was portentous. Perhaps it might be headed by old Lord +Brougham, who had the audacity to appear at a July 4th reception at the +Legation, led by Joe Parkes, and claim his old credit as "Attorney +General to Mr. Madison." The Church was rebel, but the dissenters were +mostly with the Union. The universities were rebel, but the university +men who enjoyed most public confidence--like Lord Granville, Sir George +Cornewall Lewis, Lord Stanley, Sir George Grey--took infinite pains to +be neutral for fear of being thought eccentric. To most observers, as +well as to the Times, the Morning Post, and the Standard, a vast +majority of the English people seemed to follow the professional +eccentrics; even the emotional philanthropists took that direction; +Lord Shaftesbury and Carlyle, Fowell Buxton, and Gladstone, threw their +sympathies on the side which they should naturally have opposed, and +did so for no reason except their eccentricity; but the "canny" Scots +and Yorkshiremen were cautious. + + This eccentricity did not mean strength. The proof of it was +the mismanagement of the rebel interests. No doubt the first cause of +this trouble lay in the Richmond Government itself. No one understood +why Jefferson Davis chose Mr. Mason as his agent for London at the same +time that he made so good a choice as Mr. Slidell for Paris. The +Confederacy had plenty of excellent men to send to London, but few who +were less fitted than Mason. Possibly Mason had a certain amount of +common sense, but he seemed to have nothing else, and in London society +he counted merely as one eccentric more. He enjoyed a great +opportunity; he might even have figured as a new Benjamin Franklin with +all society at his feet; he might have roared as lion of the season and +made the social path of the American Minister almost impassable; but +Mr. Adams had his usual luck in enemies, who were always his most +valuable allies if his friends only let them alone. Mason was his +greatest diplomatic triumph. He had his collision with Palmerston; he +drove Russell off the field; he swept the board before Cockburn; he +overbore Slidell; but he never lifted a finger against Mason, who +became his bulwark of defence. + + Possibly Jefferson Davis and Mr. Mason shared two defects in +common which might have led them into this serious mistake. Neither +could have had much knowledge of the world, and both must have been +unconscious of humor. Yet at the same time with Mason, President Davis +sent out Slidell to France and Mr. Lamar to Russia. Some twenty years +later, in the shifting search for the education he never found, Adams +became closely intimate at Washington with Lamar, then Senator from +Mississippi, who had grown to be one of the calmest, most reasonable +and most amiable Union men in the United States, and quite unusual in +social charm. In 1860 he passed for the worst of Southern fire-eaters, +but he was an eccentric by environment, not by nature; above all his +Southern eccentricities, he had tact and humor; and perhaps this was a +reason why Mr. Davis sent him abroad with the others, on a futile +mission to St. Petersburg. He would have done better in London, in +place of Mason. London society would have delighted in him; his stories +would have won success; his manners would have made him loved; his +oratory would have swept every audience; even Monckton Milnes could +never have resisted the temptation of having him to breakfast between +Lord Shaftesbury and the Bishop of Oxford. + + Lamar liked to talk of his brief career in diplomacy, but he +never spoke of Mason. He never alluded to Confederate management or +criticised Jefferson Davis's administration. The subject that amused +him was his English allies. At that moment--the early summer of +1863--the rebel party in England were full of confidence, and felt +strong enough to challenge the American Legation to a show of power. +They knew better than the Legation what they could depend upon: that +the law officers and commissioners of customs at Liverpool dared not +prosecute the ironclad ships; that Palmerston, Russell, and Gladstone +were ready to recognize the Confederacy; that the Emperor Napoleon +would offer them every inducement to do it. In a manner they owned +Liverpool and especially the firm of Laird who were building their +ships. The political member of the Laird firm was Lindsay, about whom +the whole web of rebel interests clung--rams, cruisers, munitions, and +Confederate loan; social introductions and parliamentary tactics. The +firm of Laird, with a certain dignity, claimed to be champion of +England's navy; and public opinion, in the summer of 1863, still +inclined towards them. + + Never was there a moment when eccentricity, if it were a force, +should have had more value to the rebel interest; and the managers must +have thought so, for they adopted or accepted as their champion an +eccentric of eccentrics; a type of 1820; a sort of Brougham of +Sheffield, notorious for poor judgment and worse temper. Mr. Roebuck +had been a tribune of the people, and, like tribunes of most other +peoples, in growing old, had grown fatuous. He was regarded by the +friends of the Union as rather a comical personage--a favorite subject +for Punch to laugh at--with a bitter tongue and a mind enfeebled even +more than common by the political epidemic of egotism. In all England +they could have found no opponent better fitted to give away his own +case. No American man of business would have paid him attention; yet. +the Lairds, who certainly knew their own affairs best, let Roebuck +represent them and take charge of their interests. + + With Roebuck's doings, the private secretary had no concern +except that the Minister sent him down to the House of Commons on June +30, 1863, to report the result of Roebuck's motion to recognize the +Southern Confederacy. The Legation felt no anxiety, having Vicksburg +already in its pocket, and Bright and Forster to say so; but the +private secretary went down and was admitted under the gallery on the +left, to listen, with great content, while John Bright, with +astonishing force, caught and shook and tossed Roebuck, as a big +mastiff shakes a wiry, ill-conditioned, toothless, bad-tempered +Yorkshire terrier. The private secretary felt an artistic sympathy with +Roebuck, for, from time to time, by way of practice, Bright in a +friendly way was apt to shake him too, and he knew how it was done. The +manner counted for more than the words. The scene was interesting, but +the result was not in doubt. + + All the more sharply he was excited, near the year 1879, in +Washington, by hearing Lamar begin a story after dinner, which, little +by little, became dramatic, recalling the scene in the House of +Commons. The story, as well as one remembered, began with Lamar's +failure to reach St. Petersburg at all, and his consequent detention in +Paris waiting instructions. The motion to recognize the Confederacy was +about to be made, and, in prospect of the debate, Mr. Lindsay collected +a party at his villa on the Thames to bring the rebel agents into +relations with Roebuck. Lamar was sent for, and came. After much +conversation of a general sort, such as is the usual object or resource +of the English Sunday, finding himself alone with Roebuck, Lamar, by +way of showing interest, bethought himself of John Bright and asked +Roebuck whether he expected Bright to take part in the debate: "No, +sir!" said Roebuck sententiously; "Bright and I have met before. It was +the old story--the story of the sword-fish and the whale! NO, sir! Mr. +Bright will not cross swords with me again!" + + Thus assured, Lamar went with the more confidence to the House +on the appointed evening, and was placed under the gallery, on the +right, where he listened to Roebuck and followed the debate with such +enjoyment as an experienced debater feels in these contests, until, as +he said, he became aware that a man, with a singularly rich voice and +imposing manner, had taken the floor, and was giving Roebuck the most +deliberate and tremendous pounding he ever witnessed, "until at last," +concluded Lamar, "it dawned on my mind that the sword-fish was getting +the worst of it." + + Lamar told the story in the spirit of a joke against himself +rather than against Roebuck; but such jokes must have been unpleasantly +common in the experience of the rebel agents. They were surrounded by +cranks of the worst English species, who distorted their natural +eccentricities and perverted their judgment. Roebuck may have been an +extreme case, since he was actually in his dotage, yet this did not +prevent the Lairds from accepting his lead, or the House from taking +him seriously. Extreme eccentricity was no bar, in England, to extreme +confidence; sometimes it seemed a recommendation; and unless it caused +financial loss, it rather helped popularity. + + The question whether British eccentricity was ever strength +weighed heavily in the balance of education. That Roebuck should +mislead the rebel agents on so strange a point as that of Bright's +courage was doubly characteristic because the Southern people +themselves had this same barbaric weakness of attributing want of +courage to opponents, and owed their ruin chiefly to such ignorance of +the world. Bright's courage was almost as irrational as that of the +rebels themselves. Every one knew that he had the courage of a +prize-fighter. He struck, in succession, pretty nearly every man in +England that could be reached by a blow, and when he could not reach +the individual he struck the class, or when the class was too small for +him, the whole people of England. At times he had the whole country on +his back. He could not act on the defensive; his mind required attack. +Even among friends at the dinner-table he talked as though he were +denouncing them, or someone else, on a platform; he measured his +phrases, built his sentences, cumulated his effects, and pounded his +opponents, real or imagined. His humor was glow, like iron at dull +heat; his blow was elementary, like the thrash of a whale. + + One day in early spring, March 26, 1863, the Minister requested +his private secretary to attend a Trades-Union Meeting at St. James's +Hall, which was the result of Professor Beesly's patient efforts to +unite Bright and the Trades-Unions on an American platform. The +secretary went to the meeting and made a report which reposes somewhere +on file in the State Department to this day, as harmless as such +reports should be; but it contained no mention of what interested young +Adams most--Bright's psychology. With singular skill and oratorical +power, Bright managed at the outset, in his opening paragraph, to +insult or outrage every class of Englishman commonly considered +respectable, and, for fear of any escaping, he insulted them repeatedly +under consecutive heads. The rhetorical effect was tremendous:-- + + "Privilege thinks it has a great interest in the American +contest," he began in his massive, deliberate tones; "and every morning +with blatant voice, it comes into our streets and curses the American +Republic. Privilege has beheld an afflicting spectacle for many years +past. It has beheld thirty million of men happy and prosperous, without +emperors--without king (cheers)--without the surroundings of a court +(renewed cheers)--without nobles, except such as are made by eminence +in intellect and virtue--without State bishops and State priests, those +vendors of the love that works salvation (cheers)--without great armies +and great navies--without a great debt and great taxes--and Privilege +has shuddered at what might happen to old Europe if this great +experiment should succeed." + + An ingenious man, with an inventive mind, might have managed, +in the same number of lines, to offend more Englishmen than Bright +struck in this sentence; but he must have betrayed artifice and hurt +his oratory. The audience cheered furiously, and the private secretary +felt peace in his much troubled mind, for he knew how careful the +Ministry would be, once they saw Bright talk republican principles +before Trades-Unions; but, while he did not, like Roebuck, see reason +to doubt the courage of a man who, after quarrelling with the +Trades-Unions, quarreled with all the world outside the Trades-Unions, +he did feel a doubt whether to class Bright as eccentric or +conventional. Every one called Bright "un-English," from Lord +Palmerston to William E. Forster; but to an American he seemed more +English than any of his critics. He was a liberal hater, and what he +hated he reviled after the manner of Milton, but he was afraid of no +one. He was almost the only man in England, or, for that matter, in +Europe, who hated Palmerston and was not afraid of him, or of the press +or the pulpit, the clubs or the bench, that stood behind him. He +loathed the whole fabric of sham religion, sham loyalty, sham +aristocracy, and sham socialism. He had the British weakness of +believing only in himself and his own conventions. In all this, an +American saw, if one may make the distinction, much racial +eccentricity, but little that was personal. Bright was singularly well +poised; but he used singularly strong language. + + Long afterwards, in 1880, Adams happened to be living again in +London for a season, when James Russell Lowell was transferred there as +Minister; and as Adams's relations with Lowell had become closer and +more intimate with years, he wanted the new Minister to know some of +his old friends. Bright was then in the Cabinet, and no longer the most +radical member even there, but he was still a rare figure in society. +He came to dinner, along with Sir Francis Doyle and Sir Robert +Cunliffe, and as usual did most of the talking. As usual also, he +talked of the things most on his mind. Apparently it must have been +some reform of the criminal law which the Judges opposed, that excited +him, for at the end of dinner, over the wine, he took possession of the +table in his old way, and ended with a superb denunciation of the +Bench, spoken in his massive manner, as though every word were a +hammer, smashing what it struck:-- + + "For two hundred years, the Judges of England sat on the Bench, +condemning to the penalty of death every man, woman, and child who +stole property to the value of five shillings; and, during all that +time, not one Judge ever remonstrated against the law. We English are a +nation of brutes, and ought to be exterminated to the last man." + + As the party rose from table and passed into the drawing-room, +Adams said to Lowell that Bright was very fine. "Yes!" replied Lowell, +"but too violent!" + + Precisely this was the point that Adams doubted. Bright knew +his Englishmen better than Lowell did--better than England did. He knew +what amount of violence in language was necessary to drive an idea into +a Lancashire or Yorkshire head. He knew that no violence was enough to +affect a Somersetshire or Wiltshire peasant. Bright kept his own head +cool and clear. He was not excited; he never betrayed excitement. As +for his denunciation of the English Bench, it was a very old story, not +original with him. That the English were a nation of brutes was a +commonplace generally admitted by Englishmen and universally accepted +by foreigners; while the matter of their extermination could be treated +only as unpractical, on their deserts, because they were probably not +very much worse than their neighbors. Had Bright said that the French, +Spaniards, Germans, or Russians were a nation of brutes and ought to be +exterminated, no one would have found fault; the whole human race, +according to the highest authority, has been exterminated once already +for the same reason, and only the rainbow protects them from a +repetition of it. What shocked Lowell was that he denounced his own +people. + + Adams felt no moral obligation to defend Judges, who, as far as +he knew, were the only class of society specially adapted to defend +themselves; but he was curious--even anxious--as a point of education, +to decide for himself whether Bright's language was violent for its +purpose. He thought not. Perhaps Cobden did better by persuasion, but +that was another matter. Of course, even Englishmen sometimes +complained of being so constantly told that they were brutes and +hypocrites, although they were told little else by their censors, and +bore it, on the whole, meekly; but the fact that it was true in the +main troubled the ten-pound voter much less than it troubled Newman, +Gladstone, Ruskin, Carlyle, and Matthew Arnold. Bright was personally +disliked by his victims, but not distrusted. They never doubted what he +would do next, as they did with John Russell, Gladstone, and Disraeli. +He betrayed no one, and he never advanced an opinion in practical +matters which did not prove to be practical. + + The class of Englishmen who set out to be the intellectual +opposites of Bright, seemed to an American bystander the weakest and +most eccentric of all. These were the trimmers, the political +economists, the anti-slavery and doctrinaire class, the followers of de +Tocqueville, and of John Stuart Mill. As a class, they were timid--with +good reason--and timidity, which is high wisdom in philosophy, sicklies +the whole cast of thought in action. Numbers of these men haunted +London society, all tending to free-thinking, but never venturing much +freedom of thought. Like the anti-slavery doctrinaires of the forties +and fifties, they became mute and useless when slavery struck them in +the face. For type of these eccentrics, literature seems to have chosen +Henry Reeve, at least to the extent of biography. He was a bulky figure +in society, always friendly, good-natured, obliging, and useful; almost +as universal as Milnes and more busy. As editor of the Edinburgh Review +he had authority and even power, although the Review and the whole Whig +doctrinaire school had begun--as the French say--to date; and of course +the literary and artistic sharpshooters of 1867--like Frank +Palgrave--frothed and foamed at the mere mention of Reeve's name. +Three-fourths of their fury was due only to his ponderous manner. +London society abused its rights of personal criticism by fixing on +every too conspicuous figure some word or phrase that stuck to it. +Every one had heard of Mrs. Grote as "the origin of the word +grotesque." Every one had laughed at the story of Reeve approaching +Mrs. Grote, with his usual somewhat florid manner, asking in his +literary dialect how her husband the historian was: "And how is the +learned Grotius?" "Pretty well, thank you, Puffendorf!" One winced at +the word, as though it were a drawing of Forain. + + No one would have been more shocked than Reeve had he been +charged with want of moral courage. He proved his courage afterwards by +publishing the "Greville Memoirs," braving the displeasure of the +Queen. Yet the Edinburgh Review and its editor avoided taking sides +except where sides were already fixed. Americanism would have been bad +form in the liberal Edinburgh Review; it would have seemed eccentric +even for a Scotchman, and Reeve was a Saxon of Saxons. To an American +this attitude of oscillating reserve seemed more eccentric than the +reckless hostility of Brougham or Carlyle, and more mischievous, for he +never could be sure what preposterous commonplace it might encourage. + + The sum of these experiences in 1863 left the conviction that +eccentricity was weakness. The young American who should adopt English +thought was lost. From the facts, the conclusion was correct, yet, as +usual, the conclusion was wrong. The years of Palmerston's last +Cabinet, 1859 to 1865, were avowedly years of truce--of arrested +development. The British system like the French, was in its last stage +of decomposition. Never had the British mind shown itself so +decousu--so unravelled, at sea, floundering in every sort of historical +shipwreck. Eccentricities had a free field. Contradictions swarmed in +State and Church. England devoted thirty years of arduous labor to +clearing away only a part of the debris. A young American in 1863 could +see little or nothing of the future. He might dream, but he could not +foretell, the suddenness with which the old Europe, with England in its +wake, was to vanish in 1870. He was in dead-water, and the +parti-colored, fantastic cranks swam about his boat, as though he were +the ancient mariner, and they saurians of the prime. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE PERFECTION OF HUMAN SOCIETY (1864) + + MINISTER ADAMS'S success in stopping the rebel rams fixed his +position once for all in English society. From that moment he could +afford to drop the character of diplomatist, and assume what, for an +American Minister in London, was an exclusive diplomatic advantage, the +character of a kind of American Peer of the Realm. The British never +did things by halves. Once they recognized a man's right to social +privileges, they accepted him as one of themselves. Much as Lord Derby +and Mr. Disraeli were accepted as leaders of Her Majesty's domestic +Opposition, Minister Adams had a rank of his own as a kind of leader of +Her Majesty's American Opposition. Even the Times conceded it. The +years of struggle were over, and Minister Adams rapidly gained a +position which would have caused his father or grandfather to stare +with incredulous envy. + + This Anglo-American form of diplomacy was chiefly undiplomatic, +and had the peculiar effect of teaching a habit of diplomacy useless or +mischievous everywhere but in London. Nowhere else in the world could +one expect to figure in a role so unprofessional. The young man knew no +longer what character he bore. Private secretary in the morning, son in +the afternoon, young man about town in the evening, the only character +he never bore was that of diplomatist, except when he wanted a card to +some great function. His diplomatic education was at an end; he seldom +met a diplomat, and never had business with one; he could be of no use +to them, or they to him; but he drifted inevitably into society, and, +do what he might, his next education must be one of English social +life. Tossed between the horns of successive dilemmas, he reached his +twenty-sixth birthday without the power of earning five dollars in any +occupation. His friends in the army were almost as badly off, but even +army life ruined a young man less fatally than London society. Had he +been rich, this form of ruin would have mattered nothing; but the young +men of 1865 were none of them rich; all had to earn a living; yet they +had reached high positions of responsibility and power in camps and +Courts, without a dollar of their own and with no tenure of office. + + Henry Adams had failed to acquire any useful education; he +should at least have acquired social experience. Curiously enough, he +failed here also. From the European or English point of view, he had no +social experience, and never got it. Minister Adams happened on a +political interregnum owing to Lord Palmerston's personal influence +from 1860 to 1865; but this political interregnum was less marked than +the social still-stand during the same years. The Prince Consort was +dead; the Queen had retired; the Prince of Wales was still a boy. In +its best days, Victorian society had never been "smart." During the +forties, under the influence of Louis Philippe, Courts affected to be +simple, serious and middle class; and they succeeded. The taste of +Louis Philippe was bourgeois beyond any taste except that of Queen +Victoria. Style lingered in the background with the powdered footman +behind the yellow chariot, but speaking socially the Queen had no style +save what she inherited. Balmoral was a startling revelation of royal +taste. Nothing could be worse than the toilettes at Court unless it +were the way they were worn. One's eyes might be dazzled by jewels, but +they were heirlooms, and if any lady appeared well dressed, she was +either a foreigner or "fast." Fashion was not fashionable in London +until the Americans and the Jews were let loose. The style of London +toilette universal in 1864 was grotesque, like Monckton Milnes on +horseback in Rotten Row. + + Society of this sort might fit a young man in some degree for +editing Shakespeare or Swift, but had little relation with the society +of 1870, and none with that of 1900. Owing to other causes, young Adams +never got the full training of such style as still existed. The +embarrassments of his first few seasons socially ruined him. His own +want of experience prevented his asking introductions to the ladies who +ruled society; his want of friends prevented his knowing who these +ladies were; and he had every reason to expect snubbing if he put +himself in evidence. This sensitiveness was thrown away on English +society, where men and women treated each others' advances much more +brutally than those of strangers, but young Adams was son and private +secretary too; he could not be as thick-skinned as an Englishman. He +was not alone. Every young diplomat, and most of the old ones, felt +awkward in an English house from a certainty that they were not +precisely wanted there, and a possibility that they might be told so. + + If there was in those days a country house in England which had +a right to call itself broad in views and large in tastes, it was +Bretton in Yorkshire; and if there was a hostess who had a right to +consider herself fashionable as well as charming, it was Lady Margaret +Beaumont; yet one morning at breakfast there, sitting by her side--not +for his own merits--Henry Adams heard her say to herself in her languid +and liberal way, with her rich voice and musing manner, looking into +her tea-cup: "I don't think I care for foreigners!" Horror-stricken, +not so much on his own account as on hers, the young man could only +execute himself as gaily as he might: "But Lady Margaret, please make +one small exception for me!" Of course she replied what was evident, +that she did not call him a foreigner, and her genial Irish charm made +the slip of tongue a happy courtesy; but none the less she knew that, +except for his momentary personal introduction, he was in fact a +foreigner, and there was no imaginable reason why she should like him, +or any other foreigner, unless it were because she was bored by +natives. She seemed to feel that her indifference needed a reason to +excuse itself in her own eyes, and she showed the subconscious sympathy +of the Irish nature which never feels itself perfectly at home even in +England. She, too, was some shadowy shade un-English. + + Always conscious of this barrier, while the war lasted the +private secretary hid himself among the herd of foreigners till he +found his relations fixed and unchangeable. He never felt himself in +society, and he never knew definitely what was meant as society by +those who were in it. He saw far enough to note a score of societies +which seemed quite independent of each other. The smartest was the +smallest, and to him almost wholly strange. The largest was the +sporting world, also unknown to him except through the talk of his +acquaintances. Between or beyond these lay groups of nebulous +societies. His lawyer friends, like Evarts, frequented legal circles +where one still sat over the wine and told anecdotes of the bench and +bar; but he himself never set eyes on a judge except when his father +took him to call on old Lord Lyndhurst, where they found old Lord +Campbell, both abusing old Lord Brougham. The Church and the Bishops +formed several societies which no secretary ever saw except as an +interloper. The Army; the Navy; the Indian Service; the medical and +surgical professions; City people; artists; county families; the +Scotch, and indefinite other subdivisions of society existed, which +were as strange to each other as they were to Adams. At the end of +eight or ten seasons in London society he professed to know less about +it, or how to enter it, than he did when he made his first appearance +at Miss Burdett Coutts's in May, 1861. + + Sooner or later every young man dropped into a set or circle, +and frequented the few houses that were willing to harbor him. An +American who neither hunted nor raced, neither shot nor fished nor +gambled, and was not marriageable, had no need to think of society at +large. Ninety-nine houses in every hundred were useless to him, a +greater bore to him than he to them. Thus the question of getting +into--or getting out of--society which troubled young foreigners +greatly, settled itself after three or four years of painful +speculation. Society had no unity; one wandered about in it like a +maggot in cheese; it was not a hansom cab, to be got into, or out of, +at dinner-time. + + Therefore he always professed himself ignorant of society; he +never knew whether he had been in it or not, but from the accounts of +his future friends, like General Dick Taylor or George Smalley, and of +various ladies who reigned in the seventies, he inclined to think that +he knew very little about it. Certain great houses and certain great +functions of course he attended, like every one else who could get +cards, but even of these the number was small that kept an interest or +helped education. In seven years he could remember only two that seemed +to have any meaning for him, and he never knew what that meaning was. +Neither of the two was official; neither was English in interest; and +both were scandals to the philosopher while they scarcely enlightened +men of the world. + + One was at Devonshire House, an ordinary, unpremeditated +evening reception. Naturally every one went to Devonshire House if +asked, and the rooms that night were fairly full of the usual people. +The private secretary was standing among the rest, when Mme. de +Castiglione entered, the famous beauty of the Second Empire. How +beautiful she may have been, or indeed what sort of beauty she was, +Adams never knew, because the company, consisting of the most refined +and aristocratic society in the world, instantly formed a lane, and +stood in ranks to stare at her, while those behind mounted on chairs to +look over their neighbors' heads; so that the lady walked through this +polite mob, stared completely out of countenance, and fled the house at +once. This was all! + + The other strange spectacle was at Stafford House, April 13, +1864, when, in a palace gallery that recalled Paolo Veronese's pictures +of Christ in his scenes of miracle, Garibaldi, in his gray capote over +his red shirt, received all London, and three duchesses literally +worshipped at his feet. Here, at all events, a private secretary had +surely caught the last and highest touch of social experience; but what +it meant--what social, moral, or mental development it pointed out to +the searcher of truth--was not a matter to be treated fully by a leader +in the Morning Post or even by a sermon in Westminster Abbey. Mme. de +Castiglione and Garibaldi covered, between them, too much space for +simple measurement; their curves were too complex for mere arithmetic. +The task of bringing the two into any common relation with an ordered +social system tending to orderly development--in London or +elsewhere--was well fitted for Algernon Swinburne or Victor Hugo, but +was beyond any process yet reached by the education of Henry Adams, who +would probably, even then, have rejected, as superficial or +supernatural, all the views taken by any of the company who looked on +with him at these two interesting and perplexing sights. + + From the Court, or Court society, a mere private secretary got +nothing at all, or next to nothing, that could help him on his road +through life. Royalty was in abeyance. One was tempted to think in +these years, 1860-65, that the nicest distinction between the very best +society and the second-best, was their attitude towards royalty. The +one regarded royalty as a bore, and avoided it, or quietly said that +the Queen had never been in society. The same thing might have been +said of fully half the peerage. Adams never knew even the names of half +the rest; he never exchanged ten words with any member of the royal +family; he never knew any one in those years who showed interest in any +member of the royal family, or who would have given five shillings for +the opinion of any royal person on any subject; or cared to enter any +royal or noble presence, unless the house was made attractive by as +much social effort as would have been necessary in other countries +where no rank existed. No doubt, as one of a swarm, young Adams +slightly knew various gilded youth who frequented balls and led such +dancing as was most in vogue, but they seemed to set no value on rank; +their anxiety was only to know where to find the best partners before +midnight, and the best supper after midnight. To the American, as to +Arthur Pendennis or Barnes Newcome, the value of social position and +knowledge was evident enough; he valued it at rather more than it was +worth to him; but it was a shadowy thing which seemed to vary with +every street corner; a thing which had shifting standards, and which no +one could catch outright. The half-dozen leaders and beauties of his +time, with great names and of the utmost fashion, made some of the +poorest marriages, and the least showy careers. + + Tired of looking on at society from the outside, Adams grew to +loathe the sight of his Court dress; to groan at every announcement of +a Court ball; and to dread every invitation to a formal dinner. The +greatest social event gave not half the pleasure that one could buy for +ten shillings at the opera when Patti sang Cherubino or Gretchen, and +not a fourth of the education. Yet this was not the opinion of the best +judges. Lothrop Motley, who stood among the very best, said to him +early in his apprenticeship that the London dinner and the English +country house were the perfection of human society. The young man +meditated over it, uncertain of its meaning. Motley could not have +thought the dinner itself perfect, since there was not then--outside of +a few bankers or foreigners--a good cook or a good table in London, and +nine out of ten of the dinners that Motley ate came from Gunter's, and +all were alike. Every one, especially in young society, complained +bitterly that Englishmen did not know a good dinner when they ate it, +and could not order one if they were given carte blanche. Henry Adams +was not a judge, and knew no more than they, but he heard the +complaints, and he could not think that Motley meant to praise the +English cuisine. + + Equally little could Motley have meant that dinners were good +to look at. Nothing could be worse than the toilettes; nothing less +artistic than the appearance of the company. One's eyes might be +dazzled by family diamonds, but, if an American woman were present, she +was sure to make comments about the way the jewels were worn. If there +was a well-dressed lady at table, she was either an American or "fast." +She attracted as much notice as though she were on the stage. No one +could possibly admire an English dinner-table. + + Least of all did Motley mean that the taste or the manners were +perfect. The manners of English society were notorious, and the taste +was worse. Without exception every American woman rose in rebellion +against English manners. In fact, the charm of London which made most +impression on Americans was the violence of its contrasts; the extreme +badness of the worst, making background for the distinction, +refinement, or wit of a few, just as the extreme beauty of a few superb +women was more effective against the plainness of the crowd. The result +was mediaeval, and amusing; sometimes coarse to a degree that might +have startled a roustabout, and sometimes courteous and considerate to +a degree that suggested King Arthur's Round Table; but this artistic +contrast was surely not the perfection that Motley had in his mind. He +meant something scholarly, worldly, and modern; he was thinking of his +own tastes. + + Probably he meant that, in his favorite houses, the tone was +easy, the talk was good, and the standard of scholarship was high. Even +there he would have been forced to qualify his adjectives. No German +would have admitted that English scholarship was high, or that it was +scholarship at all, or that any wish for scholarship existed in +England. Nothing that seemed to smell of the shop or of the +lecture-room was wanted. One might as well have talked of Renan's +Christ at the table of the Bishop of London, as talk of German +philology at the table of an Oxford don. Society, if a small literary +class could be called society, wanted to be amused in its old way. +Sydney Smith, who had amused, was dead; so was Macaulay, who instructed +if he did not amuse; Thackeray died at Christmas, 1863; Dickens never +felt at home, and seldom appeared, in society; Bulwer Lytton was not +sprightly; Tennyson detested strangers; Carlyle was mostly detested by +them; Darwin never came to town; the men of whom Motley must have been +thinking were such as he might meet at Lord Houghton's breakfasts: +Grote, Jowett, Milman, or Froude; Browning, Matthew Arnold, or +Swinburne; Bishop Wilberforce, Venables, or Hayward; or perhaps +Gladstone, Robert Lowe, or Lord Granville. A relatively small class, +commonly isolated, suppressed, and lost at the usual London dinner, +such society as this was fairly familiar even to a private secretary, +but to the literary American it might well seem perfection since he +could find nothing of the sort in America. Within the narrow limits of +this class, the American Legation was fairly at home; possibly a score +of houses, all liberal, and all literary, but perfect only in the eyes +of a Harvard College historian. They could teach little worth learning, +for their tastes were antiquated and their knowledge was ignorance to +the next generation. What was altogether fatal for future purposes, +they were only English. + + A social education in such a medium was bound to be useless in +any other, yet Adams had to learn it to the bottom. The one thing +needful for a private secretary, was that he should not only seem, but +should actually be, at home. He studied carefully, and practised +painfully, what seemed to be the favorite accomplishments of society. +Perhaps his nervousness deceived him; perhaps he took for an ideal of +others what was only his reflected image; but he conceived that the +perfection of human society required that a man should enter a +drawing-room where he was a total stranger, and place himself on the +hearth-rug, his back to the fire, with an air of expectant benevolence, +without curiosity, much as though he had dropped in at a charity +concert, kindly disposed to applaud the performers and to overlook +mistakes. This ideal rarely succeeded in youth, and towards thirty it +took a form of modified insolence and offensive patronage; but about +sixty it mellowed into courtesy, kindliness, and even deference to the +young which had extraordinary charm both in women and in men. +Unfortunately Adams could not wait till sixty for education; he had his +living to earn; and the English air of patronage would earn no income +for him anywhere else. + + After five or six years of constant practice, any one can +acquire the habit of going from one strange company to another without +thinking much of one's self or of them, as though silently reflecting +that "in a world where we are all insects, no insect is alien; perhaps +they are human in parts"; but the dreamy habit of mind which comes from +solitude in crowds is not fitness for social success except in London. +Everywhere else it is injury. England was a social kingdom whose social +coinage had no currency elsewhere. + + Englishwomen, from the educational point of view, could give +nothing until they approached forty years old. Then they become very +interesting--very charming--to the man of fifty. The young American was +not worth the young Englishwoman's notice, and never received it. +Neither understood the other. Only in the domestic relation, in the +country--never in society at large--a young American might accidentally +make friends with an Englishwoman of his own age, but it never happened +to Henry Adams. His susceptible nature was left to the mercy of +American girls, which was professional duty rather than education as +long as diplomacy held its own. + + Thus he found himself launched on waters where he had never +meant to sail, and floating along a stream which carried him far from +his port. His third season in London society saw the end of his +diplomatic education, and began for him the social life of a young man +who felt at home in England--more at home there than anywhere else. +With this feeling, the mere habit of going to garden-parties, dinners, +receptions, and balls had nothing to do. One might go to scores without +a sensation of home. One might stay in no end of country houses without +forgetting that one was a total stranger and could never be anything +else. One might bow to half the dukes and duchesses in England, and +feel only the more strange. Hundreds of persons might pass with a nod +and never come nearer. Close relation in a place like London is a +personal mystery as profound as chemical affinity. Thousands pass, and +one separates himself from the mass to attach himself to another, and +so make, little by little, a group. + + One morning, April 27, 1863, he was asked to breakfast with Sir +Henry Holland, the old Court physician who had been acquainted with +every American Minister since Edward Everett, and was a valuable social +ally, who had the courage to try to be of use to everybody, and who, +while asking the private secretary to breakfast one day, was too +discreet to betray what he might have learned about rebel doings at his +breakfast-table the day before. He had been friendly with the Legation, +in the teeth of society, and was still bearing up against the weight of +opinion, so that young Adams could not decline his invitations, +although they obliged him to breakfast in Brook Street at nine o'clock +in the morning, alternately with Mr. James M. Mason. Old Dr. Holland +was himself as hale as a hawk, driving all day bare-headed about +London, and eating Welsh rarebit every night before bed; he thought +that any young man should be pleased to take his early muffin in Brook +Street, and supply a few crumbs of war news for the daily peckings of +eminent patients. Meekly, when summoned, the private secretary went, +and on reaching the front door, this particular morning, he found there +another young man in the act of rapping the knocker. They entered the +breakfastroom together, where they were introduced to each other, and +Adams learned that the other guest was a Cambridge undergraduate, +Charles Milnes Gaskell, son of James Milnes Gaskell, the Member for +Wenlock; another of the Yorkshire Milneses, from Thornes near +Wakefield. Fate had fixed Adams to Yorkshire. By another chance it +happened that young Milnes Gaskell was intimate at Cambridge with +William Everett who was also about to take his degree. A third chance +inspired Mr. Evarts with a fancy for visiting Cambridge, and led +William Everett to offer his services as host. Adams acted as courier +to Mr. Evarts, and at the end of May they went down for a few days, +when William Everett did the honors as host with a kindness and +attention that made his cousin sorely conscious of his own social +shortcomings. Cambridge was pretty, and the dons were kind. Mr. Evarts +enjoyed his visit but this was merely a part of the private secretary's +day's work. What affected his whole life was the intimacy then begun +with Milnes Gaskell and his circle of undergraduate friends, just about +to enter the world. + + Intimates are predestined. Adams met in England a thousand +people, great and small; jostled against every one, from royal princes +to gin-shop loafers; attended endless official functions and private +parties; visited every part of the United Kingdom and was not quite a +stranger at the Legations in Paris and Rome; he knew the societies of +certain country houses, and acquired habits of Sunday-afternoon calls; +but all this gave him nothing to do, and was life wasted. For him +nothing whatever could be gained by escorting American ladies to +drawing-rooms or American gentlemen to levees at St. James's Palace, or +bowing solemnly to people with great titles, at Court balls, or even by +awkwardly jostling royalty at garden-parties; all this was done for the +Government, and neither President Lincoln nor Secretary Seward would +ever know enough of their business to thank him for doing what they did +not know how to get properly done by their own servants; but for Henry +Adams--not private secretary--all the time taken up by such duties was +wasted. On the other hand, his few personal intimacies concerned him +alone, and the chance that made him almost a Yorkshireman was one that +must have started under the Heptarchy. + + More than any other county in England, Yorkshire retained a +sort of social independence of London. Scotland itself was hardly more +distinct. The Yorkshire type had always been the strongest of the +British strains; the Norwegian and the Dane were a different race from +the Saxon. Even Lancashire had not the mass and the cultivation of the +West Riding. London could never quite absorb Yorkshire, which, in its +turn had no great love for London and freely showed it. To a certain +degree, evident enough to Yorkshiremen, Yorkshire was not English--or +was all England, as they might choose to express it. This must have +been the reason why young Adams was drawn there rather than elsewhere. +Monckton Milnes alone took the trouble to draw him, and possibly Milnes +was the only man in England with whom Henry Adams, at that moment, had +a chance of calling out such an un-English effort. Neither Oxford nor +Cambridge nor any region south of the Humber contained a considerable +house where a young American would have been sought as a friend. +Eccentricity alone did not account for it. Monckton Milnes was a +singular type, but his distant cousin, James Milnes Gaskell, was +another, quite as marked, in an opposite sense. Milnes never seemed +willing to rest; Milnes Gaskell never seemed willing to move. In his +youth one of a very famous group--Arthur Hallam, Tennyson, Manning, +Gladstone, Francis Doyle--and regarded as one of the most promising; an +adorer of George Canning; in Parliament since coming of age; married +into the powerful connection of the Wynns of Wynstay; rich according to +Yorkshire standards; intimate with his political leaders; he was one of +the numerous Englishmen who refuse office rather than make the effort +of carrying it, and want power only to make it a source of indolence. +He was a voracious reader and an admirable critic; he had forty years +of parliamentary tradition on his memory; he liked to talk and to +listen; he liked his dinner and, in spite of George Canning, his dry +champagne; he liked wit and anecdote; but he belonged to the generation +of 1830, a generation which could not survive the telegraph and +railway, and which even Yorkshire could hardly produce again. To an +American he was a character even more unusual and more fascinating than +his distant cousin Lord Houghton. + + Mr. Milnes Gaskell was kind to the young American whom his son +brought to the house, and Mrs. Milnes Gaskell was kinder, for she +thought the American perhaps a less dangerous friend than some +Englishman might be, for her son, and she was probably right. The +American had the sense to see that she was herself one of the most +intelligent and sympathetic women in England; her sister, Miss +Charlotte Wynn, was another; and both were of an age and a position in +society that made their friendship a compliment as well as a pleasure. +Their consent and approval settled the matter. In England, the family +is a serious fact; once admitted to it, one is there for life. London +might utterly vanish from one's horizon, but as long as life lasted, +Yorkshire lived for its friends. + + In the year 1857, Mr. James Milnes Gaskell, who had sat for +thirty years in Parliament as one of the Members for the borough of +Wenlock in Shropshire, bought Wenlock Abbey and the estate that +included the old monastic buildings. This new, or old, plaything amused +Mrs. Milnes Gaskell. The Prior's house, a charming specimen of +fifteenth-century architecture, had been long left to decay as a +farmhouse. She put it in order, and went there to spend a part of the +autumn of 1864. Young Adams was one of her first guests, and drove +about Wenlock Edge and the Wrekin with her, learning the loveliness of +this exquisite country, and its stores of curious antiquity. It was a +new and charming existence; an experience greatly to be envied--ideal +repose and rural Shakespearian peace--but a few years of it were likely +to complete his education, and fit him to act a fairly useful part in +life as an Englishman, an ecclesiastic, and a contemporary of Chaucer. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +DILETTANTISM (1865-1866) + + THE campaign of 1864 and the reelection of Mr. Lincoln in +November set the American Minister on so firm a footing that he could +safely regard his own anxieties as over, and the anxieties of Earl +Russell and the Emperor Napoleon as begun. With a few months more his +own term of four years would come to an end, and even though the +questions still under discussion with England should somewhat prolong +his stay, he might look forward with some confidence to his return home +in 1865. His son no longer fretted. The time for going into the army +had passed. If he were to be useful at all, it must be as a son, and as +a son he was treated with the widest indulgence and trust. He knew that +he was doing himself no good by staying in London, but thus far in life +he had done himself no good anywhere, and reached his twenty-seventh +birthday without having advanced a step, that he could see, beyond his +twenty-first. For the most part, his friends were worse off than he. +The war was about to end and they were to be set adrift in a world they +would find altogether strange. + + At this point, as though to cut the last thread of relation, +six months were suddenly dropped out of his life in England. The London +climate had told on some of the family; the physicians prescribed a +winter in Italy. Of course the private secretary was detached as their +escort, since this was one of his professional functions; and he passed +six months, gaining an education as Italian courier, while the Civil +War came to its end. As far as other education went, he got none, but +he was amused. Travelling in all possible luxury, at some one else's +expense, with diplomatic privileges and position, was a form of travel +hitherto untried. The Cornice in vettura was delightful; Sorrento in +winter offered hills to climb and grottoes to explore, and Naples near +by to visit; Rome at Easter was an experience necessary for the +education of every properly trained private secretary; the journey +north by vettura through Perugia and Sienna was a dream; the Splugen +Pass, if not equal to the Stelvio, was worth seeing; Paris had always +something to show. The chances of accidental education were not so +great as they had been, since one's field of experience had grown +large; but perhaps a season at Baden Baden in these later days of its +brilliancy offered some chances of instruction, if it were only the +sight of fashionable Europe and America on the race-course watching the +Duke of Hamilton, in the middle, improving his social advantages by the +conversation of Cora Pearl. + + The assassination of President Lincoln fell on the party while +they were at Rome, where it seemed singularly fitting to that nursery +of murderers and murdered, as though America were also getting +educated. Again one went to meditate on the steps of the Santa Maria in +Ara Coeli, but the lesson seemed as shallow as before. Nothing +happened. The travellers changed no plan or movement. The Minister did +not recall them to London. The season was over before they returned; +and when the private secretary sat down again at his desk in Portland +Place before a mass of copy in arrears, he saw before him a world so +changed as to be beyond connection with the past. His identity, if one +could call a bundle of disconnected memories an identity, seemed to +remain; but his life was once more broken into separate pieces; he was +a spider and had to spin a new web in some new place with a new +attachment. + + All his American friends and contemporaries who were still +alive looked singularly commonplace without uniforms, and hastened to +get married and retire into back streets and suburbs until they could +find employment. Minister Adams, too, was going home "next fall," and +when the fall came, he was going home "next spring," and when the +spring came, President Andrew Johnson was at loggerheads with the +Senate, and found it best to keep things unchanged. After the usual +manner of public servants who had acquired the habit of office and lost +the faculty of will, the members of the Legation in London continued +the daily routine of English society, which, after becoming a habit, +threatened to become a vice. Had Henry Adams shared a single taste with +the young Englishmen of his time, he would have been lost; but the +custom of pounding up and down Rotten Row every day, on a hack, was not +a taste, and yet was all the sport he shared. Evidently he must set to +work; he must get a new education; he must begin a career of his own. + + Nothing was easier to say, but even his father admitted two +careers to be closed. For the law, diplomacy had unfitted him; for +diplomacy he already knew too much. Any one who had held, during the +four most difficult years of American diplomacy, a position at the +centre of action, with his hands actually touching the lever of power, +could not beg a post of Secretary at Vienna or Madrid in order to bore +himself doing nothing until the next President should do him the honor +to turn him out. For once all his advisers agreed that diplomacy was +not possible. + + In any ordinary system he would have been called back to serve +in the State Department, but, between the President and the Senate, +service of any sort became a delusion. The choice of career was more +difficult than the education which had proved impracticable. Adams saw +no road; in fact there was none. All his friends were trying one path +or another, but none went a way that he could have taken. John Hay +passed through London in order to bury himself in second-rate Legations +for years, before he drifted home again to join Whitelaw Reid and +George Smalley on the Tribune. Frank Barlow and Frank Bartlett carried +Major-Generals' commissions into small law business. Miles stayed in +the army. Henry Higginson, after a desperate struggle, was forced into +State Street; Charles Adams wandered about, with brevet-brigadier rank, +trying to find employment. Scores of others tried experiments more or +less unsuccessful. Henry Adams could see easy ways of making a hundred +blunders; he could see no likely way of making a legitimate success. +Such as it was, his so-called education was wanted nowhere. + + One profession alone seemed possible--the press. In 1860 he +would have said that he was born to be an editor, like at least a +thousand other young graduates from American colleges who entered the +world every year enjoying the same conviction; but in 1866 the +situation was altered; the possession of money had become doubly +needful for success, and double energy was essential to get money. +America had more than doubled her scale. Yet the press was still the +last resource of the educated poor who could not be artists and would +not be tutors. Any man who was fit for nothing else could write an +editorial or a criticism. The enormous mass of misinformation +accumulated in ten years of nomad life could always be worked off on a +helpless public, in diluted doses, if one could but secure a table in +the corner of a newspaper office. The press was an inferior pulpit; an +anonymous schoolmaster; a cheap boarding-school but it was still the +nearest approach to a career for the literary survivor of a wrecked +education. For the press, then, Henry Adams decided to fit himself, and +since he could not go home to get practical training, he set to work to +do what he could in London. + + He knew, as well as any reporter on the New York Herald, that +this was not an American way of beginning, and he knew a certain number +of other drawbacks which the reporter could not see so clearly. Do what +he might, he drew breath only in the atmosphere of English methods and +thoughts; he could breathe none other. His mother--who should have been +a competent judge, since her success and popularity in England exceeded +that of her husband--averred that every woman who lived a certain time +in England came to look and dress like an Englishwoman, no matter how +she struggled. Henry Adams felt himself catching an English tone of +mind and processes of thought, though at heart more hostile to them +than ever. As though to make him more helpless and wholly distort his +life, England grew more and more agreeable and amusing. Minister Adams +became, in 1866, almost a historical monument in London; he held a +position altogether his own. His old opponents disappeared. Lord +Palmerston died in October, 1865; Lord Russell tottered on six months +longer, but then vanished from power; and in July, 1866, the +conservatives came into office. Traditionally the Tories were easier to +deal with than the Whigs, and Minister Adams had no reason to regret +the change. His personal relations were excellent and his personal +weight increased year by year. On that score the private secretary had +no cares, and not much copy. His own position was modest, but it was +enough; the life he led was agreeable; his friends were all he wanted, +and, except that he was at the mercy of politics, he felt much at ease. +Of his daily life he had only to reckon so many breakfasts; so many +dinners; so many receptions, balls, theatres, and country-parties; so +many cards to be left; so many Americans to be escorted--the usual +routine of every young American in a Legation; all counting for nothing +in sum, because, even if it had been his official duty--which it was +not--it was mere routine, a single, continuous, unbroken act, which led +to nothing and nowhere except Portland Place and the grave. + + The path that led somewhere was the English habit of mind which +deepened its ruts every day. The English mind was like the London +drawing-room, a comfortable and easy spot, filled with bits and +fragments of incoherent furnitures, which were never meant to go +together, and could be arranged in any relation without making a whole, +except by the square room. Philosophy might dispute about innate ideas +till the stars died out in the sky, but about innate tastes no one, +except perhaps a collie dog, has the right to doubt; least of all, the +Englishman, for his tastes are his being; he drifts after them as +unconsciously as a honey-bee drifts after his flowers, and, in England, +every one must drift with him. Most young Englishmen drifted to the +race-course or the moors or the hunting-field; a few towards books; one +or two followed some form of science; and a number took to what, for +want of a better name, they called Art. Young Adams inherited a certain +taste for the same pursuit from his father who insisted that he had it +not, because he could not see what his son thought he saw in Turner. +The Minister, on the other hand, carried a sort of aesthetic rag-bag of +his own, which he regarded as amusement, and never called art. So he +would wander off on a Sunday to attend service successively in all the +city churches built by Sir Christopher Wren; or he would disappear from +the Legation day after day to attend coin sales at Sotheby's, where his +son attended alternate sales of drawings, engravings, or water-colors. +Neither knew enough to talk much about the other's tastes, but the only +difference between them was a slight difference of direction. The +Minister's mind like his writings showed a correctness of form and line +that his son would have been well pleased had he inherited. + + Of all supposed English tastes, that of art was the most +alluring and treacherous. Once drawn into it, one had small chance of +escape, for it had no centre or circumference, no beginning, middle, or +end, no origin, no object, and no conceivable result as education. In +London one met no corrective. The only American who came by, capable of +teaching, was William Hunt, who stopped to paint the portrait of the +Minister which now completes the family series at Harvard College. Hunt +talked constantly, and was, or afterwards became, a famous teacher, but +Henry Adams did not know enough to learn. Perhaps, too, he had +inherited or acquired a stock of tastes, as young men must, which he +was slow to outgrow. Hunt had no time to sweep out the rubbish of +Adams's mind. The portrait finished, he went. + + As often as he could, Adams ran over to Paris, for sunshine, +and there always sought out Richardson in his attic in the Rue du Bac, +or wherever he lived, and they went off to dine at the Palais Royal, +and talk of whatever interested the students of the Beaux Arts. +Richardson, too, had much to say, but had not yet seized his style. +Adams caught very little of what lay in his mind, and the less, +because, to Adams, everything French was bad except the restaurants, +while the continuous life in England made French art seem worst of all. +This did not prove that English art, in 1866, was good; far from it; +but it helped to make bric-a-brac of all art, after the manner of +England. + + Not in the Legation, or in London, but in Yorkshire at Thornes, +Adams met the man that pushed him furthest in this English garden of +innate disorder called taste. The older daughter of the Milnes Gaskells +had married Francis Turner Palgrave. Few Americans will ever ask +whether any one has described the Palgraves, but the family was one of +the most describable in all England at that day. Old Sir Francis, the +father, had been much the greatest of all the historians of early +England, the only one who was un-English; and the reason of his +superiority lay in his name, which was Cohen, and his mind which was +Cohen also, or at least not English. He changed his name to Palgrave in +order to please his wife. They had a band of remarkable sons: Francis +Turner, Gifford, Reginald, Inglis; all of whom made their mark. Gifford +was perhaps the most eccentric, but his "Travels" in Arabia were +famous, even among the famous travels of that generation. Francis +Turner--or, as he was commonly called, Frank Palgrave--unable to work +off his restlessness in travel like Gifford, and stifled in the +atmosphere of the Board of Education, became a critic. His art +criticisms helped to make the Saturday Review a terror to the British +artist. His literary taste, condensed into the "Golden Treasury," +helped Adams to more literary education than he ever got from any taste +of his own. Palgrave himself held rank as one of the minor poets; his +hymns had vogue. As an art-critic he was too ferocious to be liked; +even Holman Hunt found his temper humorous; among many rivals, he may +perhaps have had a right to claim the much-disputed rank of being the +most unpopular man in London; but he liked to teach, and asked only for +a docile pupil. Adams was docile enough, for he knew nothing and liked +to listen. Indeed, he had to listen, whether he liked or not, for +Palgrave's voice was strident, and nothing could stop him. Literature, +painting, sculpture, architecture were open fields for his attacks, +which were always intelligent if not always kind, and when these +failed, he readily descended to meaner levels. John Richard Green, who +was Palgrave's precise opposite, and whose Irish charm of touch and +humor defended him from most assaults, used to tell with delight of +Palgrave's call on him just after he had moved into his new Queen Anne +house in Kensington Square: "Palgrave called yesterday, and the first +thing he said was, 'I've counted three anachronisms on your front +doorstep.'" + + Another savage critic, also a poet, was Thomas Woolner, a type +almost more emphatic than Palgrave in a society which resounded with +emphasis. Woolner's sculpture showed none of the rough assertion that +Woolner himself showed, when he was not making supernatural effort to +be courteous, but his busts were remarkable, and his work altogether +was, in Palgrave's clamorous opinion, the best of his day. He took the +matter of British art--or want of art--seriously, almost ferociously, +as a personal grievance and torture; at times he was rather terrifying +in the anarchistic wrath of his denunciation. As Henry Adams felt no +responsibility for English art, and had no American art to offer for +sacrifice, he listened with enjoyment to language much like Carlyle's, +and accepted it without a qualm. On the other hand, as a third member +of this critical group, he fell in with Stopford Brooke whose tastes +lay in the same direction, and whose expression was modified by +clerical propriety. Among these men, one wandered off into paths of +education much too devious and slippery for an American foot to follow. +He would have done better to go on the race-track, as far as concerned +a career. + + Fortunately for him he knew too little ever to be an +art-critic, still less an artist. For some things ignorance is good, +and art is one of them. He knew he knew nothing, and had not the +trained eye or the keen instinct that trusted itself; but he was +curious, as he went on, to find out how much others knew. He took +Palgrave's word as final about a drawing of Rembrandt or Michael +Angelo, and he trusted Woolner implicitly about a Turner; but when he +quoted their authority to any dealer, the dealer pooh-poohed it, and +declared that it had no weight in the trade. If he went to a sale of +drawings or paintings, at Sotheby's or Christie's, an hour afterwards, +he saw these same dealers watching Palgrave or Woolner for a point, and +bidding over them. He rarely found two dealers agree in judgment. He +once bought a water-color from the artist himself out of his studio, +and had it doubted an hour afterwards by the dealer to whose place he +took it for framing. He was reduced to admit that he could not prove its +authenticity; internal evidence was against it. + + One morning in early July, 1867, Palgrave stopped at the +Legation in Portland Place on his way downtown, and offered to take +Adams to Sotheby's, where a small collection of old drawings was on +show. The collection was rather a curious one, said to be that of Sir +Anthony Westcomb, from Liverpool, with an undisturbed record of a +century, but with nothing to attract notice. Probably none but +collectors or experts examined the portfolios. Some dozens of these +were always on hand, following every sale, and especially on the +lookout for old drawings, which became rarer every year. Turning +rapidly over the numbers, Palgrave stopped at one containing several +small drawings, one marked as Rembrandt, one as Rafael; and putting his +finger on the Rafael, after careful examination; "I should buy this," +he said; "it looks to me like one of those things that sell for five +shillings one day, and fifty pounds the next." Adams marked it for a +bid, and the next morning came down to the auction. The numbers sold +slowly, and at noon he thought he might safely go to lunch. When he +came back, half an hour afterwards, the drawing was gone. Much annoyed +at his own stupidity, since Palgrave had expressly said he wanted the +drawing for himself if he had not in a manner given it to Adams, the +culprit waited for the sale to close, and then asked the clerk for the +name of the buyer. It was Holloway, the art-dealer, near Covent Garden, +whom he slightly knew. Going at once to the shop he waited till young +Holloway came in, with his purchases under his arm, and without attempt +at preface, he said: "You bought to-day, Mr. Holloway, a number that I +wanted. Do you mind letting me have it?" Holloway took out the parcel, +looked over the drawings, and said that he had bought the number for +the sake of the Rembrandt, which he thought possibly genuine; taking +that out, Adams might have the rest for the price he paid for the +lot--twelve shillings. + + Thus, down to that moment, every expert in London had probably +seen these drawings. Two of them--only two--had thought them worth +buying at any price, and of these two, Palgrave chose the Rafael, +Holloway the one marked as Rembrandt. Adams, the purchaser of the +Rafael, knew nothing whatever on the subject, but thought he might +credit himself with education to the value of twelve shillings, and +call the drawing nothing. Such items of education commonly came higher. + + He took the drawing to Palgrave. It was closely pasted to an +old, rather thin, cardboard mount, and, on holding it up to the window, +one could see lines on the reverse. "Take it down to Reed at the +British Museum," said Palgrave; "he is Curator of the drawings, and, if +you ask him, he will have it taken off the mount." Adams amused himself +for a day or two by searching Rafael's works for the figure, which he +found at last in the Parnasso, the figure of Horace, of which, as it +happened--though Adams did not know it--the British Museum owned a much +finer drawing. At last he took the dirty, little, unfinished red-chalk +sketch to Reed whom he found in the Curator's room, with some of the +finest Rafael drawings in existence, hanging on the walls. "Yes!" said +Mr Reed; "I noticed this at the sale; but it's not Rafael!" Adams, +feeling himself incompetent to discuss this subject, reported the +result to Palgrave, who said that Reed knew nothing about it. Also this +point lay beyond Adams's competence; but he noted that Reed was in the +employ of the British Museum as Curator of the best--or nearly the +best--collection in the world, especially of Rafaels, and that he +bought for the Museum. As expert he had rejected both the Rafael and +the Rembrandt at first-sight, and after his attention was recalled to +the Rafael for a further opinion he rejected it again. + + A week later, Adams returned for the drawing, which Mr. Reed +took out of his drawer and gave him, saying with what seemed a little +doubt or hesitation: "I should tell you that the paper shows a +water-mark, which I find the same as that of paper used by Marc +Antonio." A little taken back by this method of studying art, a method +which even a poor and ignorant American might use as well as Rafael +himself, Adams asked stupidly: "Then you think it genuine?" "Possibly!" +replied Reed; "but much overdrawn." + + Here was expert opinion after a second revise, with help of +water-marks! In Adams's opinion it was alone worth another twelve +shillings as education; but this was not all. Reed continued: "The +lines on the back seem to be writing, which I cannot read, but if you +will take it down to the manuscript-room, they will read it for you." + + Adams took the sheet down to the keeper of the manuscripts and +begged him to read the lines. The keeper, after a few minutes' study, +very obligingly said he could not: "It is scratched with an artist's +crayon, very rapidly, with many unusual abbreviations and old forms. If +any one in Europe can read it, it is the old man at the table yonder, +Libri! Take it to him!" + + This expert broke down on the alphabet! He could not even judge +a manuscript; but Adams had no right to complain, for he had nothing to +pay, not even twelve shillings, though he thought these experts worth +more, at least for his education. Accordingly he carried his paper to +Libri, a total stranger to him, and asked the old man, as deferentially +as possible, to tell him whether the lines had any meaning. Had Adams +not been an ignorant person he would have known all about Libri, but +his ignorance was vast, and perhaps was for the best. Libri looked at +the paper, and then looked again, and at last bade him sit down and +wait. Half an hour passed before he called Adams back and showed him +these lines:-- + + "Or questo credo ben che una elleria + Te offende tanto che te offese il core. + Perche sei grande nol sei in tua volia; + Tu vedi e gia non credi il tuo valore; + Passate gia son tutte gelosie; + Tu sei di sasso; non hai piu dolore." + + As far as Adams could afterwards recall it, this was Libri's +reading, but he added that the abbreviations were many and unusual; +that the writing was very ancient; and that the word he read as +"elleria" in the first line was not Italian at all. + + By this time, one had got too far beyond one's depth to ask +questions. If Libri could not read Italian, very clearly Adams had +better not offer to help him. He took the drawing, thanked everybody, +and having exhausted the experts of the British Museum, took a cab to +Woolner's studio, where he showed the figure and repeated Reed's +opinion. Woolner snorted: "Reed's a fool!" he said; "he knows nothing +about it; there may be a rotten line or two, but the drawing's all +right." + + For forty years Adams kept this drawing on his mantelpiece, +partly for its own interest, but largely for curiosity to see whether +any critic or artist would ever stop to look at it. None ever did, +unless he knew the story. Adams himself never wanted to know more about +it. He refused to seek further light. He never cared to learn whether +the drawing was Rafael's, or whether the verse was Rafael's, or +whether even the water-mark was Rafael's. The experts--some scores of +them including the British Museum,--had affirmed that the drawing was +worth a certain moiety of twelve shillings. On that point, also, Adams +could offer no opinion, but he was clear that his education had +profited by it to that extent--his amusement even more. + + Art was a superb field for education, but at every turn he met +the same old figure, like a battered and illegible signpost that ought +to direct him to the next station but never did. There was no next +station. All the art of a thousand--or ten thousand--years had brought +England to stuff which Palgrave and Woolner brayed in their mortars; +derided, tore in tatters, growled at, and howled at, and treated in +terms beyond literary usage. Whistler had not yet made his appearance +in London, but the others did quite as well. What result could a +student reach from it? Once, on returning to London, dining with +Stopford Brooke, some one asked Adams what impression the Royal Academy +Exhibition made on him. With a little hesitation, he suggested that it +was rather a chaos, which he meant for civility; but Stopford Brooke +abruptly met it by asking whether chaos were not better than death. +Truly the question was worth discussion. For his own part, Adams +inclined to think that neither chaos nor death was an object to him as +a searcher of knowledge--neither would have vogue in America--neither +would help him to a career. Both of them led him away from his objects, +into an English dilettante museum of scraps, with nothing but a +wall-paper to unite them in any relation of sequence. Possibly English +taste was one degree more fatal than English scholarship, but even this +question was open to argument. Adams went to the sales and bought what +he was told to buy; now a classical drawing by Rafael or Rubens; now a +water-color by Girtin or Cotman, if possible unfinished because it was +more likely to be a sketch from nature; and he bought them not because +they went together--on the contrary, they made rather awkward spots on +the wall as they did on the mind--but because he could afford to buy +those, and not others. Ten pounds did not go far to buy a Michael +Angelo, but was a great deal of money to a private secretary. The +effect was spotty, fragmentary, feeble; and the more so because the +British mind was constructed in that way--boasted of it, and held it to +be true philosophy as well as sound method. + + What was worse, no one had a right to denounce the English as +wrong. Artistically their mind was scrappy, and every one knew it, but +perhaps thought itself, history, and nature, were scrappy, and ought to +be studied so. Turning from British art to British literature, one met +the same dangers. The historical school was a playground of traps and +pitfalls. Fatally one fell into the sink of history--antiquarianism. +For one who nourished a natural weakness for what was called history, +the whole of British literature in the nineteenth century was +antiquarianism or anecdotage, for no one except Buckle had tried to +link it with ideas, and commonly Buckle was regarded as having failed. +Macaulay was the English historian. Adams had the greatest admiration +for Macaulay, but he felt that any one who should even distantly +imitate Macaulay would perish in self-contempt. One might as well +imitate Shakespeare. Yet evidently something was wrong here, for the +poet and the historian ought to have different methods, and Macaulay's +method ought to be imitable if it were sound; yet the method was more +doubtful than the style. He was a dramatist; a painter; a poet, like +Carlyle. This was the English mind, method, genius, or whatever one +might call it; but one never could quite admit that the method which +ended in Froude and Kinglake could be sound for America where passion +and poetry were eccentricities. Both Froude and Kinglake, when one met +them at dinner, were very agreeable, very intelligent; and perhaps the +English method was right, and art fragmentary by essence. History, like +everything else, might be a field of scraps, like the refuse about a +Staffordshire iron-furnace. One felt a little natural reluctance to +decline and fall like Silas Wegg on the golden dust-heap of British +refuse; but if one must, one could at least expect a degree from Oxford +and the respect of the Athenaeum Club. + + While drifting, after the war ended, many old American friends +came abroad for a holiday, and among the rest, Dr. Palfrey, busy with +his "History of New England." Of all the relics of childhood, Dr. +Palfrey was the most sympathetic, and perhaps the more so because he, +too, had wandered into the pleasant meadows of antiquarianism, and had +forgotten the world in his pursuit of the New England Puritan. Although +America seemed becoming more and more indifferent to the Puritan except +as a slightly rococo ornament, he was only the more amusing as a study +for the Monkbarns of Boston Bay, and Dr. Palfrey took him seriously, as +his clerical education required. His work was rather an Apologia in the +Greek sense; a justification of the ways of God to Man, or, what was +much the same thing, of Puritans to other men; and the task of +justification was onerous enough to require the occasional relief of a +contrast or scapegoat. When Dr. Palfrey happened on the picturesque but +unpuritanic figure of Captain John Smith, he felt no call to beautify +Smith's picture or to defend his moral character; he became impartial +and penetrating. The famous story of Pocahontas roused his latent New +England scepticism. He suggested to Adams, who wanted to make a +position for himself, that an article in the North American Review on +Captain John Smith's relations with Pocahontas would attract as much +attention, and probably break as much glass, as any other stone that +could be thrown by a beginner. Adams could suggest nothing better. The +task seemed likely to be amusing. So he planted himself in the British +Museum and patiently worked over all the material he could find, until, +at last, after three or four months of labor, he got it in shape and +sent it to Charles Norton, who was then editing the North American. Mr. +Norton very civilly and even kindly accepted it. The article appeared +in January, 1867. + + Surely, here was something to ponder over, as a step in +education; something that tended to stagger a sceptic! In spite of +personal wishes, intentions, and prejudices; in spite of civil wars and +diplomatic education; in spite of determination to be actual, daily, +and practical, Henry Adams found himself, at twenty-eight, still in +English society, dragged on one side into English dilettantism, which +of all dilettantism he held the most futile; and, on the other, into +American antiquarianism, which of all antiquarianism he held the most +foolish. This was the result of five years in London. Even then he knew +it to be a false start. He had wholly lost his way. If he were ever to +amount to anything, he must begin a new education, in a new place, with +a new purpose. + + + +CHAPTER XV + +DARWINISM (1867-1868) + + POLITICS, diplomacy, law, art, and history had opened no outlet +for future energy or effort, but a man must do something, even in +Portland Place, when winter is dark and winter evenings are exceedingly +long. At that moment Darwin was convulsing society. The geological +champion of Darwin was Sir Charles Lyell, and the Lyells were intimate +at the Legation. Sir Charles constantly said of Darwin, what Palgrave +said of Tennyson, that the first time he came to town, Adams should be +asked to meet him, but neither of them ever came to town, or ever cared +to meet a young American, and one could not go to them because they +were known to dislike intrusion. The only Americans who were not +allowed to intrude were the half-dozen in the Legation. Adams was +content to read Darwin, especially his "Origin of Species" and his +"Voyage of the Beagle." He was a Darwinist before the letter; a +predestined follower of the tide; but he was hardly trained to follow +Darwin's evidences. Fragmentary the British mind might be, but in those +days it was doing a great deal of work in a very un-English way, +building up so many and such vast theories on such narrow foundations +as to shock the conservative, and delight the frivolous. The atomic +theory; the correlation and conservation of energy; the mechanical +theory of the universe; the kinetic theory of gases, and Darwin's Law +of Natural Selection, were examples of what a young man had to take on +trust. Neither he nor any one else knew enough to verify them; in his +ignorance of mathematics, he was particularly helpless; but this never +stood in his way. The ideas were new and seemed to lead somewhere--to +some great generalization which would finish one's clamor to be +educated. That a beginner should understand them all, or believe them +all, no one could expect, still less exact. Henry Adams was Darwinist +because it was easier than not, for his ignorance exceeded belief, and +one must know something in order to contradict even such triflers as +Tyndall and Huxley. + + By rights, he should have been also a Marxist but some narrow +trait of the New England nature seemed to blight socialism, and he +tried in vain to make himself a convert. He did the next best thing; he +became a Comteist, within the limits of evolution. He was ready to +become anything but quiet. As though the world had not been enough +upset in his time, he was eager to see it upset more. He had his wish, +but he lost his hold on the results by trying to understand them. + + He never tried to understand Darwin; but he still fancied he +might get the best part of Darwinism from the easier study of geology; +a science which suited idle minds as well as though it were history. +Every curate in England dabbled in geology and hunted for vestiges of +Creation. Darwin hunted only for vestiges of Natural Selection, and +Adams followed him, although he cared nothing about Selection, unless +perhaps for the indirect amusement of upsetting curates. He felt, like +nine men in ten, an instinctive belief in Evolution, but he felt no +more concern in Natural than in unnatural Selection, though he seized +with greediness the new volume on the "Antiquity of Man" which Sir +Charles Lyell published in 1863 in order to support Darwin by wrecking +the Garden of Eden. Sir Charles next brought out, in 1866, a new +edition of his "Principles," then the highest text-book of geology; but +here the Darwinian doctrine grew in stature. Natural Selection led back +to Natural Evolution, and at last to Natural Uniformity. This was a +vast stride. Unbroken Evolution under uniform conditions pleased every +one--except curates and bishops; it was the very best substitute for +religion; a safe, conservative, practical, thoroughly Common-Law deity. +Such a working system for the universe suited a young man who had just +helped to waste five or ten thousand million dollars and a million +lives, more or less, to enforce unity and uniformity on people who +objected to it; the idea was only too seductive in its perfection; it +had the charm of art. Unity and Uniformity were the whole motive of +philosophy, and if Darwin, like a true Englishman, preferred to back +into it--to reach God a posteriori--rather than start from it, like +Spinoza, the difference of method taught only the moral that the best +way of reaching unity was to unite. Any road was good that arrived. +Life depended on it. One had been, from the first, dragged hither and +thither like a French poodle on a string, following always the +strongest pull, between one form of unity or centralization and +another. The proof that one had acted wisely because of obeying the +primordial habit of nature flattered one's self-esteem. Steady, +uniform, unbroken evolution from lower to higher seemed easy. So, one +day when Sir Charles came to the Legation to inquire about getting his +"Principles" properly noticed in America, young Adams found nothing +simpler than to suggest that he could do it himself if Sir Charles +would tell him what to say. Youth risks such encounters with the +universe before one succumbs to it, yet even he was surprised at Sir +Charles's ready assent, and still more so at finding himself, after +half an hour's conversation, sitting down to clear the minds of +American geologists about the principles of their profession. This was +getting on fast; Arthur Pendennis had never gone so far. + + The geologists were a hardy class, not likely to be much hurt +by Adams's learning, nor did he throw away much concern on their +account. He undertook the task chiefly to educate, not them, but +himself, and if Sir Isaac Newton had, like Sir Charles Lyell, asked him +to explain for Americans his last edition of the "Principia," Adams +would have jumped at the chance. Unfortunately the mere reading such +works for amusement is quite a different matter from studying them for +criticism. Ignorance must always begin at the beginning. Adams must +inevitably have begun by asking Sir Isaac for an intelligible reason +why the apple fell to the ground. He did not know enough to be +satisfied with the fact. The Law of Gravitation was so-and-so, but what +was Gravitation? and he would have been thrown quite off his base if +Sir Isaac had answered that he did not know. + + At the very outset Adams struck on Sir Charles's Glacial Theory +or theories. He was ignorant enough to think that the glacial epoch +looked like a chasm between him and a uniformitarian world. If the +glacial period were uniformity, what was catastrophe? To him the two or +three labored guesses that Sir Charles suggested or borrowed to explain +glaciation were proof of nothing, and were quite unsolid as support for +so immense a superstructure as geological uniformity. If one were at +liberty to be as lax in science as in theology, and to assume unity +from the start, one might better say so, as the Church did, and not +invite attack by appearing weak in evidence. Naturally a young man, +altogether ignorant, could not say this to Sir Charles Lyell or Sir +Isaac Newton; but he was forced to state Sir Charles's views, which he +thought weak as hypotheses and worthless as proofs. Sir Charles himself +seemed shy of them. Adams hinted his heresies in vain. At last he +resorted to what he thought the bold experiment of inserting a sentence +in the text, intended to provoke correction. "The introduction [by +Louis Agassiz] of this new geological agent seemed at first sight +inconsistent with Sir Charles's argument, obliging him to allow that +causes had in fact existed on the earth capable of producing more +violent geological changes than would be possible in our own day." The +hint produced no effect. Sir Charles said not a word; he let the +paragraph stand; and Adams never knew whether the great Uniformitarian +was strict or lax in his uniformitarian creed; but he doubted. + + Objections fatal to one mind are futile to another, and as far +as concerned the article, the matter ended there, although the glacial +epoch remained a misty region in the young man's Darwinism. Had it been +the only one, he would not have fretted about it; but uniformity often +worked queerly and sometimes did not work as Natural Selection at all. +Finding himself at a loss for some single figure to illustrate the Law +of Natural Selection, Adams asked Sir Charles for the simplest case of +uniformity on record. Much to his surprise Sir Charles told him that +certain forms, like Terebratula, appeared to be identical from the +beginning to the end of geological time. Since this was altogether too +much uniformity and much too little selection, Adams gave up the +attempt to begin at the beginning, and tried starting at the +end--himself. Taking for granted that the vertebrates would serve his +purpose, he asked Sir Charles to introduce him to the first vertebrate. +Infinitely to his bewilderment, Sir Charles informed him that the first +vertebrate was a very respectable fish, among the earliest of all +fossils, which had lived, and whose bones were still reposing, under +Adams's own favorite Abbey on Wenlock Edge. + + By this time, in 1867 Adams had learned to know Shropshire +familiarly, and it was the part of his diplomatic education which he +loved best. Like Catherine Olney in "Northanger Abbey," he yearned for +nothing so keenly as to feel at home in a thirteenth-century Abbey, +unless it were to haunt a fifteenth-century Prior's House, and both +these joys were his at Wenlock. With companions or without, he never +tired of it. Whether he rode about the Wrekin, or visited all the +historical haunts from Ludlow Castle and Stokesay to Boscobel and +Uriconium; or followed the Roman road or scratched in the Abbey ruins, +all was amusing and carried a flavor of its own like that of the Roman +Campagna; but perhaps he liked best to ramble over the Edge on a summer +afternoon and look across the Marches to the mountains of Wales. The +peculiar flavor of the scenery has something to do with absence of +evolution; it was better marked in Egypt: it was felt wherever +time-sequences became interchangeable. One's instinct abhors time. As +one lay on the slope of the Edge, looking sleepily through the summer +haze towards Shrewsbury or Cader Idris or Caer Caradoc or Uriconium, +nothing suggested sequence. The Roman road was twin to the railroad; +Uriconium was well worth Shrewsbury; Wenlock and Buildwas were far +superior to Bridgnorth. The shepherds of Caractacus or Offa, or the +monks of Buildwas, had they approached where he lay in the grass, would +have taken him only for another and tamer variety of Welsh thief. They +would have seen little to surprise them in the modern landscape unless +it were the steam of a distant railway. One might mix up the terms of +time as one liked, or stuff the present anywhere into the past, +measuring time by Falstaff's Shrewsbury clock, without violent sense of +wrong, as one could do it on the Pacific Ocean; but the triumph of all +was to look south along the Edge to the abode of one's earliest +ancestor and nearest relative, the ganoid fish, whose name, according +to Professor Huxley, was Pteraspis, a cousin of the sturgeon, and whose +kingdom, according to Sir Roderick Murchison, was called Siluria. Life +began and ended there. Behind that horizon lay only the Cambrian, +without vertebrates or any other organism except a few shell-fish. On +the further verge of the Cambrian rose the crystalline rocks from which +every trace of organic existence had been erased. + + That here, on the Wenlock Edge of time, a young American, +seeking only frivolous amusement, should find a legitimate parentage as +modern as though just caught in the Severn below, astonished him as +much as though he had found Darwin himself. In the scale of evolution, +one vertebrate was as good as another. For anything he, or any one +else, knew, nine hundred and ninety nine parts of evolution out of a +thousand lay behind or below the Pteraspis. To an American in search of +a father, it mattered nothing whether the father breathed through +lungs, or walked on fins, or on feet. Evolution of mind was altogether +another matter and belonged to another science, but whether one traced +descent from the shark or the wolf was immaterial even in morals. This +matter had been discussed for ages without scientific result. La +Fontaine and other fabulists maintained that the wolf, even in morals, +stood higher than man; and in view of the late civil war, Adams had +doubts of his own on the facts of moral evolution:-- + + "Tout bien considere, je te soutiens en somme, + Que scelerat pour scelerat, + Il vaut mieux etre un loup qu'un homme." + + It might well be! At all events, it did not enter into the +problem of Pteraspis, for it was quite certain that no complete proof +of Natural Selection had occurred back to the time of Pteraspis, and +that before Pteraspis was eternal void. No trace of any vertebrate had +been found there; only starfish, shell-fish, polyps, or trilobites +whose kindly descendants he had often bathed with, as a child on the +shores of Quincy Bay. + + That Pteraspis and shark were his cousins, great-uncles, or +grandfathers, in no way troubled him, but that either or both of them +should be older than evolution itself seemed to him perplexing; nor +could he at all simplify the problem by taking the sudden +back-somersault into Quincy Bay in search of the fascinating creature +he had called a horseshoe, whose huge dome of shell and sharp spur of +tail had so alarmed him as a child. In Siluria, he understood, Sir +Roderick Murchison called the horseshoe a Limulus, which helped +nothing. Neither in the Limulus nor in the Terebratula, nor in the +Cestracion Philippi, any more than in the Pteraspis, could one +conceive an ancestor, but, if one must, the choice mattered little. +Cousinship had limits but no one knew enough to fix them. When the +vertebrate vanished in Siluria, it disappeared instantly and forever. +Neither vertebra nor scale nor print reappeared, nor any trace of +ascent or descent to a lower type. The vertebrate began in the Ludlow +shale, as complete as Adams himself--in some respects more so--at the +top of the column of organic evolution: and geology offered no sort of +proof that he had ever been anything else. Ponder over it as he might, +Adams could see nothing in the theory of Sir Charles but pure +inference, precisely like the inference of Paley, that, if one found a +watch, one inferred a maker. He could detect no more evolution in life +since the Pteraspis than he could detect it in architecture since the +Abbey. All he could prove was change. Coal-power alone asserted +evolution--of power--and only by violence could be forced to assert +selection of type. + + All this seemed trivial to the true Darwinian, and to Sir +Charles it was mere defect in the geological record. Sir Charles +labored only to heap up the evidences of evolution; to cumulate them +till the mass became irresistible. With that purpose, Adams gladly +studied and tried to help Sir Charles, but, behind the lesson of the +day, he was conscious that, in geology as in theology, he could prove +only Evolution that did not evolve; Uniformity that was not uniform; +and Selection that did not select. To other Darwinians--except +Darwin--Natural Selection seemed a dogma to be put in the place of the +Athanasian creed; it was a form of religious hope; a promise of +ultimate perfection. Adams wished no better; he warmly sympathized in +the object; but when he came to ask himself what he truly thought, he +felt that he had no Faith; that whenever the next new hobby should be +brought out, he should surely drop off from Darwinism like a monkey +from a perch; that the idea of one Form, Law, Order, or Sequence had no +more value for him than the idea of none; that what he valued most was +Motion, and that what attracted his mind was Change. + + Psychology was to him a new study, and a dark corner of +education. As he lay on Wenlock Edge, with the sheep nibbling the grass +close about him as they or their betters had nibbled the grass--or +whatever there was to nibble--in the Silurian kingdom of Pteraspis, he +seemed to have fallen on an evolution far more wonderful than that of +fishes. He did not like it; he could not account for it; and he +determined to stop it. Never since the days of his Limulus ancestry had +any of his ascendants thought thus. Their modes of thought might be +many, but their thought was one. Out of his millions of millions of +ancestors, back to the Cambrian mollusks, every one had probably lived +and died in the illusion of Truths which did not amuse him, and which +had never changed. Henry Adams was the first in an infinite series to +discover and admit to himself that he really did not care whether truth +was, or was not, true. He did not even care that it should be proved +true, unless the process were new and amusing. He was a Darwinian for +fun. + + From the beginning of history, this attitude had been branded +as criminal--worse than crime--sacrilege! Society punished it +ferociously and justly, in self-defence. Mr. Adams, the father, looked +on it as moral weakness; it annoyed him; but it did not annoy him +nearly so much as it annoyed his son, who had no need to learn from +Hamlet the fatal effect of the pale cast of thought on enterprises +great or small. He had no notion of letting the currents of his action +be turned awry by this form of conscience. To him, the current of his +time was to be his current, lead where it might. He put psychology +under lock and key; he insisted on maintaining his absolute standards; +on aiming at ultimate Unity. The mania for handling all the sides of +every question, looking into every window, and opening every door, was, +as Bluebeard judiciously pointed out to his wives, fatal to their +practical usefulness in society. One could not stop to chase doubts as +though they were rabbits. One had no time to paint and putty the +surface of Law, even though it were cracked and rotten. For the young +men whose lives were cast in the generation between 1867 and 1900, Law +should be Evolution from lower to higher, aggregation of the atom in +the mass, concentration of multiplicity in unity, compulsion of anarchy +in order; and he would force himself to follow wherever it led, though +he should sacrifice five thousand millions more in money, and a million +more lives. + + As the path ultimately led, it sacrificed much more than this; +but at the time, he thought the price he named a high one, and he could +not foresee that science and society would desert him in paying it. He, +at least, took his education as a Darwinian in good faith. The Church +was gone, and Duty was dim, but Will should take its place, founded +deeply in interest and law. This was the result of five or six years in +England; a result so British as to be almost the equivalent of an +Oxford degree. + + Quite serious about it, he set to work at once. While confusing +his ideas about geology to the apparent satisfaction of Sir Charles who +left him his field-compass in token of it, Adams turned resolutely to +business, and attacked the burning question of specie payments. His +principles assured him that the honest way to resume payments was to +restrict currency. He thought he might win a name among financiers and +statesmen at home by showing how this task had been done by England, +after the classical suspension of 1797-1821. Setting himself to the +study of this perplexed period, he waded as well as he could through a +morass of volumes, pamphlets, and debates, until he learned to his +confusion that the Bank of England itself and all the best British +financial writers held that restriction was a fatal mistake, and that +the best treatment of a debased currency was to let it alone, as the +Bank had in fact done. Time and patience were the remedies. + + The shock of this discovery to his financial principles was +serious; much more serious than the shock of the Terebratula and +Pteraspis to his principles of geology. A mistake about Evolution was +not fatal; a mistake about specie payments would destroy forever the +last hope of employment in State Street. Six months of patient labor +would be thrown away if he did not publish, and with it his whole +scheme of making himself a position as a practical man-of-business. If +he did publish, how could he tell virtuous bankers in State Street that +moral and absolute principles of abstract truth, such as theirs, had +nothing to do with the matter, and that they had better let it alone? +Geologists, naturally a humble and helpless class, might not revenge +impertinences offered to their science; but capitalists never forgot or +forgave. + + With labor and caution he made one long article on British +Finance in 1816, and another on the Bank Restriction of 1797-1821, and, +doing both up in one package, he sent it to the North American for +choice. He knew that two heavy, technical, financial studies thus +thrown at an editor's head, would probably return to crush the author; +but the audacity of youth is more sympathetic--when successful--than +his ignorance. The editor accepted both. + + When the post brought his letter, Adams looked at it as though +he were a debtor who had begged for an extension. He read it with as +much relief as the debtor, if it had brought him the loan. The letter +gave the new writer literary rank. Henceforward he had the freedom of +the press. These articles, following those on Pocahontas and Lyell, +enrolled him on the permanent staff of the North American Review. +Precisely what this rank was worth, no one could say; but, for fifty +years the North American Review had been the stage coach which carried +literary Bostonians to such distinction as they had achieved. Few +writers had ideas which warranted thirty pages of development, but for +such as thought they had, the Review alone offered space. An article +was a small volume which required at least three months' work, and was +paid, at best, five dollars a page. Not many men even in England or +France could write a good thirty-page article, and practically no one +in America read them; but a few score of people, mostly in search of +items to steal, ran over the pages to extract an idea or a fact, which +was a sort of wild game--a bluefish or a teal--worth anywhere from +fifty cents to five dollars. Newspaper writers had their eye on +quarterly pickings. The circulation of the Review had never exceeded +three or four hundred copies, and the Review had never paid its +reasonable expenses. Yet it stood at the head of American literary +periodicals; it was a source of suggestion to cheaper workers; it +reached far into societies that never knew its existence; it was an +organ worth playing on; and, in the fancy of Henry Adams, it led, in +some indistinct future, to playing on a New York daily newspaper. + + With the editor's letter under his eyes, Adams asked himself +what better he could have done. On the whole, considering his +helplessness, he thought he had done as well as his neighbors. No one +could yet guess which of his contemporaries was most likely to play a +part in the great world. A shrewd prophet in Wall Street might perhaps +have set a mark on Pierpont Morgan, but hardly on the Rockefellers or +William C. Whitney or Whitelaw Reid. No one would have picked out +William McKinley or John Hay or Mark Hanna for great statesmen. Boston +was ignorant of the careers in store for Alexander Agassiz and Henry +Higginson. Phillips Brooks was unknown; Henry James was unheard; +Howells was new; Richardson and LaFarge were struggling for a start. +Out of any score of names and reputations that should reach beyond the +century, the thirty-years-old who were starting in the year 1867 could +show none that was so far in advance as to warrant odds in its favor. +The army men had for the most part fallen to the ranks. Had Adams +foreseen the future exactly as it came, he would have been no wiser, +and could have chosen no better path. + + Thus it turned out that the last year in England was the +pleasantest. He was already old in society, and belonged to the +Silurian horizon. The Prince of Wales had come. Mr. Disraeli, Lord +Stanley, and the future Lord Salisbury had thrown into the background +the memories of Palmerston and Russell. Europe was moving rapidly, and +the conduct of England during the American Civil War was the last thing +that London liked to recall. The revolution since 1861 was nearly +complete, and, for the first time in history, the American felt himself +almost as strong as an Englishman. He had thirty years to wait before +he should feel himself stronger. Meanwhile even a private secretary +could afford to be happy. His old education was finished; his new one +was not begun; he still loitered a year, feeling himself near the end +of a very long, anxious, tempestuous, successful voyage, with another +to follow, and a summer sea between. + + He made what use he could of it. In February, 1868, he was back +in Rome with his friend Milnes Gaskell. For another season he wandered +on horseback over the campagna or on foot through the Rome of the +middle ages, and sat once more on the steps of Ara Coeli, as had become +with him almost a superstition, like the waters of the fountain of +Trevi. Rome was still tragic and solemn as ever, with its mediaeval +society, artistic, literary, and clerical, taking itself as seriously +as in the days of Byron and Shelley. The long ten years of accidental +education had changed nothing for him there. He knew no more in 1868 +than in 1858. He had learned nothing whatever that made Rome more +intelligible to him, or made life easier to handle. The case was no +better when he got back to London and went through his last season. +London had become his vice. He loved his haunts, his houses, his +habits, and even his hansom cabs. He loved growling like an Englishman, +and going into society where he knew not a face, and cared not a straw. +He lived deep into the lives and loves and disappointments of his +friends. When at last he found himself back again at Liverpool, his +heart wrenched by the act of parting, he moved mechanically, unstrung, +but he had no more acquired education than when he first trod the steps +of the Adelphi Hotel in November, 1858. He could see only one great +change, and this was wholly in years. Eaton Hall no longer impressed +his imagination; even the architecture of Chester roused but a sleepy +interest; he felt no sensation whatever in the atmosphere of the +British peerage, but mainly an habitual dislike to most of the people +who frequented their country houses; he had become English to the point +of sharing their petty social divisions, their dislikes and prejudices +against each other; he took England no longer with the awe of American +youth, but with the habit of an old and rather worn suit of clothes. As +far as he knew, this was all that Englishmen meant by social education, +but in any case it was all the education he had gained from seven years +in London. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE PRESS (1868) + + AT ten o'clock of a July night, in heat that made the tropical +rain-shower simmer, the Adams family and the Motley family clambered +down the side of their Cunard steamer into the government tugboat, +which set them ashore in black darkness at the end of some North River +pier. Had they been Tyrian traders of the year B.C. 1000 landing from a +galley fresh from Gibraltar, they could hardly have been stranger on +the shore of a world, so changed from what it had been ten years +before. The historian of the Dutch, no longer historian but +diplomatist, started up an unknown street, in company with the private +secretary who had become private citizen, in search of carriages to +convey the two parties to the Brevoort House. The pursuit was arduous +but successful. Towards midnight they found shelter once more in their +native land. + + How much its character had changed or was changing, they could +not wholly know, and they could but partly feel. For that matter, the +land itself knew no more than they. Society in America was always +trying, almost as blindly as an earthworm, to realize and understand +itself; to catch up with its own head, and to twist about in search of +its tail. Society offered the profile of a long, straggling caravan, +stretching loosely towards the prairies, its few score of leaders far +in advance and its millions of immigrants, negroes, and Indians far in +the rear, somewhere in archaic time. It enjoyed the vast advantage over +Europe that all seemed, for the moment, to move in one direction, while +Europe wasted most of its energy in trying several contradictory +movements at once; but whenever Europe or Asia should be polarized or +oriented towards the same point, America might easily lose her lead. +Meanwhile each newcomer needed to slip into a place as near the head of +the caravan as possible, and needed most to know where the leaders +could be found. One could divine pretty nearly where the force lay, +since the last ten years had given to the great mechanical +energies--coal, iron, steam--a distinct superiority in power over the +old industrial elements--agriculture, handwork, and learning; but the +result of this revolution on a survivor from the fifties resembled the +action of the earthworm; he twisted about, in vain, to recover his +starting-point; he could no longer see his own trail; he had become an +estray; a flotsam or jetsam of wreckage; a belated reveller, or a +scholar-gipsy like Matthew Arnold's. His world was dead. Not a Polish +Jew fresh from Warsaw or Cracow--not a furtive Yacoob or Ysaac still +reeking of the Ghetto, snarling a weird Yiddish to the officers of the +customs--but had a keener instinct, an intenser energy, and a freer +hand than he--American of Americans, with Heaven knew how many Puritans +and Patriots behind him, and an education that had cost a civil war. He +made no complaint and found no fault with his time; he was no worse off +than the Indians or the buffalo who had been ejected from their +heritage by his own people; but he vehemently insisted that he was not +himself at fault. The defeat was not due to him, nor yet to any +superiority of his rivals. He had been unfairly forced out of the +track, and must get back into it as best he could. + + One comfort he could enjoy to the full. Little as he might be +fitted for the work that was before him, he had only to look at his +father and Motley to see figures less fitted for it than he. All were +equally survivals from the forties--bric-a-brac from the time of Louis +Philippe; stylists; doctrinaires; ornaments that had been more or less +suited to the colonial architecture, but which never had much value in +Desbrosses Street or Fifth Avenue. They could scarcely have earned five +dollars a day in any modern industry. The men who commanded high pay +were as a rule not ornamental. Even Commodore Vanderbilt and Jay Gould +lacked social charm. Doubtless the country needed ornament--needed it +very badly indeed--but it needed energy still more, and capital most of +all, for its supply was ridiculously out of proportion to its wants. On +the new scale of power, merely to make the continent habitable for +civilized people would require an immediate outlay that would have +bankrupted the world. As yet, no portion of the world except a few +narrow stretches of western Europe had ever been tolerably provided +with the essentials of comfort and convenience; to fit out an entire +continent with roads and the decencies of life would exhaust the credit +of the entire planet. Such an estimate seemed outrageous to a Texan +member of Congress who loved the simplicity of nature's noblemen; but +the mere suggestion that a sun existed above him would outrage the +self-respect of a deep-sea fish that carried a lantern on the end of +its nose. From the moment that railways were introduced, life took on +extravagance. + + Thus the belated reveller who landed in the dark at the +Desbrosses Street ferry, found his energies exhausted in the effort to +see his own length. The new Americans, of whom he was to be one, must, +whether they were fit or unfit, create a world of their own, a science, +a society, a philosophy, a universe, where they had not yet created a +road or even learned to dig their own iron. They had no time for +thought; they saw, and could see, nothing beyond their day's work; +their attitude to the universe outside them was that of the deep-sea +fish. Above all, they naturally and intensely disliked to be told what +to do, and how to do it, by men who took their ideas and their methods +from the abstract theories of history, philosophy, or theology. They +knew enough to know that their world was one of energies quite new. + + All this, the newcomer understood and accepted, since he could +not help himself and saw that the American could help himself as little +as the newcomer; but the fact remained that the more he knew, the less +he was educated. Society knew as much as this, and seemed rather +inclined to boast of it, at least on the stump; but the leaders of +industry betrayed no sentiment, popular or other. They used, without +qualm, whatever instruments they found at hand. They had been obliged, +in 1861, to turn aside and waste immense energy in settling what had +been settled a thousand years before, and should never have been +revived. At prodigious expense, by sheer force, they broke resistance +down, leaving everything but the mere fact of power untouched, since +nothing else had a solution. Race and thought were beyond reach. Having +cleared its path so far, society went back to its work, and threw +itself on that which stood first--its roads. The field was vast; +altogether beyond its power to control offhand; and society dropped +every thought of dealing with anything more than the single fraction +called a railway system. This relatively small part of its task was +still so big as to need the energies of a generation, for it required +all the new machinery to be created--capital, banks, mines, furnaces, +shops, power-houses, technical knowledge, mechanical population, +together with a steady remodelling of social and political habits, +ideas, and institutions to fit the new scale and suit the new +conditions. The generation between 1865 and 1895 was already mortgaged +to the railways, and no one knew it better than the generation itself. + + Whether Henry Adams knew it or not, he knew enough to act as +though he did. He reached Quincy once more, ready for the new start. +His brother Charles had determined to strike for the railroads; Henry +was to strike for the press; and they hoped to play into each other's +hands. They had great need, for they found no one else to play with. +After discovering the worthlessness of a so-called education, they had +still to discover the worthlessness of so-called social connection. No +young man had a larger acquaintance and relationship than Henry Adams, +yet he knew no one who could help him. He was for sale, in the open +market. So were many of his friends. All the world knew it, and knew +too that they were cheap; to be bought at the price of a mechanic. +There was no concealment, no delicacy, and no illusion about it. +Neither he nor his friends complained; but he felt sometimes a little +surprised that, as far as he knew, no one, seeking in the labor market, +ever so much as inquired about their fitness. The want of solidarity +between old and young seemed American. The young man was required to +impose himself, by the usual business methods, as a necessity on his +elders, in order to compel them to buy him as an investment. As Adams +felt it, he was in a manner expected to blackmail. Many a young man +complained to him in after life of the same experience, which became a +matter of curious reflection as he grew old. The labor market of good +society was ill-organized. + + Boston seemed to offer no market for educated labor. A peculiar +and perplexing amalgam Boston always was, and although it had changed +much in ten years, it was not less perplexing. One no longer dined at +two o'clock; one could no longer skate on Back Bay; one heard talk of +Bostonians worth five millions or more as something not incredible. Yet +the place seemed still simple, and less restless-minded than ever +before. In the line that Adams had chosen to follow, he needed more +than all else the help of the press, but any shadow of hope on that +side vanished instantly. The less one meddled with the Boston press, +the better. All the newspapermen were clear on that point. The same was +true of politics. Boston meant business. The Bostonians were building +railways. Adams would have liked to help in building railways, but had +no education. He was not fit. + + He passed three or four months thus, visiting relations, +renewing friendships, and studying the situation. At thirty years old, +the man who has not yet got further than to study the situation, is +lost, or near it. He could see nothing in the situation that could be +of use to him. His friends had won no more from it than he. His brother +Charles, after three years of civil life, was no better off than +himself, except for being married and in greater need of income. His +brother John had become a brilliant political leader on the wrong side. +No one had yet regained the lost ground of the war. + + He went to Newport and tried to be fashionable, but even in the +simple life of 1868, he failed as fashion. All the style he had learned +so painfully in London was worse than useless in America where every +standard was different. Newport was charming, but it asked for no +education and gave none. What it gave was much gayer and pleasanter, +and one enjoyed it amazingly; but friendships in that society were a +kind of social partnership, like the classes at college; not education +but the subjects of education. All were doing the same thing, and +asking the same question of the future. None could help. Society seemed +founded on the law that all was for the best New Yorkers in the best of +Newports, and that all young people were rich if they could waltz. It +was a new version of the Ant and Grasshopper. + + At the end of three months, the only person, among the hundreds +he had met, who had offered him a word of encouragement or had shown a +sign of acquaintance with his doings, was Edward Atkinson. Boston was +cool towards sons, whether prodigals or other, and needed much time to +make up its mind what to do for them--time which Adams, at thirty years +old, could hardly spare. He had not the courage or self-confidence to +hire an office in State Street, as so many of his friends did, and doze +there alone, vacuity within and a snowstorm outside, waiting for +Fortune to knock at the door, or hoping to find her asleep in the +elevator; or on the staircase, since elevators were not yet in use. +Whether this course would have offered his best chance he never knew; +it was one of the points in practical education which most needed a +clear understanding, and he could never reach it. His father and mother +would have been glad to see him stay with them and begin reading +Blackstone again, and he showed no very filial tenderness by abruptly +breaking the tie that had lasted so long. After all, perhaps Beacon +Street was as good as any other street for his objects in life; +possibly his easiest and surest path was from Beacon Street to State +Street and back again, all the days of his years. Who could tell? Even +after life was over, the doubt could not be determined. + + In thus sacrificing his heritage, he only followed the path +that had led him from the beginning. Boston was full of his brothers. +He had reckoned from childhood on outlawry as his peculiar birthright. +The mere thought of beginning life again in Mount Vernon Street lowered +the pulsations of his heart. This is a story of education--not a mere +lesson of life--and, with education, temperament has in strictness +nothing to do, although in practice they run close together. Neither by +temperament nor by education was he fitted for Boston. He had drifted +far away and behind his companions there; no one trusted his +temperament or education; he had to go. + + Since no other path seemed to offer itself, he stuck to his +plan of joining the press, and selected Washington as the shortest road +to New York, but, in 1868, Washington stood outside the social pale. No +Bostonian had ever gone there. One announced one's self as an +adventurer and an office-seeker, a person of deplorably bad judgment, +and the charges were true. The chances of ending in the gutter were, at +best, even. The risk was the greater in Adams's case, because he had no +very clear idea what to do when he got there. That he must educate +himself over again, for objects quite new, in an air altogether hostile +to his old educations, was the only certainty; but how he was to do +it--how he was to convert the idler in Rotten Row into the lobbyist of +the Capital--he had not an idea, and no one to teach him. The question +of money is rarely serious for a young American unless he is married, +and money never troubled Adams more than others; not because he had it, +but because he could do without it, like most people in Washington who +all lived on the income of bricklayers; but with or without money he +met the difficulty that, after getting to Washington in order to go on +the press, it was necessary to seek a press to go on. For large work he +could count on the North American Review, but this was scarcely a +press. For current discussion and correspondence, he could depend on +the New York Nation; but what he needed was a New York daily, and no +New York daily needed him. He lost his one chance by the death of Henry +J. Raymond. The Tribune under Horace Greeley was out of the question +both for political and personal reasons, and because Whitelaw Reid had +already undertaken that singularly venturesome position, amid +difficulties that would have swamped Adams in four-and-twenty hours. +Charles A. Dana had made the Sun a very successful as well as a very +amusing paper, but had hurt his own social position in doing it; and +Adams knew himself well enough to know that he could never please +himself and Dana too; with the best intentions, he must always fail as +a blackguard, and at that time a strong dash of blackguardism was life +to the Sun. As for the New York Herald, it was a despotic empire +admitting no personality but that of Bennett. Thus, for the moment, the +New York daily press offered no field except the free-trade Holy Land +of the Evening Post under William Cullen Bryant, while beside it lay +only the elevated plateau of the New Jerusalem occupied by Godkin and +the Nation. Much as Adams liked Godkin, and glad as he was to creep +under the shelter of the Evening Post and the Nation, he was well aware +that he should find there only the same circle of readers that he +reached in the North American Review. + + The outlook was dim, but it was all he had, and at Washington, +except for the personal friendship of Mr. Evarts who was then Attorney +General and living there, he would stand in solitude much like that of +London in 1861. Evarts did what no one in Boston seemed to care for +doing; he held out a hand to the young man. Whether Boston, like Salem, +really shunned strangers, or whether Evarts was an exception even in +New York, he had the social instinct which Boston had not. Generous by +nature, prodigal in hospitality, fond of young people, and a born +man-of-the-world, Evarts gave and took liberally, without scruple, and +accepted the world without fearing or abusing it. His wit was the least +part of his social attraction. His talk was broad and free. He laughed +where he could; he joked if a joke was possible; he was true to his +friends, and never lost his temper or became ill-natured. Like all New +Yorkers he was decidedly not a Bostonian; but he was what one might +call a transplanted New Englander, like General Sherman; a variety, +grown in ranker soil. In the course of life, and in widely different +countries, Adams incurred heavy debts of gratitude to persons on whom +he had no claim and to whom he could seldom make return; perhaps +half-a-dozen such debts remained unpaid at last, although six is a +large number as lives go; but kindness seldom came more happily than +when Mr. Evarts took him to Washington in October, 1868. + + Adams accepted the hospitality of the sleeper, with deep +gratitude, the more because his first struggle with a sleeping-car made +him doubt the value--to him--of a Pullman civilization; but he was even +more grateful for the shelter of Mr. Evarts's house in H Street at the +corner of Fourteenth, where he abode in safety and content till he +found rooms in the roomless village. To him the village seemed +unchanged. Had he not known that a great war and eight years of +astonishing movement had passed over it, he would have noticed nothing +that betrayed growth. As of old, houses were few; rooms fewer; even the +men were the same. No one seemed to miss the usual comforts of +civilization, and Adams was glad to get rid of them, for his best +chance lay in the eighteenth century. + + The first step, of course, was the making of acquaintance, and +the first acquaintance was naturally the President, to whom an aspirant +to the press officially paid respect. Evarts immediately took him to +the White House and presented him to President Andrew Johnson. The +interview was brief and consisted in the stock remark common to +monarchs and valets, that the young man looked even younger than he +was. The younger man felt even younger than he looked. He never saw the +President again, and never felt a wish to see him, for Andrew Johnson +was not the sort of man whom a young reformer of thirty, with two or +three foreign educations, was likely to see with enthusiasm; yet, +musing over the interview as a matter of education, long years +afterwards, he could not help recalling the President's figure with a +distinctness that surprised him. The old-fashioned Southern Senator and +statesman sat in his chair at his desk with a look of self-esteem that +had its value. None doubted. All were great men; some, no doubt, were +greater than others; but all were statesmen and all were supported, +lifted, inspired by the moral certainty of rightness. To them the +universe was serious, even solemn, but it was their universe, a +Southern conception of right. Lamar used to say that he never +entertained a doubt of the soundness of the Southern system until he +found that slavery could not stand a war. Slavery was only a part of +the Southern system, and the life of it all--the vigor--the poetry--was +its moral certainty of self. The Southerner could not doubt; and this +self-assurance not only gave Andrew Johnson the look of a true +President, but actually made him one. When Adams came to look back on +it afterwards, he was surprised to realize how strong the Executive was +in 1868--perhaps the strongest he was ever to see. Certainly he never +again found himself so well satisfied, or so much at home. + + Seward was still Secretary of State. Hardly yet an old man, +though showing marks of time and violence, Mr. Seward seemed little +changed in these eight years. He was the same--with a difference. +Perhaps he--unlike Henry Adams--had at last got an education, and all +he wanted. Perhaps he had resigned himself to doing without it. +Whatever the reason, although his manner was as roughly kind as ever, +and his talk as free, he appeared to have closed his account with the +public; he no longer seemed to care; he asked nothing, gave nothing, +and invited no support; he talked little of himself or of others, and +waited only for his discharge. Adams was well pleased to be near him in +these last days of his power and fame, and went much to his house in +the evenings when he was sure to be at his whist. At last, as the end +drew near, wanting to feel that the great man--the only chief he ever +served even as a volunteer--recognized some personal relation, he asked +Mr. Seward to dine with him one evening in his rooms, and play his game +of whist there, as he did every night in his own house. Mr. Seward came +and had his whist, and Adams remembered his rough parting speech: "A +very sensible entertainment!" It was the only favor he ever asked of +Mr. Seward, and the only one he ever accepted. + + Thus, as a teacher of wisdom, after twenty years of example, +Governor Seward passed out of one's life, and Adams lost what should +have been his firmest ally; but in truth the State Department had +ceased to be the centre of his interest, and the Treasury had taken its +place. The Secretary of the Treasury was a man new to politics--Hugh +McCulloch--not a person of much importance in the eyes of practical +politicians such as young members of the press meant themselves to +become, but they all liked Mr. McCulloch, though they thought him a +stop-gap rather than a force. Had they known what sort of forces the +Treasury was to offer them for support in the generation to come, they +might have reflected a long while on their estimate of McCulloch. Adams +was fated to watch the flittings of many more Secretaries than he ever +cared to know, and he rather came back in the end to the idea that +McCulloch was the best of them, although he seemed to represent +everything that one liked least. He was no politician, he had no party, +and no power. He was not fashionable or decorative. He was a banker, +and towards bankers Adams felt the narrow prejudice which the serf +feels to his overseer; for he knew he must obey, and he knew that the +helpless showed only their helplessness when they tempered obedience by +mockery. The world, after 1865, became a bankers' world, and no banker +would ever trust one who had deserted State Street, and had gone to +Washington with purposes of doubtful credit, or of no credit at all, +for he could not have put up enough collateral to borrow five thousand +dollars of any bank in America. The banker never would trust him, and +he would never trust the banker. To him, the banking mind was +obnoxious; and this antipathy caused him the more surprise at finding +McCulloch the broadest, most liberal, most genial, and most practical +public man in Washington. + + There could be no doubt of it. The burden of the Treasury at +that time was very great. The whole financial system was in chaos; +every part of it required reform; the utmost experience, tact, and +skill could not make the machine work smoothly. No one knew how well +McCulloch did it until his successor took it in charge, and tried to +correct his methods. Adams did not know enough to appreciate +McCulloch's technical skill, but he was struck at his open and generous +treatment of young men. Of all rare qualities, this was, in Adams's +experience, the rarest. As a rule, officials dread interference. The +strongest often resent it most. Any official who admits equality in +discussion of his official course, feels it to be an act of virtue; +after a few months or years he tires of the effort. Every friend in +power is a friend lost. This rule is so nearly absolute that it may be +taken in practice as admitting no exception. Apparent exceptions exist, +and McCulloch was one of them. + + McCulloch had been spared the gluttonous selfishness and +infantile jealousy which are the commoner results of early political +education. He had neither past nor future, and could afford to be +careless of his company. Adams found him surrounded by all the active +and intelligent young men in the country. Full of faith, greedy for +work, eager for reform, energetic, confident, capable, quick of study, +charmed with a fight, equally ready to defend or attack, they were +unselfish, and even--as young men went--honest. They came mostly from +the army, with the spirit of the volunteers. Frank Walker, Frank +Barlow, Frank Bartlett were types of the generation. Most of the press, +and much of the public, especially in the West, shared their ideas. No +one denied the need for reform. The whole government, from top to +bottom, was rotten with the senility of what was antiquated and the +instability of what was improvised. The currency was only one example; +the tariff was another; but the whole fabric required reconstruction as +much as in 1789, for the Constitution had become as antiquated as the +Confederation. Sooner or later a shock must come, the more dangerous +the longer postponed. The Civil War had made a new system in fact; the +country would have to reorganize the machinery in practice and theory. + + One might discuss indefinitely the question which branch of +government needed reform most urgently; all needed it enough, but no +one denied that the finances were a scandal, and a constant, universal +nuisance. The tariff was worse, though more interests upheld it. +McCulloch had the singular merit of facing reform with large +good-nature and willing sympathy--outside of parties, jobs, bargains, +corporations or intrigues--which Adams never was to meet again. + + Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit. The Civil War +had bred life. The army bred courage. Young men of the volunteer type +were not always docile under control, but they were handy in a fight. +Adams was greatly pleased to be admitted as one of them. He found +himself much at home with them--more at home than he ever had been +before, or was ever to be again--in the atmosphere of the Treasury. He +had no strong party passion, and he felt as though he and his friends +owned this administration, which, in its dying days, had neither +friends nor future except in them. + + These were not the only allies; the whole government in all its +branches was alive with them. Just at that moment the Supreme Court was +about to take up the Legal Tender cases where Judge Curtis had been +employed to argue against the constitutional power of the Government to +make an artificial standard of value in time of peace. Evarts was +anxious to fix on a line of argument that should have a chance of +standing up against that of Judge Curtis, and was puzzled to do it. He +did not know which foot to put forward. About to deal with Judge +Curtis, the last of the strong jurists of Marshall's school, he could +risk no chances. In doubt, the quickest way to clear one's mind is to +discuss, and Evarts deliberately forced discussion. Day after day, +driving, dining, walking he provoked Adams to dispute his positions. He +needed an anvil, he said, to hammer his ideas on. + + Adams was flattered at being an anvil, which is, after all, +more solid than the hammer; and he did not feel called on to treat Mr. +Evarts's arguments with more respect than Mr. Evarts himself expressed +for them; so he contradicted with freedom. Like most young men, he was +much of a doctrinaire, and the question was, in any event, rather +historical or political than legal. He could easily maintain, by way of +argument, that the required power had never been given, and that no +sound constitutional reason could possibly exist for authorizing the +Government to overthrow the standard of value without necessity, in +time of peace. The dispute itself had not much value for him, even as +education, but it led to his seeking light from the Chief Justice +himself. Following up the subject for his letters to the Nation and his +articles in the North American Review, Adams grew to be intimate with +the Chief Justice, who, as one of the oldest and strongest leaders of +the Free Soil Party, had claims to his personal regard; for the old +Free Soilers were becoming few. Like all strong-willed and +self-asserting men, Mr. Chase had the faults of his qualities. He was +never easy to drive in harness, or light in hand. He saw vividly what +was wrong, and did not always allow for what was relatively right. He +loved power as though he were still a Senator. His position towards +Legal Tender was awkward. As Secretary of the Treasury he had been its +author; as Chief Justice he became its enemy. Legal Tender caused no +great pleasure or pain in the sum of life to a newspaper correspondent, +but it served as a subject for letters, and the Chief Justice was very +willing to win an ally in the press who would tell his story as he +wished it to be read. The intimacy in Mr. Chase's house grew rapidly, +and the alliance was no small help to the comforts of a struggling +newspaper adventurer in Washington. No matter what one might think of +his politics or temper, Mr. Chase was a dramatic figure, of high +senatorial rank, if also of certain senatorial faults; a valuable ally. + + As was sure, sooner or later, to happen, Adams one day met +Charles Sumner on the street, and instantly stopped to greet him. As +though eight years of broken ties were the natural course of +friendship, Sumner at once, after an exclamation of surprise, dropped +back into the relation of hero to the school boy. Adams enjoyed +accepting it. He was then thirty years old and Sumner was fifty-seven; +he had seen more of the world than Sumner ever dreamed of, and he felt +a sort of amused curiosity to be treated once more as a child. At best, +the renewal of broken relations is a nervous matter, and in this case +it bristled with thorns, for Sumner's quarrel with Mr. Adams had not +been the most delicate of his ruptured relations, and he was liable to +be sensitive in many ways that even Bostonians could hardly keep in +constant mind; yet it interested and fascinated Henry Adams as a new +study of political humanity. The younger man knew that the meeting +would have to come, and was ready for it, if only as a newspaper need; +but to Sumner it came as a surprise and a disagreeable one, as Adams +conceived. He learned something--a piece of practical education worth +the effort--by watching Sumner's behavior. He could see that many +thoughts--mostly unpleasant--were passing through his mind, since he +made no inquiry about any of Adams's family, or allusion to any of his +friends or his residence abroad. He talked only of the present. To him, +Adams in Washington should have seemed more or less of a critic, +perhaps a spy, certainly an intriguer or adventurer, like scores of +others; a politician without party; a writer without principles; an +office-seeker certain to beg for support. All this was, for his +purposes, true. Adams could do him no good, and would be likely to do +him all the harm in his power. Adams accepted it all; expected to be +kept at arm's length; admitted that the reasons were just. He was the +more surprised to see that Sumner invited a renewal of old relations. +He found himself treated almost confidentially. Not only was he asked +to make a fourth at Sumner's pleasant little dinners in the house on La +Fayette Square, but he found himself admitted to the Senator's study +and informed of his views, policy and purposes, which were sometimes +even more astounding than his curious gaps or lapses of omniscience. + + On the whole, the relation was the queerest that Henry Adams +ever kept up. He liked and admired Sumner, but thought his mind a +pathological study. At times he inclined to think that Sumner felt his +solitude, and, in the political wilderness, craved educated society; +but this hardly told the whole story. Sumner's mind had reached the +calm of water which receives and reflects images without absorbing +them; it contained nothing but itself. The images from without, the +objects mechanically perceived by the senses, existed by courtesy until +the mental surface was ruffled, but never became part of the thought. +Henry Adams roused no emotion; if he had roused a disagreeable one, he +would have ceased to exist. The mind would have mechanically rejected, +as it had mechanically admitted him. Not that Sumner was more +aggressively egoistic than other Senators--Conkling, for instance--but +that with him the disease had affected the whole mind; it was chronic +and absolute; while, with other Senators for the most part, it was +still acute. + + Perhaps for this very reason, Sumner was the more valuable +acquaintance for a newspaper-man. Adams found him most useful; perhaps +quite the most useful of all these great authorities who were the +stock-in-trade of the newspaper business; the accumulated capital of a +Silurian age. A few months or years more, and they were gone. In 1868, +they were like the town itself, changing but not changed. La Fayette +Square was society. Within a few hundred yards of Mr. Clark Mills's +nursery monument to the equestrian seat of Andrew Jackson, one found +all one's acquaintance as well as hotels, banks, markets and national +government. Beyond the Square the country began. No rich or fashionable +stranger had yet discovered the town. No literary or scientific man, no +artist, no gentleman without office or employment, had ever lived +there. It was rural, and its society was primitive. Scarcely a person +in it had ever known life in a great city. Mr. Evarts, Mr. Sam Hooper, +of Boston, and perhaps one or two of the diplomatists had alone mixed +in that sort of world. The happy village was innocent of a club. The +one-horse tram on F Street to the Capitol was ample for traffic. Every +pleasant spring morning at the Pennsylvania Station, society met to bid +good-bye to its friends going off on the single express. The State +Department was lodged in an infant asylum far out on Fourteenth Street +while Mr. Mullett was constructing his architectural infant asylum next +the White House. The value of real estate had not increased since 1800, +and the pavements were more impassable than the mud. All this favored a +young man who had come to make a name. In four-and-twenty hours he +could know everybody; in two days everybody knew him. + + After seven years' arduous and unsuccessful effort to explore +the outskirts of London society, the Washington world offered an easy +and delightful repose. When he looked round him, from the safe shelter +of Mr. Evarts's roof, on the men he was to work with--or against--he +had to admit that nine-tenths of his acquired education was useless, +and the other tenth harmful. He would have to begin again from the +beginning. He must learn to talk to the Western Congressman, and to +hide his own antecedents. The task was amusing. He could see nothing to +prevent him from enjoying it, with immoral unconcern for all that had +gone before and for anything that might follow. The lobby offered a +spectacle almost picturesque. Few figures on the Paris stage were more +entertaining and dramatic than old Sam Ward, who knew more of life than +all the departments of the Government together, including the Senate +and the Smithsonian. Society had not much to give, but what it had, it +gave with an open hand. For the moment, politics had ceased to disturb +social relations. All parties were mixed up and jumbled together in a +sort of tidal slack-water. The Government resembled Adams himself in +the matter of education. All that had gone before was useless, and some +of it was worse. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +PRESIDENT GRANT (1869) + + THE first effect of this leap into the unknown was a fit of low +spirits new to the young man's education; due in part to the +overpowering beauty and sweetness of the Maryland autumn, almost +unendurable for its strain on one who had toned his life down to the +November grays and browns of northern Europe. Life could not go on so +beautiful and so sad. Luckily, no one else felt it or knew it. He bore +it as well as he could, and when he picked himself up, winter had come, +and he was settled in bachelor's quarters, as modest as those of a +clerk in the Departments, far out on G Street, towards Georgetown, +where an old Finn named Dohna, who had come out with the Russian +Minister Stoeckel long before, had bought or built a new house. +Congress had met. Two or three months remained to the old +administration, but all interest centred in the new one. The town began +to swarm with office-seekers, among whom a young writer was lost. He +drifted among them, unnoticed, glad to learn his work under cover of +the confusion. He never aspired to become a regular reporter; he knew +he should fail in trying a career so ambitious and energetic; but he +picked up friends on the press--Nordhoff, Murat Halstead, Henry +Watterson, Sam Bowles--all reformers, and all mixed and jumbled +together in a tidal wave of expectation, waiting for General Grant to +give orders. No one seemed to know much about it. Even Senators had +nothing to say. One could only make notes and study finance. + + In waiting, he amused himself as he could. In the amusements of +Washington, education had no part, but the simplicity of the amusements +proved the simplicity of everything else, ambitions, interests, +thoughts, and knowledge. Proverbially Washington was a poor place for +education, and of course young diplomats avoided or disliked it, but, +as a rule, diplomats disliked every place except Paris, and the world +contained only one Paris. They abused London more violently than +Washington; they praised no post under the sun; and they were merely +describing three-fourths of their stations when they complained that +there were no theatres, no restaurants, no monde, no demi-monde, no +drives, no splendor, and, as Mme. de Struve used to say, no grandezza. +This was all true; Washington was a mere political camp, as transient +and temporary as a camp-meeting for religious revival, but the +diplomats had least reason to complain, since they were more sought for +there than they would ever be elsewhere. For young men Washington was +in one way paradise, since they were few, and greatly in demand. After +watching the abject unimportance of the young diplomat in London +society, Adams found himself a young duke in Washington. He had ten +years of youth to make up, and a ravenous appetite. Washington was the +easiest society he had ever seen, and even the Bostonian became simple, +good-natured, almost genial, in the softness of a Washington spring. +Society went on excellently well without houses, or carriages, or +jewels, or toilettes, or pavements, or shops, or grandezza of any sort; +and the market was excellent as well as cheap. One could not stay there +a month without loving the shabby town. Even the Washington girl, who +was neither rich nor well-dressed nor well-educated nor clever, had +singular charm, and used it. According to Mr. Adams the father, this +charm dated back as far as Monroe's administration, to his personal +knowledge. + + Therefore, behind all the processes of political or financial +or newspaper training, the social side of Washington was to be taken +for granted as three-fourths of existence. Its details matter nothing. +Life ceased to be strenuous, and the victim thanked God for it. +Politics and reform became the detail, and waltzing the profession. +Adams was not alone. Senator Sumner had as private secretary a young +man named Moorfield Storey, who became a dangerous example of +frivolity. The new Attorney-General, E. R. Hoar, brought with him from +Concord a son, Sam Hoar, whose example rivalled that of Storey. Another +impenitent was named Dewey, a young naval officer. Adams came far down +in the list. He wished he had been higher. He could have spared a world +of superannuated history, science, or politics, to have reversed better +in waltzing. + + He had no adequate notion how little he knew, especially of +women, and Washington offered no standard of comparison. All were +profoundly ignorant together, and as indifferent as children to +education. No one needed knowledge. Washington was happier without +style. Certainly Adams was happier without it; happier than he had ever +been before; happier than any one in the harsh world of strenuousness +could dream of. This must be taken as background for such little +education as he gained; but the life belonged to the eighteenth +century, and in no way concerned education for the twentieth. + + In such an atmosphere, one made no great pretence of hard work. +If the world wants hard work, the world must pay for it; and, if it +will not pay, it has no fault to find with the worker. Thus far, no one +had made a suggestion of pay for any work that Adams had done or could +do; if he worked at all, it was for social consideration, and social +pleasure was his pay. For this he was willing to go on working, as an +artist goes on painting when no one buys his pictures. Artists have +done it from the beginning of time, and will do it after time has +expired, since they cannot help themselves, and they find their return +in the pride of their social superiority as they feel it. Society +commonly abets them and encourages their attitude of contempt. The +society of Washington was too simple and Southern as yet, to feel +anarchistic longings, and it never read or saw what artists produced +elsewhere, but it good-naturedly abetted them when it had the chance, +and respected itself the more for the frailty. Adams found even the +Government at his service, and every one willing to answer his +questions. He worked, after a fashion; not very hard, but as much as +the Government would have required of him for nine hundred dollars a +year; and his work defied frivolity. He got more pleasure from writing +than the world ever got from reading him, for his work was not amusing, +nor was he. One must not try to amuse moneylenders or investors, and +this was the class to which he began by appealing. He gave three months +to an article on the finances of the United States, just then a subject +greatly needing treatment; and when he had finished it, he sent it to +London to his friend Henry Reeve, the ponderous editor of the Edinburgh +Review. Reeve probably thought it good; at all events, he said so; and +he printed it in April. Of course it was reprinted in America, but in +England such articles were still anonymous, and the author remained +unknown. + + The author was not then asking for advertisement, and made no +claim for credit. His object was literary. He wanted to win a place on +the staff of the Edinburgh Review, under the vast shadow of Lord +Macaulay; and, to a young American in 1868, such rank seemed +colossal--the highest in the literary world--as it had been only +five-and-twenty years before. Time and tide had flowed since then, but +the position still flattered vanity, though it brought no other +flattery or reward except the regular thirty pounds of pay--fifty +dollars a month, measured in time and labor. + + The Edinburgh article finished, he set himself to work on a +scheme for the North American Review. In England, Lord Robert Cecil had +invented for the London Quarterly an annual review of politics which he +called the "Session." Adams stole the idea and the name--he thought he +had been enough in Lord Robert's house, in days of his struggle with +adversity, to excuse the theft--and began what he meant for a permanent +series of annual political reviews which he hoped to make, in time, a +political authority. With his sources of information, and his social +intimacies at Washington, he could not help saying something that would +command attention. He had the field to himself, and he meant to give +himself a free hand, as he went on. Whether the newspapers liked it or +not, they would have to reckon with him; for such a power, once +established, was more effective than all the speeches in Congress or +reports to the President that could be crammed into the Government +presses. + + The first of these "Sessions" appeared in April, but it could +not be condensed into a single article, and had to be supplemented in +October by another which bore the title of "Civil Service Reform," and +was really a part of the same review. A good deal of authentic history +slipped into these papers. Whether any one except his press associates +ever read them, he never knew and never greatly cared. The difference +is slight, to the influence of an author, whether he is read by five +hundred readers, or by five hundred thousand; if he can select the five +hundred, he reaches the five hundred thousand. The fateful year 1870 +was near at hand, which was to mark the close of the literary epoch, +when quarterlies gave way to monthlies; letter-press to illustration; +volumes to pages. The outburst was brilliant. Bret Harte led, and +Robert Louis Stevenson followed. Guy de Maupassant and Rudyard Kipling +brought up the rear, and dazzled the world. As usual, Adams found +himself fifty years behind his time, but a number of belated wanderers +kept him company, and they produced on each other the effect or +illusion of a public opinion. They straggled apart, at longer and +longer intervals, through the procession, but they were still within +hearing distance of each other. The drift was still superficially +conservative. Just as the Church spoke with apparent authority, or the +quarterlies laid down an apparent law, and no one could surely say +where the real authority, or the real law, lay. Science did not know. +Truths a priori held their own against truths surely relative. +According to Lowell, Right was forever on the scaffold, Wrong was +forever on the Throne; and most people still thought they believed it. +Adams was not the only relic of the eighteenth century, and he could +still depend on a certain number of listeners--mostly respectable, and +some rich. + + Want of audience did not trouble him; he was well enough off in +that respect, and would have succeeded in all his calculations if this +had been his only hazard. Where he broke down was at a point where he +always suffered wreck and where nine adventurers out of ten make their +errors. One may be more or less certain of organized forces; one can +never be certain of men. He belonged to the eighteenth century, and the +eighteenth century upset all his plans. For the moment, America was +more eighteenth century than himself; it reverted to the stone age. + + As education--of a certain sort--the story had probably a +certain value, though he could never see it. One seldom can see much +education in the buck of a broncho; even less in the kick of a mule. +The lesson it teaches is only that of getting out of the animal's way. +This was the lesson that Henry Adams had learned over and over again in +politics since 1860. + + At least four-fifths of the American people--Adams among the +rest--had united in the election of General Grant to the Presidency, +and probably had been more or less affected in their choice by the +parallel they felt between Grant and Washington. Nothing could be more +obvious. Grant represented order. He was a great soldier, and the +soldier always represented order. He might be as partisan as he +pleased, but a general who had organized and commanded half a million +or a million men in the field, must know how to administer. Even +Washington, who was, in education and experience, a mere cave-dweller, +had known how to organize a government, and had found Jeffersons and +Hamiltons to organize his departments. The task of bringing the +Government back to regular practices, and of restoring moral and +mechanical order to administration, was not very difficult; it was +ready to do it itself, with a little encouragement. No doubt the +confusion, especially in the old slave States and in the currency, was +considerable, but, the general disposition was good, and every one had +echoed that famous phrase: "Let us have peace." + + Adams was young and easily deceived, in spite of his diplomatic +adventures, but even at twice his age he could not see that this +reliance on Grant was unreasonable. Had Grant been a Congressman one +would have been on one's guard, for one knew the type. One never +expected from a Congressman more than good intentions and public +spirit. Newspaper-men as a rule had no great respect for the lower +House; Senators had less; and Cabinet officers had none at all. Indeed, +one day when Adams was pleading with a Cabinet officer for patience and +tact in dealing with Representatives, the Secretary impatiently broke +out: "You can't use tact with a Congressman! A Congressman is a hog! +You must take a stick and hit him on the snout!" Adams knew far too +little, compared with the Secretary, to contradict him, though he +thought the phrase somewhat harsh even as applied to the average +Congressman of 1869--he saw little or nothing of later ones--but he +knew a shorter way of silencing criticism. He had but to ask: "If a +Congressman is a hog, what is a Senator?" This innocent question, put +in a candid spirit, petrified any executive officer that ever sat a +week in his office. Even Adams admitted that Senators passed belief. +The comic side of their egotism partly disguised its extravagance, but +faction had gone so far under Andrew Johnson that at times the whole +Senate seemed to catch hysterics of nervous bucking without apparent +reason. Great leaders, like Sumner and Conkling, could not be +burlesqued; they were more grotesque than ridicule could make them; +even Grant, who rarely sparkled in epigram, became witty on their +account; but their egotism and factiousness were no laughing matter. +They did permanent and terrible mischief, as Garfield and Blaine, and +even McKinley and John Hay, were to feel. The most troublesome task of +a reform President was that of bringing the Senate back to decency. + + Therefore no one, and Henry Adams less than most, felt hope +that any President chosen from the ranks of politics or politicians +would raise the character of government; and by instinct if not by +reason, all the world united on Grant. The Senate understood what the +world expected, and waited in silence for a struggle with Grant more +serious than that with Andrew Johnson. Newspaper-men were alive with +eagerness to support the President against the Senate. The +newspaper-man is, more than most men, a double personality; and his +person feels best satisfied in its double instincts when writing in one +sense and thinking in another. All newspaper-men, whatever they wrote, +felt alike about the Senate. Adams floated with the stream. He was +eager to join in the fight which he foresaw as sooner or later +inevitable. He meant to support the Executive in attacking the Senate +and taking away its two-thirds vote and power of confirmation, nor did +he much care how it should be done, for he thought it safer to effect +the revolution in 1870 than to wait till 1920. + + With this thought in his mind, he went to the Capitol to hear +the names announced which should reveal the carefully guarded secret of +Grant's Cabinet. To the end of his life, he wondered at the suddenness +of the revolution which actually, within five minutes, changed his +intended future into an absurdity so laughable as to make him ashamed +of it. He was to hear a long list of Cabinet announcements not much +weaker or more futile than that of Grant, and none of them made him +blush, while Grant's nominations had the singular effect of making the +hearer ashamed, not so much of Grant, as of himself. He had made +another total misconception of life--another inconceivable false start. +Yet, unlikely as it seemed, he had missed his motive narrowly, and his +intention had been more than sound, for the Senators made no secret of +saying with senatorial frankness that Grant's nominations betrayed his +intent as plainly as they betrayed his incompetence. A great soldier +might be a baby politician. + + Adams left the Capitol, much in the same misty mental condition +that he recalled as marking his railway journey to London on May 13, +1861; he felt in himself what Gladstone bewailed so sadly, "the +incapacity of viewing things all round." He knew, without absolutely +saying it, that Grant had cut short the life which Adams had laid out +for himself in the future. After such a miscarriage, no thought of +effectual reform could revive for at least one generation, and he had +no fancy for ineffectual politics. What course could he sail next? He +had tried so many, and society had barred them all! For the moment, he +saw no hope but in following the stream on which he had launched +himself. The new Cabinet, as individuals, were not hostile. +Subsequently Grant made changes in the list which were mostly welcome +to a Bostonian--or should have been--although fatal to Adams. The name +of Hamilton Fish, as Secretary of State, suggested extreme conservatism +and probable deference to Sumner. The name of George S. Boutwell, as +Secretary of the Treasury, suggested only a somewhat lugubrious joke; +Mr. Boutwell could be described only as the opposite of Mr. McCulloch, +and meant inertia; or, in plain words, total extinction for any one +resembling Henry Adams. On the other hand, the name of Jacob D. Cox, as +Secretary of the Interior, suggested help and comfort; while that of +Judge Hoar, as Attorney-General, promised friendship. On the whole, the +personal outlook, merely for literary purposes, seemed fairly cheerful, +and the political outlook, though hazy, still depended on Grant +himself. No one doubted that Grant's intention had been one of reform; +that his aim had been to place his administration above politics; and +until he should actually drive his supporters away, one might hope to +support him. One's little lantern must therefore be turned on Grant. +One seemed to know him so well, and really knew so little. + + By chance it happened that Adam Badeau took the lower suite of +rooms at Dohna's, and, as it was convenient to have one table, the two +men dined together and became intimate. Badeau was exceedingly social, +though not in appearance imposing. He was stout; his face was red, and +his habits were regularly irregular; but he was very intelligent, a +good newspaper-man, and an excellent military historian. His life of +Grant was no ordinary book. Unlike most newspaper-men, he was a +friendly critic of Grant, as suited an officer who had been on the +General's staff. As a rule, the newspaper correspondents in Washington +were unfriendly, and the lobby sceptical. From that side one heard +tales that made one's hair stand on end, and the old West Point army +officers were no more flattering. All described him as vicious, narrow, +dull, and vindictive. Badeau, who had come to Washington for a +consulate which was slow to reach him, resorted more or less to whiskey +for encouragement, and became irritable, besides being loquacious. He +talked much about Grant, and showed a certain artistic feeling for +analysis of character, as a true literary critic would naturally do. +Loyal to Grant, and still more so to Mrs. Grant, who acted as his +patroness, he said nothing, even when far gone, that was offensive +about either, but he held that no one except himself and Rawlins +understood the General. To him, Grant appeared as an intermittent +energy, immensely powerful when awake, but passive and plastic in +repose. He said that neither he nor the rest of the staff knew why +Grant succeeded; they believed in him because of his success. For +stretches of time, his mind seemed torpid. Rawlins and the others would +systematically talk their ideas into it, for weeks, not directly, but +by discussion among themselves, in his presence. In the end, he would +announce the idea as his own, without seeming conscious of the +discussion; and would give the orders to carry it out with all the +energy that belonged to his nature. They could never measure his +character or be sure when he would act. They could never follow a +mental process in his thought. They were not sure that he did think. + + In all this, Adams took deep interest, for although he was not, +like Badeau, waiting for Mrs. Grant's power of suggestion to act on the +General's mind in order to germinate in a consulate or a legation, his +portrait gallery of great men was becoming large, and it amused him to +add an authentic likeness of the greatest general the world had seen +since Napoleon. Badeau's analysis was rather delicate; infinitely +superior to that of Sam Ward or Charles Nordhoff. + + Badeau took Adams to the White House one evening and introduced +him to the President and Mrs. Grant. First and last, he saw a dozen +Presidents at the White House, and the most famous were by no means the +most agreeable, but he found Grant the most curious object of study +among them all. About no one did opinions differ so widely. Adams had +no opinion, or occasion to make one. A single word with Grant satisfied +him that, for his own good, the fewer words he risked, the better. Thus +far in life he had met with but one man of the same intellectual or +unintellectual type--Garibaldi. Of the two, Garibaldi seemed to him a +trifle the more intellectual, but, in both, the intellect counted for +nothing; only the energy counted. The type was pre-intellectual, +archaic, and would have seemed so even to the cave-dwellers. Adam, +according to legend, was such a man. + + In time one came to recognize the type in other men, with +differences and variations, as normal; men whose energies were the +greater, the less they wasted on thought; men who sprang from the soil +to power; apt to be distrustful of themselves and of others; shy; +jealous; sometimes vindictive; more or less dull in outward appearance; +always needing stimulants, but for whom action was the highest +stimulant--the instinct of fight. Such men were forces of nature, +energies of the prime, like the Pteraspis, but they made short work of +scholars. They had commanded thousands of such and saw no more in them +than in others. The fact was certain; it crushed argument and intellect +at once. + + Adams did not feel Grant as a hostile force; like Badeau he saw +only an uncertain one. When in action he was superb and safe to follow; +only when torpid he was dangerous. To deal with him one must stand +near, like Rawlins, and practice more or less sympathetic habits. +Simple-minded beyond the experience of Wall Street or State Street, he +resorted, like most men of the same intellectual calibre, to +commonplaces when at a loss for expression: "Let us have peace!" or, +"The best way to treat a bad law is to execute it"; or a score of such +reversible sentences generally to be gauged by their sententiousness; +but sometimes he made one doubt his good faith; as when he seriously +remarked to a particularly bright young woman that Venice would be a +fine city if it were drained. In Mark Twain, this suggestion would have +taken rank among his best witticisms; in Grant it was a measure of +simplicity not singular. Robert E. Lee betrayed the same intellectual +commonplace, in a Virginian form, not to the same degree, but quite +distinctly enough for one who knew the American. What worried Adams was +not the commonplace; it was, as usual, his own education. Grant fretted +and irritated him, like the Terebratula, as a defiance of first +principles. He had no right to exist. He should have been extinct for +ages. The idea that, as society grew older, it grew one-sided, upset +evolution, and made of education a fraud. That, two thousand years +after Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, a man like Grant should be +called--and should actually and truly be--the highest product of the +most advanced evolution, made evolution ludicrous. One must be as +commonplace as Grant's own commonplaces to maintain such an absurdity. +The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant, +was alone evidence enough to upset Darwin. + + Education became more perplexing at every phase. No theory was +worth the pen that wrote it. America had no use for Adams because he +was eighteenth-century, and yet it worshipped Grant because he was +archaic and should have lived in a cave and worn skins. Darwinists +ought to conclude that America was reverting to the stone age, but the +theory of reversion was more absurd than that of evolution. Grant's +administration reverted to nothing. One could not catch a trait of the +past, still less of the future. It was not even sensibly American. Not +an official in it, except perhaps Rawlins whom Adams never met, and who +died in September, suggested an American idea. + + Yet this administration, which upset Adams's whole life, was +not unfriendly; it was made up largely of friends. Secretary Fish was +almost kind; he kept the tradition of New York social values; he was +human and took no pleasure in giving pain. Adams felt no prejudice +whatever in his favor, and he had nothing in mind or person to attract +regard; his social gifts were not remarkable; he was not in the least +magnetic; he was far from young; but he won confidence from the start +and remained a friend to the finish. As far as concerned Mr. Fish, one +felt rather happily suited, and one was still better off in the +Interior Department with J. D. Cox. Indeed, if Cox had been in the +Treasury and Boutwell in the Interior, one would have been quite +satisfied as far as personal relations went, while, in the +Attorney-General's Office, Judge Hoar seemed to fill every possible +ideal, both personal and political. + + The difficulty was not the want of friends, and had the whole +government been filled with them, it would have helped little without +the President and the Treasury. Grant avowed from the start a policy of +drift; and a policy of drift attaches only barnacles. At thirty, one +has no interest in becoming a barnacle, but even in that character +Henry Adams would have been ill-seen. His friends were reformers, +critics, doubtful in party allegiance, and he was himself an object of +suspicion. Grant had no objects, wanted no help, wished for no +champions. The Executive asked only to be let alone. This was his +meaning when he said: "Let us have peace!" + + No one wanted to go into opposition. As for Adams, all his +hopes of success in life turned on his finding an administration to +support. He knew well enough the rules of self-interest. He was for +sale. He wanted to be bought. His price was excessively cheap, for he +did not even ask an office, and had his eye, not on the Government, but +on New York. All he wanted was something to support; something that +would let itself be supported. Luck went dead against him. For once, he +was fifty years in advance of his time. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +FREE FIGHT (1869-1870) + + THE old New Englander was apt to be a solitary animal, but the +young New Englander was sometimes human. Judge Hoar brought his son Sam +to Washington, and Sam Hoar loved largely and well. He taught Adams the +charm of Washington spring. Education for education, none ever compared +with the delight of this. The Potomac and its tributaries squandered +beauty. Rock Creek was as wild as the Rocky Mountains. Here and there a +negro log cabin alone disturbed the dogwood and the judas-tree, the +azalea and the laurel. The tulip and the chestnut gave no sense of +struggle against a stingy nature. The soft, full outlines of the +landscape carried no hidden horror of glaciers in its bosom. The +brooding heat of the profligate vegetation; the cool charm of the +running water; the terrific splendor of the June thunder-gust in the +deep and solitary woods, were all sensual, animal, elemental. No +European spring had shown him the same intermixture of delicate grace +and passionate depravity that marked the Maryland May. He loved it too +much, as though it were Greek and half human. He could not leave it, +but loitered on into July, falling into the Southern ways of the summer +village about La Fayette Square, as one whose rights of inheritance +could not be questioned. Few Americans were so poor as to question them. + + In spite of the fatal deception--or undeception--about +Grant's political character, Adams's first winter in Washington had so +much amused him that he had not a thought of change. He loved it too +much to question its value. What did he know about its value, or what +did any one know? His father knew more about it than any one else in +Boston, and he was amused to find that his father, whose recollections +went back to 1820, betrayed for Washington much the same sentimental +weakness, and described the society about President Monroe much as his +son felt the society about President Johnson. He feared its effect on +young men, with some justice, since it had been fatal to two of his +brothers; but he understood the charm, and he knew that a life in +Quincy or Boston was not likely to deaden it. + + Henry was in a savage humor on the subject of Boston. He saw +Boutwells at every counter. He found a personal grief in every tree. +Fifteen or twenty years afterwards, Clarence King used to amuse him by +mourning over the narrow escape that nature had made in attaining +perfection. Except for two mistakes, the earth would have been a +success. One of these errors was the inclination of the ecliptic; the +other was the differentiation of the sexes, and the saddest thought +about the last was that it should have been so modern. Adams, in his +splenetic temper, held that both these unnecessary evils had wreaked +their worst on Boston. The climate made eternal war on society, and sex +was a species of crime. The ecliptic had inclined itself beyond +recovery till life was as thin as the elm trees. Of course he was in +the wrong. The thinness was in himself, not in Boston; but this is a +story of education, and Adams was struggling to shape himself to his +time. Boston was trying to do the same thing. Everywhere, except in +Washington, Americans were toiling for the same object. Every one +complained of surroundings, except where, as at Washington, there were +no surroundings to complain of. Boston kept its head better than its +neighbors did, and very little time was needed to prove it, even to +Adams's confusion. + + Before he got back to Quincy, the summer was already half over, +and in another six weeks the effects of President Grant's character +showed themselves. They were startling--astounding--terrifying. The +mystery that shrouded the famous, classical attempt of Jay Gould to +corner gold in September, 1869, has never been cleared up--at least so +far as to make it intelligible to Adams. Gould was led, by the change +at Washington, into the belief that he could safely corner gold without +interference from the Government. He took a number of precautions, +which he admitted; and he spent a large sum of money, as he also +testified, to obtain assurances which were not sufficient to have +satisfied so astute a gambler; yet he made the venture. Any criminal +lawyer must have begun investigation by insisting, rigorously, that no +such man, in such a position, could be permitted to plead that he had +taken, and pursued, such a course, without assurances which did satisfy +him. The plea was professionally inadmissible. + + This meant that any criminal lawyer would have been bound to +start an investigation by insisting that Gould had assurances from the +White House or the Treasury, since none other could have satisfied him. +To young men wasting their summer at Quincy for want of some one to +hire their services at three dollars a day, such a dramatic scandal was +Heaven-sent. Charles and Henry Adams jumped at it like salmon at a fly, +with as much voracity as Jay Gould, or his ame damnee Jim Fisk, had +ever shown for Erie; and with as little fear of consequences. They +risked something; no one could say what; but the people about the Erie +office were not regarded as lambs. + + The unravelling a skein so tangled as that of the Erie Railway +was a task that might have given months of labor to the most efficient +District Attorney, with all his official tools to work with. Charles +took the railway history; Henry took the so-called Gold Conspiracy; and +they went to New York to work it up. The surface was in full view. They +had no trouble in Wall Street, and they paid their respects in person +to the famous Jim Fisk in his Opera-House Palace; but the New York side +of the story helped Henry little. He needed to penetrate the political +mystery, and for this purpose he had to wait for Congress to meet. At +first he feared that Congress would suppress the scandal, but the +Congressional Investigation was ordered and took place. He soon knew +all that was to be known; the material for his essay was furnished by +the Government. + + Material furnished by a government seldom satisfies critics or +historians, for it lies always under suspicion. Here was a mystery, and +as usual, the chief mystery was the means of making sure that any +mystery existed. All Adams's great friends--Fish, Cox, Hoar, Evarts, +Sumner, and their surroundings--were precisely the persons most +mystified. They knew less than Adams did; they sought information, and +frankly admitted that their relations with the White House and the +Treasury were not confidential. No one volunteered advice. No one +offered suggestion. One got no light, even from the press, although +press agents expressed in private the most damning convictions with +their usual cynical frankness. The Congressional Committee took a +quantity of evidence which it dared not probe, and refused to analyze. +Although the fault lay somewhere on the Administration, and could lie +nowhere else, the trail always faded and died out at the point where +any member of the Administration became visible. Every one dreaded to +press inquiry. Adams himself feared finding out too much. He found out +too much already, when he saw in evidence that Jay Gould had actually +succeeded in stretching his net over Grant's closest surroundings, and +that Boutwell's incompetence was the bottom of Gould's calculation. +With the conventional air of assumed confidence, every one in public +assured every one else that the President himself was the savior of the +situation, and in private assured each other that if the President had +not been caught this time, he was sure to be trapped the next, for the +ways of Wall Street were dark and double. All this was wildly exciting +to Adams. That Grant should have fallen, within six months, into such a +morass--or should have let Boutwell drop him into it--rendered the +outlook for the next four years--probably eight--possibly +twelve--mysterious, or frankly opaque, to a young man who had hitched +his wagon, as Emerson told him, to the star of reform. The country +might outlive it, but not he. The worst scandals of the eighteenth +century were relatively harmless by the side of this, which smirched +executive, judiciary, banks, corporate systems, professions, and +people, all the great active forces of society, in one dirty cesspool +of vulgar corruption. Only six months before, this innocent young man, +fresh from the cynicism of European diplomacy, had expected to enter an +honorable career in the press as the champion and confidant of a new +Washington, and already he foresaw a life of wasted energy, sweeping +the stables of American society clear of the endless corruption which +his second Washington was quite certain to breed. + + By vigorously shutting one's eyes, as though one were an +Assistant Secretary, a writer for the press might ignore the Erie +scandal, and still help his friends or allies in the Government who +were doing their best to give it an air of decency; but a few weeks +showed that the Erie scandal was a mere incident, a rather vulgar Wall +Street trap, into which, according to one's point of view Grant had +been drawn by Jay Gould, or Jay Gould had been misled by Grant. One +could hardly doubt that both of them were astonished and disgusted by +the result; but neither Jay Gould nor any other astute American +mind--still less the complex Jew--could ever have accustomed itself to +the incredible and inexplicable lapses of Grant's intelligence; and +perhaps, on the whole, Gould was the less mischievous victim, if +victims they both were. The same laxity that led Gould into a trap +which might easily have become the penitentiary, led the United States +Senate, the Executive departments and the Judiciary into confusion, +cross-purposes, and ill-temper that would have been scandalous in a +boarding-school of girls. For satirists or comedians, the study was +rich and endless, and they exploited its corners with happy results, +but a young man fresh from the rustic simplicity of London noticed with +horror that the grossest satires on the American Senator and politician +never failed to excite the laughter and applause of every audience. +Rich and poor joined in throwing contempt on their own representatives. +Society laughed a vacant and meaningless derision over its own failure. +Nothing remained for a young man without position or power except to +laugh too. + + Yet the spectacle was no laughing matter to him, whatever it +might be to the public. Society is immoral and immortal; it can afford +to commit any kind of folly, and indulge in any sort of vice; it cannot +be killed, and the fragments that survive can always laugh at the dead; +but a young man has only one chance, and brief time to seize it. Any +one in power above him can extinguish the chance. He is horribly at the +mercy of fools and cowards. One dull administration can rapidly drive +out every active subordinate. At Washington, in 1869-70, every +intelligent man about the Government prepared to go. The people would +have liked to go too, for they stood helpless before the chaos; some +laughed and some raved; all were disgusted; but they had to content +themselves by turning their backs and going to work harder than ever on +their railroads and foundries. They were strong enough to carry even +their politics. Only the helpless remained stranded in Washington. + + The shrewdest statesman of all was Mr. Boutwell, who showed how +he understood the situation by turning out of the Treasury every one +who could interfere with his repose, and then locking himself up in it, +alone. What he did there, no one knew. His colleagues asked him in +vain. Not a word could they get from him, either in the Cabinet or out +of it, of suggestion or information on matters even of vital interest. +The Treasury as an active influence ceased to exist. Mr. Boutwell +waited with confidence for society to drag his department out of the +mire, as it was sure to do if he waited long enough. + + Warned by his friends in the Cabinet as well as in the Treasury +that Mr. Boutwell meant to invite no support, and cared to receive +none, Adams had only the State and Interior Departments left to serve. +He wanted no better than to serve them. Opposition was his horror; pure +waste of energy; a union with Northern Democrats and Southern rebels +who never had much in common with any Adams, and had never shown any +warm interest about them except to drive them from public life. If Mr. +Boutwell turned him out of the Treasury with the indifference or +contempt that made even a beetle helpless, Mr. Fish opened the State +Department freely, and seemed to talk with as much openness as any +newspaper-man could ask. At all events, Adams could cling to this last +plank of salvation, and make himself perhaps the recognized champion of +Mr. Fish in the New York press. He never once thought of his disaster +between Seward and Sumner in 1861. Such an accident could not occur +again. Fish and Sumner were inseparable, and their policy was sure to +be safe enough for support. No mosquito could be so unlucky as to be +caught a second time between a Secretary and a Senator who were both +his friends. + + This dream of security lasted hardly longer than that of 1861. +Adams saw Sumner take possession of the Department, and he approved; he +saw Sumner seize the British mission for Motley, and he was delighted; +but when he renewed his relations with Sumner in the winter of 1869-70, +he began slowly to grasp the idea that Sumner had a foreign policy of +his own which he proposed also to force on the Department. This was not +all. Secretary Fish seemed to have vanished. Besides the Department of +State over which he nominally presided in the Infant Asylum on +Fourteenth Street, there had risen a Department of Foreign Relations +over which Senator Sumner ruled with a high hand at the Capitol; and, +finally, one clearly made out a third Foreign Office in the War +Department, with President Grant himself for chief, pressing a policy +of extension in the West Indies which no Northeastern man ever +approved. For his life, Adams could not learn where to place himself +among all these forces. Officially he would have followed the +responsible Secretary of State, but he could not find the Secretary. +Fish seemed to be friendly towards Sumner, and docile towards Grant, +but he asserted as yet no policy of his own. As for Grant's policy, +Adams never had a chance to know fully what it was, but, as far as he +did know, he was ready to give it ardent support. The difficulty came +only when he heard Sumner's views, which, as he had reason to know, +were always commands, to be disregarded only by traitors. + + Little by little, Sumner unfolded his foreign policy, and Adams +gasped with fresh astonishment at every new article of the creed. To +his profound regret he heard Sumner begin by imposing his veto on all +extension within the tropics; which cost the island of St. Thomas to +the United States, besides the Bay of Samana as an alternative, and +ruined Grant's policy. Then he listened with incredulous stupor while +Sumner unfolded his plan for concentrating and pressing every possible +American claim against England, with a view of compelling the cession +of Canada to the United States. + + Adams did not then know--in fact, he never knew, or could +find any one to tell him--what was going on behind the doors of the +White House. He doubted whether Mr. Fish or Bancroft Davis knew much +more than he. The game of cross-purposes was as impenetrable in Foreign +Affairs as in the Gold Conspiracy. President Grant let every one go on, +but whom he supported, Adams could not be expected to divine. One point +alone seemed clear to a man--no longer so very young--who had lately +come from a seven years' residence in London. He thought he knew as +much as any one in Washington about England, and he listened with the +more perplexity to Mr. Sumner's talk, because it opened the gravest +doubts of Sumner's sanity. If war was his object, and Canada were worth +it, Sumner's scheme showed genius, and Adams was ready to treat it +seriously; but if he thought he could obtain Canada from England as a +voluntary set-off to the Alabama Claims, he drivelled. On the point of +fact, Adams was as peremptory as Sumner on the point of policy, but he +could only wonder whether Mr. Fish would dare say it. When at last Mr. +Fish did say it, a year later, Sumner publicly cut his acquaintance. +Adams was the more puzzled because he could not believe Sumner so mad +as to quarrel both with Fish and with Grant. A quarrel with Seward and +Andrew Johnson was bad enough, and had profited no one; but a quarrel +with General Grant was lunacy. Grant might be whatever one liked, as +far as morals or temper or intellect were concerned, but he was not a +man whom a light-weight cared to challenge for a fight; and Sumner, +whether he knew it or not, was a very light weight in the Republican +Party, if separated from his Committee of Foreign Relations. As a party +manager he had not the weight of half-a-dozen men whose very names were +unknown to him. + + Between these great forces, where was the Administration and +how was one to support it? One must first find it, and even then it was +not easily caught. Grant's simplicity was more disconcerting than the +complexity of a Talleyrand. Mr. Fish afterwards told Adams, with the +rather grim humor he sometimes indulged in, that Grant took a dislike +to Motley because he parted his hair in the middle. Adams repeated the +story to Godkin, who made much play with it in the Nation, till it was +denied. Adams saw no reason why it should be denied. Grant had as good +a right to dislike the hair as the head, if the hair seemed to him a +part of it. Very shrewd men have formed very sound judgments on less +material than hair--on clothes, for example, according to Mr. Carlyle, +or on a pen, according to Cardinal de Retz--and nine men in ten could +hardly give as good a reason as hair for their likes or dislikes. In +truth, Grant disliked Motley at sight, because they had nothing in +common; and for the same reason he disliked Sumner. For the same reason +he would be sure to dislike Adams if Adams gave him a chance. Even Fish +could not be quite sure of Grant, except for the powerful effect which +wealth had, or appeared to have, on Grant's imagination. + + The quarrel that lowered over the State Department did not +break in storm till July, 1870, after Adams had vanished, but another +quarrel, almost as fatal to Adams as that between Fish and Sumner, +worried him even more. Of all members of the Cabinet, the one whom he +had most personal interest in cultivating was Attorney General Hoar. +The Legal Tender decision, which had been the first stumbling-block to +Adams at Washington, grew in interest till it threatened to become +something more serious than a block; it fell on one's head like a +plaster ceiling, and could not be escaped. The impending battle between +Fish and Sumner was nothing like so serious as the outbreak between +Hoar and Chief Justice Chase. Adams had come to Washington hoping to +support the Executive in a policy of breaking down the Senate, but he +never dreamed that he would be required to help in breaking down the +Supreme Court. Although, step by step, he had been driven, like the +rest of the world, to admit that American society had outgrown most of +its institutions, he still clung to the Supreme Court, much as a +churchman clings to his bishops, because they are his only symbol of +unity; his last rag of Right. Between the Executive and the +Legislature, citizens could have no Rights; they were at the mercy of +Power. They had created the Court to protect them from unlimited Power, +and it was little enough protection at best. Adams wanted to save the +independence of the Court at least for his lifetime, and could not +conceive that the Executive should wish to overthrow it. + + Frank Walker shared this feeling, and, by way of helping the +Court, he had promised Adams for the North American Review an article +on the history of the Legal Tender Act, founded on a volume just then +published by Spaulding, the putative father of the legal-tender clause +in 1861. Secretary Jacob D. Cox, who alone sympathized with reform, +saved from Boutwell's decree of banishment such reformers as he could +find place for, and he saved Walker for a time by giving him the Census +of 1870. Walker was obliged to abandon his article for the North +American in order to devote himself to the Census. He gave Adams his +notes, and Adams completed the article. + + He had not toiled in vain over the Bank of England Restriction. +He knew enough about Legal Tender to leave it alone. If the banks and +bankers wanted fiat money, fiat money was good enough for a +newspaper-man; and if they changed about and wanted "intrinsic" value, +gold and silver came equally welcome to a writer who was paid half the +wages of an ordinary mechanic. He had no notion of attacking or +defending Legal Tender; his object was to defend the Chief Justice and +the Court. Walker argued that, whatever might afterwards have been the +necessity for legal tender, there was no necessity for it at the time +the Act was passed. With the help of the Chief Justice's recollections, +Adams completed the article, which appeared in the April number of the +North American. Its ferocity was Walker's, for Adams never cared to +abandon the knife for the hatchet, but Walker reeked of the army and +the Springfield Republican, and his energy ran away with Adams's +restraint. The unfortunate Spaulding complained loudly of this +treatment, not without justice, but the article itself had serious +historical value, for Walker demolished every shred of Spaulding's +contention that legal tender was necessary at the time; and the Chief +Justice told his part of the story with conviction. The Chief Justice +seemed to be pleased. The Attorney General, pleased or not, made no +sign. The article had enough historical interest to induce Adams to +reprint it in a volume of Essays twenty years afterwards; but its +historical value was not its point in education. The point was that, in +spite of the best intentions, the plainest self-interest, and the +strongest wish to escape further trouble, the article threw Adams into +opposition. Judge Hoar, like Boutwell, was implacable. + + Hoar went on to demolish the Chief Justice; while Henry Adams +went on, drifting further and further from the Administration. He did +this in common with all the world, including Hoar himself. Scarcely a +newspaper in the country kept discipline. The New York Tribune was one +of the most criminal. Dissolution of ties in every direction marked the +dissolution of temper, and the Senate Chamber became again a scene of +irritated egotism that passed ridicule. Senators quarrelled with each +other, and no one objected, but they picked quarrels also with the +Executive and threw every Department into confusion. Among others they +quarrelled with Hoar, and drove him from office. + + That Sumner and Hoar, the two New Englanders in great position +who happened to be the two persons most necessary for his success at +Washington, should be the first victims of Grant's lax rule, must have +had some meaning for Adams's education, if Adams could only have +understood what it was. He studied, but failed. Sympathy with him was +not their weakness. Directly, in the form of help, he knew he could +hope as little from them as from Boutwell. So far from inviting +attachment they, like other New Englanders, blushed to own a friend. +Not one of the whole delegation would ever, of his own accord, try to +help Adams or any other young man who did not beg for it, although they +would always accept whatever services they had not to pay for. The +lesson of education was not there. The selfishness of politics was the +earliest of all political education, and Adams had nothing to learn +from its study; but the situation struck him as curious--so curious +that he devoted years to reflecting upon it. His four most powerful +friends had matched themselves, two and two, and were fighting in pairs +to a finish; Sumner-Fish; Chase-Hoar; with foreign affairs and the +judiciary as prizes! What value had the fight in education? + + Adams was puzzled, and was not the only puzzled bystander. The +stage-type of statesman was amusing, whether as Roscoe Conkling or +Colonel Mulberry Sellers, but what was his value? The statesmen of the +old type, whether Sumners or Conklings or Hoars or Lamars, were +personally as honest as human nature could produce. They trod with +lofty contempt on other people's jobs, especially when there was good +in them. Yet the public thought that Sumner and Conkling cost the +country a hundred times more than all the jobs they ever trod on; just +as Lamar and the old Southern statesmen, who were also honest in +money-matters, cost the country a civil war. This painful moral doubt +worried Adams less than it worried his friends and the public, but it +affected the whole field of politics for twenty years. The newspapers +discussed little else than the alleged moral laxity of Grant, Garfield, +and Blaine. If the press were taken seriously, politics turned on jobs, +and some of Adams's best friends, like Godkin, ruined their influence +by their insistence on points of morals. Society hesitated, wavered, +oscillated between harshness and laxity, pitilessly sacrificing the +weak, and deferentially following the strong. In spite of all such +criticism, the public nominated Grant, Garfield, and Blaine for the +Presidency, and voted for them afterwards, not seeming to care for the +question; until young men were forced to see that either some new +standard must be created, or none could be upheld. The moral law had +expired--like the Constitution. + + Grant's administration outraged every rule of ordinary decency, +but scores of promising men, whom the country could not well spare, +were ruined in saying so. The world cared little for decency. What it +wanted, it did not know; probably a system that would work, and men who +could work it; but it found neither. Adams had tried his own little +hands on it, and had failed. His friends had been driven out of +Washington or had taken to fisticuffs. He himself sat down and stared +helplessly into the future. + + The result was a review of the Session for the July North +American into which he crammed and condensed everything he thought he +had observed and all he had been told. He thought it good history then, +and he thought it better twenty years afterwards; he thought it even +good enough to reprint. As it happened, in the process of his devious +education, this "Session" of 1869-70 proved to be his last study in +current politics, and his last dying testament as a humble member of +the press. As such, he stood by it. He could have said no more, had he +gone on reviewing every session in the rest of the century. The +political dilemma was as clear in 1870 as it was likely to be in 1970. +The system of 1789 had broken down, and with it the eighteenth-century +fabric of a priori, or moral, principles. Politicians had tacitly given +it up. Grant's administration marked the avowal. Nine-tenths of men's +political energies must henceforth be wasted on expedients to piece +out--to patch--or, in vulgar language, to tinker--the political machine +as often as it broke down. Such a system, or want of system, might last +centuries, if tempered by an occasional revolution or civil war; but as +a machine, it was, or soon would be, the poorest in the world--the +clumsiest--the most inefficient. + + Here again was an education, but what it was worth he could not +guess. Indeed, when he raised his eyes to the loftiest and most +triumphant results of politics--to Mr. Boutwell, Mr. Conkling or even +Mr. Sumner--he could not honestly say that such an education, even when +it carried one up to these unattainable heights, was worth anything. +There were men, as yet standing on lower levels--clever and amusing men +like Garfield and Blaine--who took no little pleasure in making fun of +the senatorial demi-gods, and who used language about Grant himself +which the North American Review would not have admitted. One asked +doubtfully what was likely to become of these men in their turn. What +kind of political ambition was to result from this destructive +political education? + + Yet the sum of political life was, or should have been, the +attainment of a working political system. Society needed to reach it. +If moral standards broke down, and machinery stopped working, new +morals and machinery of some sort had to be invented. An eternity of +Grants, or even of Garfields or of Conklings or of Jay Goulds, refused +to be conceived as possible. Practical Americans laughed, and went +their way. Society paid them to be practical. Whenever society cared to +pay Adams, he too would be practical, take his pay, and hold his +tongue; but meanwhile he was driven to associate with Democratic +Congressmen and educate them. He served David Wells as an active +assistant professor of revenue reform, and turned his rooms into a +college. The Administration drove him, and thousands of other young +men, into active enmity, not only to Grant, but to the system or want +of system, which took possession of the President. Every hope or +thought which had brought Adams to Washington proved to be absurd. No +one wanted him; no one wanted any of his friends in reform; the +blackmailer alone was the normal product of politics as of business. + + All this was excessively amusing. Adams never had been so busy, +so interested, so much in the thick of the crowd. He knew Congressmen +by scores and newspaper-men by the dozen. He wrote for his various +organs all sorts of attacks and defences. He enjoyed the life +enormously, and found himself as happy as Sam Ward or Sunset Cox; much +happier than his friends Fish or J. D. Cox, or Chief Justice Chase or +Attorney General Hoar or Charles Sumner. When spring came, he took to +the woods, which were best of all, for after the first of April, what +Maurice de Guerin called "the vast maternity" of nature showed charms +more voluptuous than the vast paternity of the United States Senate. +Senators were less ornamental than the dogwood or even the judas-tree. +They were, as a rule, less good company. Adams astonished himself by +remarking what a purified charm was lent to the Capitol by the greatest +possible distance, as one caught glimpses of the dome over miles of +forest foliage. At such moments he pondered on the distant beauty of +St. Peter's and the steps of Ara Coeli. + + Yet he shortened his spring, for he needed to get back to +London for the season. He had finished his New York "Gold Conspiracy," +which he meant for his friend Henry Reeve and the Edinburgh Review. It +was the best piece of work he had done, but this was not his reason for +publishing it in England. The Erie scandal had provoked a sort of +revolt among respectable New Yorkers, as well as among some who were +not so respectable; and the attack on Erie was beginning to promise +success. London was a sensitive spot for the Erie management, and it +was thought well to strike them there, where they were socially and +financially exposed. The tactics suited him in another way, for any +expression about America in an English review attracted ten times the +attention in America that the same article would attract in the North +American. Habitually the American dailies reprinted such articles in +full. Adams wanted to escape the terrors of copyright, his highest +ambition was to be pirated and advertised free of charge, since in any +case, his pay was nothing. Under the excitement of chase he was +becoming a pirate himself, and liked it. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +CHAOS (1870) + + ONE fine May afternoon in 1870 Adams drove again up St. James's +Street wondering more than ever at the marvels of life. Nine years had +passed since the historic entrance of May, 1861. Outwardly London was +the same. Outwardly Europe showed no great change. Palmerston and +Russell were forgotten; but Disraeli and Gladstone were still much +alive. One's friends were more than ever prominent. John Bright was in +the Cabinet; W. E. Forster was about to enter it; reform ran riot. +Never had the sun of progress shone so fair. Evolution from lower to +higher raged like an epidemic. Darwin was the greatest of prophets in +the most evolutionary of worlds. Gladstone had overthrown the Irish +Church; was overthrowing the Irish landlords; was trying to pass an +Education Act. Improvement, prosperity, power, were leaping and +bounding over every country road. Even America, with her Erie scandals +and Alabama Claims, hardly made a discordant note. + + At the Legation, Motley ruled; the long Adams reign was +forgotten; the rebellion had passed into history. In society no one +cared to recall the years before the Prince of Wales. The smart set had +come to their own. Half the houses that Adams had frequented, from 1861 +to 1865, were closed or closing in 1870. Death had ravaged one's circle +of friends. Mrs. Milnes Gaskell and her sister Miss Charlotte Wynn were +both dead, and Mr. James Milnes Gaskell was no longer in Parliament. +That field of education seemed closed too. + + One found one's self in a singular frame of mind--more +eighteenth-century than ever--almost rococo--and unable to catch +anywhere the cog-wheels of evolution. Experience ceased to educate. +London taught less freely than of old. That one bad style was leading +to another--that the older men were more amusing than the younger--that +Lord Houghton's breakfast-table showed gaps hard to fill--that there +were fewer men one wanted to meet--these, and a hundred more such +remarks, helped little towards a quicker and more intelligent activity. +For English reforms Adams cared nothing. The reforms were themselves +mediaeval. The Education Bill of his friend W. E. Forster seemed to him +a guaranty against all education he had use for. He resented change. He +would have kept the Pope in the Vatican and the Queen at Windsor Castle +as historical monuments. He did not care to Americanize Europe. The +Bastille or the Ghetto was a curiosity worth a great deal of money, if +preserved; and so was a Bishop; so was Napoleon III. The tourist was +the great conservative who hated novelty and adored dirt. Adams came +back to London without a thought of revolution or restlessness or +reform. He wanted amusement, quiet, and gaiety. + + Had he not been born in 1838 under the shadow of Boston State +House, and been brought up in the Early Victorian epoch, he would have +cast off his old skin, and made his court to Marlborough House, in +partnership with the American woman and the Jew banker. Common-sense +dictated it; but Adams and his friends were unfashionable by some law +of Anglo-Saxon custom--some innate atrophy of mind. Figuring himself as +already a man of action, and rather far up towards the front, he had no +idea of making a new effort or catching up with a new world. He saw +nothing ahead of him. The world was never more calm. He wanted to talk +with Ministers about the Alabama Claims, because he looked on the +Claims as his own special creation, discussed between him and his +father long before they had been discussed by Government; he wanted to +make notes for his next year's articles; but he had not a thought that, +within three months, his world was to be upset, and he under it. Frank +Palgrave came one day, more contentious, contemptuous, and paradoxical +than ever, because Napoleon III seemed to be threatening war with +Germany. Palgrave said that "Germany would beat France into scraps" if +there was war. Adams thought not. The chances were always against +catastrophes. No one else expected great changes in Europe. Palgrave +was always extreme; his language was incautious--violent! + + In this year of all years, Adams lost sight of education. +Things began smoothly, and London glowed with the pleasant sense of +familiarity and dinners. He sniffed with voluptuous delight the +coal-smoke of Cheapside and revelled in the architecture of Oxford +Street. May Fair never shone so fair to Arthur Pendennis as it did to +the returned American. The country never smiled its velvet smile of +trained and easy hostess as it did when he was so lucky as to be asked +on a country visit. He loved it all--everything--had always loved it! +He felt almost attached to the Royal Exchange. He thought he owned the +St. James's Club. He patronized the Legation. + + The first shock came lightly, as though Nature were playing +tricks on her spoiled child, though she had thus far not exerted +herself to spoil him. Reeve refused the Gold Conspiracy. Adams had +become used to the idea that he was free of the Quarterlies, and that +his writing would be printed of course; but he was stunned by the +reason of refusal. Reeve said it would bring half-a-dozen libel suits +on him. One knew that the power of Erie was almost as great in England +as in America, but one was hardly prepared to find it controlling the +Quarterlies. The English press professed to be shocked in 1870 by the +Erie scandal, as it had professed in 1860 to be shocked by the scandal +of slavery, but when invited to support those who were trying to abate +these scandals, the English press said it was afraid. To Adams, Reeve's +refusal seemed portentous. He and his brother and the North American +Review were running greater risks every day, and no one thought of +fear. That a notorious story, taken bodily from an official document, +should scare the Edinburgh Review into silence for fear of Jay Gould +and Jim Fisk, passed even Adams's experience of English eccentricity, +though it was large. + + He gladly set down Reeve's refusal of the Gold Conspiracy to +respectability and editorial law, but when he sent the manuscript on to +the Quarterly, the editor of the Quarterly also refused it. The +literary standard of the two Quarterlies was not so high as to suggest +that the article was illiterate beyond the power of an active and +willing editor to redeem it. Adams had no choice but to realize that he +had to deal in 1870 with the same old English character of 1860, and +the same inability in himself to understand it. As usual, when an ally +was needed, the American was driven into the arms of the radicals. +Respectability, everywhere and always, turned its back the moment one +asked to do it a favor. Called suddenly away from England, he +despatched the article, at the last moment, to the Westminster Review +and heard no more about it for nearly six months. + + He had been some weeks in London when he received a telegram +from his brother-in-law at the Bagni di Lucca telling him that his +sister had been thrown from a cab and injured, and that he had better +come on. He started that night, and reached the Bagni di Lucca on the +second day. Tetanus had already set in. + + The last lesson--the sum and term of education--began then. +He had passed through thirty years of rather varied experience without +having once felt the shell of custom broken. He had never seen +Nature--only her surface--the sugar-coating that she shows to youth. +Flung suddenly in his face, with the harsh brutality of chance, the +terror of the blow stayed by him thenceforth for life, until repetition +made it more than the will could struggle with; more than he could call +on himself to bear. He found his sister, a woman of forty, as gay and +brilliant in the terrors of lockjaw as she had been in the careless fun +of 1859, lying in bed in consequence of a miserable cab-accident that +had bruised her foot. Hour by hour the muscles grew rigid, while the +mind remained bright, until after ten days of fiendish torture she died +in convulsion. + + One had heard and read a great deal about death, and even seen +a little of it, and knew by heart the thousand commonplaces of religion +and poetry which seemed to deaden one's senses and veil the horror. +Society being immortal, could put on immortality at will. Adams being +mortal, felt only the mortality. Death took features altogether new to +him, in these rich and sensuous surroundings. Nature enjoyed it, played +with it, the horror added to her charm, she liked the torture, and +smothered her victim with caresses. Never had one seen her so winning. +The hot Italian summer brooded outside, over the market-place and the +picturesque peasants, and, in the singular color of the Tuscan +atmosphere, the hills and vineyards of the Apennines seemed bursting +with mid-summer blood. The sick-room itself glowed with the Italian joy +of life; friends filled it; no harsh northern lights pierced the soft +shadows; even the dying women shared the sense of the Italian summer, +the soft, velvet air, the humor, the courage, the sensual fulness of +Nature and man. She faced death, as women mostly do, bravely and even +gaily, racked slowly to unconsciousness, but yielding only to violence, +as a soldier sabred in battle. For many thousands of years, on these +hills and plains, Nature had gone on sabring men and women with the +same air of sensual pleasure. + + Impressions like these are not reasoned or catalogued in the +mind; they are felt as part of violent emotion; and the mind that feels +them is a different one from that which reasons; it is thought of a +different power and a different person. The first serious consciousness +of Nature's gesture--her attitude towards life--took form then as a +phantasm, a nightmare, an insanity of force. For the first time, the +stage-scenery of the senses collapsed; the human mind felt itself +stripped naked, vibrating in a void of shapeless energies, with +resistless mass, colliding, crushing, wasting, and destroying what +these same energies had created and labored from eternity to perfect. +Society became fantastic, a vision of pantomime with a mechanical +motion; and its so-called thought merged in the mere sense of life, and +pleasure in the sense. The usual anodynes of social medicine became +evident artifice. Stoicism was perhaps the best; religion was the most +human; but the idea that any personal deity could find pleasure or +profit in torturing a poor woman, by accident, with a fiendish cruelty +known to man only in perverted and insane temperaments, could not be +held for a moment. For pure blasphemy, it made pure atheism a comfort. +God might be, as the Church said, a Substance, but He could not be a +Person. + + With nerves strained for the first time beyond their power of +tension, he slowly travelled northwards with his friends, and stopped +for a few days at Ouchy to recover his balance in a new world; for the +fantastic mystery of coincidences had made the world, which he thought +real, mimic and reproduce the distorted nightmare of his personal +horror. He did not yet know it, and he was twenty years in finding it +out; but he had need of all the beauty of the Lake below and of the +Alps above, to restore the finite to its place. For the first time in +his life, Mont Blanc for a moment looked to him what it was--a chaos of +anarchic and purposeless forces--and he needed days of repose to see it +clothe itself again with the illusions of his senses, the white purity +of its snows, the splendor of its light, and the infinity of its +heavenly peace. Nature was kind; Lake Geneva was beautiful beyond +itself, and the Alps put on charms real as terrors; but man became +chaotic, and before the illusions of Nature were wholly restored, the +illusions of Europe suddenly vanished, leaving a new world to learn. + + On July 4, all Europe had been in peace; on July 14, Europe was +in full chaos of war. One felt helpless and ignorant, but one might +have been king or kaiser without feeling stronger to deal with the +chaos. Mr. Gladstone was as much astounded as Adams; the Emperor +Napoleon was nearly as stupefied as either, and Bismarck: himself +hardly knew how he did it. As education, the out-break of the war was +wholly lost on a man dealing with death hand-to-hand, who could not +throw it aside to look at it across the Rhine. Only when he got up to +Paris, he began to feel the approach of catastrophe. Providence set up +no affiches to announce the tragedy. Under one's eyes France cut +herself adrift, and floated off, on an unknown stream, towards a less +known ocean. Standing on the curb of the Boulevard, one could see as +much as though one stood by the side of the Emperor or in command of an +army corps. The effect was lurid. The public seemed to look on the war, +as it had looked on the wars of Louis XIV and Francis I, as a branch of +decorative art. The French, like true artists, always regarded war as +one of the fine arts. Louis XIV practiced it; Napoleon I perfected it; +and Napoleon III had till then pursued it in the same spirit with +singular success. In Paris, in July, 1870, the war was brought out like +an opera of Meyerbeer. One felt one's self a supernumerary hired to +fill the scene. Every evening at the theatre the comedy was interrupted +by order, and one stood up by order, to join in singing the +Marseillaise to order. For nearly twenty years one had been forbidden +to sing the Marseillaise under any circumstances, but at last regiment +after regiment marched through the streets shouting "Marchons!" while +the bystanders cared not enough to join. Patriotism seemed to have been +brought out of the Government stores, and distributed by grammes per +capita. One had seen one's own people dragged unwillingly into a war, +and had watched one's own regiments march to the front without sign of +enthusiasm; on the contrary, most serious, anxious, and conscious of +the whole weight of the crisis; but in Paris every one conspired to +ignore the crisis, which every one felt at hand. Here was education for +the million, but the lesson was intricate. Superficially Napoleon and +his Ministers and marshals were playing a game against Thiers and +Gambetta. A bystander knew almost as little as they did about the +result. How could Adams prophesy that in another year or two, when he +spoke of his Paris and its tastes, people would smile at his dotage? + + As soon as he could, he fled to England and once more took +refuge in the profound peace of Wenlock Abbey. Only the few remaining +monks, undisturbed by the brutalities of Henry VIII--three or four +young Englishmen--survived there, with Milnes Gaskell acting as Prior. +The August sun was warm; the calm of the Abbey was ten times secular; +not a discordant sound--hardly a sound of any sort except the cawing of +the ancient rookery at sunset--broke the stillness; and, after the +excitement of the last month, one felt a palpable haze of peace +brooding over the Edge and the Welsh Marches. Since the reign of +Pteraspis, nothing had greatly changed; nothing except the monks. Lying +on the turf the ground littered with newspapers, the monks studied the +war correspondence. In one respect Adams had succeeded in educating +himself; he had learned to follow a campaign. + + While at Wenlock, he received a letter from President Eliot +inviting him to take an Assistant Professorship of History, to be +created shortly at Harvard College. After waiting ten or a dozen years +for some one to show consciousness of his existence, even a Terebratula +would be pleased and grateful for a compliment which implied that the +new President of Harvard College wanted his help; but Adams knew +nothing about history, and much less about teaching, while he knew more +than enough about Harvard College; and wrote at once to thank President +Eliot, with much regret that the honor should be above his powers. His +mind was full of other matters. The summer, from which he had expected +only amusement and social relations with new people, had ended in the +most intimate personal tragedy, and the most terrific political +convulsion he had ever known or was likely to know. He had failed in +every object of his trip. The Quarterlies had refused his best essay. +He had made no acquaintances and hardly picked up the old ones. He +sailed from Liverpool, on September 1, to begin again where he had +started two years before, but with no longer a hope of attaching +himself to a President or a party or a press. He was a free lance and +no other career stood in sight or mind. To that point education had +brought him. + + Yet he found, on reaching home, that he had not done quite so +badly as he feared. His article on the Session in the July North +American had made a success. Though he could not quite see what +partisan object it served, he heard with flattered astonishment that it +had been reprinted by the Democratic National Committee and circulated +as a campaign document by the hundred thousand copies. He was +henceforth in opposition, do what he might; and a Massachusetts +Democrat, say what he pleased; while his only reward or return for this +partisan service consisted in being formally answered by Senator +Timothy Howe, of Wisconsin, in a Republican campaign document, presumed +to be also freely circulated, in which the Senator, besides refuting +his opinions, did him the honor--most unusual and picturesque in a +Senator's rhetoric--of likening him to a begonia. + + The begonia is, or then was, a plant of such senatorial +qualities as to make the simile, in intention, most flattering. Far +from charming in its refinement, the begonia was remarkable for curious +and showy foliage; it was conspicuous; it seemed to have no useful +purpose; and it insisted on standing always in the most prominent +positions. Adams would have greatly liked to be a begonia in +Washington, for this was rather his ideal of the successful statesman, +and he thought about it still more when the Westminster Review for +October brought him his article on the Gold Conspiracy, which was also +instantly pirated on a great scale. Piratical he was himself henceforth +driven to be, and he asked only to be pirated, for he was sure not to +be paid; but the honors of piracy resemble the colors of the begonia; +they are showy but not useful. Here was a tour de force he had never +dreamed himself equal to performing: two long, dry, quarterly, thirty +or forty page articles, appearing in quick succession, and pirated for +audiences running well into the hundred thousands; and not one person, +man or woman, offering him so much as a congratulation, except to call +him a begonia. + + Had this been all, life might have gone on very happily as +before, but the ways of America to a young person of literary and +political tastes were such as the so-called evolution of civilized man +had not before evolved. No sooner had Adams made at Washington what he +modestly hoped was a sufficient success, than his whole family set on +him to drag him away. For the first time since 1861 his father +interposed; his mother entreated; and his brother Charles argued and +urged that he should come to Harvard College. Charles had views of +further joint operations in a new field. He said that Henry had done at +Washington all he could possibly do; that his position there wanted +solidity; that he was, after all, an adventurer; that a few years in +Cambridge would give him personal weight; that his chief function was +not to be that of teacher, but that of editing the North American +Review which was to be coupled with the professorship, and would lead +to the daily press. In short, that he needed the university more than +the university needed him. + + Henry knew the university well enough to know that the +department of history was controlled by one of the most astute and +ideal administrators in the world--Professor Gurney--and that it was +Gurney who had established the new professorship, and had cast his net +over Adams to carry the double load of mediaeval history and the +Review. He could see no relation whatever between himself and a +professorship. He sought education; he did not sell it. He knew no +history; he knew only a few historians; his ignorance was mischievous +because it was literary, accidental, indifferent. On the other hand he +knew Gurney, and felt much influenced by his advice. One cannot take +one's self quite seriously in such matters; it could not much affect +the sum of solar energies whether one went on dancing with girls in +Washington, or began talking to boys at Cambridge. The good people who +thought it did matter had a sort of right to guide. One could not +reject their advice; still less disregard their wishes. + + The sum of the matter was that Henry went out to Cambridge and +had a few words with President Eliot which seemed to him almost as +American as the talk about diplomacy with his father ten years before. +"But, Mr. President," urged Adams, "I know nothing about Mediaeval +History." With the courteous manner and bland smile so familiar for the +next generation of Americans Mr. Eliot mildly but firmly replied, "If +you will point out to me any one who knows more, Mr. Adams, I will +appoint him." The answer was neither logical nor convincing, but Adams +could not meet it without overstepping his privileges. He could not say +that, under the circumstances, the appointment of any professor at all +seemed to him unnecessary. + + So, at twenty-four hours' notice, he broke his life in halves +again in order to begin a new education, on lines he had not chosen, in +subjects for which he cared less than nothing; in a place he did not +love, and before a future which repelled. Thousands of men have to do +the same thing, but his case was peculiar because he had no need to do +it. He did it because his best and wisest friends urged it, and he +never could make up his mind whether they were right or not. To him +this kind of education was always false. For himself he had no doubts. +He thought it a mistake; but his opinion did not prove that it was one, +since, in all probability, whatever he did would be more or less a +mistake. He had reached cross-roads of education which all led astray. +What he could gain at Harvard College he did not know, but in any case +it was nothing he wanted. What he lost at Washington he could partly +see, but in any case it was not fortune. Grant's administration wrecked +men by thousands, but profited few. Perhaps Mr. Fish was the solitary +exception. One might search the whole list of Congress, Judiciary, and +Executive during the twenty-five years 1870 to 1895, and find little +but damaged reputation. The period was poor in purpose and barren in +results. + + Henry Adams, if not the rose, lived as near it as any +politician, and knew, more or less, all the men in any way prominent at +Washington, or knew all about them. Among them, in his opinion, the +best equipped, the most active-minded, and most industrious was Abram +Hewitt, who sat in Congress for a dozen years, between 1874 and 1886, +sometimes leading the House and always wielding influence second to +none. With nobody did Adams form closer or longer relations than with +Mr. Hewitt, whom he regarded as the most useful public man in +Washington; and he was the more struck by Hewitt's saying, at the end +of his laborious career as legislator, that he left behind him no +permanent result except the Act consolidating the Surveys. Adams knew +no other man who had done so much, unless Mr. Sherman's legislation is +accepted as an instance of success. Hewitt's nearest rival would +probably have been Senator Pendleton who stood father to civil service +reform in 1882, an attempt to correct a vice that should never have +been allowed to be born. These were the men who succeeded. + + The press stood in much the same light. No editor, no political +writer, and no public administrator achieved enough good reputation to +preserve his memory for twenty years. A number of them achieved bad +reputations, or damaged good ones that had been gained in the Civil +War. On the whole, even for Senators, diplomats, and Cabinet officers, +the period was wearisome and stale. + + None of Adams's generation profited by public activity unless +it were William C. Whitney, and even he could not be induced to return +to it. Such ambitions as these were out of one's reach, but supposing +one tried for what was feasible, attached one's self closely to the +Garfields, Arthurs, Frelinghuysens, Blaines, Bayards, or Whitneys, who +happened to hold office; and supposing one asked for the mission to +Belgium or Portugal, and obtained it; supposing one served a term as +Assistant Secretary or Chief of Bureau; or, finally, supposing one had +gone as sub-editor on the New York Tribune or Times--how much more +education would one have gained than by going to Harvard College? These +questions seemed better worth an answer than most of the questions on +examination papers at college or in the civil service; all the more +because one never found an answer to them, then or afterwards, and +because, to his mind, the value of American society altogether was +mixed up with the value of Washington. + + At first, the simple beginner, struggling with principles, +wanted to throw off responsibility on the American people, whose bare and +toiling shoulders had to carry the load of every social or political +stupidity; but the American people had no more to do with it than with +the customs of Peking. American character might perhaps account for it, +but what accounted for American character? All Boston, all New England, +and all respectable New York, including Charles Francis Adams the +father and Charles Francis Adams the son, agreed that Washington was no +place for a respectable young man. All Washington, including +Presidents, Cabinet officers, Judiciary, Senators, Congressmen, and +clerks, expressed the same opinion, and conspired to drive away every +young man who happened to be there or tried to approach. Not one young +man of promise remained in the Government service. All drifted into +opposition. The Government did not want them in Washington. Adams's +case was perhaps the strongest because he thought he had done well. He +was forced to guess it, since he knew no one who would have risked so +extravagant a step as that of encouraging a young man in a literary +career, or even in a political one; society forbade it, as well as +residence in a political capital; but Harvard College must have seen +some hope for him, since it made him professor against his will; even +the publishers and editors of the North American Review must have felt +a certain amount of confidence in him, since they put the Review in his +hands. After all, the Review was the first literary power in America, +even though it paid almost as little in gold as the United States +Treasury. The degree of Harvard College might bear a value as ephemeral +as the commission of a President of the United States; but the +government of the college, measured by money alone, and patronage, was +a matter of more importance than that of some branches of the national +service. In social position, the college was the superior of them all +put together. In knowledge, she could assert no superiority, since the +Government made no claims, and prided itself on ignorance. The service +of Harvard College was distinctly honorable; perhaps the most honorable +in America; and if Harvard College thought Henry Adams worth employing +at four dollars a day, why should Washington decline his services when +he asked nothing? Why should he be dragged from a career he liked in a +place he loved, into a career he detested, in a place and climate he +shunned? Was it enough to satisfy him, that all America should call +Washington barren and dangerous? What made Washington more dangerous +than New York? + + The American character showed singular limitations which +sometimes drove the student of civilized man to despair. Crushed by his +own ignorance--lost in the darkness of his own gropings--the scholar +finds himself jostled of a sudden by a crowd of men who seem to him +ignorant that there is a thing called ignorance; who have forgotten how +to amuse themselves; who cannot even understand that they are bored. +The American thought of himself as a restless, pushing, energetic, +ingenious person, always awake and trying to get ahead of his +neighbors. Perhaps this idea of the national character might be correct +for New York or Chicago; it was not correct for Washington. There the +American showed himself, four times in five, as a quiet, peaceful, shy +figure, rather in the mould of Abraham Lincoln, somewhat sad, sometimes +pathetic, once tragic; or like Grant, inarticulate, uncertain, +distrustful of himself, still more distrustful of others, and awed by +money. That the American, by temperament, worked to excess, was true; +work and whiskey were his stimulants; work was a form of vice; but he +never cared much for money or power after he earned them. The amusement +of the pursuit was all the amusement he got from it; he had no use for +wealth. Jim Fisk alone seemed to know what he wanted; Jay Gould never +did. At Washington one met mostly such true Americans, but if one +wanted to know them better, one went to study them in Europe. Bored, +patient, helpless; pathetically dependent on his wife and daughters; +indulgent to excess; mostly a modest, decent, excellent, valuable +citizen; the American was to be met at every railway station in Europe, +carefully explaining to every listener that the happiest day of his +life would be the day he should land on the pier at New York. He was +ashamed to be amused; his mind no longer answered to the stimulus of +variety; he could not face a new thought. All his immense strength, his +intense nervous energy, his keen analytic perceptions, were oriented in +one direction, and he could not change it. Congress was full of such +men; in the Senate, Sumner was almost the only exception; in the +Executive, Grant and Boutwell were varieties of the type--political +specimens--pathetic in their helplessness to do anything with power +when it came to them. They knew not how to amuse themselves; they could +not conceive how other people were amused. Work, whiskey, and cards +were life. The atmosphere of political Washington was theirs--or was +supposed by the outside world to be in their control--and this was the +reason why the outside world judged that Washington was fatal even for +a young man of thirty-two, who had passed through the whole variety of +temptations, in every capital of Europe, for a dozen years; who never +played cards, and who loathed whiskey. + + + +CHAPTER XX + +FAILURE (1871) + +FAR back in childhood, among its earliest memories, Henry Adams could +recall his first visit to Harvard College. He must have been nine years +old when on one of the singularly gloomy winter afternoons which +beguiled Cambridgeport, his mother drove him out to visit his aunt, +Mrs. Everett. Edward Everett was then President of the college and +lived in the old President's House on Harvard Square. The boy +remembered the drawing-room, on the left of the hall door, in which +Mrs. Everett received them. He remembered a marble greyhound in the +corner. The house had an air of colonial self-respect that impressed +even a nine-year-old child. + + When Adams closed his interview with President Eliot, he asked +the Bursar about his aunt's old drawing-room, for the house had been +turned to base uses. The room and the deserted kitchen adjacent to it +were to let. He took them. Above him, his brother Brooks, then a law +student, had rooms, with a private staircase. Opposite was J. R. +Dennett, a young instructor almost as literary as Adams himself, and +more rebellious to conventions. Inquiry revealed a boarding-table, +somewhere in the neighborhood, also supposed to be superior in its +class. Chauncey Wright, Francis Wharton, Dennett, John Fiske, or their +equivalents in learning and lecture, were seen there, among three or +four law students like Brooks Adams. With these primitive arrangements, +all of them had to be satisfied. The standard was below that of +Washington, but it was, for the moment, the best. + + For the next nine months the Assistant Professor had no time to +waste on comforts or amusements. He exhausted all his strength in +trying to keep one day ahead of his duties. Often the stint ran on, +till night and sleep ran short. He could not stop to think whether he +were doing the work rightly. He could not get it done to please him, +rightly or wrongly, for he never could satisfy himself what to do. + + The fault he had found with Harvard College as an undergraduate +must have been more or less just, for the college was making a great +effort to meet these self-criticisms, and had elected President Eliot +in 1869 to carry out its reforms. Professor Gurney was one of the +leading reformers, and had tried his hand on his own department of +History. The two full Professors of History--Torrey and Gurney, +charming men both--could not cover the ground. Between Gurney's +classical courses and Torrey's modern ones, lay a gap of a thousand +years, which Adams was expected to fill. The students had already +elected courses numbered 1, 2, and 3, without knowing what was to be +taught or who was to teach. If their new professor had asked what idea +was in their minds, they must have replied that nothing at all was in +their minds, since their professor had nothing in his, and down to the +moment he took his chair and looked his scholars in the face, he had +given, as far as he could remember, an hour, more or less, to the +Middle Ages. + + Not that his ignorance troubled him! He knew enough to be +ignorant. His course had led him through oceans of ignorance; he had +tumbled from one ocean into another till he had learned to swim; but +even to him education was a serious thing. A parent gives life, but as +parent, gives no more. A murderer takes life, but his deed stops there. +A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence +stops. A teacher is expected to teach truth, and may perhaps flatter +himself that he does so, if he stops with the alphabet or the +multiplication table, as a mother teaches truth by making her child eat +with a spoon; but morals are quite another truth and philosophy is more +complex still. A teacher must either treat history as a catalogue, a +record, a romance, or as an evolution; and whether he affirms or denies +evolution, he falls into all the burning faggots of the pit. He makes +of his scholars either priests or atheists, plutocrats or socialists, +judges or anarchists, almost in spite of himself. In essence incoherent +and immoral, history had either to be taught as such--or falsified. + + Adams wanted to do neither. He had no theory of evolution to +teach, and could not make the facts fit one. He had no fancy for +telling agreeable tales to amuse sluggish-minded boys, in order to +publish them afterwards as lectures. He could still less compel his +students to learn the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Venerable Bede by +heart. He saw no relation whatever between his students and the Middle +Ages unless it were the Church, and there the ground was particularly +dangerous. He knew better than though he were a professional historian +that the man who should solve the riddle of the Middle Ages and bring +them into the line of evolution from past to present, would be a +greater man than Lamarck or Linnaeus; but history had nowhere broken +down so pitiably, or avowed itself so hopelessly bankrupt, as there. +Since Gibbon, the spectacle was almost a scandal. History had lost even +the sense of shame. It was a hundred years behind the experimental +sciences. For all serious purpose, it was less instructive than Walter +Scott and Alexandre Dumas. + + All this was without offence to Sir Henry Maine, Tyler, +McLennan, Buckle, Auguste Comte, and the various philosophers who, from +time to time, stirred the scandal, and made it more scandalous. No +doubt, a teacher might make some use of these writers or their +theories; but Adams could fit them into no theory of his own. The +college expected him to pass at least half his time teaching the boys a +few elementary dates and relations, that they might not be a disgrace +to the university. This was formal; and he could frankly tell the boys +that, provided they passed their examinations, they might get their +facts where they liked, and use the teacher only for questions. The +only privilege a student had that was worth his claiming, was that of +talking to the professor, and the professor was bound to encourage it. +His only difficulty on that side was to get them to talk at all. He had +to devise schemes to find what they were thinking about, and induce +them to risk criticism from their fellows. Any large body of students +stifles the student. No man can instruct more than half-a-dozen +students at once. The whole problem of education is one of its cost in +money. + + The lecture system to classes of hundreds, which was very much +that of the twelfth century, suited Adams not at all. Barred from +philosophy and bored by facts, he wanted to teach his students +something not wholly useless. The number of students whose minds were +of an order above the average was, in his experience, barely one in +ten; the rest could not be much stimulated by any inducements a teacher +could suggest. All were respectable, and in seven years of contact, +Adams never had cause to complain of one; but nine minds in ten take +polish passively, like a hard surface; only the tenth sensibly reacts. + + Adams thought that, as no one seemed to care what he did, he +would try to cultivate this tenth mind, though necessarily at the +expense of the other nine. He frankly acted on the rule that a teacher, +who knew nothing of his subject, should not pretend to teach his +scholars what he did not know, but should join them in trying to find +the best way of learning it. The rather pretentious name of historical +method was sometimes given to this process of instruction, but the name +smacked of German pedagogy, and a young professor who respected neither +history nor method, and whose sole object of interest was his students' +minds, fell into trouble enough without adding to it a German parentage. + + The task was doomed to failure for a reason which he could not +control. Nothing is easier than to teach historical method, but, when +learned, it has little use. History is a tangled skein that one may +take up at any point, and break when one has unravelled enough; but +complexity precedes evolution. The Pteraspis grins horribly from the +closed entrance. One may not begin at the beginning, and one has but +the loosest relative truths to follow up. Adams found himself obliged +to force his material into some shape to which a method could be +applied. He could think only of law as subject; the Law School as end; +and he took, as victims of his experiment, half-a-dozen highly +intelligent young men who seemed willing to work. The course began with +the beginning, as far as the books showed a beginning in primitive man, +and came down through the Salic Franks to the Norman English. Since no +textbooks existed, the professor refused to profess, knowing no more +than his students, and the students read what they pleased and compared +their results. As pedagogy, nothing could be more triumphant. The boys +worked like rabbits, and dug holes all over the field of archaic +society; no difficulty stopped them; unknown languages yielded before +their attack, and customary law became familiar as the police court; +undoubtedly they learned, after a fashion, to chase an idea, like a +hare, through as dense a thicket of obscure facts as they were likely +to meet at the bar; but their teacher knew from his own experience that +his wonderful method led nowhere, and they would have to exert +themselves to get rid of it in the Law School even more than they +exerted themselves to acquire it in the college. Their science had no +system, and could have none, since its subject was merely antiquarian. +Try as hard as he might, the professor could not make it actual. + + What was the use of training an active mind to waste its +energy? The experiments might in time train Adams as a professor, but +this result was still less to his taste. He wanted to help the boys to +a career, but not one of his many devices to stimulate the intellectual +reaction of the student's mind satisfied either him or the students. +For himself he was clear that the fault lay in the system, which could +lead only to inertia. Such little knowledge of himself as he possessed +warranted him in affirming that his mind required conflict, +competition, contradiction even more than that of the student. He too +wanted a rank-list to set his name upon. His reform of the system would +have begun in the lecture-room at his own desk. He would have seated a +rival assistant professor opposite him, whose business should be +strictly limited to expressing opposite views. Nothing short of this +would ever interest either the professor or the student; but of all +university freaks, no irregularity shocked the intellectual atmosphere +so much as contradiction or competition between teachers. In that +respect the thirteenth-century university system was worth the whole +teaching of the modern school. + + All his pretty efforts to create conflicts of thought among his +students failed for want of system. None met the needs of instruction. +In spite of President Eliot's reforms and his steady, generous, liberal +support, the system remained costly, clumsy and futile. The +university--as far as it was represented by Henry Adams--produced at +great waste of time and money results not worth reaching. + + He made use of his lost two years of German schooling to +inflict their results on his students, and by a happy chance he was in +the full tide of fashion. The Germans were crowning their new emperor +at Versailles, and surrounding his head with a halo of Pepins and +Merwigs, Othos and Barbarossas. James Bryce had even discovered the +Holy Roman Empire. Germany was never so powerful, and the Assistant +Professor of History had nothing else as his stock in trade. He imposed +Germany on his scholars with a heavy hand. He was rejoiced; but he +sometimes doubted whether they should be grateful. On the whole, he was +content neither with what he had taught nor with the way he had taught +it. The seven years he passed in teaching seemed to him lost. + + The uses of adversity are beyond measure strange. As a +professor, he regarded himself as a failure. Without false modesty he +thought he knew what he meant. He had tried a great many experiments, +and wholly succeeded in none. He had succumbed to the weight of the +system. He had accomplished nothing that he tried to do. He regarded +the system as wrong; more mischievous to the teachers than to the +students; fallacious from the beginning to end. He quitted the +university at last, in 1877, with a feeling, that, if it had not been +for the invariable courtesy and kindness shown by every one in it, from +the President to the injured students, he should be sore at his failure. + + These were his own feelings, but they seemed not to be felt in +the college. With the same perplexing impartiality that had so much +disconcerted him in his undergraduate days, the college insisted on +expressing an opposite view. John Fiske went so far in his notice of +the family in "Appleton's Cyclopedia," as to say that Henry had left a +great reputation at Harvard College; which was a proof of John Fiske's +personal regard that Adams heartily returned; and set the kind +expression down to camaraderie. The case was different when President +Eliot himself hinted that Adams's services merited recognition. Adams +could have wept on his shoulder in hysterics, so grateful was he for +the rare good-will that inspired the compliment; but he could not allow +the college to think that he esteemed himself entitled to distinction. +He knew better, and his was among the failures which were respectable +enough to deserve self-respect. Yet nothing in the vanity of life +struck him as more humiliating than that Harvard College, which he had +persistently criticised, abused, abandoned, and neglected, should alone +have offered him a dollar, an office, an encouragement, or a kindness. +Harvard College might have its faults, but at least it redeemed +America, since it was true to its own. + + The only part of education that the professor thought a success +was the students. He found them excellent company. Cast more or less in +the same mould, without violent emotions or sentiment, and, except for +the veneer of American habits, ignorant of all that man had ever +thought or hoped, their minds burst open like flowers at the sunlight +of a suggestion. They were quick to respond; plastic to a mould; and +incapable of fatigue. Their faith in education was so full of pathos +that one dared not ask them what they thought they could do with +education when they got it. Adams did put the question to one of them, +and was surprised at the answer: "The degree of Harvard College is +worth money to me in Chicago." This reply upset his experience; for the +degree of Harvard College had been rather a drawback to a young man in +Boston and Washington. So far as it went, the answer was good, and +settled one's doubts. Adams knew no better, although he had given +twenty years to pursuing the same education, and was no nearer a result +than they. He still had to take for granted many things that they need +not--among the rest, that his teaching did them more good than harm. In +his own opinion the greatest good he could do them was to hold his +tongue. They needed much faith then; they were likely to need more if +they lived long. + + He never knew whether his colleagues shared his doubts about +their own utility. Unlike himself, they knew more or less their +business. He could not tell his scholars that history glowed with +social virtue; the Professor of Chemistry cared not a chemical atom +whether society was virtuous or not. Adams could not pretend that +mediaeval society proved evolution; the Professor of Physics smiled at +evolution. Adams was glad to dwell on the virtues of the Church and the +triumphs of its art: the Professor of Political Economy had to treat +them as waste of force. They knew what they had to teach; he did not. +They might perhaps be frauds without knowing it; but he knew certainly +nothing else of himself. He could teach his students nothing; he was +only educating himself at their cost. + + Education, like politics, is a rough affair, and every +instructor has to shut his eyes and hold his tongue as though he were a +priest. The students alone satisfied. They thought they gained +something. Perhaps they did, for even in America and in the twentieth +century, life could not be wholly industrial. Adams fervently hoped +that they might remain content; but supposing twenty years more to +pass, and they should turn on him as fiercely as he had turned on his +old instructors--what answer could he make? The college had pleaded +guilty, and tried to reform. He had pleaded guilty from the start, and +his reforms had failed before those of the college. + + The lecture-room was futile enough, but the faculty-room was +worse. American society feared total wreck in the maelstrom of +political and corporate administration, but it could not look for help +to college dons. Adams knew, in that capacity, both Congressmen and +professors, and he preferred Congressmen. The same failure marked the +society of a college. Several score of the best-educated, most +agreeable, and personally the most sociable people in America united in +Cambridge to make a social desert that would have starved a polar bear. +The liveliest and most agreeable of men--James Russell Lowell, Francis +J. Child, Louis Agassiz, his son Alexander, Gurney, John Fiske, William +James and a dozen others, who would have made the joy of London or +Paris--tried their best to break out and be like other men in Cambridge +and Boston, but society called them professors, and professors they had +to be. While all these brilliant men were greedy for companionship, all +were famished for want of it. Society was a faculty-meeting without +business. The elements were there; but society cannot be made up of +elements--people who are expected to be silent unless they have +observations to make--and all the elements are bound to remain apart if +required to make observations. + + Thus it turned out that of all his many educations, Adams +thought that of school-teacher the thinnest. Yet he was forced to admit +that the education of an editor, in some ways, was thinner still. The +editor had barely time to edit; he had none to write. If copy fell +short, he was obliged to scribble a book-review on the virtues of the +Anglo-Saxons or the vices of the Popes; for he knew more about Edward +the Confessor or Boniface VIII than he did about President Grant. For +seven years he wrote nothing; the Review lived on his brother Charles's +railway articles. The editor could help others, but could do nothing +for himself. As a writer, he was totally forgotten by the time he had +been an editor for twelve months. As editor he could find no writer to +take his place for politics and affairs of current concern. The Review +became chiefly historical. Russell Lowell and Frank Palgrave helped him +to keep it literary. The editor was a helpless drudge whose successes, +if he made any, belonged to his writers; but whose failures might +easily bankrupt himself. Such a Review may be made a sink of money with +captivating ease. The secrets of success as an editor were easily +learned; the highest was that of getting advertisements. Ten pages of +advertising made an editor a success; five marked him as a failure. The +merits or demerits of his literature had little to do with his results +except when they led to adversity. + + A year or two of education as editor satiated most of his +appetite for that career as a profession. After a very slight +experience, he said no more on the subject. He felt willing to let any +one edit, if he himself might write. Vulgarly speaking, it was a dog's +life when it did not succeed, and little better when it did. A +professor had at least the pleasure of associating with his students; +an editor lived the life of an owl. A professor commonly became a +pedagogue or a pedant; an editor became an authority on advertising. On +the whole, Adams preferred his attic in Washington. He was educated +enough. Ignorance paid better, for at least it earned fifty dollars a +month. + + With this result Henry Adams's education, at his entry into +life, stopped, and his life began. He had to take that life as he best +could, with such accidental education as luck had given him; but he +held that it was wrong, and that, if he were to begin again, he would +do it on a better system. He thought he knew nearly what system to +pursue. At that time Alexander Agassiz had not yet got his head above +water so far as to serve for a model, as he did twenty or thirty years +afterwards; but the editorship of the North American Review had one +solitary merit; it made the editor acquainted at a distance with almost +every one in the country who could write or who could be the cause of +writing. Adams was vastly pleased to be received among these clever +people as one of themselves, and felt always a little surprised at +their treating him as an equal, for they all had education; but among +them, only one stood out in extraordinary prominence as the type and +model of what Adams would have liked to be, and of what the American, +as he conceived, should have been and was not. + + Thanks to the article on Sir Charles Lyell, Adams passed for a +friend of geologists, and the extent of his knowledge mattered much +less to them than the extent of his friendship, for geologists were as +a class not much better off than himself, and friends were sorely few. +One of his friends from earliest childhood, and nearest neighbor in +Quincy, Frank Emmons, had become a geologist and joined the Fortieth +Parallel Survey under Government. At Washington in the winter of +1869-70, Emmons had invited Adams to go out with him on one of the +field-parties in summer. Of course when Adams took the Review he put it +at the service of the Survey, and regretted only that he could not do +more. When the first year of professing and editing was at last over, +and his July North American appeared, he drew a long breath of relief, +and took the next train for the West. Of his year's work he was no +judge. He had become a small spring in a large mechanism, and his work +counted only in the sum; but he had been treated civilly by everybody, +and he felt at home even in Boston. Putting in his pocket the July +number of the North American, with a notice of the Fortieth Parallel +Survey by Professor J. D. Whitney, he started for the plains and the +Rocky Mountains. + + In the year 1871, the West was still fresh, and the Union +Pacific was young. Beyond the Missouri River, one felt the atmosphere +of Indians and buffaloes. One saw the last vestiges of an old +education, worth studying if one would; but it was not that which Adams +sought; rather, he came out to spy upon the land of the future. The +Survey occasionally borrowed troopers from the nearest station in case +of happening on hostile Indians, but otherwise the topographers and +geologists thought more about minerals than about Sioux. They held +under their hammers a thousand miles of mineral country with all its +riddles to solve, and its stores of possible wealth to mark. They felt +the future in their hands. + + Emmons's party was out of reach in the Uintahs, but Arnold +Hague's had come in to Laramie for supplies, and they took charge of +Adams for a time. Their wanderings or adventures matter nothing to the +story of education. They were all hardened mountaineers and surveyors +who took everything for granted, and spared each other the most +wearisome bore of English and Scotch life, the stories of the big game +they killed. A bear was an occasional amusement; a wapiti was a +constant necessity; but the only wild animal dangerous to man was a +rattlesnake or a skunk. One shot for amusement, but one had other +matters to talk about. + + Adams enjoyed killing big game, but loathed the labor of +cutting it up; so that he rarely unslung the little carbine he was in a +manner required to carry. On the other hand, he liked to wander off +alone on his mule, and pass the day fishing a mountain stream or +exploring a valley. One morning when the party was camped high above +Estes Park, on the flank of Long's Peak, he borrowed a rod, and rode +down over a rough trail into Estes Park, for some trout. The day was +fine, and hazy with the smoke of forest fires a thousand miles away; +the park stretched its English beauties off to the base of its +bordering mountains in natural landscape and archaic peace; the stream +was just fishy enough to tempt lingering along its banks. Hour after +hour the sun moved westward and the fish moved eastward, or disappeared +altogether, until at last when the fisherman cinched his mule, sunset +was nearer than he thought. Darkness caught him before he could catch +his trail. Not caring to tumble into some fifty-foot hole, he "allowed" +he was lost, and turned back. In half-an-hour he was out of the hills, +and under the stars of Estes Park, but he saw no prospect of supper or +of bed. + + Estes Park was large enough to serve for a bed on a summer +night for an army of professors, but the supper question offered +difficulties. There was but one cabin in the Park, near its entrance, +and he felt no great confidence in finding it, but he thought his mule +cleverer than himself, and the dim lines of mountain crest against the +stars fenced his range of error. The patient mule plodded on without +other road than the gentle slope of the ground, and some two hours must +have passed before a light showed in the distance. As the mule came up +to the cabin door, two or three men came out to see the stranger. + + One of these men was Clarence King on his way up to the camp. +Adams fell into his arms. As with most friendships, it was never a +matter of growth or doubt. Friends are born in archaic horizons; they +were shaped with the Pteraspis in Siluria; they have nothing to do with +the accident of space. King had come up that day from Greeley in a +light four-wheeled buggy, over a trail hardly fit for a commissariat +mule, as Adams had reason to know since he went back in the buggy. In +the cabin, luxury provided a room and one bed for guests. They shared +the room and the bed, and talked till far towards dawn. + + King had everything to interest and delight Adams. He knew more +than Adams did of art and poetry; he knew America, especially west of +the hundredth meridian, better than any one; he knew the professor by +heart, and he knew the Congressman better than he did the professor. He +knew even women; even the American woman; even the New York woman, +which is saying much. Incidentally he knew more practical geology than +was good for him, and saw ahead at least one generation further than +the text-books. That he saw right was a different matter. Since the +beginning of time no man has lived who is known to have seen right; the +charm of King was that he saw what others did and a great deal more. +His wit and humor; his bubbling energy which swept every one into the +current of his interest; his personal charm of youth and manners; his +faculty of giving and taking, profusely, lavishly, whether in thought +or in money as though he were Nature herself, marked him almost alone +among Americans. He had in him something of the Greek--a touch of +Alcibiades or Alexander. One Clarence King only existed in the world. + + A new friend is always a miracle, but at thirty-three years +old, such a bird of paradise rising in the sage-brush was an avatar. +One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly +possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community +of thought, a rivalry of aim. King, like Adams, and all their +generation, was at that moment passing the critical point of his +career. The one, coming from the west, saturated with the sunshine of +the Sierras, met the other, drifting from the east, drenched in the +fogs of London, and both had the same problems to handle--the same +stock of implements--the same field to work in; above all, the same +obstacles to overcome. + +As a companion, King's charm was great, but this was not the quality +that so much attracted Adams, nor could he affect even distant rivalry +on this ground. Adams could never tell a story, chiefly because he +always forgot it; and he was never guilty of a witticism, unless by +accident. King and the Fortieth Parallel influenced him in a way far +more vital. The lines of their lives converged, but King had moulded +and directed his life logically, scientifically, as Adams thought +American life should be directed. He had given himself education all of +a piece, yet broad. Standing in the middle of his career, where their +paths at last came together, he could look back and look forward on a +straight line, with scientific knowledge for its base. Adams's life, +past or future, was a succession of violent breaks or waves, with no +base at all. King's abnormal energy had already won him great success. +None of his contemporaries had done so much, single-handed, or were +likely to leave so deep a trail. He had managed to induce Congress to +adopt almost its first modern act of legislation. He had organized, as +a civil--not military--measure, a Government Survey. He had paralleled +the Continental Railway in Geology; a feat as yet unequalled by other +governments which had as a rule no continents to survey. He was +creating one of the classic scientific works of the century. The +chances were great that he could, whenever he chose to quit the +Government service, take the pick of the gold and silver, copper or +coal, and build up his fortune as he pleased. Whatever prize he wanted +lay ready for him--scientific social, literary, political--and he knew +how to take them in turn. With ordinary luck he would die at eighty the +richest and most many-sided genius of his day. + + So little egoistic he was that none of his friends felt envy of +his extraordinary superiority, but rather grovelled before it, so that +women were jealous of the power he had over men; but women were many +and Kings were one. The men worshipped not so much their friend, as the +ideal American they all wanted to be. The women were jealous because, +at heart, King had no faith in the American woman; he loved types more +robust. + + The young men of the Fortieth Parallel had Californian +instincts; they were brothers of Bret Harte. They felt no leanings +towards the simple uniformities of Lyell and Darwin; they saw little +proof of slight and imperceptible changes; to them, catastrophe was the +law of change; they cared little for simplicity and much for +complexity; but it was the complexity of Nature, not of New York or +even of the Mississippi Valley. King loved paradox; he started them +like rabbits, and cared for them no longer, when caught or lost; but +they delighted Adams, for they helped, among other things, to persuade +him that history was more amusing than science. The only question left +open to doubt was their relative money value. + + In Emmons's camp, far up in the Uintahs, these talks were +continued till the frosts became sharp in the mountains. History and +science spread out in personal horizons towards goals no longer far +away. No more education was possible for either man. Such as they were, +they had got to stand the chances of the world they lived in; and when +Adams started back to Cambridge, to take up again the humble tasks of +schoolmaster and editor he was harnessed to his cart. Education, +systematic or accidental, had done its worst. Henceforth, he went on, +submissive. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +TWENTY YEARS AFTER (1892) + + ONCE more! this is a story of education, not of adventure! It +is meant to help young men--or such as have intelligence enough to seek +help--but it is not meant to amuse them. What one did--or did not +do--with one's education, after getting it, need trouble the inquirer +in no way; it is a personal matter only which would confuse him. +Perhaps Henry Adams was not worth educating; most keen judges incline +to think that barely one man in a hundred owns a mind capable of +reacting to any purpose on the forces that surround him, and fully half +of these react wrongly. The object of education for that mind should be +the teaching itself how to react with vigor and economy. No doubt the +world at large will always lag so far behind the active mind as to make +a soft cushion of inertia to drop upon, as it did for Henry Adams; but +education should try to lessen the obstacles, diminish the friction, +invigorate the energy, and should train minds to react, not at +haphazard, but by choice, on the lines of force that attract their +world. What one knows is, in youth, of little moment; they know enough +who know how to learn. Throughout human history the waste of mind has +been appalling, and, as this story is meant to show, society has +conspired to promote it. No doubt the teacher is the worst criminal, +but the world stands behind him and drags the student from his course. +The moral is stentorian. Only the most energetic, the most highly +fitted, and the most favored have overcome the friction or the +viscosity of inertia, and these were compelled to waste three-fourths +of their energy in doing it. + + Fit or unfit, Henry Adams stopped his own education in 1871, +and began to apply it for practical uses, like his neighbors. At the +end of twenty years, he found that he had finished, and could sum up +the result. He had no complaint to make against man or woman. They had +all treated him kindly; he had never met with ill-will, ill-temper, or +even ill-manners, or known a quarrel. He had never seen serious +dishonesty or ingratitude. He had found a readiness in the young to +respond to suggestion that seemed to him far beyond all he had reason +to expect. Considering the stock complaints against the world, he could +not understand why he had nothing to complain of. + + During these twenty years he had done as much work, in +quantity, as his neighbors wanted; more than they would ever stop to +look at, and more than his share. Merely in print, he thought +altogether ridiculous the number of volumes he counted on the shelves +of public libraries. He had no notion whether they served a useful +purpose; he had worked in the dark; but so had most of his friends, +even the artists, none of whom held any lofty opinion of their success +in raising the standards of society, or felt profound respect for the +methods or manners of their time, at home or abroad, but all of whom +had tried, in a way, to hold the standard up. The effort had been, for +the older generation, exhausting, as one could see in the Hunts; but +the generation after 1870 made more figure, not in proportion to public +wealth or in the census, but in their own self-assertion. A fair number +of the men who were born in the thirties had won names--Phillips +Brooks; Bret Harte; Henry James; H. H. Richardson; John La Farge; and +the list might be made fairly long if it were worth while; but from +their school had sprung others, like Augustus St. Gaudens, McKim, +Stanford White, and scores born in the forties, who counted as force +even in the mental inertia of sixty or eighty million people. Among all +these Clarence King, John Hay, and Henry Adams had led modest +existences, trying to fill in the social gaps of a class which, as yet, +showed but thin ranks and little cohesion. The combination offered no +very glittering prizes, but they pursued it for twenty years with as +much patience and effort as though it led to fame or power, until, at +last, Henry Adams thought his own duties sufficiently performed and his +account with society settled. He had enjoyed his life amazingly, and +would not have exchanged it for any other that came in his way; he was, +or thought he was, perfectly satisfied with it; but for reasons that +had nothing to do with education, he was tired; his nervous energy ran +low; and, like a horse that wears out, he quitted the race-course, left +the stable, and sought pastures as far as possible from the old. +Education had ended in 1871; life was complete in 1890; the rest +mattered so little! + + As had happened so often, he found himself in London when the +question of return imposed its verdict on him after much fruitless +effort to rest elsewhere. The time was the month of January, 1892; he +was alone, in hospital, in the gloom of midwinter. He was close on his +fifty-fourth birthday, and Pall Mall had forgotten him as completely as +it had forgotten his elders. He had not seen London for a dozen years, +and was rather amused to have only a bed for a world and a familiar +black fog for horizon. The coal-fire smelt homelike; the fog had a +fruity taste of youth; anything was better than being turned out into +the wastes of Wigmore Street. He could always amuse himself by living +over his youth, and driving once more down Oxford Street in 1858, with +life before him to imagine far less amusing than it had turned out to +be. + + The future attracted him less. Lying there for a week he +reflected on what he could do next. He had just come up from the South +Seas with John La Farge, who had reluctantly crawled away towards New +York to resume the grinding routine of studio-work at an age when life +runs low. Adams would rather, as choice, have gone back to the east, if +it were only to sleep forever in the trade-winds under the southern +stars, wandering over the dark purple ocean, with its purple sense of +solitude and void. Not that he liked the sensation, but that it was the +most unearthly he had felt. He had not yet happened on Rudyard +Kipling's "Mandalay," but he knew the poetry before he knew the poem, +like millions of wanderers, who have perhaps alone felt the world +exactly as it is. Nothing attracted him less than the idea of beginning +a new education. The old one had been poor enough; any new one could +only add to its faults. Life had been cut in halves, and the old half +had passed away, education and all, leaving no stock to graft on. + + The new world he faced in Paris and London seemed to him +fantastic. Willing to admit it real in the sense of having some kind of +existence outside his own mind, he could not admit it reasonable. In +Paris, his heart sank to mere pulp before the dismal ballets at the +Grand Opera and the eternal vaudeville at the old Palais Royal; but, +except for them, his own Paris of the Second Empire was as extinct as +that of the first Napoleon. At the galleries and exhibitions, he was +racked by the effort of art to be original, and when one day, after +much reflection, John La Farge asked whether there might not still be +room for something simple in art, Adams shook his head. As he saw the +world, it was no longer simple and could not express itself simply. It +should express what it was; and this was something that neither Adams +nor La Farge understood. + + Under the first blast of this furnace-heat, the lights seemed +fairly to go out. He felt nothing in common with the world as it +promised to be. He was ready to quit it, and the easiest path led back +to the east; but he could not venture alone, and the rarest of animals +is a companion. He must return to America to get one. Perhaps, while +waiting, he might write more history, and on the chance as a last +resource, he gave orders for copying everything he could reach in +archives, but this was mere habit. He went home as a horse goes back to +his stable, because he knew nowhere else to go. + + Home was Washington. As soon as Grant's administration ended, +in 1877, and Evarts became Secretary of State, Adams went back there, +partly to write history, but chiefly because his seven years of +laborious banishment, in Boston, convinced him that, as far as he had a +function in life, it was as stable-companion to statesmen, whether they +liked it or not. At about the same time, old George Bancroft did the +same thing, and presently John Hay came on to be Assistant Secretary of +State for Mr. Evarts, and stayed there to write the "Life" of Lincoln. +In 1884 Adams joined him in employing Richardson to build them +adjoining houses on La Fayette Square. As far as Adams had a home this +was it. To the house on La Fayette Square he must turn, for he had no +other status--no position in the world. + + Never did he make a decision more reluctantly than this of +going back to his manger. His father and mother were dead. All his +family led settled lives of their own. Except for two or three friends +in Washington, who were themselves uncertain of stay, no one cared +whether he came or went, and he cared least. There was nothing to care +about. Every one was busy; nearly every one seemed contented. Since +1871 nothing had ruffled the surface of the American world, and even +the progress of Europe in her side-way track to dis-Europeaning herself +had ceased to be violent. After a dreary January in Paris, at last when +no excuse could be persuaded to offer itself for further delay, he +crossed the channel and passed a week with his old friend, Milnes +Gaskell, at Thornes, in Yorkshire, while the westerly gales raved a +warning against going home. Yorkshire in January is not an island in +the South Seas. It has few points of resemblance to Tahiti; not many to +Fiji or Samoa; but, as so often before, it was a rest between past and +future, and Adams was grateful for it. + + At last, on February 3, he drove, after a fashion, down the +Irish Channel, on board the Teutonic. He had not crossed the Atlantic +for a dozen years, and had never seen an ocean steamer of the new type. +He had seen nothing new of any sort, or much changed in France or +England. The railways made quicker time, but were no more comfortable. +The scale was the same. The Channel service was hardly improved since +1858, or so little as to make no impression. Europe seemed to have been +stationary for twenty years. To a man who had been stationary like +Europe, the Teutonic was a marvel. That he should be able to eat his +dinner through a week of howling winter gales was a miracle. That he +should have a deck stateroom, with fresh air, and read all night, if he +chose, by electric light, was matter for more wonder than life had yet +supplied, in its old forms. Wonder may be double--even treble. Adams's +wonder ran off into figures. As the Niagara was to the Teutonic--as +1860 was to 1890--so the Teutonic and 1890 must be to the next +term--and then? Apparently the question concerned only America. Western +Europe offered no such conundrum. There one might double scale and +speed indefinitely without passing bounds. + + Fate was kind on that voyage. Rudyard Kipling, on his wedding +trip to America, thanks to the mediation of Henry James, dashed over +the passenger his exuberant fountain of gaiety and wit--as though +playing a garden hose on a thirsty and faded begonia. Kipling could +never know what peace of mind he gave, for he could hardly ever need it +himself so much; and yet, in the full delight of his endless fun and +variety, one felt the old conundrum repeat itself. Somehow, somewhere, +Kipling and the American were not one, but two, and could not be glued +together. The American felt that the defect, if defect it were, was in +himself; he had felt it when he was with Swinburne, and, again, with +Robert Louis Stevenson, even under the palms of Vailima; but he did not +carry self-abasement to the point of thinking himself singular. +Whatever the defect might be, it was American; it belonged to the type; +it lived in the blood. Whatever the quality might be that held him +apart, it was English; it lived also in the blood; one felt it little +if at all, with Celts, and one yearned reciprocally among Fiji +cannibals. Clarence King used to say that it was due to discord between +the wave-lengths of the man-atoms; but the theory offered difficulties +in measurement. Perhaps, after all, it was only that genius soars; but +this theory, too, had its dark corners. All through life, one had seen +the American on his literary knees to the European; and all through +many lives back for some two centuries, one had seen the European snub +or patronize the American; not always intentionally, but effectually. +It was in the nature of things. Kipling neither snubbed nor patronized; +he was all gaiety and good-nature; but he would have been first to feel +what one meant. Genius has to pay itself that unwilling self-respect. + + Towards the middle of February, 1892, Adams found himself again +in Washington. In Paris and London he had seen nothing to make a return +to life worth while; in Washington he saw plenty of reasons for staying +dead. Changes had taken place there; improvements had been made; with +time--much time--the city might become habitable according to some +fashionable standard; but all one's friends had died or disappeared +several times over, leaving one almost as strange as in Boston or +London. Slowly, a certain society had built itself up about the +Government; houses had been opened and there was much dining; much +calling; much leaving of cards; but a solitary man counted for less +than in 1868. Society seemed hardly more at home than he. Both +Executive and Congress held it aloof. No one in society seemed to have +the ear of anybody in Government. No one in Government knew any reason +for consulting any one in society. The world had ceased to be wholly +political, but politics had become less social. A survivor of the Civil +War--like George Bancroft, or John Hay--tried to keep footing, but +without brilliant success. They were free to say or do what they liked; +but no one took much notice of anything said or done. + + A presidential election was to take place in November, and no +one showed much interest in the result. The two candidates were +singular persons, of whom it was the common saying that one of them had +no friends; the other, only enemies. Calvin Brice, who was at that time +altogether the wittiest and cleverest member of the Senate, was in the +habit of describing Mr. Cleveland in glowing terms and at great length, +as one of the loftiest natures and noblest characters of ancient or +modern time; "but," he concluded, "in future I prefer to look on at his +proceedings from the safe summit of some neighboring hill." The same +remark applied to Mr. Harrison. In this respect, they were the greatest +of Presidents, for, whatever harm they might do their enemies, was as +nothing when compared to the mortality they inflicted on their friends. +Men fled them as though they had the evil eye. To the American people, +the two candidates and the two parties were so evenly balanced that the +scales showed hardly a perceptible difference. Mr. Harrison was an +excellent President, a man of ability and force; perhaps the best +President the Republican Party had put forward since Lincoln's death; +yet, on the whole, Adams felt a shade of preference for President +Cleveland, not so much personally as because the Democrats represented +to him the last remnants of the eighteenth century; the survivors of +Hosea Biglow's Cornwallis; the sole remaining protestants against a +banker's Olympus which had become, for five-and-twenty years, more and +more despotic over Esop's frog-empire. One might no longer croak except +to vote for King Log, or--failing storks--for Grover Cleveland; and +even then could not be sure where King Banker lurked behind. The costly +education in politics had led to political torpor. Every one did not +share it. Clarence King and John Hay were loyal Republicans who never +for a moment conceived that there could be merit in other ideals. With +King, the feeling was chiefly love of archaic races; sympathy with the +negro and Indian and corresponding dislike of their enemies; but with +Hay, party loyalty became a phase of being, a little like the loyalty +of a highly cultivated churchman to his Church. He saw all the failings +of the party, and still more keenly those of the partisans; but he +could not live outside. To Adams a Western Democrat or a Western +Republican, a city Democrat or a city Republican, a W. C. Whitney or a +J. G. Blaine, were actually the same man, as far as their usefulness to +the objects of King, Hay, or Adams was concerned. They graded +themselves as friends or enemies not as Republicans or Democrats. To +Hay, the difference was that of being respectable or not. + + Since 1879, King, Hay, and Adams had been inseparable. Step by +step, they had gone on in the closest sympathy, rather shunning than +inviting public position, until, in 1892, none of them held any post at +all. With great effort, in Hayes's administration, all King's friends, +including Abram Hewitt and Carl Schurz, had carried the bill for +uniting the Surveys and had placed King at the head of the Bureau; but +King waited only to organize the service, and then resigned, in order +to seek his private fortune in the West. Hay, after serving as +Assistant Secretary of State under Secretary Evarts during a part of +Hayes's administration, then also insisted on going out, in order to +write with Nicolay the "Life" of Lincoln. Adams had held no office, and +when his friends asked the reason, he could not go into long +explanations, but preferred to answer simply that no President had ever +invited him to fill one. The reason was good, and was also conveniently +true, but left open an awkward doubt of his morals or capacity. Why had +no President ever cared to employ him? The question needed a volume of +intricate explanation. There never was a day when he would have refused +to perform any duty that the Government imposed on him, but the +American Government never to his knowledge imposed duties. The point +was never raised with regard to him, or to any one else. The Government +required candidates to offer; the business of the Executive began and +ended with the consent or refusal to confer. The social formula carried +this passive attitude a shade further. Any public man who may for years +have used some other man's house as his own, when promoted to a +position of patronage commonly feels himself obliged to inquire, +directly or indirectly, whether his friend wants anything; which is +equivalent to a civil act of divorce, since he feels awkward in the old +relation. The handsomest formula, in an impartial choice, was the +grandly courteous Southern phrase of Lamar: "Of course Mr. Adams knows +that anything in my power is at his service." A la disposicion de +Usted! The form must have been correct since it released both parties. +He was right; Mr. Adams did know all about it; a bow and a conventional +smile closed the subject forever, and every one felt flattered. + + Such an intimate, promoted to power, was always lost. His +duties and cares absorbed him and affected his balance of mind. Unless +his friend served some political purpose, friendship was an effort. Men +who neither wrote for newspapers nor made campaign speeches, who rarely +subscribed to the campaign fund, and who entered the White House as +seldom as possible, placed themselves outside the sphere of usefulness, +and did so with entirely adequate knowledge of what they were doing. +They never expected the President to ask for their services, and saw no +reason why he should do so. As for Henry Adams, in fifty years that he +knew Washington, no one would have been more surprised than himself had +any President ever asked him to perform so much of a service as to +cross the square. Only Texan Congressmen imagined that the President +needed their services in some remote consulate after worrying him for +months to find one. + + In Washington this law or custom is universally understood, and +no one's character necessarily suffered because he held no office. No +one took office unless he wanted it; and in turn the outsider was never +asked to do work or subscribe money. Adams saw no office that he +wanted, and he gravely thought that, from his point of view, in the +long run, he was likely to be a more useful citizen without office. He +could at least act as audience, and, in those days, a Washington +audience seldom filled even a small theatre. He felt quite well +satisfied to look on, and from time to time he thought he might risk a +criticism of the players; but though he found his own position regular, +he never quite understood that of John Hay. The Republican leaders +treated Hay as one of themselves; they asked his services and took his +money with a freedom that staggered even a hardened observer; but they +never needed him in equivalent office. In Washington Hay was the only +competent man in the party for diplomatic work. He corresponded in his +powers of usefulness exactly with Lord Granville in London, who had +been for forty years the saving grace of every Liberal administration +in turn. Had usefulness to the public service been ever a question, Hay +should have had a first-class mission under Hayes; should have been +placed in the Cabinet by Garfield, and should have been restored to it +by Harrison. These gentlemen were always using him; always invited his +services, and always took his money. + + Adams's opinion of politics and politicians, as he frankly +admitted, lacked enthusiasm, although never, in his severest temper, +did he apply to them the terms they freely applied to each other; and +he explained everything by his old explanation of Grant's character as +more or less a general type; but what roused in his mind more rebellion +was the patience and good-nature with which Hay allowed himself to be +used. The trait was not confined to politics. Hay seemed to like to be +used, and this was one of his many charms; but in politics this sort of +good-nature demands supernatural patience. Whatever astonishing lapses +of social convention the politicians betrayed, Hay laughed equally +heartily, and told the stories with constant amusement, at his own +expense. Like most Americans, he liked to play at making Presidents, +but, unlike most, he laughed not only at the Presidents he helped to +make, but also at himself for laughing. + + One must be rich, and come from Ohio or New York, to gratify an +expensive taste like this. Other men, on both political flanks, did the +same thing, and did it well, less for selfish objects than for the +amusement of the game; but Hay alone lived in Washington and in the +centre of the Ohio influences that ruled the Republican Party during +thirty years. On the whole, these influences were respectable, and +although Adams could not, under any circumstances, have had any value, +even financially, for Ohio politicians, Hay might have much, as he +showed, if they only knew enough to appreciate him. The American +politician was occasionally an amusing object; Hay laughed, and, for +want of other resource, Adams laughed too; but perhaps it was partly +irritation at seeing how President Harrison dealt his cards that made +Adams welcome President Cleveland back to the White House. + + At all events, neither Hay nor King nor Adams had much to gain +by reelecting Mr. Harrison in 1892, or by defeating him, as far as he +was concerned; and as far as concerned Mr. Cleveland, they seemed to +have even less personal concern. The whole country, to outward +appearance, stood in much the same frame of mind. Everywhere was +slack-water. Hay himself was almost as languid and indifferent as +Adams. Neither had occupation. Both had finished their literary work. +The "Life" of Lincoln had been begun, completed, and published hand in +hand with the "History" of Jefferson and Madison, so that between them +they had written nearly all the American history there was to write. +The intermediate period needed intermediate treatment; the gap between +James Madison and Abraham Lincoln could not be judicially filled by +either of them. Both were heartily tired of the subject, and America +seemed as tired as they. What was worse, the redeeming energy of +Americans which had generally served as the resource of minds otherwise +vacant, the creation of new force, the application of expanding power, +showed signs of check. Even the year before, in 1891, far off in the +Pacific, one had met everywhere in the East a sort of stagnation--a +creeping paralysis--complaints of shipping and producers--that spread +throughout the whole southern hemisphere. Questions of exchange and +silver-production loomed large. Credit was shaken, and a change of +party government might shake it even in Washington. The matter did not +concern Adams, who had no credit, and was always richest when the rich +were poor; but it helped to dull the vibration of society. + + However they studied it, the balance of profit and loss, on the +last twenty years, for the three friends, King, Hay, and Adams, was +exceedingly obscure in 1892. They had lost twenty years, but what had +they gained? They often discussed the question. Hay had a singular +faculty for remembering faces, and would break off suddenly the thread +of his talk, as he looked out of the window on La Fayette Square, to +notice an old corps commander or admiral of the Civil War, tottering +along to the club for his cards or his cocktail: "There is old Dash who +broke the rebel lines at Blankburg! Think of his having been a +thunderbolt of war!" Or what drew Adams's closer attention: "There goes +old Boutwell gambolling like the gambolling kid!" There they went! Men +who had swayed the course of empire as well as the course of Hay, King, +and Adams, less valued than the ephemeral Congressman behind them, who +could not have told whether the general was a Boutwell or Boutwell a +general. Theirs was the highest known success, and one asked what it +was worth to them. Apart from personal vanity, what would they sell it +for? Would any one of them, from President downwards, refuse ten +thousand a year in place of all the consideration he received from the +world on account of his success? + + Yet consideration had value, and at that time Adams enjoyed +lecturing Augustus St. Gaudens, in hours of depression, on its +economics: "Honestly you must admit that even if you don't pay your +expenses you get a certain amount of advantage from doing the best +work. Very likely some of the really successful Americans would be +willing you should come to dinner sometimes, if you did not come too +often, while they would think twice about Hay, and would never stand +me." The forgotten statesman had no value at all; the general and +admiral not much; the historian but little; on the whole, the artist +stood best, and of course, wealth rested outside the question, since it +was acting as judge; but, in the last resort, the judge certainly +admitted that consideration had some value as an asset, though hardly +as much as ten--or five--thousand a year. + + Hay and Adams had the advantage of looking out of their windows +on the antiquities of La Fayette Square, with the sense of having all +that any one had; all that the world had to offer; all that they wanted +in life, including their names on scores of title-pages and in one or +two biographical dictionaries; but this had nothing to do with +consideration, and they knew no more than Boutwell or St. Gaudens +whether to call it success. Hay had passed ten years in writing the +"Life" of Lincoln, and perhaps President Lincoln was the better for it, +but what Hay got from it was not so easy to see, except the privilege +of seeing popular book-makers steal from his book and cover the theft +by abusing the author. Adams had given ten or a dozen years to +Jefferson and Madison, with expenses which, in any mercantile business, +could hardly have been reckoned at less than a hundred thousand +dollars, on a salary of five thousand a year; and when he asked what +return he got from this expenditure, rather more extravagant in +proportion to his means than a racing-stable, he could see none +whatever. Such works never return money. Even Frank Parkman never +printed a first edition of his relatively cheap and popular volumes, +numbering more than seven hundred copies, until quite at the end of his +life. A thousand copies of a book that cost twenty dollars or more was +as much as any author could expect; two thousand copies was a visionary +estimate unless it were canvassed for subscription. As far as Adams +knew, he had but three serious readers--Abram Hewitt, Wayne McVeagh, +and Hay himself. He was amply satisfied with their consideration, and +could dispense with that of the other fifty-nine million, nine hundred +and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-seven; but neither he +nor Hay was better off in any other respect, and their chief title to +consideration was their right to look out of their windows on great +men, alive or dead, in La Fayette Square, a privilege which had nothing +to do with their writings. + + The world was always good-natured; civil; glad to be amused; +open-armed to any one who amused it; patient with every one who did not +insist on putting himself in its way, or costing it money; but this was +not consideration, still less power in any of its concrete forms, and +applied as well or better to a comic actor. Certainly a rare soprano or +tenor voice earned infinitely more applause as it gave infinitely more +pleasure, even in America; but one does what one can with one's means, +and casting up one's balance sheet, one expects only a reasonable +return on one's capital. Hay and Adams had risked nothing and never +played for high stakes. King had followed the ambitious course. He had +played for many millions. He had more than once come close to a great +success, but the result was still in doubt, and meanwhile he was +passing the best years of his life underground. For companionship he +was mostly lost. + + Thus, in 1892, neither Hay, King, nor Adams knew whether they +had attained success, or how to estimate it, or what to call it; and +the American people seemed to have no clearer idea than they. Indeed, +the American people had no idea at all; they were wandering in a +wilderness much more sandy than the Hebrews had ever trodden about +Sinai; they had neither serpents nor golden calves to worship. They had +lost the sense of worship; for the idea that they worshipped money +seemed a delusion. Worship of money was an old-world trait; a healthy +appetite akin to worship of the Gods, or to worship of power in any +concrete shape; but the American wasted money more recklessly than any +one ever did before; he spent more to less purpose than any extravagant +court aristocracy; he had no sense of relative values, and knew not +what to do with his money when he got it, except use it to make more, +or throw it away. Probably, since human society began, it had seen no +such curious spectacle as the houses of the San Francisco millionaires +on Nob Hill. Except for the railway system, the enormous wealth taken +out of the ground since 1840, had disappeared. West of the Alleghenies, +the whole country might have been swept clean, and could have been +replaced in better form within one or two years. The American mind had +less respect for money than the European or Asiatic mind, and bore its +loss more easily; but it had been deflected by its pursuit till it +could turn in no other direction. It shunned, distrusted, disliked, the +dangerous attraction of ideals, and stood alone in history for its +ignorance of the past. + + Personal contact brought this American trait close to Adams's +notice. His first step, on returning to Washington, took him out to the +cemetery known as Rock Creek, to see the bronze figure which St. +Gaudens had made for him in his absence. Naturally every detail +interested him; every line; every touch of the artist; every change of +light and shade; every point of relation; every possible doubt of St. +Gaudens's correctness of taste or feeling; so that, as the spring +approached, he was apt to stop there often to see what the figure had +to tell him that was new; but, in all that it had to say, he never once +thought of questioning what it meant. He supposed its meaning to be the +one commonplace about it--the oldest idea known to human thought. He +knew that if he asked an Asiatic its meaning, not a man, woman, or +child from Cairo to Kamtchatka would have needed more than a glance to +reply. From the Egyptian Sphinx to the Kamakura Daibuts; from +Prometheus to Christ; from Michael Angelo to Shelley, art had wrought +on this eternal figure almost as though it had nothing else to say. The +interest of the figure was not in its meaning, but in the response of +the observer. As Adams sat there, numbers of people came, for the +figure seemed to have become a tourist fashion, and all wanted to know +its meaning. Most took it for a portrait-statue, and the remnant were +vacant-minded in the absence of a personal guide. None felt what would +have been a nursery-instinct to a Hindu baby or a Japanese +jinricksha-runner. The only exceptions were the clergy, who taught a +lesson even deeper. One after another brought companions there, and, +apparently fascinated by their own reflection, broke out passionately +against the expression they felt in the figure of despair, of atheism, +of denial. Like the others, the priest saw only what he brought. Like +all great artists, St. Gaudens held up the mirror and no more. The +American layman had lost sight of ideals; the American priest had lost +sight of faith. Both were more American than the old, half-witted +soldiers who denounced the wasting, on a mere grave, of money which +should have been given for drink. + + Landed, lost, and forgotten, in the centre of this vast plain +of self-content, Adams could see but one active interest, to which all +others were subservient, and which absorbed the energies of some sixty +million people to the exclusion of every other force, real or +imaginary. The power of the railway system had enormously increased +since 1870. Already the coal output of 160,000,000 tons closely +approached the 180,000,000 of the British Empire, and one held one's +breath at the nearness of what one had never expected to see, the +crossing of courses, and the lead of American energies. The moment was +deeply exciting to a historian, but the railway system itself +interested one less than in 1868, since it offered less chance for +future profit. Adams had been born with the railway system; had grown +up with it; had been over pretty nearly every mile of it with curious +eyes, and knew as much about it as his neighbors; but not there could +he look for a new education. Incomplete though it was, the system +seemed on the whole to satisfy the wants of society better than any +other part of the social machine, and society was content with its +creation, for the time, and with itself for creating it. Nothing new +was to be done or learned there, and the world hurried on to its +telephones, bicycles, and electric trams. At past fifty, Adams solemnly +and painfully learned to ride the bicycle. + + Nothing else occurred to him as a means of new life. Nothing +else offered itself, however carefully he sought. He looked for no +change. He lingered in Washington till near July without noticing a new +idea. Then he went back to England to pass his summer on the Deeside. +In October he returned to Washington and there awaited the reelection +of Mr. Cleveland, which led to no deeper thought than that of taking up +some small notes that happened to be outstanding. He had seen enough of +the world to be a coward, and above all he had an uneasy distrust of +bankers. Even dead men allow themselves a few narrow prejudices. + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +CHICAGO (1893) + + DRIFTING in the dead-water of the fin-de-siecle--and during +this last decade every one talked, and seemed to feel +fin-de-siecle--where not a breath stirred the idle air of education or +fretted the mental torpor of self-content, one lived alone. Adams had +long ceased going into society. For years he had not dined out of his +own house, and in public his face was as unknown as that of an extinct +statesman. He had often noticed that six months' oblivion amounts to +newspaper-death, and that resurrection is rare. Nothing is easier, if a +man wants it, than rest, profound as the grave. + + His friends sometimes took pity on him, and came to share a +meal or pass a night on their passage south or northwards, but +existence was, on the whole, exceedingly solitary, or seemed so to him. +Of the society favorites who made the life of every dinner-table and of +the halls of Congress--Tom Reed, Bourke Cockran, Edward Wolcott--he +knew not one. Although Calvin Brice was his next neighbor for six +years, entertaining lavishly as no one had ever entertained before in +Washington, Adams never entered his house. W. C. Whitney rivalled +Senator Brice in hospitality, and was besides an old acquaintance of +the reforming era, but Adams saw him as little as he saw his chief, +President Cleveland, or President Harrison or Secretary Bayard or +Blaine or Olney. One has no choice but to go everywhere or nowhere. No +one may pick and choose between houses, or accept hospitality without +returning it. He loved solitude as little as others did; but he was +unfit for social work, and he sank under the surface. + + Luckily for such helpless animals as solitary men, the world is +not only good-natured but even friendly and generous; it loves to +pardon if pardon is not demanded as a right. Adams's social offences +were many, and no one was more sensitive to it than himself; but a few +houses always remained which he could enter without being asked, and +quit without being noticed. One was John Hay's; another was Cabot +Lodge's; a third led to an intimacy which had the singular effect of +educating him in knowledge of the very class of American politician who +had done most to block his intended path in life. Senator Cameron of +Pennsylvania had married in 1880 a young niece of Senator John Sherman +of Ohio, thus making an alliance of dynastic importance in politics, +and in society a reign of sixteen years, during which Mrs. Cameron and +Mrs. Lodge led a career, without precedent and without succession, as +the dispensers of sunshine over Washington. Both of them had been kind +to Adams, and a dozen years of this intimacy had made him one of their +habitual household, as he was of Hay's. In a small society, such ties +between houses become political and social force. Without intention or +consciousness, they fix one's status in the world. Whatever one's +preferences in politics might be, one's house was bound to the +Republican interest when sandwiched between Senator Cameron, John Hay, +and Cabot Lodge, with Theodore Roosevelt equally at home in them all, +and Cecil Spring-Rice to unite them by impartial variety. The relation +was daily, and the alliance undisturbed by power or patronage, since +Mr. Harrison, in those respects, showed little more taste than Mr. +Cleveland for the society and interests of this particular band of +followers, whose relations with the White House were sometimes comic, +but never intimate. + + In February, 1893, Senator Cameron took his family to South +Carolina, where he had bought an old plantation at Coffin's Point on +St. Helena Island, and Adams, as one of the family, was taken, with the +rest, to open the new experience. From there he went on to Havana, and +came back to Coffin's Point to linger till near April. In May the +Senator took his family to Chicago to see the Exposition, and Adams +went with them. Early in June, all sailed for England together, and at +last, in the middle of July, all found themselves in Switzerland, at +Prangins, Chamounix, and Zermatt. On July 22 they drove across the +Furka Pass and went down by rail to Lucerne. + + Months of close contact teach character, if character has +interest; and to Adams the Cameron type had keen interest, ever since +it had shipwrecked his career in the person of President Grant. Perhaps +it owed life to Scotch blood; perhaps to the blood of Adam and Eve, the +primitive strain of man; perhaps only to the blood of the cottager +working against the blood of the townsman; but whatever it was, one +liked it for its simplicity. The Pennsylvania mind, as minds go, was +not complex; it reasoned little and never talked; but in practical +matters it was the steadiest of all American types; perhaps the most +efficient; certainly the safest. + + Adams had printed as much as this in his books, but had never +been able to find a type to describe, the two great historical +Pennsylvanians having been, as every one had so often heard, Benjamin +Franklin of Boston and Albert Gallatin of Geneva. Of Albert Gallatin, +indeed, he had made a voluminous study and an elaborate picture, only +to show that he was, if American at all, a New Yorker, with a +Calvinistic strain--rather Connecticut than Pennsylvanian. The true +Pennsylvanian was a narrower type; as narrow as the kirk; as shy of +other people's narrowness as a Yankee; as self-limited as a Puritan +farmer. To him, none but Pennsylvanians were white. Chinaman, negro, +Dago, Italian, Englishman, Yankee--all was one in the depths of +Pennsylvanian consciousness. The mental machine could run only on what +it took for American lines. This was familiar, ever since one's study +of President Grant in 1869; but in 1893, as then, the type was +admirably strong and useful if one wanted only to run on the same +lines. Practically the Pennsylvanian forgot his prejudices when he +allied his interests. He then became supple in action and large in +motive, whatever he thought of his colleagues. When he happened to be +right--which was, of course, whenever one agreed with him--he was the +strongest American in America. As an ally he was worth all the rest, +because he understood his own class, who were always a majority; and +knew how to deal with them as no New Englander could. If one wanted +work done in Congress, one did wisely to avoid asking a New Englander +to do it. A Pennsylvanian not only could do it, but did it willingly, +practically, and intelligently. + + Never in the range of human possibilities had a Cameron +believed in an Adams--or an Adams in a Cameron--but they had curiously +enough, almost always worked together. The Camerons had what the +Adamses thought the political vice of reaching their objects without +much regard to their methods. The loftiest virtue of the Pennsylvania +machine had never been its scrupulous purity or sparkling professions. +The machine worked by coarse means on coarse interests, but its +practical success had been the most curious subject of study in +American history. When one summed up the results of Pennsylvanian +influence, one inclined to think that Pennsylvania set up the +Government in 1789; saved it in 1861; created the American system; +developed its iron and coal power; and invented its great railways. +Following up the same line, in his studies of American character, Adams +reached the result--to him altogether paradoxical--that Cameron's +qualities and defects united in equal share to make him the most useful +member of the Senate. + + In the interest of studying, at last, a perfect and favorable +specimen of this American type which had so persistently suppressed his +own, Adams was slow to notice that Cameron strongly influenced him, but +he could not see a trace of any influence which he exercised on +Cameron. Not an opinion or a view of his on any subject was ever +reflected back on him from Cameron's mind; not even an expression or a +fact. Yet the difference in age was trifling, and in education slight. +On the other hand, Cameron made deep impression on Adams, and in +nothing so much as on the great subject of discussion that year--the +question of silver. + + Adams had taken no interest in the matter, and knew nothing +about it, except as a very tedious hobby of his friend Dana Horton; but +inevitably, from the moment he was forced to choose sides, he was sure +to choose silver. Every political idea and personal prejudice he ever +dallied with held him to the silver standard, and made a barrier +between him and gold. He knew well enough all that was to be said for +the gold standard as economy, but he had never in his life taken +politics for a pursuit of economy. One might have a political or an +economical policy; one could not have both at the same time. This was +heresy in the English school, but it had always been law in the +American. Equally he knew all that was to be said on the moral side of +the question, and he admitted that his interests were, as Boston +maintained, wholly on the side of gold; but, had they been ten times as +great as they were, he could not have helped his bankers or croupiers +to load the dice and pack the cards to make sure his winning the +stakes. At least he was bound to profess disapproval--or thought he +was. From early childhood his moral principles had struggled blindly +with his interests, but he was certain of one law that ruled all +others--masses of men invariably follow interests in deciding morals. +Morality is a private and costly luxury. The morality of the silver or +gold standards was to be decided by popular vote, and the popular vote +would be decided by interests; but on which side lay the larger +interest? To him the interest was political; he thought it probably his +last chance of standing up for his eighteenth-century principles, +strict construction, limited powers, George Washington, John Adams, and +the rest. He had, in a half-hearted way, struggled all his life against +State Street, banks, capitalism altogether, as he knew it in old +England or new England, and he was fated to make his last resistance +behind the silver standard. + + For him this result was clear, and if he erred, he erred in +company with nine men out of ten in Washington, for there was little +difference on the merits. Adams was sure to learn backwards, but the +case seemed entirely different with Cameron, a typical Pennsylvanian, a +practical politician, whom all the reformers, including all the +Adamses, had abused for a lifetime for subservience to moneyed +interests and political jobbery. He was sure to go with the banks and +corporations which had made and sustained him. On the contrary, he +stood out obstinately as the leading champion of silver in the East. +The reformers, represented by the Evening Post and Godkin, whose +personal interests lay with the gold standard, at once assumed that +Senator Cameron had a personal interest in silver, and denounced his +corruption as hotly as though he had been convicted of taking a bribe. + + More than silver and gold, the moral standard interested Adams. +His own interests were with gold, but he supported silver; the Evening +Post's and Godkin's interests were with gold, and they frankly said so, +yet they avowedly pursued their interests even into politics; Cameron's +interests had always been with the corporations, yet he supported +silver. Thus morality required that Adams should be condemned for going +against his interests; that Godkin was virtuous in following his +interests; and that Cameron was a scoundrel whatever he did. + +Granting that one of the three was a moral idiot, which was it:--Adams +or Godkin or Cameron? Until a Council or a Pope or a Congress or the +newspapers or a popular election has decided a question of doubtful +morality, individuals are apt to err, especially when putting money +into their own pockets; but in democracies, the majority alone gives +law. To any one who knew the relative popularity of Cameron and Godkin, +the idea of a popular vote between them seemed excessively humorous; +yet the popular vote in the end did decide against Cameron, for Godkin. + + The Boston moralist and reformer went on, as always, like Dr. +Johnson, impatiently stamping his foot and following his interests, or +his antipathies; but the true American, slow to grasp new and +complicated ideas, groped in the dark to discover where his greater +interest lay. As usual, the banks taught him. In the course of fifty +years the banks taught one many wise lessons for which an insect had to +be grateful whether it liked them or not; but of all the lessons Adams +learned from them, none compared in dramatic effect with that of July +22, 1893, when, after talking silver all the morning with Senator +Cameron on the top of their travelling-carriage crossing the Furka +Pass, they reached Lucerne in the afternoon, where Adams found letters +from his brothers requesting his immediate return to Boston because the +community was bankrupt and he was probably a beggar. + + If he wanted education, he knew no quicker mode of learning a +lesson than that of being struck on the head by it; and yet he was +himself surprised at his own slowness to understand what had struck +him. For several years a sufferer from insomnia, his first thought was +of beggary of nerves, and he made ready to face a sleepless night, but +although his mind tried to wrestle with the problem how any man could +be ruined who had, months before, paid off every dollar of debt he knew +himself to owe, he gave up that insoluble riddle in order to fall back +on the larger principle that beggary could be no more for him than it +was for others who were more valuable members of society, and, with +that, he went to sleep like a good citizen, and the next day started +for Quincy where he arrived August 7. + + As a starting-point for a new education at fifty-five years +old, the shock of finding one's self suspended, for several months, +over the edge of bankruptcy, without knowing how one got there, or how +to get away, is to be strongly recommended. By slow degrees the +situation dawned on him that the banks had lent him, among others, some +money--thousands of millions were--as bankruptcy--the same--for which +he, among others, was responsible and of which he knew no more than +they. The humor of this situation seemed to him so much more pointed +than the terror, as to make him laugh at himself with a sincerity he +had been long strange to. As far as he could comprehend, he had nothing +to lose that he cared about, but the banks stood to lose their +existence. Money mattered as little to him as to anybody, but money was +their life. For the first time he had the banks in his power; he could +afford to laugh; and the whole community was in the same position, +though few laughed. All sat down on the banks and asked what the banks +were going to do about it. To Adams the situation seemed farcical, but +the more he saw of it, the less he understood it. He was quite sure +that nobody understood it much better. Blindly some very powerful +energy was at work, doing something that nobody wanted done. When Adams +went to his bank to draw a hundred dollars of his own money on deposit, +the cashier refused to let him have more than fifty, and Adams accepted +the fifty without complaint because he was himself refusing to let the +banks have some hundreds or thousands that belonged to them. Each +wanted to help the other, yet both refused to pay their debts, and he +could find no answer to the question which was responsible for getting +the other into the situation, since lenders and borrowers were the same +interest and socially the same person. Evidently the force was one; its +operation was mechanical; its effect must be proportional to its power; +but no one knew what it meant, and most people dismissed it as an +emotion--a panic--that meant nothing. + + Men died like flies under the strain, and Boston grew suddenly +old, haggard, and thin. Adams alone waxed fat and was happy, for at +last he had got hold of his world and could finish his education, +interrupted for twenty years. He cared not whether it were worth +finishing, if only it amused; but he seemed, for the first time since +1870, to feel that something new and curious was about to happen to the +world. Great changes had taken place since 1870 in the forces at work; +the old machine ran far behind its duty; somewhere--somehow--it was +bound to break down, and if it happened to break precisely over one's +head, it gave the better chance for study. + + For the first time in several years he saw much of his brother +Brooks in Quincy, and was surprised to find him absorbed in the same +perplexities. Brooks was then a man of forty-five years old; a strong +writer and a vigorous thinker who irritated too many Boston conventions +ever to suit the atmosphere; but the two brothers could talk to each +other without atmosphere and were used to audiences of one. Brooks had +discovered or developed a law of history that civilization followed the +exchanges, and having worked it out for the Mediterranean was working +it out for the Atlantic. Everything American, as well as most things +European and Asiatic, became unstable by this law, seeking new +equilibrium and compelled to find it. Loving paradox, Brooks, with the +advantages of ten years' study, had swept away much rubbish in the +effort to build up a new line of thought for himself, but he found that +no paradox compared with that of daily events. The facts were +constantly outrunning his thoughts. The instability was greater than he +calculated; the speed of acceleration passed bounds. Among other +general rules he laid down the paradox that, in the social +disequilibrium between capital and labor, the logical outcome was not +collectivism, but anarchism; and Henry made note of it for study. + + By the time he got back to Washington on September 19, the +storm having partly blown over, life had taken on a new face, and one +so interesting that he set off to Chicago to study the Exposition +again, and stayed there a fortnight absorbed in it. He found matter of +study to fill a hundred years, and his education spread over chaos. +Indeed, it seemed to him as though, this year, education went mad. The +silver question, thorny as it was, fell into relations as simple as +words of one syllable, compared with the problems of credit and +exchange that came to complicate it; and when one sought rest at +Chicago, educational game started like rabbits from every building, and +ran out of sight among thousands of its kind before one could mark its +burrow. The Exposition itself defied philosophy. One might find fault +till the last gate closed, one could still explain nothing that needed +explanation. As a scenic display, Paris had never approached it, but +the inconceivable scenic display consisted in its being there at +all--more surprising, as it was, than anything else on the continent, +Niagara Falls, the Yellowstone Geysers, and the whole railway system +thrown in, since these were all natural products in their place; while, +since Noah's Ark, no such Babel of loose and ill joined, such vague and +ill-defined and unrelated thoughts and half-thoughts and experimental +outcries as the Exposition, had ever ruffled the surface of the Lakes. + + The first astonishment became greater every day. That the +Exposition should be a natural growth and product of the Northwest +offered a step in evolution to startle Darwin; but that it should be +anything else seemed an idea more startling still; and even granting it +were not--admitting it to be a sort of industrial, speculative growth +and product of the Beaux Arts artistically induced to pass the summer +on the shore of Lake Michigan--could it be made to seem at home there? +Was the American made to seem at home in it? Honestly, he had the air +of enjoying it as though it were all his own; he felt it was good; he +was proud of it; for the most part, he acted as though he had passed +his life in landscape gardening and architectural decoration. If he had +not done it himself, he had known how to get it done to suit him, as he +knew how to get his wives and daughters dressed at Worth's or Paquin's. +Perhaps he could not do it again; the next time he would want to do it +himself and would show his own faults; but for the moment he seemed to +have leaped directly from Corinth and Syracuse and Venice, over the +heads of London and New York, to impose classical standards on plastic +Chicago. Critics had no trouble in criticising the classicism, but all +trading cities had always shown traders' taste, and, to the stern +purist of religious faith, no art was thinner than Venetian Gothic. All +trader's taste smelt of bric-a-brac; Chicago tried at least to give her +taste a look of unity. + + One sat down to ponder on the steps beneath Richard Hunt's dome +almost as deeply as on the steps of Ara Coeli, and much to the same +purpose. Here was a breach of continuity--a rupture in historical +sequence! Was it real, or only apparent? One's personal universe hung +on the answer, for, if the rupture was real and the new American world +could take this sharp and conscious twist towards ideals, one's +personal friends would come in, at last, as winners in the great +American chariot-race for fame. If the people of the Northwest actually +knew what was good when they saw it, they would some day talk about +Hunt and Richardson, La Farge and St. Gaudens, Burnham and McKim, and +Stanford White when their politicians and millionaires were otherwise +forgotten. The artists and architects who had done the work offered +little encouragement to hope it; they talked freely enough, but not in +terms that one cared to quote; and to them the Northwest refused to +look artistic. They talked as though they worked only for themselves; +as though art, to the Western people, was a stage decoration; a diamond +shirt-stud; a paper collar; but possibly the architects of Paestum and +Girgenti had talked in the same way, and the Greek had said the same +thing of Semitic Carthage two thousand years ago. + + Jostled by these hopes and doubts, one turned to the exhibits +for help, and found it. The industrial schools tried to teach so much +and so quickly that the instruction ran to waste. Some millions of +other people felt the same helplessness, but few of them were seeking +education, and to them helplessness seemed natural and normal, for they +had grown up in the habit of thinking a steam-engine or a dynamo as +natural as the sun, and expected to understand one as little as the +other. For the historian alone the Exposition made a serious effort. +Historical exhibits were common, but they never went far enough; none +were thoroughly worked out. One of the best was that of the Cunard +steamers, but still a student hungry for results found himself obliged +to waste a pencil and several sheets of paper trying to calculate +exactly when, according to the given increase of power, tonnage, and +speed, the growth of the ocean steamer would reach its limits. His +figures brought him, he thought, to the year 1927; another generation +to spare before force, space, and time should meet. The ocean steamer +ran the surest line of triangulation into the future, because it was +the nearest of man's products to a unity; railroads taught less because +they seemed already finished except for mere increase in number; +explosives taught most, but needed a tribe of chemists, physicists, and +mathematicians to explain; the dynamo taught least because it had +barely reached infancy, and, if its progress was to be constant at the +rate of the last ten years, it would result in infinite costless energy +within a generation. One lingered long among the dynamos, for they were +new, and they gave to history a new phase. Men of science could never +understand the ignorance and naivete; of the historian, who, when he +came suddenly on a new power, asked naturally what it was; did it pull +or did it push? Was it a screw or thrust? Did it flow or vibrate? Was +it a wire or a mathematical line? And a score of such questions to +which he expected answers and was astonished to get none. + + Education ran riot at Chicago, at least for retarded minds +which had never faced in concrete form so many matters of which they +were ignorant. Men who knew nothing whatever--who had never run a +steam-engine, the simplest of forces--who had never put their hands on +a lever--had never touched an electric battery--never talked through a +telephone, and had not the shadow of a notion what amount of force was +meant by a watt or an ampere or an erg, or any other term of +measurement introduced within a hundred years--had no choice but to sit +down on the steps and brood as they had never brooded on the benches of +Harvard College, either as student or professor, aghast at what they +had said and done in all these years, and still more ashamed of the +childlike ignorance and babbling futility of the society that let them +say and do it. The historical mind can think only in historical +processes, and probably this was the first time since historians +existed, that any of them had sat down helpless before a mechanical +sequence. Before a metaphysical or a theological or a political +sequence, most historians had felt helpless, but the single clue to +which they had hitherto trusted was the unity of natural force. + + Did he himself quite know what he meant? Certainly not! If he +had known enough to state his problem, his education would have been +complete at once. Chicago asked in 1893 for the first time the question +whether the American people knew where they were driving. Adams +answered, for one, that he did not know, but would try to find out. On +reflecting sufficiently deeply, under the shadow of Richard Hunt's +architecture, he decided that the American people probably knew no more +than he did; but that they might still be driving or drifting +unconsciously to some point in thought, as their solar system was said +to be drifting towards some point in space; and that, possibly, if +relations enough could be observed, this point might be fixed. Chicago +was the first expression of American thought as a unity; one must start +there. + + Washington was the second. When he got back there, he fell +headlong into the extra session of Congress called to repeal the Silver +Act. The silver minority made an obstinate attempt to prevent it, and +most of the majority had little heart in the creation of a single gold +standard. The banks alone, and the dealers in exchange, insisted upon +it; the political parties divided according to capitalistic +geographical lines, Senator Cameron offering almost the only exception; +but they mixed with unusual good-temper, and made liberal allowance for +each others' actions and motives. The struggle was rather less +irritable than such struggles generally were, and it ended like a +comedy. On the evening of the final vote, Senator Cameron came back +from the Capitol with Senator Brice, Senator Jones, Senator Lodge, and +Moreton Frewen, all in the gayest of humors as though they were rid of +a heavy responsibility. Adams, too, in a bystander's spirit, felt light +in mind. He had stood up for his eighteenth century, his Constitution +of 1789, his George Washington, his Harvard College, his Quincy, and +his Plymouth Pilgrims, as long as any one would stand up with him. He +had said it was hopeless twenty years before, but he had kept on, in +the same old attitude, by habit and taste, until he found himself +altogether alone. He had hugged his antiquated dislike of bankers and +capitalistic society until he had become little better than a crank. He +had known for years that he must accept the regime, but he had known a +great many other disagreeable certainties--like age, senility, and +death--against which one made what little resistance one could. The +matter was settled at last by the people. For a hundred years, between +1793 and 1893, the American people had hesitated, vacillated, swayed +forward and back, between two forces, one simply industrial, the other +capitalistic, centralizing, and mechanical. In 1893, the issue came on +the single gold standard, and the majority at last declared itself, +once for all, in favor of the capitalistic system with all its +necessary machinery. All one's friends, all one's best citizens, +reformers, churches, colleges, educated classes, had joined the banks +to force submission to capitalism; a submission long foreseen by the +mere law of mass. Of all forms of society or government, this was the +one he liked least, but his likes or dislikes were as antiquated as the +rebel doctrine of State rights. A capitalistic system had been adopted, +and if it were to be run at all, it must be run by capital and by +capitalistic methods; for nothing could surpass the nonsensity of +trying to run so complex and so concentrated a machine by Southern and +Western farmers in grotesque alliance with city day-laborers, as had +been tried in 1800 and 1828, and had failed even under simple +conditions. + + There, education in domestic politics stopped. The rest was +question of gear; of running machinery; of economy; and involved no +disputed principle. Once admitted that the machine must be efficient, +society might dispute in what social interest it should be run, but in +any case it must work concentration. Such great revolutions commonly +leave some bitterness behind, but nothing in politics ever surprised +Henry Adams more than the ease with which he and his silver friends +slipped across the chasm, and alighted on the single gold standard and +the capitalistic system with its methods; the protective tariff; the +corporations and trusts; the trades-unions and socialistic paternalism +which necessarily made their complement; the whole mechanical +consolidation of force, which ruthlessly stamped out the life of the +class into which Adams was born, but created monopolies capable of +controlling the new energies that America adored. + + Society rested, after sweeping into the ash-heap these cinders +of a misdirected education. After this vigorous impulse, nothing +remained for a historian but to ask--how long and how far! + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +SILENCE (1894-1898) + +The convulsion of 1893 left its victims in dead-water, and closed much +education. While the country braced itself up to an effort such as no +one had thought within its powers, the individual crawled as he best +could, through the wreck, and found many values of life upset. But for +connecting the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the four years, 1893 +to 1897, had no value in the drama of education, and might be left out. +Much that had made life pleasant between 1870 and 1890 perished in the +ruin, and among the earliest wreckage had been the fortunes of Clarence +King. The lesson taught whatever the bystander chose to read in it; but +to Adams it seemed singularly full of moral, if he could but understand +it. In 1871 he had thought King's education ideal, and his personal +fitness unrivalled. No other young American approached him for the +combination of chances--physical energy, social standing, mental scope +and training, wit, geniality, and science, that seemed superlatively +American and irresistibly strong. His nearest rival was Alexander +Agassiz, and, as far as their friends knew, no one else could be +classed with them in the running. The result of twenty years' effort +proved that the theory of scientific education failed where most theory +fails--for want of money. Even Henry Adams, who kept himself, as he +thought, quite outside of every possible financial risk, had been +caught in the cogs, and held for months over the gulf of bankruptcy, +saved only by the chance that the whole class of millionaires were more +or less bankrupt too, and the banks were forced to let the mice escape +with the rats; but, in sum, education without capital could always be +taken by the throat and forced to disgorge its gains, nor was it helped +by the knowledge that no one intended it, but that all alike suffered. +Whether voluntary or mechanical the result for education was the same. +The failure of the scientific scheme, without money to back it, was +flagrant. + + The scientific scheme in theory was alone sound, for science +should be equivalent to money; in practice science was helpless without +money. The weak holder was, in his own language, sure to be frozen out. +Education must fit the complex conditions of a new society, always +accelerating its movement, and its fitness could be known only from +success. One looked about for examples of success among the educated of +one's time--the men born in the thirties, and trained to professions. +Within one's immediate acquaintance, three were typical: John Hay, +Whitelaw Reid, and William C. Whitney; all of whom owed their free hand +to marriage, education serving only for ornament, but among whom, in +1893, William C. Whitney was far and away the most popular type. + + Newspapers might prate about wealth till commonplace print was +exhausted, but as matter of habit, few Americans envied the very rich +for anything the most of them got out of money. New York might +occasionally fear them, but more often laughed or sneered at them, and +never showed them respect. Scarcely one of the very rich men held any +position in society by virtue of his wealth, or could have been elected +to an office, or even into a good club. Setting aside the few, like +Pierpont Morgan, whose social position had little to do with greater or +less wealth, riches were in New York no object of envy on account of +the joys they brought in their train, and Whitney was not even one of +the very rich; yet in his case the envy was palpable. There was reason +for it. Already in 1893 Whitney had finished with politics after having +gratified every ambition, and swung the country almost at his will; he +had thrown away the usual objects of political ambition like the ashes +of smoked cigarettes; had turned to other amusements, satiated every +taste, gorged every appetite, won every object that New York afforded, +and, not yet satisfied, had carried his field of activity abroad, until +New York no longer knew what most to envy, his horses or his houses. He +had succeeded precisely where Clarence King had failed. + + Barely forty years had passed since all these men started in a +bunch to race for power, and the results were fixed beyond reversal; +but one knew no better in 1894 than in 1854 what an American education +ought to be in order to count as success. Even granting that it counted +as money, its value could not be called general. America contained +scores of men worth five millions or upwards, whose lives were no more +worth living than those of their cooks, and to whom the task of making +money equivalent to education offered more difficulties than to Adams +the task of making education equivalent to money. Social position +seemed to have value still, while education counted for nothing. A +mathematician, linguist, chemist, electrician, engineer, if fortunate +might average a value of ten dollars a day in the open market. An +administrator, organizer, manager, with mediaeval qualities of energy +and will, but no education beyond his special branch, would probably be +worth at least ten times as much. Society had failed to discover what +sort of education suited it best. Wealth valued social position and +classical education as highly as either of these valued wealth, and the +women still tended to keep the scales even. For anything Adams could +see he was himself as contented as though he had been educated; while +Clarence King, whose education was exactly suited to theory, had +failed; and Whitney, who was no better educated than Adams, had +achieved phenomenal success. + + Had Adams in 1894 been starting in life as he did in 1854, he +must have repeated that all he asked of education was the facile use of +the four old tools: Mathematics, French, German, and Spanish. With +these he could still make his way to any object within his vision, and +would have a decisive advantage over nine rivals in ten. Statesman or +lawyer, chemist or electrician, priest or professor, native or foreign, +he would fear none. + + King's breakdown, physical as well as financial, brought the +indirect gain to Adams that, on recovering strength, King induced him +to go to Cuba, where, in January, 1894, they drifted into the little +town of Santiago. The picturesque Cuban society, which King knew well, +was more amusing than any other that one had yet discovered in the +whole broad world, but made no profession of teaching anything unless +it were Cuban Spanish or the danza; and neither on his own nor on +King's account did the visitor ask any loftier study than that of the +buzzards floating on the trade-wind down the valley to Dos Bocas, or +the colors of sea and shore at sunrise from the height of the Gran +Piedra; but, as though they were still twenty years old and revolution +were as young as they, the decaying fabric, which had never been solid, +fell on their heads and drew them with it into an ocean of mischief. In +the half-century between 1850 and 1900, empires were always falling on +one's head, and, of all lessons, these constant political convulsions +taught least. Since the time of Rameses, revolutions have raised more +doubts than they solved, but they have sometimes the merit of changing +one's point of view, and the Cuban rebellion served to sever the last +tie that attached Adams to a Democratic administration. He thought that +President Cleveland could have settled the Cuban question, without war, +had he chosen to do his duty, and this feeling, generally held by the +Democratic Party, joined with the stress of economical needs and the +gold standard to break into bits the old organization and to leave no +choice between parties. The new American, whether consciously or not, +had turned his back on the nineteenth century before he was done with +it; the gold standard, the protective system, and the laws of mass +could have no other outcome, and, as so often before, the movement, +once accelerated by attempting to impede it, had the additional, brutal +consequence of crushing equally the good and the bad that stood in its +way. + + The lesson was old--so old that it became tedious. One had +studied nothing else since childhood, and wearied of it. For yet +another year Adams lingered on these outskirts of the vortex, among the +picturesque, primitive types of a world which had never been fairly +involved in the general motion, and were the more amusing for their +torpor. After passing the winter with King in the West Indies, he +passed the summer with Hay in the Yellowstone, and found there little +to study. The Geysers were an old story; the Snake River posed no vital +statistics except in its fordings; even the Tetons were as calm as they +were lovely; while the wapiti and bear, innocent of strikes and +corners, laid no traps. In return the party treated them with +affection. Never did a band less bloody or bloodthirsty wander over the +roof of the continent. Hay loved as little as Adams did, the labor of +skinning and butchering big game; he had even outgrown the sedate, +middle-aged, meditative joy of duck-shooting, and found the trout of +the Yellowstone too easy a prey. Hallett Phillips himself, who managed +the party loved to play Indian hunter without hunting so much as a +fieldmouse; Iddings the geologist was reduced to shooting only for the +table, and the guileless prattle of Billy Hofer alone taught the simple +life. Compared with the Rockies of 1871, the sense of wildness had +vanished; one saw no possible adventures except to break one's neck as +in chasing an aniseed fox. Only the more intelligent ponies scented an +occasional friendly and sociable bear. + + When the party came out of the Yellowstone, Adams went on alone +to Seattle and Vancouver to inspect the last American railway systems +yet untried. They, too, offered little new learning, and no sooner had +he finished this debauch of Northwestern geography than with desperate +thirst for exhausting the American field, he set out for Mexico and the +Gulf, making a sweep of the Caribbean and clearing up, in these six or +eight months, at least twenty thousand miles of American land and water. + + He was beginning to think, when he got back to Washington in +April, 1895, that he knew enough about the edges of life--tropical +islands, mountain solitudes, archaic law, and retrograde types. +Infinitely more amusing and incomparably more picturesque than +civilization, they educated only artists, and, as one's sixtieth year +approached, the artist began to die; only a certain intense cerebral +restlessness survived which no longer responded to sensual stimulants; +one was driven from beauty to beauty as though art were a +trotting-match. For this, one was in some degree prepared, for the old +man had been a stage-type since drama began; but one felt some +perplexity to account for failure on the opposite or mechanical side, +where nothing but cerebral action was needed. + + Taking for granted that the alternative to art was arithmetic, he +plunged deep into statistics, fancying that education would find the +surest bottom there; and the study proved the easiest he had ever +approached. Even the Government volunteered unlimited statistics, +endless columns of figures, bottomless averages merely for the asking. +At the Statistical Bureau, Worthington Ford supplied any material that +curiosity could imagine for filling the vast gaps of ignorance, and +methods for applying the plasters of fact. One seemed for a while to be +winning ground, and one's averages projected themselves as laws into +the future. Perhaps the most perplexing part of the study lay in the +attitude of the statisticians, who showed no enthusiastic confidence in +their own figures. They should have reached certainty, but they talked +like other men who knew less. The method did not result in faith. Indeed, +every increase of mass--of volume and velocity--seemed to bring in new +elements, and, at last, a scholar, fresh in arithmetic and ignorant of +algebra, fell into a superstitious terror of complexity as the sink of +facts. Nothing came out as it should. In principle, according to +figures, any one could set up or pull down a society. One could frame +no sort of satisfactory answer to the constructive doctrines of Adam +Smith, or to the destructive criticisms of Karl Marx or to the +anarchistic imprecations of Elisee Reclus. One revelled at will in the +ruin of every society in the past, and rejoiced in proving the +prospective overthrow of every society that seemed possible in the +future; but meanwhile these societies which violated every law, moral, +arithmetical, and economical, not only propagated each other, but +produced also fresh complexities with every propagation and developed +mass with every complexity. + + The human factor was worse still. Since the stupefying +discovery of Pteraspis in 1867, nothing had so confused the student as +the conduct of mankind in the fin-de-siecle. No one seemed very much +concerned about this world or the future, unless it might be the +anarchists, and they only because they disliked the present. Adams +disliked the present as much as they did, and his interest in future +society was becoming slight, yet he was kept alive by irritation at +finding his life so thin and fruitless. Meanwhile he watched mankind +march on, like a train of pack-horses on the Snake River, tumbling from +one morass into another, and at short intervals, for no reason but +temper, falling to butchery, like Cain. Since 1850, massacres had +become so common that society scarcely noticed them unless they summed +up hundreds of thousands, as in Armenia; wars had been almost +continuous, and were beginning again in Cuba, threatening in South +Africa, and possible in Manchuria; yet impartial judges thought them +all not merely unnecessary, but foolish--induced by greed of the +coarsest class, as though the Pharaohs or the Romans were still robbing +their neighbors. The robbery might be natural and inevitable, but the +murder seemed altogether archaic. + + At one moment of perplexity to account for this trait of +Pteraspis, or shark, which seemed to have survived every moral +improvement of society, he took to study of the religious press. +Possibly growth in human nature might show itself there. He found no +need to speak unkindly of it; but, as an agent of motion, he preferred +on the whole the vigor of the shark, with its chances of betterment; +and he very gravely doubted, from his aching consciousness of religious +void, whether any large fraction of society cared for a future life, or +even for the present one, thirty years hence. Not an act, or an +expression, or an image, showed depth of faith or hope. + + The object of education, therefore, was changed. For many years +it had lost itself in studying what the world had ceased to care for; +if it were to begin again, it must try to find out what the mass of +mankind did care for, and why. Religion, politics, statistics, travel +had thus far led to nothing. Even the Chicago Fair had only confused +the roads. Accidental education could go no further, for one's mind was +already littered and stuffed beyond hope with the millions of chance +images stored away without order in the memory. One might as well try +to educate a gravel-pit. The task was futile, which disturbed a student +less than the discovery that, in pursuing it, he was becoming himself +ridiculous. Nothing is more tiresome than a superannuated pedagogue. + + For the moment he was rescued, as often before, by a woman. +Towards midsummer, 1895, Mrs. Cabot Lodge bade him follow her to Europe +with the Senator and her two sons. The study of history is useful to +the historian by teaching him his ignorance of women; and the mass of +this ignorance crushes one who is familiar enough with what are called +historical sources to realize how few women have ever been known. The +woman who is known only through a man is known wrong, and excepting one +or two like Mme. de Sevigne, no woman has pictured herself. The +American woman of the nineteenth century will live only as the man saw +her; probably she will be less known than the woman of the eighteenth; +none of the female descendants of Abigail Adams can ever be nearly so +familiar as her letters have made her; and all this is pure loss to +history, for the American woman of the nineteenth century was much +better company than the American man; she was probably much better +company than her grandmothers. With Mrs. Lodge and her husband, Senator +since 1893, Adams's relations had been those of elder brother or uncle +since 1871 when Cabot Lodge had left his examination-papers on +Assistant Professor Adams's desk, and crossed the street to Christ +Church in Cambridge to get married. With Lodge himself, as scholar, +fellow instructor, co-editor of the North American Review, and +political reformer from 1873 to 1878, he had worked intimately, but +with him afterwards as politician he had not much relation; and since +Lodge had suffered what Adams thought the misfortune of becoming not +only a Senator but a Senator from Massachusetts--a singular social +relation which Adams had known only as fatal to friends--a +superstitious student, intimate with the laws of historical fatality, +would rather have recognized him only as an enemy; but apart from this +accident he valued Lodge highly, and in the waste places of average +humanity had been greatly dependent on his house. Senators can never be +approached with safety, but a Senator who has a very superior wife and +several superior children who feel no deference for Senators as such, +may be approached at times with relative impunity while they keep him +under restraint. + +Where Mrs. Lodge summoned, one followed with gratitude, and so it +chanced that in August one found one's self for the first time at Caen, +Coutances, and Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy. If history had a chapter +with which he thought himself familiar, it was the twelfth and +thirteenth centuries; yet so little has labor to do with knowledge that +these bare playgrounds of the lecture system turned into green and +verdurous virgin forests merely through the medium of younger eyes and +fresher minds. His German bias must have given his youth a terrible +twist, for the Lodges saw at a glance what he had thought unessential +because un-German. They breathed native air in the Normandy of 1200, a +compliment which would have seemed to the Senator lacking in taste or +even in sense when addressed to one of a class of men who passed life +in trying to persuade themselves and the public that they breathed +nothing less American than a blizzard; but this atmosphere, in the +touch of a real emotion, betrayed the unconscious humor of the +senatorial mind. In the thirteenth century, by an unusual chance, even +a Senator became natural, simple, interested, cultivated, artistic, +liberal--genial. + + Through the Lodge eyes the old problem became new and personal; +it threw off all association with the German lecture-room. One could +not at first see what this novelty meant; it had the air of mere +antiquarian emotion like Wenlock Abbey and Pteraspis; but it expelled +archaic law and antiquarianism once for all, without seeming conscious +of it; and Adams drifted back to Washington with a new sense of +history. Again he wandered south, and in April returned to Mexico with +the Camerons to study the charms of pulque and Churriguerresque +architecture. In May he ran through Europe again with Hay, as far south +as Ravenna. There came the end of the passage. After thus covering once +more, in 1896, many thousand miles of the old trails, Adams went home in +October, with every one else, to elect McKinley President and start the +world anew. + + For the old world of public men and measures since 1870, Adams +wept no tears. Within or without, during or after it, as partisan or +historian, he never saw anything to admire in it, or anything he wanted +to save; and in this respect he reflected only the public mind which +balanced itself so exactly between the unpopularity of both parties as +to express no sympathy with either. Even among the most powerful men of +that generation he knew none who had a good word to say for it. No +period so thoroughly ordinary had been known in American politics since +Christopher Columbus first disturbed the balance of American society; +but the natural result of such lack of interest in public affairs, in a +small society like that of Washington, led an idle bystander to depend +abjectly on intimacy of private relation. One dragged one's self down +the long vista of Pennsylvania Avenue, by leaning heavily on one's +friends, and avoiding to look at anything else. Thus life had grown +narrow with years, more and more concentrated on the circle of houses +round La Fayette Square, which had no direct or personal share in power +except in the case of Mr. Blaine whose tumultuous struggle for +existence held him apart. Suddenly Mr. McKinley entered the White House +and laid his hand heavily on this special group. In a moment the whole +nest so slowly constructed, was torn to pieces and scattered over the +world. Adams found himself alone. John Hay took his orders for London. +Rockhill departed to Athens. Cecil Spring-Rice had been buried in +Persia. Cameron refused to remain in public life either at home or +abroad, and broke up his house on the Square. Only the Lodges and +Roosevelts remained, but even they were at once absorbed in the +interests of power. Since 1861, no such social convulsion had occurred. + + Even this was not quite the worst. To one whose interests lay +chiefly in foreign affairs, and who, at this moment, felt most strongly +the nightmare of Cuban, Hawaiian, and Nicaraguan chaos, the man in the +State Department seemed more important than the man in the White House. +Adams knew no one in the United States fit to manage these matters in +the face of a hostile Europe, and had no candidate to propose; but he +was shocked beyond all restraints of expression to learn that the +President meant to put Senator John Sherman in the State Department in +order to make a place for Mr. Hanna in the Senate. Grant himself had +done nothing that seemed so bad as this to one who had lived long +enough to distinguish between the ways of presidential jobbery, if not +between the jobs. John Sherman, otherwise admirably fitted for the +place, a friendly influence for nearly forty years, was notoriously +feeble and quite senile, so that the intrigue seemed to Adams the +betrayal of an old friend as well as of the State Department. One might +have shrugged one's shoulders had the President named Mr. Hanna his +Secretary of State, for Mr. Hanna was a man of force if not of +experience, and selections much worse than this had often turned out +well enough; but John Sherman must inevitably and tragically break down. + + The prospect for once was not less vile than the men. One can +bear coldly the jobbery of enemies, but not that of friends, and to +Adams this kind of jobbery seemed always infinitely worse than all the +petty money bribes ever exploited by the newspapers. Nor was the matter +improved by hints that the President might call John Hay to the +Department whenever John Sherman should retire. Indeed, had Hay been +even unconsciously party to such an intrigue, he would have put an end, +once for all, to further concern in public affairs on his friend's +part; but even without this last disaster, one felt that Washington had +become no longer habitable. Nothing was left there but solitary +contemplation of Mr. McKinley's ways which were not likely to be more +amusing than the ways of his predecessors; or of senatorial ways, which +offered no novelty of what the French language expressively calls +embetement; or of poor Mr. Sherman's ways which would surely cause +anguish to his friends. Once more, one must go! + + Nothing was easier! On and off, one had done the same thing +since the year 1858, at frequent intervals, and had now reached the +month of March, 1897; yet, as the whole result of six years' dogged +effort to begin a new education, one could not recommend it to the +young. The outlook lacked hope. The object of travel had become more +and more dim, ever since the gibbering ghost of the Civil Law had been +locked in its dark closet, as far back as 1860. Noah's dove had not +searched the earth for resting-places so carefully, or with so little +success. Any spot on land or water satisfies a dove who wants and finds +rest; but no perch suits a dove of sixty years old, alone and +uneducated, who has lost his taste even for olives. To this, also, the +young may be driven, as education, and the lesson fails in humor; but +it may be worth knowing to some of them that the planet offers hardly a +dozen places where an elderly man can pass a week alone without ennui, +and none at all where he can pass a year. + + Irritated by such complaints, the world naturally answers that +no man of sixty should live, which is doubtless true, though not +original. The man of sixty, with a certain irritability proper to his +years, retorts that the world has no business to throw on him the task +of removing its carrion, and that while he remains he has a right to +require amusement--or at least education, since this costs nothing to +any one--and that a world which cannot educate, will not amuse, and is +ugly besides, has even less right to exist than he. Both views seem +sound; but the world wearily objects to be called by epithets what +society always admits in practice; for no one likes to be told that he +is a bore, or ignorant, or even ugly; and having nothing to say in its +defence, it rejoins that, whatever license is pardonable in youth, the +man of sixty who wishes consideration had better hold his tongue. This +truth also has the defect of being too true. The rule holds equally for +men of half that age Only the very young have the right to betray their +ignorance or ill-breeding. Elderly people commonly know enough not to +betray themselves. + + Exceptions are plenty on both sides, as the Senate knew to its +acute suffering; but young or old, women or men, seemed agreed on one +point with singular unanimity; each praised silence in others. Of all +characteristics in human nature, this has been one of the most abiding. +Mere superficial gleaning of what, in the long history of human +expression, has been said by the fool or unsaid by the wise, shows +that, for once, no difference of opinion has ever existed on this. +"Even a fool," said the wisest of men, "when he holdeth his peace, is +counted wise," and still more often, the wisest of men, when he spoke +the highest wisdom, has been counted a fool. They agreed only on the +merits of silence in others. Socrates made remarks in its favor, which +should have struck the Athenians as new to them; but of late the +repetition had grown tiresome. Thomas Carlyle vociferated his +admiration of it. Matthew Arnold thought it the best form of +expression; and Adams thought Matthew Arnold the best form of +expression in his time. Algernon Swinburne called it the most noble to +the end. Alfred de Vigny's dying wolf remarked:-- + + "A voir ce que l'on fut sur terre et ce qu'on laisse, + Seul le silence est grand; tout le reste est faiblesse." + "When one thinks what one leaves in the world when one dies, + Only silence is strong,--all the rest is but lies." + +Even Byron, whom a more brilliant era of genius seemed to have decided +to be but an indifferent poet, had ventured to affirm that-- + + "The Alp's snow summit nearer heaven is seen + Than the volcano's fierce eruptive crest;" + +with other verses, to the effect that words are but a "temporary +torturing flame"; of which no one knew more than himself. The evidence +of the poets could not be more emphatic:-- + + "Silent, while years engrave the brow! + Silent,--the best are silent now!" + + Although none of these great geniuses had shown faith in +silence as a cure for their own ills or ignorance, all of them, and all +philosophy after them, affirmed that no man, even at sixty, had ever +been known to attain knowledge; but that a very few were believed to +have attained ignorance, which was in result the same. More than this, +in every society worth the name, the man of sixty had been encouraged +to ride this hobby--the Pursuit of Ignorance in Silence--as though it +were the easiest way to get rid of him. In America the silence was more +oppressive than the ignorance; but perhaps elsewhere the world might +still hide some haunt of futilitarian silence where content +reigned--although long search had not revealed it--and so the +pilgrimage began anew! + + The first step led to London where John Hay was to be +established. One had seen so many American Ministers received in London +that the Lord Chamberlain himself scarcely knew more about it; +education could not be expected there; but there Adams arrived, April +21, 1897, as though thirty-six years were so many days, for Queen +Victoria still reigned and one saw little change in St. James's Street. +True, Carlton House Terrace, like the streets of Rome, actually +squeaked and gibbered with ghosts, till one felt like Odysseus before +the press of shadows, daunted by a "bloodless fear"; but in spring +London is pleasant, and it was more cheery than ever in May, 1897, when +every one was welcoming the return of life after the long winter since +1893. One's fortunes, or one's friends' fortunes, were again in flood. + + This amusement could not be prolonged, for one found one's self +the oldest Englishman in England, much too familiar with family jars +better forgotten, and old traditions better unknown. No wrinkled +Tannhauser, returning to the Wartburg, needed a wrinkled Venus to show +him that he was no longer at home, and that even penitence was a sort +of impertinence. He slipped away to Paris, and set up a household at +St. Germain where he taught and learned French history for nieces who +swarmed under the venerable cedars of the Pavillon d'Angouleme, and +rode about the green forest-alleys of St. Germain and Marly. From time +to time Hay wrote humorous laments, but nothing occurred to break the +summer-peace of the stranded Tannhauser, who slowly began to feel at +home in France as in other countries he had thought more homelike. At +length, like other dead Americans, he went to Paris because he could go +nowhere else, and lingered there till the Hays came by, in January, +1898; and Mrs. Hay, who had been a stanch and strong ally for twenty +years, bade him go with them to Egypt. + + Adams cared little to see Egypt again, but he was glad to see +Hay, and readily drifted after him to the Nile. What they saw and what +they said had as little to do with education as possible, until one +evening, as they were looking at the sun set across the Nile from +Assouan, Spencer Eddy brought them a telegram to announce the sinking +of the Maine in Havana Harbor. This was the greatest stride in +education since 1865, but what did it teach? One leant on a fragment of +column in the great hall at Karnak and watched a jackal creep down the +debris of ruin. The jackal's ancestors had surely crept up the same +wall when it was building. What was his view about the value of +silence? One lay in the sands and watched the expression of the Sphinx. +Brooks Adams had taught him that the relation between civilizations was +that of trade. Henry wandered, or was storm-driven, down the coast. He +tried to trace out the ancient harbor of Ephesus. He went over to +Athens, picked up Rockhill, and searched for the harbor of Tiryns; +together they went on to Constantinople and studied the great walls of +Constantine and the greater domes of Justinian. His hobby had turned +into a camel, and he hoped, if he rode long enough in silence, that at +last he might come on a city of thought along the great highways of +exchange. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +INDIAN SUMMER (1898-1899) + + The summer of the Spanish War began the Indian summer of life +to one who had reached sixty years of age, and cared only to reap in +peace such harvest as these sixty years had yielded. He had reason to +be more than content with it. Since 1864 he had felt no such sense of +power and momentum, and had seen no such number of personal friends +wielding it. The sense of solidarity counts for much in one's +contentment, but the sense of winning one's game counts for more; and +in London, in 1898, the scene was singularly interesting to the last +survivor of the Legation of 1861. He thought himself perhaps the only +person living who could get full enjoyment of the drama. He carried +every scene of it, in a century and a half since the Stamp Act, quite +alive in his mind--all the interminable disputes of his disputatious +ancestors as far back as the year 1750--as well as his own +insignificance in the Civil War, every step in which had the object of +bringing England into an American system. For this they had written +libraries of argument and remonstrance, and had piled war on war, +losing their tempers for life, and souring the gentle and patient +Puritan nature of their descendants, until even their private +secretaries at times used language almost intemperate; and suddenly, by +pure chance, the blessing fell on Hay. After two hundred years of +stupid and greedy blundering, which no argument and no violence +affected, the people of England learned their lesson just at the moment +when Hay would otherwise have faced a flood of the old anxieties. Hay +himself scarcely knew how grateful he should be, for to him the change +came almost of course. He saw only the necessary stages that had led to +it, and to him they seemed natural; but to Adams, still living in the +atmosphere of Palmerston and John Russell, the sudden appearance of +Germany as the grizzly terror which, in twenty years effected what +Adamses had tried for two hundred in vain--frightened England into +America's arms--seemed as melodramatic as any plot of Napoleon the +Great. He could feel only the sense of satisfaction at seeing the +diplomatic triumph of all his family, since the breed existed, at last +realized under his own eyes for the advantage of his oldest and closest +ally. + + This was history, not education, yet it taught something +exceedingly serious, if not ultimate, could one trust the lesson. For +the first time in his life, he felt a sense of possible purpose working +itself out in history. Probably no one else on this earthly planet--not +even Hay--could have come out on precisely such extreme personal +satisfaction, but as he sat at Hay's table, listening to any member of +the British Cabinet, for all were alike now, discuss the Philippines as +a question of balance of power in the East, he could see that the +family work of a hundred and fifty years fell at once into the grand +perspective of true empire-building, which Hay's work set off with +artistic skill. The roughness of the archaic foundations looked +stronger and larger in scale for the refinement and certainty of the +arcade. In the long list of famous American Ministers in London, none +could have given the work quite the completeness, the harmony, the +perfect ease of Hay. + + Never before had Adams been able to discern the working of law +in history, which was the reason of his failure in teaching it, for +chaos cannot be taught; but he thought he had a personal property by +inheritance in this proof of sequence and intelligence in the affairs +of man--a property which no one else had right to dispute; and this +personal triumph left him a little cold towards the other diplomatic +results of the war. He knew that Porto Rico must be taken, but he would +have been glad to escape the Philippines. Apart from too intimate an +acquaintance with the value of islands in the South Seas, he knew the +West Indies well enough to be assured that, whatever the American +people might think or say about it, they would sooner or later have to +police those islands, not against Europe, but for Europe, and America +too. Education on the outskirts of civilized life teaches not very +much, but it taught this; and one felt no call to shoulder the load of +archipelagoes in the antipodes when one was trying painfully to pluck +up courage to face the labor of shouldering archipelagoes at home. The +country decided otherwise, and one acquiesced readily enough since the +matter concerned only the public willingness to carry loads; in London, +the balance of power in the East came alone into discussion; and in +every point of view one had as much reason to be gratified with the +result as though one had shared in the danger, instead of being +vigorously employed in looking on from a great distance. After all, +friends had done the work, if not one's self, and he too serves a +certain purpose who only stands and cheers. + + In June, at the crisis of interest, the Camerons came over, and +took the fine old house of Surrenden Dering in Kent which they made a +sort of country house to the Embassy. Kent has charms rivalling those +of Shropshire, and, even compared with the many beautiful places +scattered along the Welsh border, few are nobler or more genial than +Surrenden with its unbroken descent from the Saxons, its avenues, its +terraces, its deer-park, its large repose on the Kentish hillside, and +its broad outlook over what was once the forest of Anderida. Filled +with a constant stream of guests, the house seemed to wait for the +chance to show its charms to the American, with whose activity the +whole world was resounding; and never since the battle of Hastings +could the little telegraph office of the Kentish village have done such +work. There, on a hot July 4, 1898, to an expectant group under the +shady trees, came the telegram announcing the destruction of the +Spanish Armada, as it might have come to Queen Elizabeth in 1588; and +there, later in the season, came the order summoning Hay to the State +Department. + + Hay had no wish to be Secretary of State. He much preferred to +remain Ambassador, and his friends were quite as cold about it as he. +No one knew so well what sort of strain falls on Secretaries of State, +or how little strength he had in reserve against it. Even at Surrenden +he showed none too much endurance, and he would gladly have found a +valid excuse for refusing. The discussion on both sides was earnest, +but the decided voice of the conclave was that, though if he were a +mere office-seeker he might certainly decline promotion, if he were a +member of the Government he could not. No serious statesman could +accept a favor and refuse a service. Doubtless he might refuse, but in +that case he must resign. The amusement of making Presidents has keen +fascination for idle American hands, but these black arts have the old +drawback of all deviltry; one must serve the spirit one evokes, even +though the service were perdition to body and soul. For him, no doubt, +the service, though hard, might bring some share of profit, but for the +friends who gave this unselfish decision, all would prove loss. For +one, Adams on that subject had become a little daft. No one in his +experience had ever passed unscathed through that malarious marsh. In +his fancy, office was poison; it killed--body and soul--physically and +socially. Office was more poisonous than priestcraft or pedagogy in +proportion as it held more power; but the poison he complained of was +not ambition; he shared none of Cardinal Wolsey's belated penitence for +that healthy stimulant, as he had shared none of the fruits; his poison +was that of the will--the distortion of sight--the warping of mind--the +degradation of tissue--the coarsening of taste--the narrowing of +sympathy to the emotions of a caged rat. Hay needed no office in order +to wield influence. For him, influence lay about the streets, waiting +for him to stoop to it; he enjoyed more than enough power without +office; no one of his position, wealth, and political experience, +living at the centre of politics in contact with the active party +managers, could escape influence. His only ambition was to escape +annoyance, and no one knew better than he that, at sixty years of age, +sensitive to physical strain, still more sensitive to brutality, +vindictiveness, or betrayal, he took office at cost of life. + + Neither he nor any of the Surrenden circle made pretence of +gladness at the new dignity for, with all his gaiety of manner and +lightness of wit, he took dark views of himself, none the lighter for +their humor, and his obedience to the President's order was the +gloomiest acquiescence he had ever smiled. Adams took dark views, too, +not so much on Hay's account as on his own, for, while Hay had at least +the honors of office, his friends would share only the ennuis of it; +but, as usual with Hay, nothing was gained by taking such matters +solemnly, and old habits of the Civil War left their mark of military +drill on every one who lived through it. He shouldered his pack and +started for home. Adams had no mind to lose his friend without a +struggle, though he had never known such sort of struggle to avail. The +chance was desperate, but he could not afford to throw it away; so, as +soon as the Surrenden establishment broke up, on October 17, he +prepared for return home, and on November 13, none too gladly, found +himself again gazing into La Fayette Square. + + He had made another false start and lost two years more of +education; nor had he excuse; for, this time, neither politics nor +society drew him away from his trail. He had nothing to do with Hay's +politics at home or abroad, and never affected agreement with his views +or his methods, nor did Hay care whether his friends agreed or +disagreed. They all united in trying to help each other to get along +the best way they could, and all they tried to save was the personal +relation. Even there, Adams would have been beaten had he not been +helped by Mrs. Hay, who saw the necessity of distraction, and led her +husband into the habit of stopping every afternoon to take his friend +off for an hour's walk, followed by a cup of tea with Mrs. Hay +afterwards, and a chat with any one who called. + + For the moment, therefore, the situation was saved, at least in +outward appearance, and Adams could go back to his own pursuits which +were slowly taking a direction. Perhaps they had no right to be called +pursuits, for in truth one consciously pursued nothing, but drifted as +attraction offered itself. The short session broke up the Washington +circle, so that, on March 22, Adams was able to sail with the Lodges +for Europe and to pass April in Sicily and Rome. + + With the Lodges, education always began afresh. Forty years had +left little of the Palermo that Garibaldi had shown to the boy of 1860, +but Sicily in all ages seems to have taught only catastrophe and +violence, running riot on that theme ever since Ulysses began its study +on the eye of Cyclops. For a lesson in anarchy, without a shade of +sequence, Sicily stands alone and defies evolution. Syracuse teaches +more than Rome. Yet even Rome was not mute, and the church of Ara Coeli +seemed more and more to draw all the threads of thought to a centre, +for every new journey led back to its steps--Karnak, Ephesus, Delphi, +Mycenæ, Constantinople, Syracuse--all lying on the road to the +Capitol. What they had to bring by way of intellectual riches could not +yet be discerned, but they carried camel-loads of moral; and New York +sent most of all, for, in forty years, America had made so vast a +stride to empire that the world of 1860 stood already on a distant +horizon somewhere on the same plane with the republic of Brutus and +Cato, while schoolboys read of Abraham Lincoln as they did of Julius +Caesar. Vast swarms of Americans knew the Civil War only by school +history, as they knew the story of Cromwell or Cicero, and were as +familiar with political assassination as though they had lived under +Nero. The climax of empire could be seen approaching, year after year, +as though Sulla were a President or McKinley a Consul. + + Nothing annoyed Americans more than to be told this simple and +obvious--in no way unpleasant--truth; therefore one sat silent as ever +on the Capitol; but, by way of completing the lesson, the Lodges added +a pilgrimage to Assisi and an interview with St. Francis, whose +solution of historical riddles seemed the most satisfactory--or +sufficient--ever offered; worth fully forty years' more study, and +better worth it than Gibbon himself, or even St. Augustine, St. +Ambrose, or St. Jerome. The most bewildering effect of all these fresh +cross-lights on the old Assistant Professor of 1874 was due to the +astonishing contrast between what he had taught then and what he found +himself confusedly trying to learn five-and-twenty years +afterwards--between the twelfth century of his thirtieth and that of +his sixtieth years. At Harvard College, weary of spirit in the wastes +of Anglo-Saxon law, he had occasionally given way to outbursts of +derision at shedding his life-blood for the sublime truths of Sac and +Soc:-- + + HIC JACET +HOMUNCULUS SCRIPTOR + DOCTOR BARBARICUS + HENRICUS ADAMS + ADAE FILIUS ET EVAE + PRIMO EXPLICUIT + SOCNAM + + The Latin was as twelfth-century as the law, and he meant as +satire the claim that he had been first to explain the legal meaning of +Sac and Soc, although any German professor would have scorned it as a +shameless and presumptuous bid for immortality; but the whole point of +view had vanished in 1900. Not he, but Sir Henry Maine and Rudolph +Sohm, were the parents or creators of Sac and Soc. Convinced that the +clue of religion led to nothing, and that politics led to chaos, one +had turned to the law, as one's scholars turned to the Law School, +because one could see no other path to a profession. + + The law had proved as futile as politics or religion, or any +other single thread spun by the human spider; it offered no more +continuity than architecture or coinage, and no more force of its own. +St. Francis expressed supreme contempt for them all, and solved the +whole problem by rejecting it altogether. Adams returned to Paris with +a broken and contrite spirit, prepared to admit that his life had no +meaning, and conscious that in any case it no longer mattered. He +passed a summer of solitude contrasting sadly with the last at +Surrenden; but the solitude did what the society did not--it forced and +drove him into the study of his ignorance in silence. Here at last he +entered the practice of his final profession. Hunted by ennui, he could +no longer escape, and, by way of a summer school, he began a methodical +survey--a triangulation--of the twelfth century. The pursuit had a +singular French charm which France had long lost--a calmness, lucidity, +simplicity of expression, vigor of action, complexity of local color, +that made Paris flat. In the long summer days one found a sort of +saturated green pleasure in the forests, and gray infinity of rest in +the little twelfth-century churches that lined them, as unassuming as +their own mosses, and as sure of their purpose as their round arches; +but churches were many and summer was short, so that he was at last +driven back to the quays and photographs. For weeks he lived in silence. + + His solitude was broken in November by the chance arrival of +John La Farge. At that moment, contact with La Farge had a new value. +Of all the men who had deeply affected their friends since 1850 John La +Farge was certainly the foremost, and for Henry Adams, who had sat at +his feet since 1872, the question how much he owed to La Farge could be +answered only by admitting that he had no standard to measure it by. Of +all his friends La Farge alone owned a mind complex enough to contrast +against the commonplaces of American uniformity, and in the process had +vastly perplexed most Americans who came in contact with it. The +American mind--the Bostonian as well as the Southern or Western--likes +to walk straight up to its object, and assert or deny something that it +takes for a fact; it has a conventional approach, a conventional +analysis, and a conventional conclusion, as well as a conventional +expression, all the time loudly asserting its unconventionality. The +most disconcerting trait of John La Farge was his reversal of the +process. His approach was quiet and indirect; he moved round an object, +and never separated it from its surroundings; he prided himself on +faithfulness to tradition and convention; he was never abrupt and +abhorred dispute. His manners and attitude towards the universe were +the same, whether tossing in the middle of the Pacific Ocean sketching +the trade-wind from a whale-boat in the blast of sea-sickness, or +drinking the cha-no-yu in the formal rites of Japan, or sipping his +cocoanut cup of kava in the ceremonial of Samoan chiefs, or reflecting +under the sacred bo-tree at Anaradjpura. + + One was never quite sure of his whole meaning until too late to +respond, for he had no difficulty in carrying different shades of +contradiction in his mind. As he said of his friend Okakura, his +thought ran as a stream runs through grass, hidden perhaps but always +there; and one felt often uncertain in what direction it flowed, for +even a contradiction was to him only a shade of difference, a +complementary color, about which no intelligent artist would dispute. +Constantly he repulsed argument: "Adams, you reason too much!" was one +of his standing reproaches even in the mild discussion of rice and +mangoes in the warm night of Tahiti dinners. He should have blamed +Adams for being born in Boston. The mind resorts to reason for want of +training, and Adams had never met a perfectly trained mind. + + To La Farge, eccentricity meant convention; a mind really +eccentric never betrayed it. True eccentricity was a tone--a shade--a +nuance--and the finer the tone, the truer the eccentricity. Of course +all artists hold more or less the same point of view in their art, but +few carry it into daily life, and often the contrast is excessive +between their art and their talk. One evening Humphreys Johnston, who +was devoted to La Farge, asked him to meet Whistler at dinner. La Farge +was ill--more ill than usual even for him--but he admired and liked +Whistler, and insisted on going. By chance, Adams was so placed as to +overhear the conversation of both, and had no choice but to hear that +of Whistler, which engrossed the table. At that moment the Boer War was +raging, and, as every one knows, on that subject Whistler raged worse +than the Boers. For two hours he declaimed against England--witty, +declamatory, extravagant, bitter, amusing, and noisy; but in substance +what he said was not merely commonplace--it was true! That is to say, +his hearers, including Adams and, as far as he knew, La Farge, agreed +with it all, and mostly as a matter of course; yet La Farge was silent, +and this difference of expression was a difference of art. Whistler in +his art carried the sense of nuance and tone far beyond any point +reached by La Farge, or even attempted; but in talk he showed, above or +below his color-instinct, a willingness to seem eccentric where no real +eccentricity, unless perhaps of temper, existed. + + This vehemence, which Whistler never betrayed in his painting, +La Farge seemed to lavish on his glass. With the relative value of La +Farge's glass in the history of glass-decoration, Adams was too +ignorant to meddle, and as a rule artists were if possible more +ignorant than he; but whatever it was, it led him back to the twelfth +century and to Chartres where La Farge not only felt at home, but felt +a sort of ownership. No other American had a right there, unless he too +were a member of the Church and worked in glass. Adams himself was an +interloper, but long habit led La Farge to resign himself to Adams as +one who meant well, though deplorably Bostonian; while Adams, though +near sixty years old before he knew anything either of glass or of +Chartres, asked no better than to learn, and only La Farge could help +him, for he knew enough at least to see that La Farge alone could use +glass like a thirteenth-century artist. In Europe the art had been dead +for centuries, and modern glass was pitiable. Even La Farge felt the +early glass rather as a document than as a historical emotion, and in +hundreds of windows at Chartres and Bourges and Paris, Adams knew +barely one or two that were meant to hold their own against a +color-scheme so strong as his. In conversation La Farge's mind was +opaline with infinite shades and refractions of light, and with color +toned down to the finest gradations. In glass it was insubordinate; it +was renaissance; it asserted his personal force with depth and +vehemence of tone never before seen. He seemed bent on crushing rivalry. + + Even the gloom of a Paris December at the Elysee Palace Hotel +was somewhat relieved by this companionship, and education made a step +backwards towards Chartres, but La Farge's health became more and more +alarming, and Adams was glad to get him safely back to New York, +January 15, 1900, while he himself went at once to Washington to find +out what had become of Hay. Nothing good could be hoped, for Hay's +troubles had begun, and were quite as great as he had foreseen. Adams +saw as little encouragement as Hay himself did, though he dared not say +so. He doubted Hay's endurance, the President's firmness in supporting +him, and the loyalty of his party friends; but all this worry on Hay's +account fretted him not nearly so much as the Boer War did on his own. +Here was a problem in his political education that passed all +experience since the Treason winter of 1860-61! Much to his +astonishment, very few Americans seemed to share his point of view; +their hostility to England seemed mere temper; but to Adams the war +became almost a personal outrage. He had been taught from childhood, +even in England, that his forbears and their associates in 1776 had +settled, once for all, the liberties of the British free colonies, and +he very strongly objected to being thrown on the defensive again, and +forced to sit down, a hundred and fifty years after John Adams had +begun the task, to prove, by appeal to law and fact, that George +Washington was not a felon, whatever might be the case with George III. +For reasons still more personal, he declined peremptorily to entertain +question of the felony of John Adams. He felt obliged to go even +further, and avow the opinion that if at any time England should take +towards Canada the position she took towards her Boer colonies, the +United States would be bound, by their record, to interpose, and to +insist on the application of the principles of 1776. To him the +attitude of Mr. Chamberlain and his colleagues seemed exceedingly +un-American, and terribly embarrassing to Hay. + + Trained early, in the stress of civil war, to hold his tongue, +and to help make the political machine run somehow, since it could +never be made to run well, he would not bother Hay with theoretical +objections which were every day fretting him in practical forms. Hay's +chance lay in patience and good-temper till the luck should turn, and +to him the only object was time; but as political education the point +seemed vital to Adams, who never liked shutting his eyes or denying an +evident fact. Practical politics consists in ignoring facts, but +education and politics are two different and often contradictory +things. In this case, the contradiction seemed crude. + + With Hay's politics, at home or abroad, Adams had nothing +whatever to do. Hay belonged to the New York school, like Abram Hewitt, +Evarts, W. C. Whitney, Samuel J. Tilden--men who played the game for +ambition or amusement, and played it, as a rule, much better than the +professionals, but whose aims were considerably larger than those of +the usual player, and who felt no great love for the cheap drudgery of +the work. In return, the professionals felt no great love for them, and +set them aside when they could. Only their control of money made them +inevitable, and even this did not always carry their points. The story +of Abram Hewitt would offer one type of this statesman series, and that +of Hay another. President Cleveland set aside the one; President +Harrison set aside the other. "There is no politics in it," was his +comment on Hay's appointment to office. Hay held a different opinion +and turned to McKinley whose judgment of men was finer than common in +Presidents. Mr. McKinley brought to the problem of American government +a solution which lay very far outside of Henry Adams's education, but +which seemed to be at least practical and American. He undertook to +pool interests in a general trust into which every interest should be +taken, more or less at its own valuation, and whose mass should, under +his management, create efficiency. He achieved very remarkable results. +How much they cost was another matter; if the public is ever driven to +its last resources and the usual remedies of chaos, the result will +probably cost more. + + Himself a marvellous manager of men, McKinley found several +manipulators to help him, almost as remarkable as himself, one of whom +was Hay; but unfortunately Hay's strength was weakest and his task +hardest. At home, interests could be easily combined by simply paying +their price; but abroad whatever helped on one side, hurt him on +another. Hay thought England must be brought first into the combine; +but at that time Germany, Russia, and France were all combining against +England, and the Boer War helped them. For the moment Hay had no ally, +abroad or at home, except Pauncefote, and Adams always maintained that +Pauncefote alone pulled him through. + + Yet the difficulty abroad was far less troublesome than the +obstacles at home. The Senate had grown more and more unmanageable, +even since the time of Andrew Johnson, and this was less the fault of +the Senate than of the system. "A treaty of peace, in any normal state +of things," said Hay, "ought to be ratified with unanimity in +twenty-four hours. They wasted six weeks in wrangling over this one, +and ratified it with one vote to spare. We have five or six matters now +demanding settlement. I can settle them all, honorably and +advantageously to our own side; and I am assured by leading men in the +Senate that not one of these treaties, if negotiated, will pass the +Senate. I should have a majority in every case, but a malcontent third +would certainly dish every one of them. To such monstrous shape has the +original mistake of the Constitution grown in the evolution of our +politics. You must understand, it is not merely my solution the Senate +will reject. They will reject, for instance, any treaty, whatever, on +any subject, with England. I doubt if they would accept any treaty of +consequence with Russia or Germany. The recalcitrant third would be +differently composed, but it would be on hand. So that the real duties +of a Secretary of State seem to be three: to fight claims upon us by +other States; to press more or less fraudulent claims of our own +citizens upon other countries; to find offices for the friends of +Senators when there are none. Is it worth while--for me--to keep up +this useless labor?" + + To Adams, who, like Hay, had seen a dozen acquaintances +struggling with the same enemies, the question had scarcely the +interest of a new study. He had said all he had to say about it in a +dozen or more volumes relating to the politics of a hundred years +before. To him, the spectacle was so familiar as to be humorous. The +intrigue was too open to be interesting. The interference of the German +and Russian legations, and of the Clan-na-Gael, with the press and the +Senate was innocently undisguised. The charming Russian Minister, Count +Cassini, the ideal of diplomatic manners and training, let few days +pass without appealing through the press to the public against the +government. The German Minister, Von Holleben, more cautiously did the +same thing, and of course every whisper of theirs was brought instantly +to the Department. These three forces, acting with the regular +opposition and the natural obstructionists, could always stop action in +the Senate. The fathers had intended to neutralize the energy of +government and had succeeded, but their machine was never meant to do +the work of a twenty-million horse-power society in the twentieth +century, where much work needed to be quickly and efficiently done. The +only defence of the system was that, as Government did nothing well, it +had best do nothing; but the Government, in truth, did perfectly well +all it was given to do; and even if the charge were true, it applied +equally to human society altogether, if one chose to treat mankind from +that point of view. As a matter of mechanics, so much work must be +done; bad machinery merely added to friction. + + Always unselfish, generous, easy, patient, and loyal, Hay had +treated the world as something to be taken in block without pulling it +to pieces to get rid of its defects; he liked it all: he laughed and +accepted; he had never known unhappiness and would have gladly lived +his entire life over again exactly as it happened. In the whole New +York school, one met a similar dash of humor and cynicism more or less +pronounced but seldom bitter. Yet even the gayest of tempers succumbs +at last to constant friction. The old friend was rapidly fading. The +habit remained, but the easy intimacy, the careless gaiety, the casual +humor, the equality of indifference, were sinking into the routine of +office; the mind lingered in the Department; the thought failed to +react; the wit and humor shrank within the blank walls of politics, and +the irritations multiplied. To a head of bureau, the result seemed +ennobling. + + Although, as education, this branch of study was more familiar +and older than the twelfth century, the task of bringing the two +periods into a common relation was new. Ignorance required that these +political and social and scientific values of the twelfth and twentieth +centuries should be correlated in some relation of movement that could +be expressed in mathematics, nor did one care in the least that all the +world said it could not be done, or that one knew not enough +mathematics even to figure a formula beyond the schoolboy s = gt^2/2. +If Kepler and Newton could take liberties with the sun and moon, an +obscure person in a remote wilderness like La Fayette Square could take +liberties with Congress, and venture to multiply half its attraction +into the square of its time. He had only to find a value, even +infinitesimal, for its attraction at any given time. A historical +formula that should satisfy the conditions of the stellar universe +weighed heavily on his mind; but a trifling matter like this was one in +which he could look for no help from anybody--he could look only for +derision at best. + + All his associates in history condemned such an attempt as +futile and almost immoral--certainly hostile to sound historical +system. Adams tried it only because of its hostility to all that he had +taught for history, since he started afresh from the new point that, +whatever was right, all he had ever taught was wrong. He had pursued +ignorance thus far with success, and had swept his mind clear of +knowledge. In beginning again, from the starting-point of Sir Isaac +Newton, he looked about him in vain for a teacher. Few men in +Washington cared to overstep the school conventions, and the most +distinguished of them, Simon Newcomb, was too sound a mathematician to +treat such a scheme seriously. The greatest of Americans, judged by his +rank in science, Willard Gibbs, never came to Washington, and Adams +never enjoyed a chance to meet him. After Gibbs, one of the most +distinguished was Langley, of the Smithsonian, who was more accessible, +to whom Adams had been much in the habit of turning whenever he wanted +an outlet for his vast reservoirs of ignorance. Langley listened with +outward patience to his disputatious questionings; but he too nourished +a scientific passion for doubt, and sentimental attachment for its +avowal. He had the physicist's heinous fault of professing to know +nothing between flashes of intense perception. Like so many other great +observers, Langley was not a mathematician, and like most physicists, +he believed in physics. Rigidly denying himself the amusement of +philosophy, which consists chiefly in suggesting unintelligible answers +to insoluble problems, he still knew the problems, and liked to wander +past them in a courteous temper, even bowing to them distantly as +though recognizing their existence, while doubting their +respectability. He generously let others doubt what he felt obliged to +affirm; and early put into Adams's hands the "Concepts of Modern +Science," a volume by Judge Stallo, which had been treated for a dozen +years by the schools with a conspiracy of silence such as inevitably +meets every revolutionary work that upsets the stock and machinery of +instruction. Adams read and failed to understand; then he asked +questions and failed to get answers. + + Probably this was education. Perhaps it was the only scientific +education open to a student sixty-odd years old, who asked to be as +ignorant as an astronomer. For him the details of science meant +nothing: he wanted to know its mass. Solar heat was not enough, or was +too much. Kinetic atoms led only to motion; never to direction or +progress. History had no use for multiplicity; it needed unity; it +could study only motion, direction, attraction, relation. Everything +must be made to move together; one must seek new worlds to measure; and +so, like Rasselas, Adams set out once more, and found himself on May 12 +settled in rooms at the very door of the Trocadero. + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE DYNAMO AND THE VIRGIN (1900) + + UNTIL the Great Exposition of 1900 closed its doors in +November, Adams haunted it, aching to absorb knowledge, and helpless to +find it. He would have liked to know how much of it could have been +grasped by the best-informed man in the world. While he was thus +meditating chaos, Langley came by, and showed it to him. At Langley's +behest, the Exhibition dropped its superfluous rags and stripped itself +to the skin, for Langley knew what to study, and why, and how; while +Adams might as well have stood outside in the night, staring at the +Milky Way. Yet Langley said nothing new, and taught nothing that one +might not have learned from Lord Bacon, three hundred years before; but +though one should have known the "Advancement of Science" as well as +one knew the "Comedy of Errors," the literary knowledge counted for +nothing until some teacher should show how to apply it. Bacon took a +vast deal of trouble in teaching King James I and his subjects, +American or other, towards the year 1620, that true science was the +development or economy of forces; yet an elderly American in 1900 knew +neither the formula nor the forces; or even so much as to say to +himself that his historical business in the Exposition concerned only +the economies or developments of force since 1893, when he began the +study at Chicago. + + Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of +ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts. Adams had looked +at most of the accumulations of art in the storehouses called Art +Museums; yet he did not know how to look at the art exhibits of 1900. +He had studied Karl Marx and his doctrines of history with profound +attention, yet he could not apply them at Paris. Langley, with the ease +of a great master of experiment, threw out of the field every exhibit +that did not reveal a new application of force, and naturally threw +out, to begin with, almost the whole art exhibit. Equally, he ignored +almost the whole industrial exhibit. He led his pupil directly to the +forces. His chief interest was in new motors to make his airship +feasible, and he taught Adams the astonishing complexities of the new +Daimler motor, and of the automobile, which, since 1893, had become a +nightmare at a hundred kilometres an hour, almost as destructive as the +electric tram which was only ten years older; and threatening to become +as terrible as the locomotive steam-engine itself, which was almost +exactly Adams's own age. + + Then he showed his scholar the great hall of dynamos, and +explained how little he knew about electricity or force of any kind, +even of his own special sun, which spouted heat in inconceivable +volume, but which, as far as he knew, might spout less or more, at any +time, for all the certainty he felt in it. To him, the dynamo itself +was but an ingenious channel for conveying somewhere the heat latent in +a few tons of poor coal hidden in a dirty engine-house carefully kept +out of sight; but to Adams the dynamo became a symbol of infinity. As +he grew accustomed to the great gallery of machines, he began to feel +the forty-foot dynamos as a moral force, much as the early Christians +felt the Cross. The planet itself seemed less impressive, in its +old-fashioned, deliberate, annual or daily revolution, than this huge +wheel, revolving within arm's length at some vertiginous speed, and +barely murmuring--scarcely humming an audible warning to stand a +hair's-breadth further for respect of power--while it would not wake +the baby lying close against its frame. Before the end, one began to +pray to it; inherited instinct taught the natural expression of man +before silent and infinite force. Among the thousand symbols of +ultimate energy the dynamo was not so human as some, but it was the +most expressive. + + Yet the dynamo, next to the steam-engine, was the most familiar +of exhibits. For Adams's objects its value lay chiefly in its occult +mechanism. Between the dynamo in the gallery of machines and the +engine-house outside, the break of continuity amounted to abysmal +fracture for a historian's objects. No more relation could he discover +between the steam and the electric current than between the Cross and +the cathedral. The forces were interchangeable if not reversible, but +he could see only an absolute fiat in electricity as in faith. Langley +could not help him. Indeed, Langley seemed to be worried by the same +trouble, for he constantly repeated that the new forces were +anarchical, and especially that he was not responsible for the new +rays, that were little short of parricidal in their wicked spirit +towards science. His own rays, with which he had doubled the solar +spectrum, were altogether harmless and beneficent; but Radium denied +its God--or, what was to Langley the same thing, denied the truths of +his Science. The force was wholly new. + + A historian who asked only to learn enough to be as futile as +Langley or Kelvin, made rapid progress under this teaching, and mixed +himself up in the tangle of ideas until he achieved a sort of Paradise +of ignorance vastly consoling to his fatigued senses. He wrapped +himself in vibrations and rays which were new, and he would have hugged +Marconi and Branly had he met them, as he hugged the dynamo; while he +lost his arithmetic in trying to figure out the equation between the +discoveries and the economies of force. The economies, like the +discoveries, were absolute, supersensual, occult; incapable of +expression in horse-power. What mathematical equivalent could he +suggest as the value of a Branly coherer? Frozen air, or the electric +furnace, had some scale of measurement, no doubt, if somebody could +invent a thermometer adequate to the purpose; but X-rays had played no +part whatever in man's consciousness, and the atom itself had figured +only as a fiction of thought. In these seven years man had translated +himself into a new universe which had no common scale of measurement +with the old. He had entered a supersensual world, in which he could +measure nothing except by chance collisions of movements imperceptible +to his senses, perhaps even imperceptible to his instruments, but +perceptible to each other, and so to some known ray at the end of the +scale. Langley seemed prepared for anything, even for an indeterminable +number of universes interfused--physics stark mad in metaphysics. + + Historians undertake to arrange sequences,--called stories, +or histories--assuming in silence a relation of cause and effect. These +assumptions, hidden in the depths of dusty libraries, have been +astounding, but commonly unconscious and childlike; so much so, that if +any captious critic were to drag them to light, historians would +probably reply, with one voice, that they had never supposed themselves +required to know what they were talking about. Adams, for one, had +toiled in vain to find out what he meant. He had even published a dozen +volumes of American history for no other purpose than to satisfy +himself whether, by severest process of stating, with the least +possible comment, such facts as seemed sure, in such order as seemed +rigorously consequent, he could fix for a familiar moment a necessary +sequence of human movement. The result had satisfied him as little as +at Harvard College. Where he saw sequence, other men saw something +quite different, and no one saw the same unit of measure. He cared +little about his experiments and less about his statesmen, who seemed +to him quite as ignorant as himself and, as a rule, no more honest; but +he insisted on a relation of sequence, and if he could not reach it by +one method, he would try as many methods as science knew. Satisfied +that the sequence of men led to nothing and that the sequence of their +society could lead no further, while the mere sequence of time was +artificial, and the sequence of thought was chaos, he turned at last to +the sequence of force; and thus it happened that, after ten years' +pursuit, he found himself lying in the Gallery of Machines at the Great +Exposition of 1900, his historical neck broken by the sudden irruption +of forces totally new. + + Since no one else showed much concern, an elderly person +without other cares had no need to betray alarm. The year 1900 was not +the first to upset schoolmasters. Copernicus and Galileo had broken +many professorial necks about 1600; Columbus had stood the world on its +head towards 1500; but the nearest approach to the revolution of 1900 +was that of 310, when Constantine set up the Cross. The rays that +Langley disowned, as well as those which he fathered, were occult, +supersensual, irrational; they were a revelation of mysterious energy +like that of the Cross; they were what, in terms of mediaeval science, +were called immediate modes of the divine substance. + + The historian was thus reduced to his last resources. Clearly +if he was bound to reduce all these forces to a common value, this +common value could have no measure but that of their attraction on his +own mind. He must treat them as they had been felt; as convertible, +reversible, interchangeable attractions on thought. He made up his mind +to venture it; he would risk translating rays into faith. Such a +reversible process would vastly amuse a chemist, but the chemist could +not deny that he, or some of his fellow physicists, could feel the +force of both. When Adams was a boy in Boston, the best chemist in the +place had probably never heard of Venus except by way of scandal, or of +the Virgin except as idolatry; neither had he heard of dynamos or +automobiles or radium; yet his mind was ready to feel the force of all, +though the rays were unborn and the women were dead. + + Here opened another totally new education, which promised to be +by far the most hazardous of all. The knife-edge along which he must +crawl, like Sir Lancelot in the twelfth century, divided two kingdoms +of force which had nothing in common but attraction. They were as +different as a magnet is from gravitation, supposing one knew what a +magnet was, or gravitation, or love. The force of the Virgin was still +felt at Lourdes, and seemed to be as potent as X-rays; but in America +neither Venus nor Virgin ever had value as force--at most as sentiment. +No American had ever been truly afraid of either. + + This problem in dynamics gravely perplexed an American +historian. The Woman had once been supreme; in France she still seemed +potent, not merely as a sentiment, but as a force. Why was she unknown +in America? For evidently America was ashamed of her, and she was +ashamed of herself, otherwise they would not have strewn fig-leaves so +profusely all over her. When she was a true force, she was ignorant of +fig-leaves, but the monthly-magazine-made American female had not a +feature that would have been recognized by Adam. The trait was +notorious, and often humorous, but any one brought up among Puritans +knew that sex was sin. In any previous age, sex was strength. Neither +art nor beauty was needed. Every one, even among Puritans, knew that +neither Diana of the Ephesians nor any of the Oriental goddesses was +worshipped for her beauty. She was goddess because of her force; she +was the animated dynamo; she was reproduction--the greatest and most +mysterious of all energies; all she needed was to be fecund. Singularly +enough, not one of Adams's many schools of education had ever drawn his +attention to the opening lines of Lucretius, though they were perhaps +the finest in all Latin literature, where the poet invoked Venus +exactly as Dante invoked the Virgin:-- + + "Quae quondam rerum naturam sola gubernas." + +The Venus of Epicurean philosophy survived in the Virgin of the +Schools:-- + + "Donna, sei tanto grande, e tanto vali, + Che qual vuol grazia, e a te non ricorre, + Sua disianza vuol volar senz' ali." + + All this was to American thought as though it had never +existed. The true American knew something of the facts, but nothing of +the feelings; he read the letter, but he never felt the law. Before +this historical chasm, a mind like that of Adams felt itself helpless; +he turned from the Virgin to the Dynamo as though he were a Branly +coherer. On one side, at the Louvre and at Chartres, as he knew by the +record of work actually done and still before his eyes, was the highest +energy ever known to man, the creator of four-fifths of his noblest art, +exercising vastly more attraction over the human mind than all the +steam-engines and dynamos ever dreamed of; and yet this energy was +unknown to the American mind. An American Virgin would never dare +command; an American Venus would never dare exist. + + The question, which to any plain American of the nineteenth +century seemed as remote as it did to Adams, drew him almost violently +to study, once it was posed; and on this point Langleys were as useless +as though they were Herbert Spencers or dynamos. The idea survived only +as art. There one turned as naturally as though the artist were himself +a woman. Adams began to ponder, asking himself whether he knew of any +American artist who had ever insisted on the power of sex, as every +classic had always done; but he could think only of Walt Whitman; Bret +Harte, as far as the magazines would let him venture; and one or two +painters, for the flesh-tones. All the rest had used sex for sentiment, +never for force; to them, Eve was a tender flower, and Herodias an +unfeminine horror. American art, like the American language and +American education, was as far as possible sexless. Society regarded +this victory over sex as its greatest triumph, and the historian +readily admitted it, since the moral issue, for the moment, did not +concern one who was studying the relations of unmoral force. He cared +nothing for the sex of the dynamo until he could measure its energy. + + Vaguely seeking a clue, he wandered through the art exhibit, +and, in his stroll, stopped almost every day before St. Gaudens's +General Sherman, which had been given the central post of honor. St. +Gaudens himself was in Paris, putting on the work his usual +interminable last touches, and listening to the usual contradictory +suggestions of brother sculptors. Of all the American artists who gave +to American art whatever life it breathed in the seventies, St. Gaudens +was perhaps the most sympathetic, but certainly the most inarticulate. +General Grant or Don Cameron had scarcely less instinct of rhetoric +than he. All the others--the Hunts, Richardson, John La Farge, Stanford +White--were exuberant; only St. Gaudens could never discuss or dilate +on an emotion, or suggest artistic arguments for giving to his work the +forms that he felt. He never laid down the law, or affected the despot, +or became brutalized like Whistler by the brutalities of his world. He +required no incense; he was no egoist; his simplicity of thought was +excessive; he could not imitate, or give any form but his own to the +creations of his hand. No one felt more strongly than he the strength +of other men, but the idea that they could affect him never stirred an +image in his mind. + + This summer his health was poor and his spirits were low. For +such a temper, Adams was not the best companion, since his own gaiety +was not folle; but he risked going now and then to the studio on Mont +Parnasse to draw him out for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne, or +dinner as pleased his moods, and in return St. Gaudens sometimes let +Adams go about in his company. + + Once St. Gaudens took him down to Amiens, with a party of +Frenchmen, to see the cathedral. Not until they found themselves +actually studying the sculpture of the western portal, did it dawn on +Adams's mind that, for his purposes, St. Gaudens on that spot had more +interest to him than the cathedral itself. Great men before great +monuments express great truths, provided they are not taken too +solemnly. Adams never tired of quoting the supreme phrase of his idol +Gibbon, before the Gothic cathedrals: "I darted a contemptuous look on +the stately monuments of superstition." Even in the footnotes of his +history, Gibbon had never inserted a bit of humor more human than this, +and one would have paid largely for a photograph of the fat little +historian, on the background of Notre Dame of Amiens, trying to +persuade his readers--perhaps himself--that he was darting a +contemptuous look on the stately monument, for which he felt in fact +the respect which every man of his vast study and active mind always +feels before objects worthy of it; but besides the humor, one felt also +the relation. Gibbon ignored the Virgin, because in 1789 religious +monuments were out of fashion. In 1900 his remark sounded fresh and +simple as the green fields to ears that had heard a hundred years of +other remarks, mostly no more fresh and certainly less simple. Without +malice, one might find it more instructive than a whole lecture of +Ruskin. One sees what one brings, and at that moment Gibbon brought the +French Revolution. Ruskin brought reaction against the Revolution. St. +Gaudens had passed beyond all. He liked the stately monuments much more +than he liked Gibbon or Ruskin; he loved their dignity; their unity; +their scale; their lines; their lights and shadows; their decorative +sculpture; but he was even less conscious than they of the force that +created it all--the Virgin, the Woman--by whose genius "the stately +monuments of superstition" were built, through which she was expressed. +He would have seen more meaning in Isis with the cow's horns, at Edfoo, +who expressed the same thought. The art remained, but the energy was +lost even upon the artist. + + Yet in mind and person St. Gaudens was a survival of the 1500s +he bore the stamp of the Renaissance, and should have carried an image +of the Virgin round his neck, or stuck in his hat, like Louis XI. In +mere time he was a lost soul that had strayed by chance to the +twentieth century, and forgotten where it came from. He writhed and +cursed at his ignorance, much as Adams did at his own, but in the +opposite sense. St. Gaudens was a child of Benvenuto Cellini, smothered +in an American cradle. Adams was a quintessence of Boston, devoured by +curiosity to think like Benvenuto. St. Gaudens's art was starved from +birth, and Adams's instinct was blighted from babyhood. Each had but +half of a nature, and when they came together before the Virgin of +Amiens they ought both to have felt in her the force that made them +one; but it was not so. To Adams she became more than ever a channel of +force; to St. Gaudens she remained as before a channel of taste. + + For a symbol of power, St. Gaudens instinctively preferred the +horse, as was plain in his horse and Victory of the Sherman monument. +Doubtless Sherman also felt it so. The attitude was so American that, +for at least forty years, Adams had never realized that any other could +be in sound taste. How many years had he taken to admit a notion of +what Michael Angelo and Rubens were driving at? He could not say; but +he knew that only since 1895 had he begun to feel the Virgin or Venus +as force, and not everywhere even so. At Chartres--perhaps at +Lourdes--possibly at Cnidos if one could still find there the divinely +naked Aphrodite of Praxiteles--but otherwise one must look for force to +the goddesses of Indian mythology. The idea died out long ago in the +German and English stock. St. Gaudens at Amiens was hardly less +sensitive to the force of the female energy than Matthew Arnold at the +Grande Chartreuse. Neither of them felt goddesses as power--only as +reflected emotion, human expression, beauty, purity, taste, scarcely +even as sympathy. They felt a railway train as power, yet they, and all +other artists, constantly complained that the power embodied in a +railway train could never be embodied in art. All the steam in the +world could not, like the Virgin, build Chartres. + + Yet in mechanics, whatever the mechanicians might think, both +energies acted as interchangeable force on man, and by action on man +all known force may be measured. Indeed, few men of science measured +force in any other way. After once admitting that a straight line was +the shortest distance between two points, no serious mathematician +cared to deny anything that suited his convenience, and rejected no +symbol, unproved or unproveable, that helped him to accomplish work. +The symbol was force, as a compass-needle or a triangle was force, as +the mechanist might prove by losing it, and nothing could be gained by +ignoring their value. Symbol or energy, the Virgin had acted as the +greatest force the Western world ever felt, and had drawn man's +activities to herself more strongly than any other power, natural or +supernatural, had ever done; the historian's business was to follow the +track of the energy; to find where it came from and where it went to; +its complex source and shifting channels; its values, equivalents, +conversions. It could scarcely be more complex than radium; it could +hardly be deflected, diverted, polarized, absorbed more perplexingly +than other radiant matter. Adams knew nothing about any of them, but as +a mathematical problem of influence on human progress, though all were +occult, all reacted on his mind, and he rather inclined to think the +Virgin easiest to handle. + + The pursuit turned out to be long and tortuous, leading at last +to the vast forests of scholastic science. From Zeno to Descartes, hand +in hand with Thomas Aquinas, Montaigne, and Pascal, one stumbled as +stupidly as though one were still a German student of 1860. Only with +the instinct of despair could one force one's self into this old +thicket of ignorance after having been repulsed a score of entrances +more promising and more popular. Thus far, no path had led anywhere, +unless perhaps to an exceedingly modest living. Forty-five years of +study had proved to be quite futile for the pursuit of power; one +controlled no more force in 1900 than in 1850, although the amount of +force controlled by society had enormously increased. The secret of +education still hid itself somewhere behind ignorance, and one fumbled +over it as feebly as ever. In such labyrinths, the staff is a force +almost more necessary than the legs; the pen becomes a sort of +blind-man's dog, to keep him from falling into the gutters. The pen +works for itself, and acts like a hand, modelling the plastic material +over and over again to the form that suits it best. The form is never +arbitrary, but is a sort of growth like crystallization, as any artist +knows too well; for often the pencil or pen runs into side-paths and +shapelessness, loses its relations, stops or is bogged. Then it has to +return on its trail, and recover, if it can, its line of force. The +result of a year's work depends more on what is struck out than on what +is left in; on the sequence of the main lines of thought, than on their +play or variety. Compelled once more to lean heavily on this support, +Adams covered more thousands of pages with figures as formal as though +they were algebra, laboriously striking out, altering, burning, +experimenting, until the year had expired, the Exposition had long been +closed, and winter drawing to its end, before he sailed from Cherbourg, +on January 19, 1901, for home. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +TWILIGHT (1901) + + WHILE the world that thought itself frivolous, and submitted +meekly to hearing itself decried as vain, fluttered through the Paris +Exposition, jogging the futilities of St. Gaudens, Rodin, and Besnard, +the world that thought itself serious, and showed other infallible +marks of coming mental paroxysm, was engaged in weird doings at Peking +and elsewhere such as startled even itself. Of all branches of +education, the science of gauging people and events by their relative +importance defies study most insolently. For three or four generations, +society has united in withering with contempt and opprobrium the +shameless futility of Mme. de Pompadour and Mme. du Barry; yet, if one +bid at an auction for some object that had been approved by the taste +of either lady, one quickly found that it were better to buy +half-a-dozen Napoleons or Frederics, or Maria Theresas, or all the +philosophy and science of their time, than to bid for a cane-bottomed +chair that either of these two ladies had adorned. The same thing might +be said, in a different sense, of Voltaire; while, as every one knows, +the money-value of any hand-stroke of Watteau or Hogarth, Nattier or +Sir Joshua, is out of all proportion to the importance of the men. +Society seemed to delight in talking with solemn conviction about +serious values, and in paying fantastic prices for nothing but the most +futile. The drama acted at Peking, in the summer of 1900, was, in the +eyes of a student, the most serious that could be offered for his +study, since it brought him suddenly to the inevitable struggle for the +control of China, which, in his view, must decide the control of the +world; yet, as a money-value, the fall of China was chiefly studied in +Paris and London as a calamity to Chinese porcelain. The value of a +Ming vase was more serious than universal war. + + The drama of the Legations interested the public much as though +it were a novel of Alexandre Dumas, but the bearing of the drama on +future history offered an interest vastly greater. Adams knew no more +about it than though he were the best-informed statesman in Europe. +Like them all, he took for granted that the Legations were massacred, +and that John Hay, who alone championed China's "administrative +entity," would be massacred too, since he must henceforth look on, in +impotence, while Russia and Germany dismembered China, and shut up +America at home. Nine statesmen out of ten, in Europe, accepted this +result in advance, seeing no way to prevent it. Adams saw none, and +laughed at Hay for his helplessness. + + When Hay suddenly ignored European leadership, took the lead +himself, rescued the Legations and saved China, Adams looked on, as +incredulous as Europe, though not quite so stupid, since, on that +branch of education, he knew enough for his purpose. Nothing so +meteoric had ever been done in American diplomacy. On returning to +Washington, January 30, 1901, he found most of the world as astonished +as himself, but less stupid than usual. For a moment, indeed, the world +had been struck dumb at seeing Hay put Europe aside and set the +Washington Government at the head of civilization so quietly that +civilization submitted, by mere instinct of docility, to receive and +obey his orders; but, after the first shock of silence, society felt +the force of the stroke through its fineness, and burst into almost +tumultuous applause. Instantly the diplomacy of the nineteenth century, +with all its painful scuffles and struggles, was forgotten, and the +American blushed to be told of his submissions in the past. History +broke in halves. + + Hay was too good an artist not to feel the artistic skill of +his own work, and the success reacted on his health, giving him fresh +life, for with him as with most men, success was a tonic, and +depression a specific poison; but as usual, his troubles nested at +home. Success doubles strain. President McKinley's diplomatic court had +become the largest in the world, and the diplomatic relations required +far more work than ever before, while the staff of the Department was +little more efficient, and the friction in the Senate had become +coagulated. Hay took to studying the "Diary" of John Quincy Adams +eighty years before, and calculated that the resistance had increased +about ten times, as measured by waste of days and increase of effort, +although Secretary of State J. Q. Adams thought himself very hardly +treated. Hay cheerfully noted that it was killing him, and proved it, +for the effort of the afternoon walk became sometimes painful. + + For the moment, things were going fairly well, and Hay's unruly +team were less fidgety, but Pauncefote still pulled the whole load and +turned the dangerous corners safely, while Cassini and Holleben helped +the Senate to make what trouble they could, without serious offence, +and the Irish, after the genial Celtic nature, obstructed even +themselves. The fortunate Irish, thanks to their sympathetic qualities, +never made lasting enmities; but the Germans seemed in a fair way to +rouse ill-will and even ugly temper in the spirit of politics, which +was by no means a part of Hay's plans. He had as much as he could do to +overcome domestic friction, and felt no wish to alienate foreign +powers. Yet so much could be said in favor of the foreigners that they +commonly knew why they made trouble, and were steady to a motive. +Cassini had for years pursued, in Peking as in Washington, a policy of +his own, never disguised, and as little in harmony with his chief as +with Hay; he made his opposition on fixed lines for notorious objects; +but Senators could seldom give a reason for obstruction. In every +hundred men, a certain number obstruct by instinct, and try to invent +reasons to explain it afterwards. The Senate was no worse than the +board of a university; but incorporators as a rule have not made this +class of men dictators on purpose to prevent action. In the Senate, a +single vote commonly stopped legislation, or, in committee, stifled +discussion. + + Hay's policy of removing, one after another, all irritations, +and closing all discussions with foreign countries, roused incessant +obstruction, which could be overcome only by patience and bargaining in +executive patronage, if indeed it could be overcome at all. The price +actually paid was not very great except in the physical exhaustion of +Hay and Pauncefote, Root and McKinley. No serious bargaining of +equivalents could be attempted; Senators would not sacrifice five +dollars in their own States to gain five hundred thousand in another; +but whenever a foreign country was willing to surrender an advantage +without an equivalent, Hay had a chance to offer the Senate a treaty. +In all such cases the price paid for the treaty was paid wholly to the +Senate, and amounted to nothing very serious except in waste of time +and wear of strength. "Life is so gay and horrid!" laughed Hay; "the +Major will have promised all the consulates in the service; the +Senators will all come to me and refuse to believe me dis-consulate; I +shall see all my treaties slaughtered, one by one, by the thirty-four +per cent of kickers and strikers; the only mitigation I can foresee is +being sick a good part of the time; I am nearing my grand climacteric, +and the great culbute is approaching." + + He was thinking of his friend Blaine, and might have thought of +all his predecessors, for all had suffered alike, and to Adams as +historian their sufferings had been a long delight--the solitary +picturesque and tragic element in politics--incidentally requiring +character-studies like Aaron Burr and William B. Giles, Calhoun and +Webster and Sumner, with Sir Forcible Feebles like James M. Mason and +stage exaggerations like Roscoe Conkling. The Senate took the place of +Shakespeare, and offered real Brutuses and Bolingbrokes, Jack Cades, +Falstaffs, and Malvolios--endless varieties of human nature nowhere +else to be studied, and none the less amusing because they killed, or +because they were like schoolboys in their simplicity. "Life is so gay +and horrid!" Hay still felt the humor, though more and more rarely, but +what he felt most was the enormous complexity and friction of the vast +mass he was trying to guide. He bitterly complained that it had made +him a bore--of all things the most senatorial, and to him the most +obnoxious. The old friend was lost, and only the teacher remained, +driven to madness by the complexities and multiplicities of his new +world. + + To one who, at past sixty years old, is still passionately +seeking education, these small, or large, annoyances had no great value +except as measures of mass and motion. For him the practical interest +and the practical man were such as looked forward to the next election, +or perhaps, in corporations, five or ten years. Scarcely half-a-dozen +men in America could be named who were known to have looked a dozen +years ahead; while any historian who means to keep his alignment with +past and future must cover a horizon of two generations at least. If he +seeks to align himself with the future, he must assume a condition of +some sort for a world fifty years beyond his own. Every +historian--sometimes unconsciously, but always inevitably--must have +put to himself the question: How long could such-or-such an outworn +system last? He can never give himself less than one generation to show +the full effects of a changed condition. His object is to triangulate +from the widest possible base to the furthest point he thinks he can +see, which is always far beyond the curvature of the horizon. + + To the practical man, such an attempt is idiotic, and probably +the practical man is in the right to-day; but, whichever is right--if +the question of right or wrong enters at all into the matter--the +historian has no choice but to go on alone. Even in his own profession +few companions offer help, and his walk soon becomes solitary, leading +further and further into a wilderness where twilight is short and the +shadows are dense. Already Hay literally staggered in his tracks for +weariness. More worn than he, Clarence King dropped. One day in the +spring he stopped an hour in Washington to bid good-bye, cheerily and +simply telling how his doctors had condemned him to Arizona for his +lungs. All three friends knew that they were nearing the end, and that +if it were not the one it would be the other; but the affectation of +readiness for death is a stage role, and stoicism is a stupid resource, +though the only one. Non doles, Paete! One is ashamed of it even in the +acting. + + The sunshine of life had not been so dazzling of late but that +a share of it flickered out for Adams and Hay when King disappeared +from their lives; but Hay had still his family and ambition, while +Adams could only blunder back alone, helplessly, wearily, his eyes +rather dim with tears, to his vague trail across the darkening prairie +of education, without a motive, big or small, except curiosity to +reach, before he too should drop, some point that would give him a far +look ahead. He was morbidly curious to see some light at the end of the +passage, as though thirty years were a shadow, and he were again to +fall into King's arms at the door of the last and only log cabin left +in life. Time had become terribly short, and the sense of knowing so +little when others knew so much, crushed out hope. + + He knew not in what new direction to turn, and sat at his desk, +idly pulling threads out of the tangled skein of science, to see +whether or why they aligned themselves. The commonest and oldest toy he +knew was the child's magnet, with which he had played since babyhood, +the most familiar of puzzles. He covered his desk with magnets, and +mapped out their lines of force by compass. Then he read all the books +he could find, and tried in vain to makes his lines of force agree with +theirs. The books confounded him. He could not credit his own +understanding. Here was literally the most concrete fact in nature, +next to gravitation which it defied; a force which must have radiated +lines of energy without stop, since time began, if not longer, and +which might probably go on radiating after the sun should fall into the +earth, since no one knew why--or how--or what it radiated--or even +whether it radiated at all. Perhaps the earliest known of all natural +forces after the solar energies, it seemed to have suggested no idea to +any one until some mariner bethought himself that it might serve for a +pointer. Another thousand years passed when it taught some other +intelligent man to use it as a pump, supply-pipe, sieve, or reservoir +for collecting electricity, still without knowing how it worked or what +it was. For a historian, the story of Faraday's experiments and the +invention of the dynamo passed belief; it revealed a condition of human +ignorance and helplessness before the commonest forces, such as his +mind refused to credit. He could not conceive but that some one, +somewhere, could tell him all about the magnet, if one could but find +the book--although he had been forced to admit the same helplessness in +the face of gravitation, phosphorescence, and odors; and he could +imagine no reason why society should treat radium as revolutionary in +science when every infant, for ages past, had seen the magnet doing +what radium did; for surely the kind of radiation mattered nothing +compared with the energy that radiated and the matter supplied for +radiation. He dared not venture into the complexities of chemistry, or +microbes, so long as this child's toy offered complexities that +befogged his mind beyond X-rays, and turned the atom into an endless +variety of pumps endlessly pumping an endless variety of ethers. He +wanted to ask Mme. Curie to invent a motor attachable to her salt of +radium, and pump its forces through it, as Faraday did with a magnet. +He figured the human mind itself as another radiating matter through +which man had always pumped a subtler fluid. + + In all this futility, it was not the magnet or the rays or the +microbes that troubled him, or even his helplessness before the forces. +To that he was used from childhood. The magnet in its new relation +staggered his new education by its evidence of growing complexity, and +multiplicity, and even contradiction, in life. He could not escape it; +politics or science, the lesson was the same, and at every step it +blocked his path whichever way he turned. He found it in politics; he +ran against it in science; he struck it in everyday life, as though he +were still Adam in the Garden of Eden between God who was unity, and +Satan who was complexity, with no means of deciding which was truth. +The problem was the same for McKinley as for Adam, and for the Senate +as for Satan. Hay was going to wreck on it, like King and Adams. + + All one's life, one had struggled for unity, and unity had +always won. The National Government and the national unity had overcome +every resistance, and the Darwinian evolutionists were triumphant over +all the curates; yet the greater the unity and the momentum, the worse +became the complexity and the friction. One had in vain bowed one's +neck to railways, banks, corporations, trusts, and even to the popular +will as far as one could understand it--or even further; the +multiplicity of unity had steadily increased, was increasing, and +threatened to increase beyond reason. He had surrendered all his +favorite prejudices, and foresworn even the forms of criticism--except +for his pet amusement, the Senate, which was a tonic or stimulant +necessary to healthy life; he had accepted uniformity and Pteraspis and +ice age and tramways and telephones; and now--just when he was ready to +hang the crowning garland on the brow of a completed education--science +itself warned him to begin it again from the beginning. + + Maundering among the magnets he bethought himself that once, a +full generation earlier, he had begun active life by writing a +confession of geological faith at the bidding of Sir Charles Lyell, and +that it might be worth looking at if only to steady his vision. He read +it again, and thought it better than he could do at sixty-three; but +elderly minds always work loose. He saw his doubts grown larger, and +became curious to know what had been said about them since 1870. The +Geological Survey supplied stacks of volumes, and reading for steady +months; while, the longer he read, the more he wondered, pondered, +doubted what his delightful old friend Sir Charles Lyell would have +said about it. + + Truly the animal that is to be trained to unity must be caught +young. Unity is vision; it must have been part of the process of +learning to see. The older the mind, the older its complexities, and +the further it looks, the more it sees, until even the stars resolve +themselves into multiples; yet the child will always see but one. Adams +asked whether geology since 1867 had drifted towards unity or +multiplicity, and he felt that the drift would depend on the age of the +man who drifted. + + Seeking some impersonal point for measure, he turned to see +what had happened to his oldest friend and cousin the ganoid fish, the +Pteraspis of Ludlow and Wenlock, with whom he had sported when +geological life was young; as though they had all remained together in +time to act the Mask of Comus at Ludlow Castle, and repeat "how +charming is divine philosophy!" He felt almost aggrieved to find +Walcott so vigorously acting the part of Comus as to have flung the +ganoid all the way off to Colorado and far back into the Lower Trenton +limestone, making the Pteraspis as modern as a Mississippi gar-pike by +spawning an ancestry for him, indefinitely more remote, in the dawn of +known organic life. A few thousand feet, more or less, of limestone +were the liveliest amusement to the ganoid, but they buried the +uniformitarian alive, under the weight of his own uniformity. Not for +all the ganoid fish that ever swam, would a discreet historian dare to +hazard even in secret an opinion about the value of Natural Selection +by Minute Changes under Uniform Conditions, for he could know no more +about it than most of his neighbors who knew nothing; but natural +selection that did not select--evolution finished before it +began--minute changes that refused to change anything during the whole +geological record--survival of the highest order in a fauna which had +no origin--uniformity under conditions which had disturbed everything +else in creation--to an honest-meaning though ignorant student who +needed to prove Natural Selection and not assume it, such sequence +brought no peace. He wished to be shown that changes in form caused +evolution in force; that chemical or mechanical energy had by natural +selection and minute changes, under uniform conditions, converted +itself into thought. The ganoid fish seemed to prove--to him--that it +had selected neither new form nor new force, but that the curates were +right in thinking that force could be increased in volume or raised in +intensity only by help of outside force. To him, the ganoid was a huge +perplexity, none the less because neither he nor the ganoid troubled +Darwinians, but the more because it helped to reveal that Darwinism +seemed to survive only in England. In vain he asked what sort of +evolution had taken its place. Almost any doctrine seemed orthodox. +Even sudden conversions due to mere vital force acting on its own lines +quite beyond mechanical explanation, had cropped up again. A little +more, and he would be driven back on the old independence of species. + + What the ontologist thought about it was his own affair, like +the theologist's views on theology, for complexity was nothing to them; +but to the historian who sought only the direction of thought and had +begun as the confident child of Darwin and Lyell in 1867, the matter of +direction seemed vital. Then he had entered gaily the door of the +glacial epoch, and had surveyed a universe of unities and uniformities. +In 1900 he entered a far vaster universe, where all the old roads ran +about in every direction, overrunning, dividing, subdividing, stopping +abruptly, vanishing slowly, with side-paths that led nowhere, and +sequences that could not be proved. The active geologists had mostly +become specialists dealing with complexities far too technical for an +amateur, but the old formulas still seemed to serve for beginners, as +they had served when new. + + So the cause of the glacial epoch remained at the mercy of +Lyell and Croll, although Geikie had split up the period into +half-a-dozen intermittent chills in recent geology and in the northern +hemisphere alone, while no geologist had ventured to assert that the +glaciation of the southern hemisphere could possibly be referred to a +horizon more remote. Continents still rose wildly and wildly sank, +though Professor Suess of Vienna had written an epoch-making work, +showing that continents were anchored like crystals, and only oceans +rose and sank. Lyell's genial uniformity seemed genial still, for +nothing had taken its place, though, in the interval, granite had grown +young, nothing had been explained, and a bewildering system of huge +overthrusts had upset geological mechanics. The textbooks refused even +to discuss theories, frankly throwing up their hands and avowing that +progress depended on studying each rock as a law to itself. + + Adams had no more to do with the correctness of the science +than the gar-pike or the Port Jackson shark, for its correctness in no +way concerned him, and only impertinence could lead him to dispute or +discuss the principles of any science; but the history of the mind +concerned the historian alone, and the historian had no vital concern +in anything else, for he found no change to record in the body. In +thought the Schools, like the Church, raised ignorance to a faith and +degraded dogma to heresy. Evolution survived like the trilobites +without evolving, and yet the evolutionists held the whole field, and +had even plucked up courage to rebel against the Cossack ukase of Lord +Kelvin forbidding them to ask more than twenty million years for their +experiments. No doubt the geologists had always submitted sadly to this +last and utmost violence inflicted on them by the Pontiff of Physical +Religion in the effort to force unification of the universe; they had +protested with mild conviction that they could not state the geological +record in terms of time; they had murmured Ignoramus under their +breath; but they had never dared to assert the Ignorabimus that lay on +the tips of their tongues. + + Yet the admission seemed close at hand. Evolution was becoming +change of form broken by freaks of force, and warped at times by +attractions affecting intelligence, twisted and tortured at other times +by sheer violence, cosmic, chemical, solar, supersensual, +electrolytic--who knew what?--defying science, if not denying known +law; and the wisest of men could but imitate the Church, and invoke a +"larger synthesis" to unify the anarchy again. Historians have got into +far too much trouble by following schools of theology in their efforts +to enlarge their synthesis, that they should willingly repeat the +process in science. For human purposes a point must always be soon +reached where larger synthesis is suicide. + + Politics and geology pointed alike to the larger synthesis of +rapidly increasing complexity; but still an elderly man knew that the +change might be only in himself. The admission cost nothing. Any +student, of any age, thinking only of a thought and not of his thought, +should delight in turning about and trying the opposite motion, as he +delights in the spring which brings even to a tired and irritated +statesman the larger synthesis of peach-blooms, cherry-blossoms, and +dogwood, to prove the folly of fret. Every schoolboy knows that this +sum of all knowledge never saved him from whipping; mere years help +nothing; King and Hay and Adams could neither of them escape +floundering through the corridors of chaos that opened as they passed +to the end; but they could at least float with the stream if they only +knew which way the current ran. Adams would have liked to begin afresh +with the Limulus and Lepidosteus in the waters of Braintree, side by +side with Adamses and Quincys and Harvard College, all unchanged and +unchangeable since archaic time; but what purpose would it serve? A +seeker of truth--or illusion--would be none the less restless, though a +shark! + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +TEUFELSDROCKH (1901) + + INEVITABLE Paris beckoned, and resistance became more and more +futile as the store of years grew less; for the world contains no other +spot than Paris where education can be pursued from every side. Even +more vigorously than in the twelfth century, Paris taught in the +twentieth, with no other school approaching it for variety of direction +and energy of mind. Of the teaching in detail, a man who knew only what +accident had taught him in the nineteenth century, could know next to +nothing, since science had got quite beyond his horizon, and +mathematics had become the only necessary language of thought; but one +could play with the toys of childhood, including Ming porcelain, salons +of painting, operas and theatres, beaux-arts and Gothic architecture, +theology and anarchy, in any jumble of time; or totter about with Joe +Stickney, talking Greek philosophy or recent poetry, or studying +"Louise" at the Opera Comique, or discussing the charm of youth and the +Seine with Bay Lodge and his exquisite young wife. Paris remained +Parisian in spite of change, mistress of herself though China fell. +Scores of artists--sculptors and painters, poets and dramatists, +workers in gems and metals, designers in stuffs and furniture--hundreds +of chemists, physicists, even philosophers, philologists, physicians, +and historians--were at work, a thousand times as actively as ever +before, and the mass and originality of their product would have +swamped any previous age, as it very nearly swamped its own; but the +effect was one of chaos, and Adams stood as helpless before it as +before the chaos of New York. His single thought was to keep in front +of the movement, and, if necessary, lead it to chaos, but never fall +behind. Only the young have time to linger in the rear. + + The amusements of youth had to be abandoned, for not even +pugilism needs more staying-power than the labors of the pale-faced +student of the Latin Quarter in the haunts of Montparnasse or +Montmartre, where one must feel no fatigue at two o'clock in the +morning in a beer-garden even after four hours of Mounet Sully at the +Theatre Francais. In those branches, education might be called closed. +Fashion, too, could no longer teach anything worth knowing to a man +who, holding open the door into the next world, regarded himself as +merely looking round to take a last glance of this. The glance was more +amusing than any he had known in his active life, but it was +more--infinitely more--chaotic and complex. + + Still something remained to be done for education beyond the +chaos, and as usual the woman helped. For thirty years or there-abouts, +he had been repeating that he really must go to Baireuth. Suddenly Mrs. +Lodge appeared on the horizon and bade him come. He joined them, +parents and children, alert and eager and appreciative as ever, at the +little old town of Rothenburg-on-the Taube, and they went on to the +Baireuth festival together. + + Thirty years earlier, a Baireuth festival would have made an +immense stride in education, and the spirit of the master would have +opened a vast new world. In 1901 the effect was altogether different +from the spirit of the master. In 1876 the rococo setting of Baireuth +seemed the correct atmosphere for Siegfried and Brunhilde, perhaps even +for Parsifal. Baireuth was out of the world, calm, contemplative, and +remote. In 1901 the world had altogether changed, and Wagner had become +a part of it, as familiar as Shakespeare or Bret Harte. The rococo +element jarred. Even the Hudson and the Susquehanna--perhaps the +Potomac itself--had often risen to drown out the gods of Walhalla, and +one could hardly listen to the "Gotterdammerung" in New York, among +throngs of intense young enthusiasts, without paroxysms of nervous +excitement that toned down to musical philistinism at Baireuth, as +though the gods were Bavarian composers. New York or Paris might be +whatever one pleased--venal, sordid, vulgar--but society nursed there, +in the rottenness of its decay, certain anarchistic ferments, and +thought them proof of art. Perhaps they were; and at all events, Wagner +was chiefly responsible for them as artistic emotion. New York knew +better than Baireuth what Wagner meant, and the frivolities of Paris +had more than once included the rising of the Seine to drown out the +Etoile or Montmartre, as well as the sorcery of ambition that casts +spells of enchantment on the hero. Paris still felt a subtile flattery +in the thought that the last great tragedy of gods and men would surely +happen there, while no one could conceive of its happening at Baireuth, +or would care if it did. Paris coquetted with catastrophe as though it +were an old mistress--faced it almost gaily as she had done so often, +for they were acquainted since Rome began to ravage Europe; while New +York met it with a glow of fascinated horror, like an inevitable +earthquake, and heard Ternina announce it with conviction that made +nerves quiver and thrill as they had long ceased to do under the +accents of popular oratory proclaiming popular virtue. Flattery had +lost its charm, but the Fluch-motif went home. + + Adams had been carried with the tide till Brunhilde had become +a habit and Ternina an ally. He too had played with anarchy; though not +with socialism, which, to young men who nourished artistic emotions +under the dome of the Pantheon, seemed hopelessly bourgeois, and lowest +middle-class. Bay Lodge and Joe Stickney had given birth to the wholly +new and original party of Conservative Christian Anarchists, to restore +true poetry under the inspiration of the "Gotterdammerung." Such a +party saw no inspiration in Baireuth, where landscape, history, and +audience were--relatively--stodgy, and where the only emotion was a +musical dilettantism that the master had abhorred. + + Yet Baireuth still amused even a conservative Christian +anarchist who cared as little as "Grane, mein Ross," whether the +singers sang false, and who came only to learn what Wagner had supposed +himself to mean. This end attained as pleased Frau Wagner and the +Heiliger Geist, he was ready to go on; and the Senator, yearning for +sterner study, pointed to a haven at Moscow. For years Adams had taught +American youth never to travel without a Senator who was useful even in +America at times, but indispensable in Russia where, in 1901, +anarchists, even though conservative and Christian, were ill-seen. + + This wing of the anarchistic party consisted rigorously of but +two members, Adams and Bay Lodge. The conservative Christian anarchist, +as a party, drew life from Hegel and Schopenhauer rightly understood. +By the necessity of their philosophical descent, each member of the +fraternity denounced the other as unequal to his lofty task and +inadequate to grasp it. Of course, no third member could be so much as +considered, since the great principle of contradiction could be +expressed only by opposites; and no agreement could be conceived, +because anarchy, by definition, must be chaos and collision, as in the +kinetic theory of a perfect gas. Doubtless this law of contradiction +was itself agreement, a restriction of personal liberty inconsistent +with freedom; but the "larger synthesis" admitted a limited agreement +provided it were strictly confined to the end of larger contradiction. +Thus the great end of all philosophy--the "larger synthesis"--was +attained, but the process was arduous, and while Adams, as the older +member, assumed to declare the principle, Bay Lodge necessarily denied +both the assumption and the principle in order to assure its truth. + + Adams proclaimed that in the last synthesis, order and anarchy +were one, but that the unity was chaos. As anarchist, conservative and +Christian, he had no motive or duty but to attain the end; and, to +hasten it, he was bound to accelerate progress; to concentrate energy; +to accumulate power; to multiply and intensify forces; to reduce +friction, increase velocity and magnify momentum, partly because this +was the mechanical law of the universe as science explained it; but +partly also in order to get done with the present which artists and +some others complained of; and finally--and chiefly--because a rigorous +philosophy required it, in order to penetrate the beyond, and satisfy +man's destiny by reaching the largest synthesis in its ultimate +contradiction. + + Of course the untaught critic instantly objected that this +scheme was neither conservative, Christian, nor anarchic, but such +objection meant only that the critic should begin his education in any +infant school in order to learn that anarchy which should be logical +would cease to be anarchic. To the conservative Christian anarchist, +the amiable doctrines of Kropotkin were sentimental ideas of Russian +mental inertia covered with the name of anarchy merely to disguise +their innocence; and the outpourings of Elisee Reclus were ideals of +the French ouvrier, diluted with absinthe, resulting in a bourgeois +dream of order and inertia. Neither made a pretence of anarchy except +as a momentary stage towards order and unity. Neither of them had +formed any other conception of the universe than what they had +inherited from the priestly class to which their minds obviously +belonged. With them, as with the socialist, communist, or collectivist, +the mind that followed nature had no relation; if anarchists needed +order, they must go back to the twelfth century where their thought had +enjoyed its thousand years of reign. The conservative Christian +anarchist could have no associate, no object, no faith except the +nature of nature itself; and his "larger synthesis" had only the fault +of being so supremely true that even the highest obligation of duty +could scarcely oblige Bay Lodge to deny it in order to prove it. Only +the self-evident truth that no philosophy of order--except the +Church--had ever satisfied the philosopher reconciled the conservative +Christian anarchist to prove his own. + + Naturally these ideas were so far in advance of the age that +hardly more people could understand them than understood Wagner or +Hegel; for that matter, since the time of Socrates, wise men have been +mostly shy of claiming to understand anything; but such refinements +were Greek or German, and affected the practical American but little. +He admitted that, for the moment, the darkness was dense. He could not +affirm with confidence, even to himself, that his "largest synthesis" +would certainly turn out to be chaos, since he would be equally obliged +to deny the chaos. The poet groped blindly for an emotion. The play of +thought for thought's sake had mostly ceased. The throb of fifty or a +hundred million steam horse-power, doubling every ten years, and +already more despotic than all the horses that ever lived, and all the +riders they ever carried, drowned rhyme and reason. No one was to +blame, for all were equally servants of the power, and worked merely to +increase it; but the conservative Christian anarchist saw light. + + Thus the student of Hegel prepared himself for a visit to +Russia in order to enlarge his "synthesis"--and much he needed it! In +America all were conservative Christian anarchists; the faith was +national, racial, geographic. The true American had never seen such +supreme virtue in any of the innumerable shades between social anarchy +and social order as to mark it for exclusively human and his own. He +never had known a complete union either in Church or State or thought, +and had never seen any need for it. The freedom gave him courage to +meet any contradiction, and intelligence enough to ignore it. Exactly +the opposite condition had marked Russian growth. The Czar's empire was +a phase of conservative Christian anarchy more interesting to history +than all the complex variety of American newspapers, schools, trusts, +sects, frauds, and Congressmen. These were Nature--pure and anarchic as +the conservative Christian anarchist saw Nature--active, vibrating, +mostly unconscious, and quickly reacting on force; but, from the first +glimpse one caught from the sleeping-car window, in the early morning, +of the Polish Jew at the accidental railway station, in all his weird +horror, to the last vision of the Russian peasant, lighting his candle +and kissing his ikon before the railway Virgin in the station at St. +Petersburg, all was logical, conservative, Christian and anarchic. +Russia had nothing in common with any ancient or modern world that +history knew; she had been the oldest source of all civilization in +Europe, and had kept none for herself; neither Europe nor Asia had ever +known such a phase, which seemed to fall into no line of evolution +whatever, and was as wonderful to the student of Gothic architecture in +the twelfth century, as to the student of the dynamo in the twentieth. +Studied in the dry light of conservative Christian anarchy, Russia +became luminous like the salt of radium; but with a negative luminosity +as though she were a substance whose energies had been sucked out--an +inert residuum--with movement of pure inertia. From the car window one +seemed to float past undulations of nomad life--herders deserted by +their leaders and herds--wandering waves stopped in their +wanderings--waiting for their winds or warriors to return and lead them +westward; tribes that had camped, like Khirgis, for the season, and had +lost the means of motion without acquiring the habit of permanence. +They waited and suffered. As they stood they were out of place, and +could never have been normal. Their country acted as a sink of energy +like the Caspian Sea, and its surface kept the uniformity of ice and +snow. One Russian peasant kissing an ikon on a saint's day, in the +Kremlin, served for a hundred million. The student had no need to study +Wallace, or re-read Tolstoy or Tourguenieff or Dostoiewski to refresh +his memory of the most poignant analysis of human inertia ever put in +words; Gorky was more than enough: Kropotkin answered every purpose. + + The Russian people could never have changed--could they ever +be changed? Could inertia of race, on such a scale, be broken up, or +take new form? Even in America, on an infinitely smaller scale, the +question was old and unanswered. All the so-called primitive races, and +some nearer survivals, had raised doubts which persisted against the +most obstinate convictions of evolution. The Senator himself shook his +head, and after surveying Warsaw and Moscow to his content, went on to +St. Petersburg to ask questions of Mr. de Witte and Prince Khilkoff. +Their conversation added new doubts; for their efforts had been +immense, their expenditure enormous, and their results on the people +seemed to be uncertain as yet, even to themselves. Ten or fifteen years +of violent stimulus seemed resulting in nothing, for, since 1898, +Russia lagged. + + The tourist-student, having duly reflected, asked the Senator +whether he should allow three generations, or more, to swing the +Russian people into the Western movement. The Senator seemed disposed +to ask for more. The student had nothing to say. For him, all opinion +founded on fact must be error, because the facts can never be complete, +and their relations must be always infinite. Very likely, Russia would +instantly become the most brilliant constellation of human progress +through all the ordered stages of good; but meanwhile one might give a +value as movement of inertia to the mass, and assume a slow +acceleration that would, at the end of a generation, leave the gap +between east and west relatively the same. This result reached, the +Lodges thought their moral improvement required a visit to Berlin; but +forty years of varied emotions had not deadened Adams's memories of +Berlin, and he preferred, at any cost, to escape new ones. When the +Lodges started for Germany, Adams took steamer for Sweden and landed +happily, in a day or two, at Stockholm. + +Until the student is fairly sure that his problem is soluble, he gains +little by obstinately insisting on solving it. One might doubt whether +Mr. de Witte himself, or Prince Khilkoff, or any Grand Duke, or the +Emperor, knew much more about it than their neighbors; and Adams was +quite sure that, even in America, he should listen with uncertain +confidence to the views of any Secretary of the Treasury, or railway +president, or President of the United States whom he had ever known, +that should concern the America of the next generation. The mere fact +that any man should dare to offer them would prove his incompetence to +judge. Yet Russia was too vast a force to be treated as an object of +unconcern. As inertia, if in no other way, she represented +three-fourths of the human race, and her movement might be the true +movement of the future, against the hasty and unsure acceleration of +America. No one could yet know what would best suit humanity, and the +tourist who carried his La Fontaine in mind, caught himself talking as +bear or as monkey according to the mirror he held before him. "Am I +satisfied?" he asked:-- + + "Moi? pourquoi non? + N'ai-je pas quatre pieds aussi bien que les autres? + Mon portrait jusqu'ici ne m'a rien reproche; + Mais pour mon frere l'ours, on ne l'a qu'ebauche; + Jamais, s'il me veut croire, il ne se fera peindre." + + Granting that his brother the bear lacked perfection in +details, his own figure as monkey was not necessarily ideal or +decorative, nor was he in the least sure what form it might take even +in one generation. He had himself never ventured to dream of three. No +man could guess what the Daimler motor and X-rays would do to him; but +so much was sure; the monkey and motor were terribly afraid of the +bear; how much,--only a man close to their foreign departments knew. As +the monkey looked back across the Baltic from the safe battlements of +Stockholm, Russia looked more portentous than from the Kremlin. + + The image was that of the retreating ice-cap--a wall of +archaic glacier, as fixed, as ancient, as eternal, as the wall of +archaic ice that blocked the ocean a few hundred miles to the +northward, and more likely to advance. Scandinavia had been ever at its +mercy. Europe had never changed. The imaginary line that crossed the +level continent from the Baltic to the Black Sea, merely extended the +northern barrier-line. The Hungarians and Poles on one side still +struggled against the Russian inertia of race, and retained their own +energies under the same conditions that caused inertia across the +frontier. Race ruled the conditions; conditions hardly affected race; +and yet no one could tell the patient tourist what race was, or how it +should be known. History offered a feeble and delusive smile at the +sound of the word; evolutionists and ethnologists disputed its very +existence; no one knew what to make of it; yet, without the clue, +history was a nursery tale. + + The Germans, Scandinavians, Poles and Hungarians, energetic as +they were, had never held their own against the heterogeneous mass of +inertia called Russia, and trembled with terror whenever Russia moved. +From Stockholm one looked back on it as though it were an ice-sheet, +and so had Stockholm watched it for centuries. In contrast with the +dreary forests of Russia and the stern streets of St. Petersburg, +Stockholm seemed a southern vision, and Sweden lured the tourist on. +Through a cheerful New England landscape and bright autumn, he rambled +northwards till he found himself at Trondhjem and discovered Norway. +Education crowded upon him in immense masses as he triangulated these +vast surfaces of history about which he had lectured and read for a +life-time. When the historian fully realizes his ignorance--which +sometimes happens to Americans--he becomes even more tiresome to +himself than to others, because his naivete is irrepressible. Adams +could not get over his astonishment, though he had preached the Norse +doctrine all his life against the stupid and beer-swilling Saxon boors +whom Freeman loved, and who, to the despair of science, produced +Shakespeare. Mere contact with Norway started voyages of thought, and, +under their illusions, he took the mail steamer to the north, and on +September 14, reached Hammerfest. + + Frivolous amusement was hardly what one saw, through the +equinoctial twilight, peering at the flying tourist, down the deep +fiords, from dim patches of snow, where the last Laps and reindeer were +watching the mail-steamer thread the intricate channels outside, as +their ancestors had watched the first Norse fishermen learn them in the +succession of time; but it was not the Laps, or the snow, or the arctic +gloom, that impressed the tourist, so much as the lights of an +electro-magnetic civilization and the stupefying contrast with Russia, +which more and more insisted on taking the first place in historical +interest. Nowhere had the new forces so vigorously corrected the errors +of the old, or so effectively redressed the balance of the ecliptic. As +one approached the end--the spot where, seventy years before, a futile +Carlylean Teufelsdrockh had stopped to ask futile questions of the +silent infinite--the infinite seemed to have become loquacious, not to +say familiar, chattering gossip in one's ear. An installation of +electric lighting and telephones led tourists close up to the polar +ice-cap, beyond the level of the magnetic pole; and there the newer +Teufelsdrockh sat dumb with surprise, and glared at the permanent +electric lights of Hammerfest. + + He had good reason--better than the Teufelsdrockh of 1830, in +his liveliest Scotch imagination, ever dreamed, or mortal man had ever +told. At best, a week in these dim Northern seas, without means of +speech, within the Arctic circle, at the equinox, lent itself to +gravity if not to gloom; but only a week before, breakfasting in the +restaurant at Stockholm, his eye had caught, across, the neighboring +table, a headline in a Swedish newspaper, announcing an attempt on the +life of President McKinley, and from Stockholm to Trondhjem, and so up +the coast to Hammerfest, day after day the news came, telling of the +President's condition, and the doings and sayings of Hay and Roosevelt, +until at last a little journal was cried on reaching some dim haven, +announcing the President's death a few hours before. To Adams the death +of McKinley and the advent of Roosevelt were not wholly void of +personal emotion, but this was little in comparison with his depth of +wonder at hearing hourly reports from his most intimate friends, sent +to him far within the realm of night, not to please him, but to correct +the faults of the solar system. The electro-dynamo-social universe +worked better than the sun. + + No such strange chance had ever happened to a historian before, +and it upset for the moment his whole philosophy of conservative +anarchy. The acceleration was marvellous, and wholly in the lines of +unity. To recover his grasp of chaos, he must look back across the gulf +to Russia, and the gap seemed to have suddenly become an abyss. Russia +was infinitely distant. Yet the nightmare of the glacial ice-cap still +pressed down on him from the hills, in full vision, and no one could +look out on the dusky and oily sea that lapped these spectral islands +without consciousness that only a day's steaming to the northward would +bring him to the ice-barrier, ready at any moment to advance, which +obliged tourists to stop where Laps and reindeer and Norse fishermen +had stopped so long ago that memory of their very origin was lost. +Adams had never before met a ne plus ultra, and knew not what to make +of it; but he felt at least the emotion of his Norwegian fishermen +ancestors, doubtless numbering hundreds of thousands, jammed with their +faces to the sea, the ice on the north, the ice-cap of Russian inertia +pressing from behind, and the ice a trifling danger compared with the +inertia. From the day they first followed the retreating ice-cap round +the North Cape, down to the present moment, their problem was the same. + + The new Teufelsdrockh, though considerably older than the old +one, saw no clearer into past or future, but he was fully as much +perplexed. From the archaic ice-barrier to the Caspian Sea, a long line +of division, permanent since ice and inertia first took possession, +divided his lines of force, with no relation to climate or geography or +soil. + + The less a tourist knows, the fewer mistakes he need make, for +he will not expect himself to explain ignorance. A century ago he +carried letters and sought knowledge; to-day he knows that no one +knows; he needs too much and ignorance is learning. He wandered south +again, and came out at Kiel, Hamburg, Bremen, and Cologne. A mere +glance showed him that here was a Germany new to mankind. Hamburg was +almost as American as St. Louis. In forty years, the green rusticity of +Dusseldorf had taken on the sooty grime of Birmingham. The Rhine in +1900 resembled the Rhine of 1858 much as it resembled the Rhine of the +Salic Franks. Cologne was a railway centre that had completed its +cathedral which bore an absent-minded air of a cathedral of Chicago. +The thirteenth century, carefully strained-off, catalogued, and locked +up, was visible to tourists as a kind of Neanderthal, cave-dwelling, +curiosity. The Rhine was more modern than the Hudson, as might well be, +since it produced far more coal; but all this counted for little beside +the radical change in the lines of force. + + In 1858 the whole plain of northern Europe, as well as the +Danube in the south, bore evident marks of being still the prehistoric +highway between Asia and the ocean. The trade-route followed the old +routes of invasion, and Cologne was a resting-place between Warsaw and +Flanders. Throughout northern Germany, Russia was felt even more +powerfully than France. In 1901 Russia had vanished, and not even +France was felt; hardly England or America. Coal alone was felt--its +stamp alone pervaded the Rhine district and persisted to Picardy--and +the stamp was the same as that of Birmingham and Pittsburgh. The Rhine +produced the same power, and the power produced the same people--the +same mind--the same impulse. For a man sixty-three years old who had no +hope of earning a living, these three months of education were the most +arduous he ever attempted, and Russia was the most indigestible morsel +he ever met; but the sum of it, viewed from Cologne, seemed reasonable. +From Hammerfest to Cherbourg on one shore of the ocean--from Halifax to +Norfolk on the other--one great empire was ruled by one great +emperor--Coal. Political and human jealousies might tear it apart or +divide it, but the power and the empire were one. Unity had gained that +ground. Beyond lay Russia, and there an older, perhaps a surer, power, +resting on the eternal law of inertia, held its own. + + As a personal matter, the relative value of the two powers +became more interesting every year; for the mass of Russian inertia was +moving irresistibly over China, and John Hay stood in its path. As long +as de Witte ruled, Hay was safe. Should de Witte fall, Hay would +totter. One could only sit down and watch the doings of Mr. de Witte +and Mr. de Plehve. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE HEIGHT OF KNOWLEDGE (1902) + + AMERICA has always taken tragedy lightly. Too busy to stop the +activity of their twenty-million-horse-power society, Americans ignore +tragic motives that would have overshadowed the Middle Ages; and the +world learns to regard assassination as a form of hysteria, and death +as neurosis, to be treated by a rest-cure. Three hideous political +murders, that would have fattened the Eumenides with horror, have +thrown scarcely a shadow on the White House. + + The year 1901 was a year of tragedy that seemed to Hay to +centre on himself. First came, in summer, the accidental death of his +son, Del Hay. Close on the tragedy of his son, followed that of his +chief, "all the more hideous that we were so sure of his recovery." The +world turned suddenly into a graveyard. "I have acquired the funeral +habit." "Nicolay is dying. I went to see him yesterday, and he did not +know me." Among the letters of condolence showered upon him was one +from Clarence King at Pasadena, "heart-breaking in grace and +tenderness--the old King manner"; and King himself "simply waiting till +nature and the foe have done their struggle." The tragedy of King +impressed him intensely: "There you have it in the face!" he said--"the +best and brightest man of his generation, with talents immeasurably +beyond any of his contemporaries; with industry that has often sickened +me to witness it; with everything in his favor but blind luck; hounded +by disaster from his cradle, with none of the joy of life to which he +was entitled, dying at last, with nameless suffering alone and +uncared-for, in a California tavern. Ca vous amuse, la vie?" + + The first summons that met Adams, before he had even landed on +the pier at New York, December 29, was to Clarence King's funeral, and +from the funeral service he had no gayer road to travel than that which +led to Washington, where a revolution had occurred that must in any +case have made the men of his age instantly old, but which, besides +hurrying to the front the generation that till then he had regarded as +boys, could not fail to break the social ties that had till then held +them all together. + + Ca vous amuse, la vie? Honestly, the lessons of education were +becoming too trite. Hay himself, probably for the first time, felt half +glad that Roosevelt should want him to stay in office, if only to save +himself the trouble of quitting; but to Adams all was pure loss. On +that side, his education had been finished at school. His friends in +power were lost, and he knew life too well to risk total wreck by +trying to save them. + + As far as concerned Roosevelt, the chance was hopeless. To them +at sixty-three, Roosevelt at forty-three could not be taken seriously +in his old character, and could not be recovered in his new one. Power +when wielded by abnormal energy is the most serious of facts, and all +Roosevelt's friends know that his restless and combative energy was +more than abnormal. Roosevelt, more than any other man living within +the range of notoriety, showed the singular primitive quality that +belongs to ultimate matter--the quality that mediaeval theology +assigned to God--he was pure act. With him wielding unmeasured power +with immeasurable energy, in the White House, the relation of age to +youth--of teacher to pupil--was altogether out of place; and no other +was possible. Even Hay's relation was a false one, while Adams's ceased +of itself. History's truths are little valuable now; but human nature +retains a few of its archaic, proverbial laws, and the wisest courtier +that ever lived--Lucius Seneca himself--must have remained in some +shade of doubt what advantage he should get from the power of his +friend and pupil Nero Claudius, until, as a gentleman past sixty, he +received Nero's filial invitation to kill himself. Seneca closed the +vast circle of his knowledge by learning that a friend in power was a +friend lost--a fact very much worth insisting upon--while the +gray-headed moth that had fluttered through many moth-administrations +and had singed his wings more or less in them all, though he now slept +nine months out of the twelve, acquired an instinct of +self-preservation that kept him to the north side of La Fayette Square, +and, after a sufficient habitude of Presidents and Senators, deterred +him from hovering between them. + + Those who seek education in the paths of duty are always +deceived by the illusion that power in the hands of friends is an +advantage to them. As far as Adams could teach experience, he was bound +to warn them that he had found it an invariable disaster. Power is +poison. Its effect on Presidents had been always tragic, chiefly as an +almost insane excitement at first, and a worse reaction afterwards; but +also because no mind is so well balanced as to bear the strain of +seizing unlimited force without habit or knowledge of it; and finding +it disputed with him by hungry packs of wolves and hounds whose lives +depend on snatching the carrion. Roosevelt enjoyed a singularly direct +nature and honest intent, but he lived naturally in restless agitation +that would have worn out most tempers in a month, and his first year of +Presidency showed chronic excitement that made a friend tremble. The +effect of unlimited power on limited mind is worth noting in Presidents +because it must represent the same process in society, and the power of +self-control must have limit somewhere in face of the control of the +infinite. + + Here, education seemed to see its first and last lesson, but +this is a matter of psychology which lies far down in the depths of +history and of science; it will recur in other forms. The personal +lesson is different. Roosevelt was lost, but this seemed no reason why +Hay and Lodge should also be lost, yet the result was mathematically +certain. With Hay, it was only the steady decline of strength, and the +necessary economy of force; but with Lodge it was law of politics. He +could not help himself, for his position as the President's friend and +independent statesman at once was false, and he must be unsure in both +relations. + + To a student, the importance of Cabot Lodge was great--much +greater than that of the usual Senator--but it hung on his position in +Massachusetts rather than on his control of Executive patronage; and +his standing in Massachusetts was highly insecure. Nowhere in America +was society so complex or change so rapid. No doubt the Bostonian had +always been noted for a certain chronic irritability--a sort of +Bostonitis--which, in its primitive Puritan forms, seemed due to +knowing too much of his neighbors, and thinking too much of himself. +Many years earlier William M. Evarts had pointed out to Adams the +impossibility of uniting New England behind a New England leader. The +trait led to good ends--such as admiration of Abraham Lincoln and +George Washington--but the virtue was exacting; for New England +standards were various, scarcely reconcilable with each other, and +constantly multiplying in number, until balance between them threatened +to become impossible. The old ones were quite difficult enough--State +Street and the banks exacted one stamp; the old Congregational clergy +another; Harvard College, poor in votes, but rich in social influence, +a third; the foreign element, especially the Irish, held aloof, and +seldom consented to approve any one; the new socialist class, rapidly +growing, promised to become more exclusive than the Irish. New power +was disintegrating society, and setting independent centres of force to +work, until money had all it could do to hold the machine together. No +one could represent it faithfully as a whole. + + Naturally, Adams's sympathies lay strongly with Lodge, but the +task of appreciation was much more difficult in his case than in that +of his chief friend and scholar, the President. As a type for study, or +a standard for education, Lodge was the more interesting of the two. +Roosevelts are born and never can be taught; but Lodge was a creature +of teaching--Boston incarnate--the child of his local parentage; and +while his ambition led him to be more, the intent, though virtuous, +was--as Adams admitted in his own case--restless. An excellent talker, +a voracious reader, a ready wit, an accomplished orator, with a clear +mind and a powerful memory, he could never feel perfectly at ease +whatever leg he stood on, but shifted, sometimes with painful strain of +temper, from one sensitive muscle to another, uncertain whether to pose +as an uncompromising Yankee; or a pure American; or a patriot in the +still purer atmosphere of Irish, Germans, or Jews; or a scholar and +historian of Harvard College. English to the last fibre of his +thought--saturated with English literature, English tradition, English +taste--revolted by every vice and by most virtues of Frenchmen and +Germans, or any other Continental standards, but at home and happy +among the vices and extravagances of Shakespeare--standing first on the +social, then on the political foot; now worshipping, now banning; +shocked by the wanton display of immorality, but practicing the license +of political usage; sometimes bitter, often genial, always +intelligent--Lodge had the singular merit of interesting. The usual +statesmen flocked in swarms like crows, black and monotonous. Lodge's +plumage was varied, and, like his flight, harked back to race. He +betrayed the consciousness that he and his people had a past, if they +dared but avow it, and might have a future, if they could but divine it. + + Adams, too, was Bostonian, and the Bostonian's uncertainty of +attitude was as natural to him as to Lodge. Only Bostonians can +understand Bostonians and thoroughly sympathize with the inconsequences +of the Boston mind. His theory and practice were also at variance. He +professed in theory equal distrust of English thought, and called it a +huge rag-bag of bric-a-brac, sometimes precious but never sure. For +him, only the Greek, the Italian or the French standards had claims to +respect, and the barbarism of Shakespeare was as flagrant as to +Voltaire; but his theory never affected his practice. He knew that his +artistic standard was the illusion of his own mind; that English +disorder approached nearer to truth, if truth existed, than French +measure or Italian line, or German logic; he read his Shakespeare as +the Evangel of conservative Christian anarchy, neither very +conservative nor very Christian, but stupendously anarchistic. He loved +the atrocities of English art and society, as he loved Charles Dickens +and Miss Austen, not because of their example, but because of their +humor. He made no scruple of defying sequence and denying +consistency--but he was not a Senator. + + Double standards are inspiration to men of letters, but they +are apt to be fatal to politicians. Adams had no reason to care whether +his standards were popular or not, and no one else cared more than he; +but Roosevelt and Lodge were playing a game in which they were always +liable to find the shifty sands of American opinion yield suddenly +under their feet. With this game an elderly friend had long before +carried acquaintance as far as he wished. There was nothing in it for +him but the amusement of the pugilist or acrobat. The larger study was +lost in the division of interests and the ambitions of fifth-rate men; +but foreign affairs dealt only with large units, and made personal +relation possible with Hay which could not be maintained with Roosevelt +or Lodge. As an affair of pure education the point is worth notice from +young men who are drawn into politics. The work of domestic progress is +done by masses of mechanical power--steam, electric, furnace, or +other--which have to be controlled by a score or two of individuals who +have shown capacity to manage it. The work of internal government has +become the task of controlling these men, who are socially as remote as +heathen gods, alone worth knowing, but never known, and who could tell +nothing of political value if one skinned them alive. Most of them have +nothing to tell, but are forces as dumb as their dynamos, absorbed in +the development or economy of power. They are trustees for the public, +and whenever society assumes the property, it must confer on them that +title; but the power will remain as before, whoever manages it, and +will then control society without appeal, as it controls its stokers +and pit-men. Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but +of forces. The men become every year more and more creatures of force, +massed about central power-houses. The conflict is no longer between +the men, but between the motors that drive the men, and the men tend to +succumb to their own motive forces. + + This is a moral that man strongly objects to admit, especially +in mediaeval pursuits like politics and poetry, nor is it worth while +for a teacher to insist upon it. What he insists upon is only that in +domestic politics, every one works for an immediate object, commonly +for some private job, and invariably in a near horizon, while in +foreign affairs the outlook is far ahead, over a field as wide as the +world. There the merest scholar could see what he was doing. For +history, international relations are the only sure standards of +movement; the only foundation for a map. For this reason, Adams had +always insisted that international relation was the only sure base for +a chart of history. + + He cared little to convince any one of the correctness of his +view, but as teacher he was bound to explain it, and as friend he found +it convenient. The Secretary of State has always stood as much alone as +the historian. Required to look far ahead and round him, he measures +forces unknown to party managers, and has found Congress more or less +hostile ever since Congress first sat. The Secretary of State exists +only to recognize the existence of a world which Congress would rather +ignore; of obligations which Congress repudiates whenever it can; of +bargains which Congress distrusts and tries to turn to its advantage or +to reject. Since the first day the Senate existed, it has always +intrigued against the Secretary of State whenever the Secretary has +been obliged to extend his functions beyond the appointment of Consuls +in Senators' service. + + This is a matter of history which any one may approve or +dispute as he will; but as education it gave new resources to an old +scholar, for it made of Hay the best schoolmaster since 1865. Hay had +become the most imposing figure ever known in the office. He had an +influence that no other Secretary of State ever possessed, as he had a +nation behind him such as history had never imagined. He needed to +write no state papers; he wanted no help, and he stood far above +counsel or advice; but he could instruct an attentive scholar as no +other teacher in the world could do; and Adams sought only +instruction--wanted only to chart the international channel for fifty +years to come; to triangulate the future; to obtain his dimension, and +fix the acceleration of movement in politics since the year 1200, as he +was trying to fix it in philosophy and physics; in finance and force. + + Hay had been so long at the head of foreign affairs that at +last the stream of events favored him. With infinite effort he had +achieved the astonishing diplomatic feat of inducing the Senate, with +only six negative votes, to permit Great Britain to renounce, without +equivalent, treaty rights which she had for fifty years defended tooth +and nail. This unprecedented triumph in his negotiations with the +Senate enabled him to carry one step further his measures for general +peace. About England the Senate could make no further effective +opposition, for England was won, and Canada alone could give trouble. +The next difficulty was with France, and there the Senate blocked +advance, but England assumed the task, and, owing to political changes +in France, effected the object--a combination which, as late as 1901, +had been visionary. The next, and far more difficult step, was to bring +Germany into the combine; while, at the end of the vista, most +unmanageable of all, Russia remained to be satisfied and disarmed. This +was the instinct of what might be named McKinleyism; the system of +combinations, consolidations, trusts, realized at home, and realizable +abroad. + + With the system, a student nurtured in ideas of the eighteenth +century, had nothing to do, and made not the least presence of +meddling; but nothing forbade him to study, and he noticed to his +astonishment that this capitalistic scheme of combining governments, +like railways or furnaces, was in effect precisely the socialist scheme +of Jaures and Bebel. That John Hay, of all men, should adopt a +socialist policy seemed an idea more absurd than conservative Christian +anarchy, but paradox had become the only orthodoxy in politics as in +science. When one saw the field, one realized that Hay could not help +himself, nor could Bebel. Either Germany must destroy England and +France to create the next inevitable unification as a system of +continent against continent--or she must pool interests. Both schemes +in turn were attributed to the Kaiser; one or the other he would have +to choose; opinion was balanced doubtfully on their merits; but, +granting both to be feasible, Hay's and McKinley's statesmanship turned +on the point of persuading the Kaiser to join what might be called the +Coal-power combination, rather than build up the only possible +alternative, a Gun-power combination by merging Germany in Russia. Thus +Bebel and Jaures, McKinley and Hay, were partners. + + The problem was pretty--even fascinating--and, to an old +Civil-War private soldier in diplomacy, as rigorous as a geometrical +demonstration. As the last possible lesson in life, it had all sorts of +ultimate values. Unless education marches on both feet--theory and +practice--it risks going astray; and Hay was probably the most +accomplished master of both then living. He knew not only the forces +but also the men, and he had no other thought than his policy. + + Probably this was the moment of highest knowledge that a +scholar could ever reach. He had under his eyes the whole educational +staff of the Government at a time when the Government had just reached +the heights of highest activity and influence. Since 1860, education +had done its worst, under the greatest masters and at enormous expense +to the world, to train these two minds to catch and comprehend every +spring of international action, not to speak of personal influence; and +the entire machinery of politics in several great countries had little +to do but supply the last and best information. Education could be +carried no further. + + With its effects on Hay, Adams had nothing to do; but its +effects on himself were grotesque. Never had the proportions of his +ignorance looked so appalling. He seemed to know nothing--to be groping +in darkness--to be falling forever in space; and the worst depth +consisted in the assurance, incredible as it seemed, that no one knew +more. He had, at least, the mechanical assurance of certain values to +guide him--like the relative intensities of his Coal-powers, and +relative inertia of his Gun-powers--but he conceived that had he known, +besides the mechanics, every relative value of persons, as well as he +knew the inmost thoughts of his own Government--had the Czar and the +Kaiser and the Mikado turned schoolmasters, like Hay, and taught him +all they knew, he would still have known nothing. They knew nothing +themselves. Only by comparison of their ignorance could the student +measure his own. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE ABYSS OF IGNORANCE (1902) + + THE years hurried past, and gave hardly time to note their +work. Three or four months, though big with change, come to an end +before the mind can catch up with it. Winter vanished; spring burst +into flower; and again Paris opened its arms, though not for long. Mr. +Cameron came over, and took the castle of Inverlochy for three months, +which he summoned his friends to garrison. Lochaber seldom laughs, +except for its children, such as Camerons, McDonalds, Campbells and +other products of the mist; but in the summer of 1902 Scotland put on +fewer airs of coquetry than usual. Since the terrible harvest of 1879 +which one had watched sprouting on its stalks on the Shropshire +hillsides, nothing had equalled the gloom. Even when the victims fled +to Switzerland, they found the Lake of Geneva and the Rhine not much +gayer, and Carlsruhe no more restful than Paris; until at last, in +desperation, one drifted back to the Avenue of the Bois de Boulogne, +and, like the Cuckoo, dropped into the nest of a better citizen. +Diplomacy has its uses. Reynolds Hitt, transferred to Berlin, abandoned +his attic to Adams, and there, for long summers to come, he hid in +ignorance and silence. + + Life at last managed of its own accord to settle itself into a +working arrangement. After so many years of effort to find one's drift, +the drift found the seeker, and slowly swept him forward and back, with +a steady progress oceanwards. Such lessons as summer taught, winter +tested, and one had only to watch the apparent movement of the stars in +order to guess one's declination. The process is possible only for men +who have exhausted auto-motion. Adams never knew why, knowing nothing +of Faraday, he began to mimic Faraday's trick of seeing lines of force +all about him, where he had always seen lines of will. Perhaps the +effect of knowing no mathematics is to leave the mind to imagine +figures--images--phantoms; one's mind is a watery mirror at best; but, +once conceived, the image became rapidly simple, and the lines of force +presented themselves as lines of attraction. Repulsions counted only as +battle of attractions. By this path, the mind stepped into the +mechanical theory of the universe before knowing it, and entered a +distinct new phase of education. + + This was the work of the dynamo and the Virgin of Chartres. +Like his masters, since thought began, he was handicapped by the +eternal mystery of Force--the sink of all science. For thousands of +years in history, he found that Force had been felt as occult +attraction--love of God and lust for power in a future life. After +1500, when this attraction began to decline, philosophers fell back on +some vis a tergo--instinct of danger from behind, like Darwin's +survival of the fittest; and one of the greatest minds, between +Descartes and Newton--Pascal--saw the master-motor of man in ennui, +which was also scientific: "I have often said that all the troubles of +man come from his not knowing how to sit still." Mere restlessness +forces action. "So passes the whole of life. We combat obstacles in +order to get repose, and, when got, the repose is insupportable; for we +think either of the troubles we have, or of those that threaten us; and +even if we felt safe on every side, ennui would of its own accord +spring up from the depths of the heart where it is rooted by nature, +and would fill the mind with its venom." + + "If goodness lead him not, yet weariness + May toss him to My breast." + + Ennui, like Natural Selection, accounted for change, but failed +to account for direction of change. For that, an attractive force was +essential; a force from outside; a shaping influence. Pascal and all +the old philosophies called this outside force God or Gods. Caring but +little for the name, and fixed only on tracing the Force, Adams had +gone straight to the Virgin at Chartres, and asked her to show him God, +face to face, as she did for St. Bernard. She replied, kindly as ever, +as though she were still the young mother of to-day, with a sort of +patient pity for masculine dulness: "My dear outcast, what is it you +seek? This is the Church of Christ! If you seek him through me, you are +welcome, sinner or saint; but he and I are one. We are Love! We have +little or nothing to do with God's other energies which are infinite, +and concern us the less because our interest is only in man, and the +infinite is not knowable to man. Yet if you are troubled by your +ignorance, you see how I am surrounded by the masters of the schools! +Ask them!" + + The answer sounded singularly like the usual answer of British +science which had repeated since Bacon that one must not try to know +the unknowable, though one was quite powerless to ignore it; but the +Virgin carried more conviction, for her feminine lack of interest in +all perfections except her own was honester than the formal phrase of +science; since nothing was easier than to follow her advice, and turn +to Thomas Aquinas, who, unlike modern physicists, answered at once and +plainly: "To me," said St. Thomas, "Christ and the Mother are one +Force--Love--simple, single, and sufficient for all human wants; but +Love is a human interest which acts even on man so partially that you +and I, as philosophers, need expect no share in it. Therefore we turn +to Christ and the Schools who represent all other Force. We deal with +Multiplicity and call it God. After the Virgin has redeemed by her +personal Force as Love all that is redeemable in man, the Schools +embrace the rest, and give it Form, Unity, and Motive." + + This chart of Force was more easily studied than any other +possible scheme, for one had but to do what the Church was always +promising to do--abolish in one flash of lightning not only man, but +also the Church itself, the earth, the other planets, and the sun, in +order to clear the air; without affecting mediaeval science. The +student felt warranted in doing what the Church threatened--abolishing +his solar system altogether--in order to look at God as actual; +continuous movement, universal cause, and interchangeable force. This +was pantheism, but the Schools were pantheist; at least as pantheistic +as the Energetik of the Germans; and their deity was the ultimate +energy, whose thought and act were one. + + Rid of man and his mind, the universe of Thomas Aquinas seemed +rather more scientific than that of Haeckel or Ernst Mach. +Contradiction for contradiction, Attraction for attraction, Energy for +energy, St. Thomas's idea of God had merits. Modern science offered not +a vestige of proof, or a theory of connection between its forces, or +any scheme of reconciliation between thought and mechanics; while St. +Thomas at least linked together the joints of his machine. As far as a +superficial student could follow, the thirteenth century supposed mind +to be a mode of force directly derived from the intelligent prime +motor, and the cause of all form and sequence in the +universe--therefore the only proof of unity. Without thought in the +unit, there could be no unity; without unity no orderly sequence or +ordered society. Thought alone was Form. Mind and Unity flourished or +perished together. + + This education startled even a man who had dabbled in fifty +educations all over the world; for, if he were obliged to insist on a +Universe, he seemed driven to the Church. Modern science guaranteed no +unity. The student seemed to feel himself, like all his predecessors, +caught, trapped, meshed in this eternal drag-net of religion. + + In practice the student escapes this dilemma in two ways: the +first is that of ignoring it, as one escapes most dilemmas; the second +is that the Church rejects pantheism as worse than atheism, and will +have nothing to do with the pantheist at any price. In wandering +through the forests of ignorance, one necessarily fell upon the famous +old bear that scared children at play; but, even had the animal shown +more logic than its victim, one had learned from Socrates to distrust, +above all other traps, the trap of logic--the mirror of the mind. Yet +the search for a unit of force led into catacombs of thought where +hundreds of thousands of educations had found their end. Generation +after generation of painful and honest-minded scholars had been content +to stay in these labyrinths forever, pursuing ignorance in silence, in +company with the most famous teachers of all time. Not one of them had +ever found a logical highroad of escape. + + Adams cared little whether he escaped or not, but he felt clear +that he could not stop there, even to enjoy the society of Spinoza and +Thomas Aquinas. True, the Church alone had asserted unity with any +conviction, and the historian alone knew what oceans of blood and +treasure the assertion had cost; but the only honest alternative to +affirming unity was to deny it; and the denial would require a new +education. At sixty-five years old a new education promised hardly more +than the old. Possibly the modern legislator or magistrate might no +longer know enough to treat as the Church did the man who denied unity, +unless the denial took the form of a bomb; but no teacher would know +how to explain what he thought he meant by denying unity. Society would +certainly punish the denial if ever any one learned enough to +understand it. Philosophers, as a rule, cared little what principles +society affirmed or denied, since the philosopher commonly held that +though he might sometimes be right by good luck on some one point, no +complex of individual opinions could possibly be anything but wrong; +yet, supposing society to be ignored, the philosopher was no further +forward. Nihilism had no bottom. For thousands of years every +philosopher had stood on the shore of this sunless sea, diving for +pearls and never finding them. All had seen that, since they could not +find bottom, they must assume it. The Church claimed to have found it, +but, since 1450, motives for agreeing on some new assumption of Unity, +broader and deeper than that of the Church, had doubled in force until +even the universities and schools, like the Church and State, seemed +about to be driven into an attempt to educate, though specially +forbidden to do it. + + Like most of his generation, Adams had taken the word of +science that the new unit was as good as found. It would not be an +intelligence--probably not even a consciousness--but it would serve. He +passed sixty years waiting for it, and at the end of that time, on +reviewing the ground, he was led to think that the final synthesis of +science and its ultimate triumph was the kinetic theory of gases; which +seemed to cover all motion in space, and to furnish the measure of +time. So far as he understood it, the theory asserted that any portion +of space is occupied by molecules of gas, flying in right lines at +velocities varying up to a mile in a second, and colliding with each +other at intervals varying up to 17,750,000 times in a second. To this +analysis--if one understood it right--all matter whatever was +reducible, and the only difference of opinion in science regarded the +doubt whether a still deeper analysis would reduce the atom of gas to +pure motion. + + Thus, unless one mistook the meaning of motion, which might +well be, the scientific synthesis commonly called Unity was the +scientific analysis commonly called Multiplicity. The two things were +the same, all forms being shifting phases of motion. Granting this +ocean of colliding atoms, the last hope of humanity, what happened if +one dropped the sounder into the abyss--let it go--frankly gave up +Unity altogether? What was Unity? Why was one to be forced to affirm it? + + Here everybody flatly refused help. Science seemed content with +its old phrase of "larger synthesis," which was well enough for +science, but meant chaos for man. One would have been glad to stop and +ask no more, but the anarchist bomb bade one go on, and the bomb is a +powerful persuader. One could not stop, even to enjoy the charms of a +perfect gas colliding seventeen million times in a second, much like an +automobile in Paris. Science itself had been crowded so close to the +edge of the abyss that its attempts to escape were as metaphysical as +the leap, while an ignorant old man felt no motive for trying to +escape, seeing that the only escape possible lay in the form of vis a +tergo commonly called Death. He got out his Descartes again; dipped +into his Hume and Berkeley; wrestled anew with his Kant; pondered +solemnly over his Hegel and Schopenhauer and Hartmann; strayed gaily +away with his Greeks--all merely to ask what Unity meant, and what +happened when one denied it. + + Apparently one never denied it. Every philosopher, whether sane +or insane, naturally affirmed it. The utmost flight of anarchy seemed +to have stopped with the assertion of two principles, and even these +fitted into each other, like good and evil, light and darkness. +Pessimism itself, black as it might be painted, had been content to +turn the universe of contradictions into the human thought as one Will, +and treat it as representation. Metaphysics insisted on treating the +universe as one thought or treating thought as one universe; and +philosophers agreed, like a kinetic gas, that the universe could be +known only as motion of mind, and therefore as unity. One could know it +only as one's self; it was psychology. + + Of all forms of pessimism, the metaphysical form was, for a +historian, the least enticing. Of all studies, the one he would rather +have avoided was that of his own mind. He knew no tragedy so +heartrending as introspection, and the more, because--as Mephistopheles +said of Marguerite--he was not the first. Nearly all the highest +intelligence known to history had drowned itself in the reflection of +its own thought, and the bovine survivors had rudely told the truth +about it, without affecting the intelligent. One's own time had not +been exempt. Even since 1870 friends by scores had fallen victims to +it. Within five-and-twenty years, a new library had grown out of it. +Harvard College was a focus of the study; France supported hospitals +for it; England published magazines of it. Nothing was easier than to +take one's mind in one's hand, and ask one's psychological friends what +they made of it, and the more because it mattered so little to either +party, since their minds, whatever they were, had pretty nearly ceased +to reflect, and let them do what they liked with the small remnant, +they could scarcely do anything very new with it. All one asked was to +learn what they hoped to do. + + Unfortunately the pursuit of ignorance in silence had, by this +time, led the weary pilgrim into such mountains of ignorance that he +could no longer see any path whatever, and could not even understand a +signpost. He failed to fathom the depths of the new psychology, which +proved to him that, on that side as on the mathematical side, his power +of thought was atrophied, if, indeed, it ever existed. Since he could +not fathom the science, he could only ask the simplest of questions: +Did the new psychology hold that the IvXn--soul or mind--was or was not +a unit? He gathered from the books that the psychologists had, in a few +cases, distinguished several personalities in the same mind, each +conscious and constant, individual and exclusive. The fact seemed +scarcely surprising, since it had been a habit of mind from earliest +recorded time, and equally familiar to the last acquaintance who had +taken a drug or caught a fever, or eaten a Welsh rarebit before bed; +for surely no one could follow the action of a vivid dream, and still +need to be told that the actors evoked by his mind were not himself, +but quite unknown to all he had ever recognized as self. The new +psychology went further, and seemed convinced that it had actually +split personality not only into dualism, but also into complex groups, +like telephonic centres and systems, that might be isolated and called +up at will, and whose physical action might be occult in the sense of +strangeness to any known form of force. Dualism seemed to have become +as common as binary stars. Alternating personalities turned up +constantly, even among one's friends. The facts seemed certain, or at +least as certain as other facts; all they needed was explanation. + + This was not the business of the searcher of ignorance, who +felt himself in no way responsible for causes. To his mind, the +compound IvXn took at once the form of a bicycle-rider, mechanically +balancing himself by inhibiting all his inferior personalities, and +sure to fall into the sub-conscious chaos below, if one of his inferior +personalities got on top. The only absolute truth was the sub-conscious +chaos below, which every one could feel when he sought it. + + Whether the psychologists admitted it or not, mattered little +to the student who, by the law of his profession, was engaged in +studying his own mind. On him, the effect was surprising. He woke up +with a shudder as though he had himself fallen off his bicycle. If his +mind were really this sort of magnet, mechanically dispersing its lines +of force when it went to sleep, and mechanically orienting them when it +woke up--which was normal, the dispersion or orientation? The mind, +like the body, kept its unity unless it happened to lose balance, but +the professor of physics, who slipped on a pavement and hurt himself, +knew no more than an idiot what knocked him down, though he did +know--what the idiot could hardly do--that his normal condition was +idiocy, or want of balance, and that his sanity was unstable artifice. +His normal thought was dispersion, sleep, dream, inconsequence; the +simultaneous action of different thought-centres without central +control. His artificial balance was acquired habit. He was an acrobat, +with a dwarf on his back, crossing a chasm on a slack-rope, and +commonly breaking his neck. + +By that path of newest science, one saw no unity ahead--nothing but a +dissolving mind--and the historian felt himself driven back on thought +as one continuous Force, without Race, Sex, School, Country, or Church. +This has been always the fate of rigorous thinkers, and has always +succeeded in making them famous, as it did Gibbon, Buckle, and Auguste +Comte. Their method made what progress the science of history knew, +which was little enough, but they did at last fix the law that, if +history ever meant to correct the errors she made in detail, she must +agree on a scale for the whole. Every local historian might defy this +law till history ended, but its necessity would be the same for man as +for space or time or force, and without it the historian would always +remain a child in science. + + Any schoolboy could see that man as a force must be measured by +motion, from a fixed point. Psychology helped here by suggesting a +unit--the point of history when man held the highest idea of himself as +a unit in a unified universe. Eight or ten years of study had led Adams +to think he might use the century 1150-1250, expressed in Amiens +Cathedral and the Works of Thomas Aquinas, as the unit from which he +might measure motion down to his own time, without assuming anything as +true or untrue, except relation. The movement might be studied at once +in philosophy and mechanics. Setting himself to the task, he began a +volume which he mentally knew as "Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres: a +Study of Thirteenth-Century Unity." From that point he proposed to fix +a position for himself, which he could label: "The Education of Henry +Adams: a Study of Twentieth-Century Multiplicity." With the help of +these two points of relation, he hoped to project his lines forward and +backward indefinitely, subject to correction from any one who should +know better. Thereupon, he sailed for home. + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +VIS INERTIAE (1903) + + WASHINGTON was always amusing, but in 1900, as in 1800, its +chief interest lay in its distance from New York. The movement of New +York had become planetary--beyond control--while the task of +Washington, in 1900 as in 1800, was to control it. The success of +Washington in the past century promised ill for its success in the next. + + To a student who had passed the best years of his life in +pondering over the political philosophy of Jefferson, Gallatin, and +Madison, the problem that Roosevelt took in hand seemed alive with +historical interest, but it would need at least another half-century to +show its results. As yet, one could not measure the forces or their +arrangement; the forces had not even aligned themselves except in +foreign affairs; and there one turned to seek the channel of wisdom as +naturally as though Washington did not exist. The President could do +nothing effectual in foreign affairs, but at least he could see +something of the field. + + Hay had reached the summit of his career, and saw himself on +the edge of wreck. Committed to the task of keeping China "open," he +saw China about to be shut. Almost alone in the world, he represented +the "open door," and could not escape being crushed by it. Yet luck had +been with him in full tide. Though Sir Julian Pauncefote had died in +May, 1902, after carrying out tasks that filled an ex-private secretary +of 1861 with open-mouthed astonishment, Hay had been helped by the +appointment of Michael Herbert as his successor, who counted for double +the value of an ordinary diplomat. To reduce friction is the chief use +of friendship, and in politics the loss by friction is outrageous. To +Herbert and his wife, the small knot of houses that seemed to give a +vague unity to foreign affairs opened their doors and their hearts, for +the Herberts were already at home there; and this personal sympathy +prolonged Hay's life, for it not only eased the effort of endurance, +but it also led directly to a revolution in Germany. Down to that +moment, the Kaiser, rightly or wrongly, had counted as the ally of the +Czar in all matters relating to the East. Holleben and Cassini were +taken to be a single force in Eastern affairs, and this supposed +alliance gave Hay no little anxiety and some trouble. Suddenly +Holleben, who seemed to have had no thought but to obey with almost +agonized anxiety the least hint of the Kaiser's will, received a +telegram ordering him to pretext illness and come home, which he obeyed +within four-and-twenty hours. The ways of the German Foreign Office had +been always abrupt, not to say ruthless, towards its agents, and yet +commonly some discontent had been shown as excuse; but, in this case, +no cause was guessed for Holleben's disgrace except the Kaiser's wish +to have a personal representative at Washington. Breaking down all +precedent, he sent Speck von Sternburg to counterbalance Herbert. + + Welcome as Speck was in the same social intimacy, and valuable +as his presence was to Hay, the personal gain was trifling compared +with the political. Of Hay's official tasks, one knew no more than any +newspaper reporter did, but of one's own diplomatic education the +successive steps had become strides. The scholar was studying, not on +Hay's account, but on his own. He had seen Hay, in 1898, bring England +into his combine; he had seen the steady movement which was to bring +France back into an Atlantic system; and now he saw suddenly the +dramatic swing of Germany towards the west--the movement of all others +nearest mathematical certainty. Whether the Kaiser meant it or not, he +gave the effect of meaning to assert his independence of Russia, and to +Hay this change of front had enormous value. The least was that it +seemed to isolate Cassini, and unmask the Russian movement which became +more threatening every month as the Manchurian scheme had to be +revealed. + + Of course the student saw whole continents of study opened to +him by the Kaiser's coup d'etat. Carefully as he had tried to follow +the Kaiser's career, he had never suspected such refinement of policy, +which raised his opinion of the Kaiser's ability to the highest point, +and altogether upset the centre of statesmanship. That Germany could be +so quickly detached from separate objects and brought into an Atlantic +system seemed a paradox more paradoxical than any that one's education +had yet offered, though it had offered little but paradox. If Germany +could be held there, a century of friction would be saved. No price +would be too great for such an object; although no price could probably +be wrung out of Congress as equivalent for it. The Kaiser, by one +personal act of energy, freed Hay's hands so completely that he saw his +problems simplified to Russia alone. + + Naturally Russia was a problem ten times as difficult. The +history of Europe for two hundred years had accomplished little but to +state one or two sides of the Russian problem. One's year of Berlin in +youth, though it taught no Civil Law, had opened one's eyes to the +Russian enigma, and both German and French historians had labored over +its proportions with a sort of fascinated horror. Germany, of all +countries, was most vitally concerned in it; but even a cave-dweller in +La Fayette Square, seeking only a measure of motion since the Crusades, +saw before his eyes, in the spring of 1903, a survey of future order or +anarchy that would exhaust the power of his telescopes and defy the +accuracy of his theodolites. + + The drama had become passionately interesting and grew every +day more Byzantine; for the Russian Government itself showed clear +signs of dislocation, and the orders of Lamsdorf and de Witte were +reversed when applied in Manchuria. Historians and students should have +no sympathies or antipathies, but Adams had private reasons for wishing +well to the Czar and his people. At much length, in several labored +chapters of history, he had told how the personal friendliness of the +Czar Alexander I, in 1810, saved the fortunes of J. Q. Adams, and +opened to him the brilliant diplomatic career that ended in the White +House. Even in his own effaced existence he had reasons, not altogether +trivial, for gratitude to the Czar Alexander II, whose firm neutrality +had saved him some terribly anxious days and nights in 1862; while he +had seen enough of Russia to sympathize warmly with Prince Khilkoff's +railways and de Witte's industries. The last and highest triumph of +history would, to his mind, be the bringing of Russia into the Atlantic +combine, and the just and fair allotment of the whole world among the +regulated activities of the universe. At the rate of unification since +1840, this end should be possible within another sixty years; and, in +foresight of that point, Adams could already finish--provisionally--his +chart of international unity; but, for the moment, the gravest doubts +and ignorance covered the whole field. No one--Czar or diplomat, Kaiser +or Mikado--seemed to know anything. Through individual Russians one +could always see with ease, for their diplomacy never suggested depth; +and perhaps Hay protected Cassini for the very reason that Cassini +could not disguise an emotion, and never failed to betray that, in +setting the enormous bulk of Russian inertia to roll over China, he +regretted infinitely that he should have to roll it over Hay too. He +would almost rather have rolled it over de Witte and Lamsdorf. His +political philosophy, like that of all Russians, seemed fixed in the +single idea that Russia must fatally roll--must, by her irresistible +inertia, crush whatever stood in her way. + + For Hay and his pooling policy, inherited from McKinley, the +fatalism of Russian inertia meant the failure of American intensity. +When Russia rolled over a neighboring people, she absorbed their +energies in her own movement of custom and race which neither Czar nor +peasant could convert, or wished to convert, into any Western +equivalent. In 1903 Hay saw Russia knocking away the last blocks that +held back the launch of this huge mass into the China Sea. The vast +force of inertia known as China was to be united with the huge bulk of +Russia in a single mass which no amount of new force could henceforward +deflect. Had the Russian Government, with the sharpest sense of +enlightenment, employed scores of de Wittes and Khilkoffs, and borrowed +all the resources of Europe, it could not have lifted such a weight; +and had no idea of trying. + + These were the positions charted on the map of political unity +by an insect in Washington in the spring of 1903; and they seemed to +him fixed. Russia held Europe and America in her grasp, and Cassini +held Hay in his. The Siberian Railway offered checkmate to all possible +opposition. Japan must make the best terms she could; England must go +on receding; America and Germany would look on at the avalanche. The +wall of Russian inertia that barred Europe across the Baltic, would bar +America across the Pacific; and Hay's policy of the open door would +infallibly fail. + + Thus the game seemed lost, in spite of the Kaiser's brilliant +stroke, and the movement of Russia eastward must drag Germany after it +by its mere mass. To the humble student, the loss of Hay's game +affected only Hay; for himself, the game--not the stakes--was the chief +interest; and though want of habit made him object to read his +newspapers blackened--since he liked to blacken them himself--he was in +any case condemned to pass but a short space of time either in Siberia +or in Paris, and could balance his endless columns of calculation +equally in either place. The figures, not the facts, concerned his +chart, and he mused deeply over his next equation. The Atlantic would +have to deal with a vast continental mass of inert motion, like a +glacier, which moved, and consciously moved, by mechanical gravitation +alone. Russia saw herself so, and so must an American see her; he had +no more to do than measure, if he could, the mass. Was volume or +intensity the stronger? What and where was the vis nova that could hold +its own before this prodigious ice-cap of vis inertiae? What was +movement of inertia, and what its laws? + + Naturally a student knew nothing about mechanical laws, but he +took for granted that he could learn, and went to his books to ask. He +found that the force of inertia had troubled wiser men than he. The +dictionary said that inertia was a property of matter, by which matter +tends, when at rest, to remain so, and, when in motion, to move on in a +straight line. Finding that his mind refused to imagine itself at rest +or in a straight line, he was forced, as usual, to let it imagine +something else; and since the question concerned the mind, and not +matter, he decided from personal experience that his mind was never at +rest, but moved--when normal--about something it called a motive, and +never moved without motives to move it. So long as these motives were +habitual, and their attraction regular, the consequent result might, +for convenience, be called movement of inertia, to distinguish it from +movement caused by newer or higher attraction; but the greater the bulk +to move, the greater must be the force to accelerate or deflect it. + + This seemed simple as running water; but simplicity is the most +deceitful mistress that ever betrayed man. For years the student and +the professor had gone on complaining that minds were unequally inert. +The inequalities amounted to contrasts. One class of minds responded +only to habit; another only to novelty. Race classified thought. +Class-lists classified mind. No two men thought alike, and no woman +thought like a man. + + Race-inertia seemed to be fairly constant, and made the chief +trouble in the Russian future. History looked doubtful when asked +whether race-inertia had ever been overcome without destroying the race +in order to reconstruct it; but surely sex-inertia had never been +overcome at all. Of all movements of inertia, maternity and +reproduction are the most typical, and women's property of moving in a +constant line forever is ultimate, uniting history in its only unbroken +and unbreakable sequence. Whatever else stops, the woman must go on +reproducing, as she did in the Siluria of Pteraspis; sex is a vital +condition, and race only a local one. If the laws of inertia are to be +sought anywhere with certainty, it is in the feminine mind. The +American always ostentatiously ignored sex, and American history +mentioned hardly the name of a woman, while English history handled +them as timidly as though they were a new and undescribed species; but +if the problem of inertia summed up the difficulties of the race +question, it involved that of sex far more deeply, and to Americans +vitally. The task of accelerating or deflecting the movement of the +American woman had interest infinitely greater than that of any race +whatever, Russian or Chinese, Asiatic or African. + + On this subject, as on the Senate and the banks, Adams was +conscious of having been born an eighteenth-century remainder. As he +grew older, he found that Early Institutions lost their interest, but +that Early Women became a passion. Without understanding movement of +sex, history seemed to him mere pedantry. So insistent had he become on +this side of his subject that with women he talked of little else, +and--because women's thought is mostly subconscious and particularly +sensitive to suggestion--he tried tricks and devices to disclose it. +The woman seldom knows her own thought; she is as curious to understand +herself as the man to understand her, and responds far more quickly +than the man to a sudden idea. Sometimes, at dinner, one might wait +till talk flagged, and then, as mildly as possible, ask one's liveliest +neighbor whether she could explain why the American woman was a +failure. Without an instant's hesitation, she was sure to answer: +"Because the American man is a failure!" She meant it. + + Adams owed more to the American woman than to all the American +men he ever heard of, and felt not the smallest call to defend his sex +who seemed able to take care of themselves; but from the point of view +of sex he felt much curiosity to know how far the woman was right, and, +in pursuing this inquiry, he caught the trick of affirming that the +woman was the superior. Apart from truth, he owed her at least that +compliment. The habit led sometimes to perilous personalities in the +sudden give-and-take of table-talk. This spring, just before sailing +for Europe in May, 1903, he had a message from his sister-in-law, Mrs. +Brooks Adams, to say that she and her sister, Mrs. Lodge, and the +Senator were coming to dinner by way of farewell; Bay Lodge and his +lovely young wife sent word to the same effect; Mrs. Roosevelt joined +the party; and Michael Herbert shyly slipped down to escape the +solitude of his wife's absence. The party were too intimate for +reserve, and they soon fell on Adams's hobby with derision which stung +him to pungent rejoinder: "The American man is a failure! You are all +failures!" he said. "Has not my sister here more sense than my brother +Brooks? Is not Bessie worth two of Bay? Wouldn't we all elect Mrs. +Lodge Senator against Cabot? Would the President have a ghost of a +chance if Mrs. Roosevelt ran against him? Do you want to stop at the +Embassy, on your way home, and ask which would run it best--Herbert or +his wife?" The men laughed a little--not much! Each probably made +allowance for his own wife as an unusually superior woman. Some one +afterwards remarked that these half-dozen women were not a fair +average. Adams replied that the half-dozen men were above all possible +average; he could not lay his hands on another half-dozen their equals. + + Gay or serious, the question never failed to stir feeling. The +cleverer the woman, the less she denied the failure. She was bitter at +heart about it. She had failed even to hold the family together, and +her children ran away like chickens with their first feathers; the +family was extinct like chivalry. She had failed not only to create a +new society that satisfied her, but even to hold her own in the old +society of Church or State; and was left, for the most part, with no +place but the theatre or streets to decorate. She might glitter with +historical diamonds and sparkle with wit as brilliant as the gems, in +rooms as splendid as any in Rome at its best; but she saw no one except +her own sex who knew enough to be worth dazzling, or was competent to +pay her intelligent homage. She might have her own way, without +restraint or limit, but she knew not what to do with herself when free. +Never had the world known a more capable or devoted mother, but at +forty her task was over, and she was left with no stage except that of +her old duties, or of Washington society where she had enjoyed for a +hundred years every advantage, but had created only a medley where nine +men out of ten refused her request to be civilized, and the tenth bored +her. + + On most subjects, one's opinions must defer to science, but on +this, the opinion of a Senator or a Professor, a chairman of a State +Central Committee or a Railway President, is worth less than that of +any woman on Fifth Avenue. The inferiority of man on this, the most +important of all social subjects, is manifest. Adams had here no +occasion to deprecate scientific opinion, since no woman in the world +would have paid the smallest respect to the opinions of all professors +since the serpent. His own object had little to do with theirs. He was +studying the laws of motion, and had struck two large questions of +vital importance to America--inertia of race and inertia of sex. He had +seen Mr. de Witte and Prince Khilkoff turn artificial energy to the +value of three thousand million dollars, more or less, upon Russian +inertia, in the last twenty years, and he needed to get some idea of +the effects. He had seen artificial energy to the amount of twenty or +five-and-twenty million steam horse-power created in America since +1840, and as much more economized, which had been socially turned over +to the American woman, she being the chief object of social +expenditure, and the household the only considerable object of American +extravagance. According to scientific notions of inertia and force, +what ought to be the result? + + In Russia, because of race and bulk, no result had yet shown +itself, but in America the results were evident and undisputed. The +woman had been set free--volatilized like Clerk Maxwell's perfect gas; +almost brought to the point of explosion, like steam. One had but to +pass a week in Florida, or on any of a hundred huge ocean steamers, or +walk through the Place Vendome, or join a party of Cook's tourists to +Jerusalem, to see that the woman had been set free; but these swarms +were ephemeral like clouds of butterflies in season, blown away and +lost, while the reproductive sources lay hidden. At Washington, one saw +other swarms as grave gatherings of Dames or Daughters, taking +themselves seriously, or brides fluttering fresh pinions; but all these +shifting visions, unknown before 1840, touched the true problem +slightly and superficially. Behind them, in every city, town, and +farmhouse, were myriads of new types--or type-writers--telephone and +telegraph-girls, shop-clerks, factory-hands, running into millions of +millions, and, as classes, unknown to themselves as to historians. Even +the schoolmistresses were inarticulate. All these new women had been +created since 1840; all were to show their meaning before 1940. + + Whatever they were, they were not content, as the ephemera +proved; and they were hungry for illusions as ever in the fourth +century of the Church; but this was probably survival, and gave no hint +of the future. The problem remained--to find out whether movement of +inertia, inherent in function, could take direction except in lines of +inertia. This problem needed to be solved in one generation of American +women, and was the most vital of all problems of force. + +The American woman at her best--like most other women--exerted great +charm on the man, but not the charm of a primitive type. She appeared +as the result of a long series of discards, and her chief interest lay +in what she had discarded. When closely watched, she seemed making a +violent effort to follow the man, who had turned his mind and hand to +mechanics. The typical American man had his hand on a lever and his eye +on a curve in his road; his living depended on keeping up an average +speed of forty miles an hour, tending always to become sixty, eighty, +or a hundred, and he could not admit emotions or anxieties or +subconscious distractions, more than he could admit whiskey or drugs, +without breaking his neck. He could not run his machine and a woman +too; he must leave her; even though his wife, to find her own way, and +all the world saw her trying to find her way by imitating him. + + The result was often tragic, but that was no new thing in +feminine history. Tragedy had been woman's lot since Eve. Her problem +had been always one of physical strength and it was as physical +perfection of force that her Venus had governed nature. The woman's +force had counted as inertia of rotation, and her axis of rotation had +been the cradle and the family. The idea that she was weak revolted all +history; it was a palaeontological falsehood that even an Eocene female +monkey would have laughed at; but it was surely true that, if her force +were to be diverted from its axis, it must find a new field, and the +family must pay for it. So far as she succeeded, she must become +sexless like the bees, and must leave the old energy of inertia to +carry on the race. + + The story was not new. For thousands of years women had +rebelled. They had made a fortress of religion--had buried themselves +in the cloister, in self-sacrifice, in good works--or even in bad. +One's studies in the twelfth century, like one's studies in the fourth, +as in Homeric and archaic time, showed her always busy in the illusions +of heaven or of hell--ambition, intrigue, jealousy, magic--but the +American woman had no illusions or ambitions or new resources, and +nothing to rebel against, except her own maternity; yet the rebels +increased by millions from year to year till they blocked the path of +rebellion. Even her field of good works was narrower than in the +twelfth century. Socialism, communism, collectivism, philosophical +anarchism, which promised paradise on earth for every male, cut off the +few avenues of escape which capitalism had opened to the woman, and she +saw before her only the future reserved for machine-made, collectivist +females. + + From the male, she could look for no help; his instinct of +power was blind. The Church had known more about women than science +will ever know, and the historian who studied the sources of +Christianity felt sometimes convinced that the Church had been made by +the woman chiefly as her protest against man. At times, the historian +would have been almost willing to maintain that the man had overthrown +the Church chiefly because it was feminine. After the overthrow of the +Church, the woman had no refuge except such as the man created for +himself. She was free; she had no illusions; she was sexless; she had +discarded all that the male disliked; and although she secretly +regretted the discard, she knew that she could not go backward. She +must, like the man, marry machinery. Already the American man sometimes +felt surprise at finding himself regarded as sexless; the American +woman was oftener surprised at finding herself regarded as sexual. + + No honest historian can take part with--or against--the +forces he has to study. To him even the extinction of the human race +should be merely a fact to be grouped with other vital statistics. No +doubt every one in society discussed the subject, impelled by President +Roosevelt if by nothing else, and the surface current of social opinion +seemed set as strongly in one direction as the silent undercurrent of +social action ran in the other; but the truth lay somewhere unconscious +in the woman's breast. An elderly man, trying only to learn the law of +social inertia and the limits of social divergence could not compel the +Superintendent of the Census to ask every young woman whether she +wanted children, and how many; he could not even require of an +octogenarian Senate the passage of a law obliging every woman, married +or not, to bear one baby--at the expense of the Treasury--before she +was thirty years old, under penalty of solitary confinement for life; +yet these were vital statistics in more senses than all that bore the +name, and tended more directly to the foundation of a serious society +in the future. He could draw no conclusions whatever except from the +birth-rate. He could not frankly discuss the matter with the young +women themselves, although they would have gladly discussed it, because +Faust was helpless in the tragedy of woman. He could suggest nothing. +The Marguerite of the future could alone decide whether she were better +off than the Marguerite of the past; whether she would rather be victim +to a man, a church, or a machine. + + Between these various forms of inevitable inertia--sex and +race--the student of multiplicity felt inclined to admit +that--ignorance against ignorance--the Russian problem seemed to him +somewhat easier of treatment than the American. Inertia of race and +bulk would require an immense force to overcome it, but in time it +might perhaps be partially overcome. Inertia of sex could not be +overcome without extinguishing the race, yet an immense force, doubling +every few years, was working irresistibly to overcome it. One gazed +mute before this ocean of darkest ignorance that had already engulfed +society. Few centres of great energy lived in illusion more complete or +archaic than Washington with its simple-minded standards of the field +and farm, its Southern and Western habits of life and manners, its +assumptions of ethics and history; but even in Washington, society was +uneasy enough to need no further fretting. One was almost glad to act +the part of horseshoe crab in Quincy Bay, and admit that all was +uniform--that nothing ever changed--and that the woman would swim about +the ocean of future time, as she had swum in the past, with the +gar-fish and the shark, unable to change. + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE (1903) + + OF all the travels made by man since the voyages of Dante, this +new exploration along the shores of Multiplicity and Complexity +promised to be the longest, though as yet it had barely touched two +familiar regions--race and sex. Even within these narrow seas the +navigator lost his bearings and followed the winds as they blew. By +chance it happened that Raphael Pumpelly helped the winds; for, being +in Washington on his way to Central Asia he fell to talking with Adams +about these matters, and said that Willard Gibbs thought he got most +help from a book called the "Grammar of Science," by Karl Pearson. To +Adams's vision, Willard Gibbs stood on the same plane with the three or +four greatest minds of his century, and the idea that a man so +incomparably superior should find help anywhere filled him with wonder. +He sent for the volume and read it. From the time he sailed for Europe +and reached his den on the Avenue du Bois until he took his return +steamer at Cherbourg on December 26, he did little but try to find out +what Karl Pearson could have taught Willard Gibbs. + + Here came in, more than ever, the fatal handicap of ignorance +in mathematics. Not so much the actual tool was needed, as the right to +judge the product of the tool. Ignorant as one was of the finer values +of French or German, and often deceived by the intricacies of thought +hidden in the muddiness of the medium, one could sometimes catch a +tendency to intelligible meaning even in Kant or Hegel; but one had not +the right to a suspicion of error where the tool of thought was +algebra. Adams could see in such parts of the "Grammar" as he could +understand, little more than an enlargement of Stallo's book already +twenty years old. He never found out what it could have taught a master +like Willard Gibbs. Yet the book had a historical value out of all +proportion to its science. No such stride had any Englishman before +taken in the lines of English thought. The progress of science was +measured by the success of the "Grammar," when, for twenty years past, +Stallo had been deliberately ignored under the usual conspiracy of +silence inevitable to all thought which demands new thought-machinery. +Science needs time to reconstruct its instruments, to follow a +revolution in space; a certain lag is inevitable; the most active mind +cannot instantly swerve from its path; but such revolutions are +portentous, and the fall or rise of half-a-dozen empires interested a +student of history less than the rise of the "Grammar of Science," the +more pressingly because, under the silent influence of Langley, he was +prepared to expect it. + + For a number of years Langley had published in his Smithsonian +Reports the revolutionary papers that foretold the overthrow of +nineteenth-century dogma, and among the first was the famous address of +Sir William Crookes on psychical research, followed by a series of +papers on Roentgen and Curie, which had steadily driven the scientific +lawgivers of Unity into the open; but Karl Pearson was the first to pen +them up for slaughter in the schools. The phrase is not stronger than +that with which the "Grammar of Science" challenged the fight: +"Anything more hopelessly illogical than the statements with regard to +Force and Matter current in elementary textbooks of science, it is +difficult to imagine," opened Mr. Pearson, and the responsible author +of the "elementary textbook," as he went on to explain, was Lord Kelvin +himself. Pearson shut out of science everything which the nineteenth +century had brought into it. He told his scholars that they must put up +with a fraction of the universe, and a very small fraction at that--the +circle reached by the senses, where sequence could be taken for +granted--much as the deep-sea fish takes for granted the circle of +light which he generates. "Order and reason, beauty and benevolence, +are characteristics and conceptions which we find solely associated +with the mind of man." The assertion, as a broad truth, left one's mind +in some doubt of its bearing, for order and beauty seemed to be +associated also in the mind of a crystal, if one's senses were to be +admitted as judge; but the historian had no interest in the universal +truth of Pearson's or Kelvin's or Newton's laws; he sought only their +relative drift or direction, and Pearson went on to say that these +conceptions must stop: "Into the chaos beyond sense-impressions we +cannot scientifically project them." We cannot even infer them: "In the +chaos behind sensations, in the 'beyond' of sense-impressions, we +cannot infer necessity, order or routine, for these are concepts formed +by the mind of man on this side of sense-impressions"; but we must +infer chaos: "Briefly chaos is all that science can logically assert of +the supersensuous." The kinetic theory of gas is an assertion of +ultimate chaos. In plain words, Chaos was the law of nature; Order was +the dream of man. + + No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, +for words are slippery and thought is viscous; but since Bacon and +Newton, English thought had gone on impatiently protesting that no one +must try to know the unknowable at the same time that every one went on +thinking about it. The result was as chaotic as kinetic gas; but with +the thought a historian had nothing to do. He sought only its +direction. For himself he knew, that, in spite of all the Englishmen +that ever lived, he would be forced to enter supersensual chaos if he +meant to find out what became of British science--or indeed of any +other science. From Pythagoras to Herbert Spencer, every one had done +it, although commonly science had explored an ocean which it preferred +to regard as Unity or a Universe, and called Order. Even Hegel, who +taught that every notion included its own negation, used the negation +only to reach a "larger synthesis," till he reached the universal which +thinks itself, contradiction and all. The Church alone had constantly +protested that anarchy was not order, that Satan was not God, that +pantheism was worse than atheism, and that Unity could not be proved as +a contradiction. Karl Pearson seemed to agree with the Church, but +every one else, including Newton, Darwin and Clerk Maxwell, had sailed +gaily into the supersensual, calling it:-- + + "One God, one Law, one Element, + And one far-off, divine event, + To which the whole creation moves." + + Suddenly, in 1900, science raised its head and denied. + + Yet, perhaps, after all, the change had not been so sudden as +it seemed. Real and actual, it certainly was, and every newspaper +betrayed it, but sequence could scarcely be denied by one who had +watched its steady approach, thinking the change far more interesting +to history than the thought. When he reflected about it, he recalled +that the flow of tide had shown itself at least twenty years before; +that it had become marked as early as 1893; and that the man of science +must have been sleepy indeed who did not jump from his chair like a +scared dog when, in 1898, Mme. Curie threw on his desk the metaphysical +bomb she called radium. There remained no hole to hide in. Even +metaphysics swept back over science with the green water of the +deep-sea ocean and no one could longer hope to bar out the unknowable, +for the unknowable was known. + + The fact was admitted that the uniformitarians of one's youth +had wound about their universe a tangle of contradictions meant only +for temporary support to be merged in "larger synthesis," and had +waited for the larger synthesis in silence and in vain. They had +refused to hear Stallo. They had betrayed little interest in Crookes. +At last their universe had been wrecked by rays, and Karl Pearson +undertook to cut the wreck loose with an axe, leaving science adrift on +a sensual raft in the midst of a supersensual chaos. The confusion +seemed, to a mere passenger, worse than that of 1600 when the +astronomers upset the world; it resembled rather the convulsion of 310 +when the Civitas Dei cut itself loose from the Civitas Romae, and the +Cross took the place of the legions; but the historian accepted it all +alike; he knew that his opinion was worthless; only, in this case, he +found himself on the raft, personally and economically concerned in its +drift. + + English thought had always been chaos and multiplicity itself, +in which the new step of Karl Pearson marked only a consistent +progress; but German thought had affected system, unity, and abstract +truth, to a point that fretted the most patient foreigner, and to +Germany the voyager in strange seas of thought alone might resort with +confident hope of renewing his youth. Turning his back on Karl Pearson +and England, he plunged into Germany, and had scarcely crossed the +Rhine when he fell into libraries of new works bearing the names of +Ostwald, Ernst Mach, Ernst Haeckel, and others less familiar, among +whom Haeckel was easiest to approach, not only because of being the +oldest and clearest and steadiest spokesman of nineteenth-century +mechanical convictions, but also because in 1902 he had published a +vehement renewal of his faith. The volume contained only one paragraph +that concerned a historian; it was that in which Haeckel sank his voice +almost to a religious whisper in avowing with evident effort, that the +"proper essence of substance appeared to him more and more marvellous +and enigmatic as he penetrated further into the knowledge of its +attributes--matter and energy--and as he learned to know their +innumerable phenomena and their evolution." Since Haeckel seemed to +have begun the voyage into multiplicity that Pearson had forbidden to +Englishmen, he should have been a safe pilot to the point, at least, of +a "proper essence of substance" in its attributes of matter and energy: +but Ernst Mach seemed to go yet one step further, for he rejected +matter altogether, and admitted but two processes in nature--change of +place and interconversion of forms. Matter was Motion--Motion was +Matter--the thing moved. + + A student of history had no need to understand these scientific +ideas of very great men; he sought only the relation with the ideas of +their grandfathers, and their common direction towards the ideas of +their grandsons. He had long ago reached, with Hegel, the limits of +contradiction; and Ernst Mach scarcely added a shade of variety to the +identity of opposites; but both of them seemed to be in agreement with +Karl Pearson on the facts of the supersensual universe which could be +known only as unknowable. + + With a deep sigh of relief, the traveller turned back to +France. There he felt safe. No Frenchman except Rabelais and Montaigne +had ever taught anarchy other than as path to order. Chaos would be +unity in Paris even if child of the guillotine. To make this assurance +mathematically sure, the highest scientific authority in France was a +great mathematician, M. Poincare of the Institut, who published in 1902 +a small volume called "La Science et l'Hypothese," which purported to +be relatively readable. Trusting to its external appearance, the +traveller timidly bought it, and greedily devoured it, without +understanding a single consecutive page, but catching here and there a +period that startled him to the depths of his ignorance, for they +seemed to show that M. Poincare was troubled by the same historical +landmarks which guided or deluded Adams himself: "[In science] we are +led," said M. Poincare, "to act as though a simple law, when other +things were equal, must be more probable than a complicated law. Half a +century ago one frankly confessed it, and proclaimed that nature loves +simplicity. She has since given us too often the lie. To-day this +tendency is no longer avowed, and only as much of it is preserved as is +indispensable so that science shall not become impossible." + + Here at last was a fixed point beyond the chance of confusion +with self-suggestion. History and mathematics agreed. Had M. Poincare +shown anarchistic tastes, his evidence would have weighed less heavily; +but he seemed to be the only authority in science who felt what a +historian felt so strongly--the need of unity in a universe. +"Considering everything we have made some approach towards unity. We +have not gone as fast as we hoped fifty years ago; we have not always +taken the intended road; but definitely we have gained much ground." +This was the most clear and convincing evidence of progress yet offered +to the navigator of ignorance; but suddenly he fell on another view +which seemed to him quite irreconcilable with the first: "Doubtless if +our means of investigation should become more and more penetrating, we +should discover the simple under the complex; then the complex under +the simple; then anew the simple under the complex; and so on without +ever being able to foresee the last term." + + A mathematical paradise of endless displacement promised +eternal bliss to the mathematician, but turned the historian green with +horror. Made miserable by the thought that he knew no mathematics, he +burned to ask whether M. Poincare knew any history, since he began by +begging the historical question altogether, and assuming that the past +showed alternating phases of simple and complex--the precise point that +Adams, after fifty years of effort, found himself forced to surrender; +and then going on to assume alternating phases for the future which, +for the weary Titan of Unity, differed in nothing essential from the +kinetic theory of a perfect gas. + + Since monkeys first began to chatter in trees, neither man nor +beast had ever denied or doubted Multiplicity, Diversity, Complexity, +Anarchy, Chaos. Always and everywhere the Complex had been true and the +Contradiction had been certain. Thought started by it. Mathematics +itself began by counting one--two--three; then imagining their +continuity, which M. Poincare was still exhausting his wits to explain +or defend; and this was his explanation: "In short, the mind has the +faculty of creating symbols, and it is thus that it has constructed +mathematical continuity which is only a particular system of symbols." +With the same light touch, more destructive in its artistic measure +than the heaviest-handed brutality of Englishmen or Germans, he went on +to upset relative truth itself: "How should I answer the question +whether Euclidian Geometry is true? It has no sense!... Euclidian +Geometry is, and will remain, the most convenient." + +Chaos was a primary fact even in Paris--especially in Paris--as it was +in the Book of Genesis; but every thinking being in Paris or out of it +had exhausted thought in the effort to prove Unity, Continuity, +Purpose, Order, Law, Truth, the Universe, God, after having begun by +taking it for granted, and discovering, to their profound dismay, that +some minds denied it. The direction of mind, as a single force of +nature, had been constant since history began. Its own unity had +created a universe the essence of which was abstract Truth; the +Absolute; God! To Thomas Aquinas, the universe was still a person; to +Spinoza, a substance; to Kant, Truth was the essence of the "I"; an +innate conviction; a categorical imperative; to Poincare, it was a +convenience; and to Karl Pearson, a medium of exchange. + + The historian never stopped repeating to himself that he knew +nothing about it; that he was a mere instrument of measure, a +barometer, pedometer, radiometer; and that his whole share in the +matter was restricted to the measurement of thought-motion as marked by +the accepted thinkers. He took their facts for granted. He knew no more +than a firefly about rays--or about race--or sex--or ennui--or a bar of +music--or a pang of love--or a grain of musk--or of phosphorus--or +conscience--or duty--or the force of Euclidian geometry--or +non-Euclidian--or heat--or light--or osmosis--or electrolysis--or the +magnet--or ether--or vis inertiae--or gravitation--or cohesion--or +elasticity--or surface tension--or capillary attraction--or Brownian +motion--or of some scores, or thousands, or millions of chemical +attractions, repulsions or indifferences which were busy within and +without him; or, in brief, of Force itself, which, he was credibly +informed, bore some dozen definitions in the textbooks, mostly +contradictory, and all, as he was assured, beyond his intelligence; but +summed up in the dictum of the last and highest science, that Motion +seems to be Matter and Matter seems to be Motion, yet "we are probably +incapable of discovering" what either is. History had no need to ask +what either might be; all it needed to know was the admission of +ignorance; the mere fact of multiplicity baffling science. Even as to +the fact, science disputed, but radium happened to radiate something +that seemed to explode the scientific magazine, bringing thought, for +the time, to a standstill; though, in the line of thought-movement in +history, radium was merely the next position, familiar and inexplicable +since Zeno and his arrow: continuous from the beginning of time, and +discontinuous at each successive point. History set it down on the +record--pricked its position on the chart--and waited to be led, or +misled, once more. + + The historian must not try to know what is truth, if he values +his honesty; for, if he cares for his truths, he is certain to falsify +his facts. The laws of history only repeat the lines of force or +thought. Yet though his will be iron, he cannot help now and then +resuming his humanity or simianity in face of a fear. The motion of +thought had the same value as the motion of a cannon-ball seen +approaching the observer on a direct line through the air. One could +watch its curve for five thousand years. Its first violent acceleration +in historical times had ended in the catastrophe of 310. The next +swerve of direction occurred towards 1500. Galileo and Bacon gave a +still newer curve to it, which altered its values; but all these +changes had never altered the continuity. Only in 1900, the continuity +snapped. + + Vaguely conscious of the cataclysm, the world sometimes dated +it from 1893, by the Roentgen rays, or from 1898, by the Curie's +radium; but in 1904, Arthur Balfour announced on the part of British +science that the human race without exception had lived and died in a +world of illusion until the last year of the century. The date was +convenient, and convenience was truth. + + The child born in 1900 would, then, be born into a new world +which would not be a unity but a multiple. Adams tried to imagine it, +and an education that would fit it. He found himself in a land where no +one had ever penetrated before; where order was an accidental relation +obnoxious to nature; artificial compulsion imposed on motion; against +which every free energy of the universe revolted; and which, being +merely occasional, resolved itself back into anarchy at last. He could +not deny that the law of the new multiverse explained much that had +been most obscure, especially the persistently fiendish treatment of +man by man; the perpetual effort of society to establish law, and the +perpetual revolt of society against the law it had established; the +perpetual building up of authority by force, and the perpetual appeal +to force to overthrow it; the perpetual symbolism of a higher law, and +the perpetual relapse to a lower one; the perpetual victory of the +principles of freedom, and their perpetual conversion into principles +of power; but the staggering problem was the outlook ahead into the +despotism of artificial order which nature abhorred. The physicists had +a phrase for it, unintelligible to the vulgar: "All that we win is a +battle--lost in advance--with the irreversible phenomena in the +background of nature." + + All that a historian won was a vehement wish to escape. He saw +his education complete; and was sorry he ever began it. As a matter of +taste, he greatly preferred his eighteenth-century education when God +was a father and nature a mother, and all was for the best in a +scientific universe. He repudiated all share in the world as it was to +be, and yet he could not detect the point where his responsibility +began or ended. + + As history unveiled itself in the new order, man's mind had +behaved like a young pearl oyster, secreting its universe to suit its +conditions until it had built up a shell of nacre that embodied all its +notions of the perfect. Man knew it was true because he made it, and he +loved it for the same reason. He sacrificed millions of lives to +acquire his unity, but he achieved it, and justly thought it a work of +art. The woman especially did great things, creating her deities on a +higher level than the male, and, in the end, compelling the man to +accept the Virgin as guardian of the man's God. The man's part in his +Universe was secondary, but the woman was at home there, and sacrificed +herself without limit to make it habitable, when man permitted it, as +sometimes happened for brief intervals of war and famine; but she could +not provide protection against forces of nature. She did not think of +her universe as a raft to which the limpets stuck for life in the surge +of a supersensual chaos; she conceived herself and her family as the +centre and flower of an ordered universe which she knew to be unity +because she had made it after the image of her own fecundity; and this +creation of hers was surrounded by beauties and perfections which she +knew to be real because she herself had imagined them. + + Even the masculine philosopher admired and loved and celebrated +her triumph, and the greatest of them sang it in the noblest of his +verses:-- + + "Alma Venus, coeli subter labentia signa + Quae mare navigerum, quae terras frugiferenteis + Concelebras ...... . + Quae quondam rerum naturam sola gubernas, + Nec sine te quidquam dias in luminis oras + Exoritur, neque fit laetum neque amabile quidquam; + Te sociam studeo!" + + Neither man nor woman ever wanted to quit this Eden of their +own invention, and could no more have done it of their own accord than +the pearl oyster could quit its shell; but although the oyster might +perhaps assimilate or embalm a grain of sand forced into its aperture, +it could only perish in face of the cyclonic hurricane or the volcanic +upheaval of its bed. Her supersensual chaos killed her. + + Such seemed the theory of history to be imposed by science on +the generation born after 1900. For this theory, Adams felt himself in +no way responsible. Even as historian he had made it his duty always to +speak with respect of everything that had ever been thought +respectable--except an occasional statesman; but he had submitted to +force all his life, and he meant to accept it for the future as for the +past. All his efforts had been turned only to the search for its +channel. He never invented his facts; they were furnished him by the +only authorities he could find. As for himself, according to Helmholz, +Ernst Mach, and Arthur Balfour, he was henceforth to be a conscious +ball of vibrating motions, traversed in every direction by infinite +lines of rotation or vibration, rolling at the feet of the Virgin at +Chartres or of M. Poincare in an attic at Paris, a centre of +supersensual chaos. The discovery did not distress him. A solitary man +of sixty-five years or more, alone in a Gothic cathedral or a Paris +apartment, need fret himself little about a few illusions more or less. +He should have learned his lesson fifty years earlier; the times had +long passed when a student could stop before chaos or order; he had no +choice but to march with his world. + + Nevertheless, he could not pretend that his mind felt flattered +by this scientific outlook. Every fabulist has told how the human mind +has always struggled like a frightened bird to escape the chaos which +caged it; how--appearing suddenly and inexplicably out of some unknown +and unimaginable void; passing half its known life in the mental chaos +of sleep; victim even when awake, to its own ill-adjustment, to +disease, to age, to external suggestion, to nature's compulsion; +doubting its sensations, and, in the last resort, trusting only to +instruments and averages--after sixty or seventy years of growing +astonishment, the mind wakes to find itself looking blankly into the +void of death. That it should profess itself pleased by this +performance was all that the highest rules of good breeding could ask; +but that it should actually be satisfied would prove that it existed +only as idiocy. + + Satisfied, the future generation could scarcely think itself, +for even when the mind existed in a universe of its own creation, it +had never been quite at ease. As far as one ventured to interpret +actual science, the mind had thus far adjusted itself by an infinite +series of infinitely delicate adjustments forced on it by the infinite +motion of an infinite chaos of motion; dragged at one moment into the +unknowable and unthinkable, then trying to scramble back within its +senses and to bar the chaos out, but always assimilating bits of it, +until at last, in 1900, a new avalanche of unknown forces had fallen on +it, which required new mental powers to control. If this view was +correct, the mind could gain nothing by flight or by fight; it must +merge in its supersensual multiverse, or succumb to it. + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +VIS NOVA (1903-1904) + +PARIS after midsummer is a place where only the industrious poor +remain, unless they can get away; but Adams knew no spot where history +would be better off, and the calm of the Champs Elysees was so deep +that when Mr. de Witte was promoted to a powerless dignity, no one +whispered that the promotion was disgrace, while one might have +supposed, from the silence, that the Viceroy Alexeieff had reoccupied +Manchuria as a fulfilment of treaty-obligation. For once, the +conspiracy of silence became crime. Never had so modern and so vital a +riddle been put before Western society, but society shut its eyes. +Manchuria knew every step into war; Japan had completed every +preparation; Alexeieff had collected his army and fleet at Port Arthur, +mounting his siege guns and laying in enormous stores, ready for the +expected attack; from Yokohama to Irkutsk, the whole East was under war +conditions; but Europe knew nothing. The banks would allow no +disturbance; the press said not a word, and even the embassies were +silent. Every anarchist in Europe buzzed excitement and began to +collect in groups, but the Hotel Ritz was calm, and the Grand Dukes who +swarmed there professed to know directly from the Winter Palace that +there would be no war. + + As usual, Adams felt as ignorant as the best-informed +statesman, and though the sense was familiar, for once he could see +that the ignorance was assumed. After nearly fifty years of experience, +he could not understand how the comedy could be so well acted. Even as +late as November, diplomats were gravely asking every passer-by for his +opinion, and avowed none of their own except what was directly +authorized at St. Petersburg. He could make nothing of it. He found +himself in face of his new problem--the workings of Russian +inertia--and he could conceive no way of forming an opinion how much +was real and how much was comedy had he been in the Winter Palace +himself. At times he doubted whether the Grand Dukes or the Czar knew, +but old diplomatic training forbade him to admit such innocence. + + This was the situation at Christmas when he left Paris. On +January 6, 1904, he reached Washington, where the contrast of +atmosphere astonished him, for he had never before seen his country +think as a world-power. No doubt, Japanese diplomacy had much to do +with this alertness, but the immense superiority of Japanese diplomacy +should have been more evident in Europe than in America, and in any +case, could not account for the total disappearance of Russian +diplomacy. A government by inertia greatly disconcerted study. One was +led to suspect that Cassini never heard from his Government, and that +Lamsdorf knew nothing of his own department; yet no such suspicion +could be admitted. Cassini resorted to transparent blague: "Japan +seemed infatuated even to the point of war! But what can the Japanese +do? As usual, sit on their heels and pray to Buddha!" One of the oldest +and most accomplished diplomatists in the service could never show his +hand so empty as this if he held a card to play; but he never betrayed +stronger resource behind. "If any Japanese succeed in entering +Manchuria, they will never get out of it alive." The inertia of +Cassini, who was naturally the most energetic of diplomatists, deeply +interested a student of race-inertia, whose mind had lost itself in the +attempt to invent scales of force. + + The air of official Russia seemed most dramatic in the air of +the White House, by contrast with the outspoken candor of the +President. Reticence had no place there. Every one in America saw that, +whether Russia or Japan were victim, one of the decisive struggles in +American history was pending, and any pretence of secrecy or +indifference was absurd. Interest was acute, and curiosity intense, for +no one knew what the Russian Government meant or wanted, while war had +become a question of days. To an impartial student who gravely doubted +whether the Czar himself acted as a conscious force or an inert weight, +the straight-forward avowals of Roosevelt had singular value as a +standard of measure. By chance it happened that Adams was obliged to +take the place of his brother Brooks at the Diplomatic Reception +immediately after his return home, and the part of proxy included his +supping at the President's table, with Secretary Root on one side, the +President opposite, and Miss Chamberlain between them. Naturally the +President talked and the guests listened; which seemed, to one who had +just escaped from the European conspiracy of silence, like drawing a +free breath after stifling. Roosevelt, as every one knew, was always an +amusing talker, and had the reputation of being indiscreet beyond any +other man of great importance in the world, except the Kaiser Wilhelm +and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, the father of his guest at table; and this +evening he spared none. With the usual abuse of the quos ego, common to +vigorous statesmen, he said all that he thought about Russians and +Japanese, as well as about Boers and British, without restraint, in +full hearing of twenty people, to the entire satisfaction of his +listener; and concluded by declaring that war was imminent; that it +ought to be stopped; that it could be stopped: "I could do it myself; I +could stop it to-morrow!" and he went on to explain his reasons for +restraint. + + That he was right, and that, within another generation, his +successor would do what he would have liked to do, made no shadow of +doubt in the mind of his hearer, though it would have been folly when +he last supped at the White House in the dynasty of President Hayes; +but the listener cared less for the assertion of power, than for the +vigor of view. The truth was evident enough, ordinary, even commonplace +if one liked, but it was not a truth of inertia, nor was the method to +be mistaken for inert. + + Nor could the force of Japan be mistaken for a moment as a +force of inertia, although its aggressive was taken as methodically--as +mathematically--as a demonstration of Euclid, and Adams thought that as +against any but Russians it would have lost its opening. Each day +counted as a measure of relative energy on the historical scale, and +the whole story made a Grammar of new Science quite as instructive as +that of Pearson. + + The forces thus launched were bound to reach some new +equilibrium which would prove the problem in one sense or another, and +the war had no personal value for Adams except that it gave Hay his +last great triumph. He had carried on his long contest with Cassini so +skillfully that no one knew enough to understand the diplomatic +perfection of his work, which contained no error; but such success is +complete only when it is invisible, and his victory at last was victory +of judgment, not of act. He could do nothing, and the whole country +would have sprung on him had he tried. Japan and England saved his +"open door" and fought his battle. All that remained for him was to +make the peace, and Adams set his heart on getting the peace quickly in +hand, for Hay's sake as well as for that of Russia. He thought then +that it could be done in one campaign, for he knew that, in a military +sense, the fall of Port Arthur must lead to negotiation, and every one +felt that Hay would inevitably direct it; but the race was close, and +while the war grew every day in proportions, Hay's strength every day +declined. + + St. Gaudens came on to model his head, and Sargent painted his +portrait, two steps essential to immortality which he bore with a +certain degree of resignation, but he grumbled when the President made +him go to St. Louis to address some gathering at the Exposition; and +Mrs. Hay bade Adams go with them, for whatever use he could suppose +himself to serve. He professed the religion of World's Fairs, without +which he held education to be a blind impossibility; and obeyed Mrs. +Hay's bidding the more readily because it united his two educations in +one; but theory and practice were put to equally severe test at St. +Louis. Ten years had passed since he last crossed the Mississippi, and +he found everything new. In this great region from Pittsburgh through +Ohio and Indiana, agriculture had made way for steam; tall chimneys +reeked smoke on every horizon, and dirty suburbs filled with +scrap-iron, scrap-paper and cinders, formed the setting of every town. +Evidently, cleanliness was not to be the birthmark of the new American, +but this matter of discards concerned the measure of force little, +while the chimneys and cinders concerned it so much that Adams thought +the Secretary of State should have rushed to the platform at every +station to ask who were the people; for the American of the prime +seemed to be extinct with the Shawnee and the buffalo. + + The subject grew quickly delicate. History told little about +these millions of Germans and Slavs, or whatever their race-names, who +had overflowed these regions as though the Rhine and the Danube had +turned their floods into the Ohio. John Hay was as strange to the +Mississippi River as though he had not been bred on its shores, and the +city of St. Louis had turned its back on the noblest work of nature, +leaving it bankrupt between its own banks. The new American showed his +parentage proudly; he was the child of steam and the brother of the +dynamo, and already, within less than thirty years, this mass of mixed +humanities, brought together by steam, was squeezed and welded into +approach to shape; a product of so much mechanical power, and bearing +no distinctive marks but that of its pressure. The new American, like +the new European, was the servant of the powerhouse, as the European of +the twelfth century was the servant of the Church, and the features +would follow the parentage. + + The St. Louis Exposition was its first creation in the +twentieth century, and, for that reason, acutely interesting. One saw +here a third-rate town of half-a-million people without history, +education, unity, or art, and with little capital--without even an +element of natural interest except the river which it studiously +ignored--but doing what London, Paris, or New York would have shrunk +from attempting. This new social conglomerate, with no tie but its +steam-power and not much of that, threw away thirty or forty million +dollars on a pageant as ephemeral as a stage flat. The world had never +witnessed so marvellous a phantasm by night Arabia's crimson sands had +never returned a glow half so astonishing, as one wandered among long +lines of white palaces, exquisitely lighted by thousands on thousands +of electric candles, soft, rich, shadowy, palpable in their sensuous +depths; all in deep silence, profound solitude, listening for a voice +or a foot-fall or the plash of an oar, as though the Emir Mirza were +displaying the beauties of this City of Brass, which could show nothing +half so beautiful as this illumination, with its vast, white, +monumental solitude, bathed in the pure light of setting suns. One +enjoyed it with iniquitous rapture, not because of exhibits but rather +because of their want. Here was a paradox like the stellar universe +that fitted one's mental faults. Had there been no exhibits at all, and +no visitors, one would have enjoyed it only the more. + + Here education found new forage. That the power was wasted, the +art indifferent, the economic failure complete, added just so much to +the interest. The chaos of education approached a dream. One asked +one's self whether this extravagance reflected the past or imaged the +future; whether it was a creation of the old American or a promise of +the new one. No prophet could be believed, but a pilgrim of power, +without constituency to flatter, might allow himself to hope. The +prospect from the Exposition was pleasant; one seemed to see almost an +adequate motive for power; almost a scheme for progress. In another +half-century, the people of the central valleys should have hundreds of +millions to throw away more easily than in 1900 they could throw away +tens; and by that time they might know what they wanted. Possibly they +might even have learned how to reach it. + + This was an optimist's hope, shared by few except pilgrims of +World's Fairs, and frankly dropped by the multitude, for, east of the +Mississippi, the St. Louis Exposition met a deliberate conspiracy of +silence, discouraging, beyond measure, to an optimistic dream of future +strength in American expression. The party got back to Washington on +May 24, and before sailing for Europe, Adams went over, one warm +evening, to bid good-bye on the garden-porch of the White House. He +found himself the first person who urged Mrs. Roosevelt to visit the +Exposition for its beauty, and, as far as he ever knew, the last. + + He left St. Louis May 22, 1904, and on Sunday, June 5, found +himself again in the town of Coutances, where the people of Normandy +had built, towards the year 1250, an Exposition which architects still +admired and tourists visited, for it was thought singularly expressive +of force as well as of grace in the Virgin. On this Sunday, the Norman +world was celebrating a pretty church-feast--the Fete Dieu--and the +streets were filled with altars to the Virgin, covered with flowers and +foliage; the pavements strewn with paths of leaves and the spring +handiwork of nature; the cathedral densely thronged at mass. The scene +was graceful. The Virgin did not shut her costly Exposition on Sunday, +or any other day, even to American senators who had shut the St. Louis +Exposition to her--or for her; and a historical tramp would gladly have +offered a candle, or even a candle-stick in her honor, if she would +have taught him her relation with the deity of the Senators. The power +of the Virgin had been plainly One, embracing all human activity; while +the power of the Senate, or its deity, seemed--might one say--to be +more or less ashamed of man and his work. The matter had no great +interest as far as it concerned the somewhat obscure mental processes +of Senators who could probably have given no clearer idea than priests +of the deity they supposed themselves to honor--if that was indeed +their purpose; but it interested a student of force, curious to measure +its manifestations. Apparently the Virgin--or her Son--had no longer +the force to build expositions that one cared to visit, but had the +force to close them. The force was still real, serious, and, at St. +Louis, had been anxiously measured in actual money-value. + + That it was actual and serious in France as in the Senate +Chamber at Washington, proved itself at once by forcing Adams to buy an +automobile, which was a supreme demonstration because this was the form +of force which Adams most abominated. He had set aside the summer for +study of the Virgin, not as a sentiment but as a motive power, which +had left monuments widely scattered and not easily reached. The +automobile alone could unite them in any reasonable sequence, and +although the force of the automobile, for the purposes of a commercial +traveller, seemed to have no relation whatever to the force that +inspired a Gothic cathedral, the Virgin in the twelfth century would +have guided and controlled both bag-man and architect, as she +controlled the seeker of history. In his mind the problem offered +itself as to Newton; it was a matter of mutual attraction, and he knew +it, in his own case, to be a formula as precise as s = gt^2/2, if he +could but experimentally prove it. Of the attraction he needed no proof +on his own account; the costs of his automobile were more than +sufficient: but as teacher he needed to speak for others than himself. +For him, the Virgin was an adorable mistress, who led the automobile +and its owner where she would, to her wonderful palaces and chateaux, +from Chartres to Rouen, and thence to Amiens and Laon, and a score of +others, kindly receiving, amusing, charming and dazzling her lover, as +though she were Aphrodite herself, worth all else that man ever +dreamed. He never doubted her force, since he felt it to the last fibre +of his being, and could not more dispute its mastery than he could +dispute the force of gravitation of which he knew nothing but the +formula. He was only too glad to yield himself entirely, not to her +charm or to any sentimentality of religion, but to her mental and +physical energy of creation which had built up these World's Fairs of +thirteenth-century force that turned Chicago and St. Louis pale. + + "Both were faiths and both are gone," said Matthew Arnold of +the Greek and Norse divinities; but the business of a student was to +ask where they had gone. The Virgin had not even altogether gone; her +fading away had been excessively slow. Her adorer had pursued her too +long, too far, and into too many manifestations of her power, to admit +that she had any equivalent either of quantity or kind, in the actual +world, but he could still less admit her annihilation as energy. + + So he went on wooing, happy in the thought that at last he had +found a mistress who could see no difference in the age of her lovers. +Her own age had no time-measure. For years past, incited by John La +Farge, Adams had devoted his summer schooling to the study of her glass +at Chartres and elsewhere, and if the automobile had one vitesse more +useful than another, it was that of a century a minute; that of passing +from one century to another without break. The centuries dropped like +autumn leaves in one's road, and one was not fined for running over +them too fast. When the thirteenth lost breath, the fourteenth caught +on, and the sixteenth ran close ahead. The hunt for the Virgin's glass +opened rich preserves. Especially the sixteenth century ran riot in +sensuous worship. Then the ocean of religion, which had flooded France, +broke into Shelley's light dissolved in star-showers thrown, which had +left every remote village strewn with fragments that flashed like +jewels, and were tossed into hidden clefts of peace and forgetfulness. +One dared not pass a parish church in Champagne or Touraine without +stopping to look for its window of fragments, where one's glass +discovered the Christ-child in his manger, nursed by the head of a +fragmentary donkey, with a Cupid playing into its long ears from the +balustrade of a Venetian palace, guarded by a legless Flemish +leibwache, standing on his head with a broken halbert; all invoked in +prayer by remnants of the donors and their children that might have +been drawn by Fouquet or Pinturicchio, in colors as fresh and living as +the day they were burned in, and with feeling that still consoled the +faithful for the paradise they had paid for and lost. France abounds in +sixteenth-century glass. Paris alone contains acres of it, and the +neighborhood within fifty miles contains scores of churches where the +student may still imagine himself three hundred years old, kneeling +before the Virgin's window in the silent solitude of an empty faith, +crying his culp, beating his breast, confessing his historical sins, +weighed down by the rubbish of sixty-six years' education, and still +desperately hoping to understand. + + He understood a little, though not much. The sixteenth century +had a value of its own, as though the ONE had become several, and Unity +had counted more than Three, though the Multiple still showed modest +numbers. The glass had gone back to the Roman Empire and forward to the +American continent; it betrayed sympathy with Montaigne and +Shakespeare; but the Virgin was still supreme. At Beauvais in the +Church of St. Stephen was a superb tree of Jesse, famous as the work of +Engrand le Prince, about 1570 or 1580, in whose branches, among the +fourteen ancestors of the Virgin, three-fourths bore features of the +Kings of France, among them Francis I and Henry II, who were hardly +more edifying than Kings of Israel, and at least unusual as sources of +divine purity. Compared with the still more famous Tree of Jesse at +Chartres, dating from 1150 or thereabouts, must one declare that +Engrand le Prince proved progress? and in what direction? Complexity, +Multiplicity, even a step towards Anarchy, it might suggest, but what +step towards perfection? + + One late afternoon, at midsummer, the Virgin's pilgrim was +wandering through the streets of Troyes in close and intimate +conversation with Thibaut of Champagne and his highly intelligent +seneschal, the Sieur de Joinville, when he noticed one or two men +looking at a bit of paper stuck in a window. Approaching, he read that +M. de Plehve had been assassinated at St. Petersburg. The mad mixture +of Russia and the Crusades, of the Hippodrome and the Renaissance, +drove him for refuge into the fascinating Church of St. Pantaleon near +by. Martyrs, murderers, Caesars, saints and assassins--half in glass +and half in telegram; chaos of time, place, morals, forces and +motive--gave him vertigo. Had one sat all one's life on the steps of +Ara Coeli for this? Was assassination forever to be the last word of +Progress? No one in the street had shown a sign of protest; he himself +felt none; the charming Church with its delightful windows, in its +exquisite absence of other tourists, took a keener expression of +celestial peace than could have been given it by any contrast short of +explosive murder; the conservative Christian anarchist had come to his +own, but which was he--the murderer or the murdered? + + The Virgin herself never looked so winning--so One--as in +this scandalous failure of her Grace. To what purpose had she existed, +if, after nineteen hundred years, the world was bloodier than when she +was born? The stupendous failure of Christianity tortured history. The +effort for Unity could not be a partial success; even alternating Unity +resolved itself into meaningless motion at last. To the tired student, +the idea that he must give it up seemed sheer senility. As long as he +could whisper, he would go on as he had begun, bluntly refusing to meet +his creator with the admission that the creation had taught him nothing +except that the square of the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle +might for convenience be taken as equal to something else. Every man +with self-respect enough to become effective, if only as a machine, has +had to account to himself for himself somehow, and to invent a formula +of his own for his universe, if the standard formulas failed. There, +whether finished or not, education stopped. The formula, once made, +could be but verified. + + The effort must begin at once, for time pressed. The old +formulas had failed, and a new one had to be made, but, after all, the +object was not extravagant or eccentric. One sought no absolute truth. +One sought only a spool on which to wind the thread of history without +breaking it. Among indefinite possible orbits, one sought the orbit +which would best satisfy the observed movement of the runaway star +Groombridge, 1838, commonly called Henry Adams. As term of a +nineteenth-century education, one sought a common factor for certain +definite historical fractions. Any schoolboy could work out the problem +if he were given the right to state it in his own terms. + + Therefore, when the fogs and frosts stopped his slaughter of +the centuries, and shut him up again in his garret, he sat down as +though he were again a boy at school to shape after his own needs the +values of a Dynamic Theory of History. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +A DYNAMIC THEORY OF HISTORY (1904) + + A DYNAMIC theory, like most theories, begins by begging the +question: it defines Progress as the development and economy of Forces. +Further, it defines force as anything that does, or helps to do work. +Man is a force; so is the sun; so is a mathematical point, though +without dimensions or known existence. + + Man commonly begs the question again taking for granted that he +captures the forces. A dynamic theory, assigning attractive force to +opposing bodies in proportion to the law of mass, takes for granted +that the forces of nature capture man. The sum of force attracts; the +feeble atom or molecule called man is attracted; he suffers education +or growth; he is the sum of the forces that attract him; his body and +his thought are alike their product; the movement of the forces +controls the progress of his mind, since he can know nothing but the +motions which impinge on his senses, whose sum makes education. + + For convenience as an image, the theory may liken man to a +spider in its web, watching for chance prey. Forces of nature dance +like flies before the net, and the spider pounces on them when it can; +but it makes many fatal mistakes, though its theory of force is sound. +The spider-mind acquires a faculty of memory, and, with it, a singular +skill of analysis and synthesis, taking apart and putting together in +different relations the meshes of its trap. Man had in the beginning no +power of analysis or synthesis approaching that of the spider, or even +of the honey-bee; he had acute sensibility to the higher forces. Fire +taught him secrets that no other animal could learn; running water +probably taught him even more, especially in his first lessons of +mechanics; the animals helped to educate him, trusting themselves into +his hands merely for the sake of their food, and carrying his burdens +or supplying his clothing; the grasses and grains were academies of +study. With little or no effort on his part, all these forces formed +his thought, induced his action, and even shaped his figure. + + Long before history began, his education was complete, for the +record could not have been started until he had been taught to record. +The universe that had formed him took shape in his mind as a reflection +of his own unity, containing all forces except himself. Either +separately, or in groups, or as a whole, these forces never ceased to +act on him, enlarging his mind as they enlarged the surface foliage of +a vegetable, and the mind needed only to respond, as the forests did, +to these attractions. Susceptibility to the highest forces is the +highest genius; selection between them is the highest science; their +mass is the highest educator. Man always made, and still makes, +grotesque blunders in selecting and measuring forces, taken at random +from the heap, but he never made a mistake in the value he set on the +whole, which he symbolized as unity and worshipped as God. To this day, +his attitude towards it has never changed, though science can no longer +give to force a name. + + Man's function as a force of nature was to assimilate other +forces as he assimilated food. He called it the love of power. He felt +his own feebleness, and he sought for an ass or a camel, a bow or a +sling, to widen his range of power, as he sought fetish or a planet in +the world beyond. He cared little to know its immediate use, but he +could afford to throw nothing away which he could conceive to have +possible value in this or any other existence. He waited for the object +to teach him its use, or want of use, and the process was slow. He may +have gone on for hundreds of thousands of years, waiting for Nature to +tell him her secrets; and, to his rivals among the monkeys, Nature has +taught no more than at their start; but certain lines of force were +capable of acting on individual apes, and mechanically selecting types +of race or sources of variation. The individual that responded or +reacted to lines of new force then was possibly the same individual +that reacts on it now, and his conception of the unity seems never to +have changed in spite of the increasing diversity of forces; but the +theory of variation is an affair of other science than history, and +matters nothing to dynamics. The individual or the race would be +educated on the same lines of illusion, which, according to Arthur +Balfour, had not essentially varied down to the year 1900. + + To the highest attractive energy, man gave the name of divine, +and for its control he invented the science called Religion, a word +which meant, and still means, cultivation of occult force whether in +detail or mass. Unable to define Force as a unity, man symbolized it +and pursued it, both in himself, and in the infinite, as philosophy and +theology; the mind is itself the subtlest of all known forces, and its +self-introspection necessarily created a science which had the singular +value of lifting his education, at the start, to the finest, subtlest, +and broadest training both in analysis and synthesis, so that, if +language is a test, he must have reached his highest powers early in +his history; while the mere motive remained as simple an appetite for +power as the tribal greed which led him to trap an elephant. Hunger, +whether for food or for the infinite, sets in motion multiplicity and +infinity of thought, and the sure hope of gaining a share of infinite +power in eternal life would lift most minds to effort. + + He had reached this completeness five thousand years ago, and +added nothing to his stock of known forces for a very long time. The +mass of nature exercised on him so feeble an attraction that one can +scarcely account for his apparent motion. Only a historian of very +exceptional knowledge would venture to say at what date between 3000 +B.C. and 1000 A.D., the momentum of Europe was greatest; but such +progress as the world made consisted in economies of energy rather than +in its development; it was proved in mathematics, measured by names +like Archimedes, Aristarchus, Ptolemy, and Euclid; or in Civil Law, +measured by a number of names which Adams had begun life by failing to +learn; or in coinage, which was most beautiful near its beginning, and +most barbarous at its close; or it was shown in roads, or the size of +ships, or harbors; or by the use of metals, instruments, and writing; +all of them economies of force, sometimes more forceful than the forces +they helped; but the roads were still travelled by the horse, the ass, +the camel, or the slave; the ships were still propelled by sails or +oars; the lever, the spring, and the screw bounded the region of +applied mechanics. Even the metals were old. + + Much the same thing could be said of religious or supernatural +forces. Down to the year 300 of the Christian era they were little +changed, and in spite of Plato and the sceptics were more apparently +chaotic than ever. The experience of three thousand years had educated +society to feel the vastness of Nature, and the infinity of her +resources of power, but even this increase of attraction had not yet +caused economies in its methods of pursuit. + + There the Western world stood till the year A.D. 305, when the +Emperor Diocletian abdicated; and there it was that Adams broke down on +the steps of Ara Coeli, his path blocked by the scandalous failure of +civilization at the moment it had achieved complete success. In the +year 305 the empire had solved the problems of Europe more completely +than they have ever been solved since. The Pax Romana, the Civil Law, +and Free Trade should, in four hundred years, have put Europe far in +advance of the point reached by modern society in the four hundred +years since 1500, when conditions were less simple. + + The efforts to explain, or explain away, this scandal had been +incessant, but none suited Adams unless it were the economic theory of +adverse exchanges and exhaustion of minerals; but nations are not +ruined beyond a certain point by adverse exchanges, and Rome had by no +means exhausted her resources. On the contrary, the empire developed +resources and energies quite astounding. No other four hundred years of +history before A.D. 1800 knew anything like it; and although some of +these developments, like the Civil Law, the roads, aqueducts, and +harbors, were rather economies than force, yet in northwestern Europe +alone the empire had developed three energies--France, England, and +Germany--competent to master the world. The trouble seemed rather to be +that the empire developed too much energy, and too fast. + +A dynamic law requires that two masses--nature and man--must go on, +reacting upon each other, without stop, as the sun and a comet react on +each other, and that any appearance of stoppage is illusive. The theory +seems to exact excess, rather than deficiency, of action and reaction +to account for the dissolution of the Roman Empire, which should, as a +problem of mechanics, have been torn to pieces by acceleration. If the +student means to try the experiment of framing a dynamic law, he must +assign values to the forces of attraction that caused the trouble; and +in this case he has them in plain evidence. With the relentless logic +that stamped Roman thought, the empire, which had established unity on +earth, could not help establishing unity in heaven. It was induced by +its dynamic necessities to economize the gods. + + The Church has never ceased to protest against the charge that +Christianity ruined the empire, and, with its usual force, has pointed +out that its reforms alone saved the State. Any dynamic theory gladly +admits it. All it asks is to find and follow the force that attracts. +The Church points out this force in the Cross, and history needs only +to follow it. The empire loudly asserted its motive. Good taste forbids +saying that Constantine the Great speculated as audaciously as a modern +stock-broker on values of which he knew at the utmost only the volume; +or that he merged all uncertain forces into a single trust, which he +enormously overcapitalized, and forced on the market; but this is the +substance of what Constantine himself said in his Edict of Milan in the +year 313, which admitted Christianity into the Trust of State +Religions. Regarded as an Act of Congress, it runs: "We have resolved +to grant to Christians as well as all others the liberty to practice +the religion they prefer, in order that whatever exists of divinity or +celestial power may help and favor us and all who are under our +government." The empire pursued power--not merely spiritual but +physical--in the sense in which Constantine issued his army order the +year before, at the battle of the Milvian Bridge: In hoc signo vinces! +using the Cross as a train of artillery, which, to his mind, it was. +Society accepted it in the same character. Eighty years afterwards, +Theodosius marched against his rival Eugene with the Cross for physical +champion; and Eugene raised the image of Hercules to fight for the +pagans; while society on both sides looked on, as though it were a +boxing-match, to decide a final test of force between the divine +powers. The Church was powerless to raise the ideal. What is now known +as religion affected the mind of old society but little. The laity, the +people, the million, almost to a man, bet on the gods as they bet on a +horse. + + No doubt the Church did all it could to purify the process, but +society was almost wholly pagan in its point of view, and was drawn to +the Cross because, in its system of physics, the Cross had absorbed all +the old occult or fetish-power. The symbol represented the sum of +nature--the Energy of modern science--and society believed it to be as +real as X-rays; perhaps it was! The emperors used it like gunpowder in +politics; the physicians used it like rays in medicine; the dying clung +to it as the quintessence of force, to protect them from the forces of +evil on their road to the next life. + + Throughout these four centuries the empire knew that religion +disturbed economy, for even the cost of heathen incense affected the +exchanges; but no one could afford to buy or construct a costly and +complicated machine when he could hire an occult force at trifling +expense. Fetish-power was cheap and satisfactory, down to a certain +point. Turgot and Auguste Comte long ago fixed this stage of economy as +a necessary phase of social education, and historians seem now to +accept it as the only gain yet made towards scientific history. Great +numbers of educated people--perhaps a majority--cling to the method +still, and practice it more or less strictly; but, until quite +recently, no other was known. The only occult power at man's disposal +was fetish. Against it, no mechanical force could compete except within +narrow limits. + + Outside of occult or fetish-power, the Roman world was +incredibly poor. It knew but one productive energy resembling a modern +machine--the slave. No artificial force of serious value was applied to +production or transportation, and when society developed itself so +rapidly in political and social lines, it had no other means of keeping +its economy on the same level than to extend its slave-system and its +fetish-system to the utmost. + +The result might have been stated in a mathematical formula as early as +the time of Archimedes, six hundred years before Rome fell. The +economic needs of a violently centralizing society forced the empire to +enlarge its slave-system until the slave-system consumed itself and the +empire too, leaving society no resource but further enlargement of its +religious system in order to compensate for the losses and horrors of +the failure. For a vicious circle, its mathematical completeness +approached perfection. The dynamic law of attraction and reaction +needed only a Newton to fix it in algebraic form. + + At last, in 410, Alaric sacked Rome, and the slave-ridden, +agricultural, uncommercial Western Empire--the poorer and less +Christianized half--went to pieces. Society, though terribly shocked by +the horrors of Alaric's storm, felt still more deeply the +disappointment in its new power, the Cross, which had failed to protect +its Church. The outcry against the Cross became so loud among +Christians that its literary champion, Bishop Augustine of Hippo--a +town between Algiers and Tunis--was led to write a famous treatise in +defence of the Cross, familiar still to every scholar, in which he +defended feebly the mechanical value of the symbol--arguing only that +pagan symbols equally failed--but insisted on its spiritual value in +the Civitas Dei which had taken the place of the Civitas Romae in human +interest. "Granted that we have lost all we had! Have we lost faith? +Have we lost piety? Have we lost the wealth of the inner man who is +rich before God? These are the wealth of Christians!" The Civitas Dei, +in its turn, became the sum of attraction for the Western world, though +it also showed the same weakness in mechanics that had wrecked the +Civitas Romae. St. Augustine and his people perished at Hippo towards +430, leaving society in appearance dull to new attraction. + + Yet the attraction remained constant. The delight of +experimenting on occult force of every kind is such as to absorb all +the free thought of the human race. The gods did their work; history +has no quarrel with them; they led, educated, enlarged the mind; taught +knowledge; betrayed ignorance; stimulated effort. So little is known +about the mind--whether social, racial, sexual or heritable; whether +material or spiritual; whether animal, vegetable or mineral--that +history is inclined to avoid it altogether; but nothing forbids one to +admit, for convenience, that it may assimilate food like the body, +storing new force and growing, like a forest, with the storage. The +brain has not yet revealed its mysterious mechanism of gray matter. +Never has Nature offered it so violent a stimulant as when she opened +to it the possibility of sharing infinite power in eternal life, and it +might well need a thousand years of prolonged and intense experiment to +prove the value of the motive. During these so-called Middle Ages, the +Western mind reacted in many forms, on many sides, expressing its +motives in modes, such as Romanesque and Gothic architecture, glass +windows and mosaic walls, sculpture and poetry, war and love, which +still affect some people as the noblest work of man, so that, even +to-day, great masses of idle and ignorant tourists travel from far +countries to look at Ravenna and San Marco, Palermo and Pisa, Assisi, +Cordova, Chartres, with vague notions about the force that created +them, but with a certain surprise that a social mind of such singular +energy and unity should still lurk in their shadows. + + The tourist more rarely visits Constantinople or studies the +architecture of Sancta Sofia, but when he does, he is distinctly +conscious of forces not quite the same. Justinian has not the +simplicity of Charlemagne. The Eastern Empire showed an activity and +variety of forces that classical Europe had never possessed. The navy +of Nicephoras Phocas in the tenth century would have annihilated in +half an hour any navy that Carthage or Athens or Rome ever set afloat. +The dynamic scheme began by asserting rather recklessly that between +the Pyramids (B.C. 3000), and the Cross (A.D. 300), no new force +affected Western progress, and antiquarians may easily dispute the +fact; but in any case the motive influence, old or new, which raised +both Pyramids and Cross was the same attraction of power in a future +life that raised the dome of Sancta Sofia and the Cathedral at Amiens, +however much it was altered, enlarged, or removed to distance in space. +Therefore, no single event has more puzzled historians than the sudden, +unexplained appearance of at least two new natural forces of the +highest educational value in mechanics, for the first time within +record of history. Literally, these two forces seemed to drop from the +sky at the precise moment when the Cross on one side and the Crescent +on the other, proclaimed the complete triumph of the Civitas Dei. Had +the Manichean doctrine of Good and Evil as rival deities been orthodox, +it would alone have accounted for this simultaneous victory of hostile +powers. + + Of the compass, as a step towards demonstration of the dynamic +law, one may confidently say that it proved, better than any other +force, the widening scope of the mind, since it widened immensely the +range of contact between nature and thought. The compass educated. This +must prove itself as needing no proof. + + Of Greek fire and gunpowder, the same thing cannot certainly be +said, for they have the air of accidents due to the attraction of +religious motives. They belong to the spiritual world; or to the +doubtful ground of Magic which lay between Good and Evil. They were +chemical forces, mostly explosives, which acted and still act as the +most violent educators ever known to man, but they were justly feared +as diabolic, and whatever insolence man may have risked towards the +milder teachers of his infancy, he was an abject pupil towards +explosives. The Sieur de Joinville left a record of the energy with +which the relatively harmless Greek fire educated and enlarged the +French mind in a single night in the year 1249, when the crusaders were +trying to advance on Cairo. The good king St. Louis and all his staff +dropped on their knees at every fiery flame that flew by, praying--"God +have pity on us!" and never had man more reason to call on his gods +than they, for the battle of religion between Christian and Saracen was +trifling compared with that of education between gunpowder and the +Cross. + + The fiction that society educated itself, or aimed at a +conscious purpose, was upset by the compass and gunpowder which dragged +and drove Europe at will through frightful bogs of learning. At first, +the apparent lag for want of volume in the new energies lasted one or +two centuries, which closed the great epochs of emotion by the Gothic +cathedrals and scholastic theology. The moment had Greek beauty and +more than Greek unity, but it was brief; and for another century or +two, Western society seemed to float in space without apparent motion. +Yet the attractive mass of nature's energy continued to attract, and +education became more rapid than ever before. Society began to resist, +but the individual showed greater and greater insistence, without +realizing what he was doing. When the Crescent drove the Cross in +ignominy from Constantinople in 1453, Gutenberg and Fust were printing +their first Bible at Mainz under the impression that they were helping +the Cross. When Columbus discovered the West Indies in 1492, the Church +looked on it as a victory of the Cross. When Luther and Calvin upset +Europe half a century later, they were trying, like St. Augustine, to +substitute the Civitas Dei for the Civitas Romae. When the Puritans set +out for New England in 1620, they too were looking to found a Civitas +Dei in State Street; and when Bunyan made his Pilgrimage in 1678, he +repeated St. Jerome. Even when, after centuries of license, the Church +reformed its discipline, and, to prove it, burned Giordano Bruno in +1600, besides condemning Galileo in 1630--as science goes on repeating +to us every day--it condemned anarchists, not atheists. None of the +astronomers were irreligious men; all of them made a point of +magnifying God through his works; a form of science which did their +religion no credit. Neither Galileo nor Kepler, neither Spinoza nor +Descartes, neither Leibnitz nor Newton, any more than Constantine the +Great--if so much--doubted Unity. The utmost range of their heresies +reached only its personality. + + This persistence of thought-inertia is the leading idea of +modern history. Except as reflected in himself, man has no reason for +assuming unity in the universe, or an ultimate substance, or a +prime-motor. The a priori insistence on this unity ended by fatiguing +the more active--or reactive--minds; and Lord Bacon tried to stop it. +He urged society to lay aside the idea of evolving the universe from a +thought, and to try evolving thought from the universe. The mind should +observe and register forces--take them apart and put them +together--without assuming unity at all. "Nature, to be commanded, must +be obeyed." "The imagination must be given not wings but weights." As +Galileo reversed the action of earth and sun, Bacon reversed the +relation of thought to force. The mind was thenceforth to follow the +movement of matter, and unity must be left to shift for itself. + + The revolution in attitude seemed voluntary, but in fact was as +mechanical as the fall of a feather. Man created nothing. After 1500, +the speed of progress so rapidly surpassed man's gait as to alarm every +one, as though it were the acceleration of a falling body which the +dynamic theory takes it to be. Lord Bacon was as much astonished by it +as the Church was, and with reason. Suddenly society felt itself +dragged into situations altogether new and anarchic--situations which +it could not affect, but which painfully affected it. Instinct taught +it that the universe in its thought must be in danger when its +reflection lost itself in space. The danger was all the greater because +men of science covered it with "larger synthesis," and poets called the +undevout astronomer mad. Society knew better. Yet the telescope held it +rigidly standing on its head; the microscope revealed a universe that +defied the senses; gunpowder killed whole races that lagged behind; the +compass coerced the most imbruted mariner to act on the impossible idea +that the earth was round; the press drenched Europe with anarchism. +Europe saw itself, violently resisting, wrenched into false positions, +drawn along new lines as a fish that is caught on a hook; but unable to +understand by what force it was controlled. The resistance was often +bloody, sometimes humorous, always constant. Its contortions in the +eighteenth century are best studied in the wit of Voltaire, but all +history and all philosophy from Montaigne and Pascal to Schopenhauer +and Nietzsche deal with nothing else; and still, throughout it all, the +Baconian law held good; thought did not evolve nature, but nature +evolved thought. Not one considerable man of science dared face the +stream of thought; and the whole number of those who acted, like +Franklin, as electric conductors of the new forces from nature to man, +down to the year 1800, did not exceed a few score, confined to a few +towns in western Europe. Asia refused to be touched by the stream, and +America, except for Franklin, stood outside. + + Very slowly the accretion of these new forces, chemical and +mechanical, grew in volume until they acquired sufficient mass to take +the place of the old religious science, substituting their attraction +for the attractions of the Civitas Dei, but the process remained the +same. Nature, not mind, did the work that the sun does on the planets. +Man depended more and more absolutely on forces other than his own, and +on instruments which superseded his senses. Bacon foretold it: "Neither +the naked hand nor the understanding, left to itself, can effect much. +It is by instruments and helps that the work is done." Once done, the +mind resumed its illusion, and society forgot its impotence; but no one +better than Bacon knew its tricks, and for his true followers science +always meant self-restraint, obedience, sensitiveness to impulse from +without. "Non fingendum aut excogitandum sed inveniendum quid Natura +faciat aut ferat." + + The success of this method staggers belief, and even to-day can +be treated by history only as a miracle of growth, like the sports of +nature. Evidently a new variety of mind had appeared. Certain men +merely held out their hands--like Newton, watched an apple; like +Franklin, flew a kite; like Watt, played with a tea-kettle--and great +forces of nature stuck to them as though she were playing ball. +Governments did almost nothing but resist. Even gunpowder and ordnance, +the great weapon of government, showed little development between 1400 +and 1800. Society was hostile or indifferent, as Priestley and Jenner, +and even Fulton, with reason complained in the most advanced societies +in the world, while its resistance became acute wherever the Church +held control; until all mankind seemed to draw itself out in a long +series of groups, dragged on by an attractive power in advance, which +even the leaders obeyed without understanding, as the planets obeyed +gravity, or the trees obeyed heat and light. + + The influx of new force was nearly spontaneous. The reaction of +mind on the mass of nature seemed not greater than that of a comet on +the sun; and had the spontaneous influx of force stopped in Europe, +society must have stood still, or gone backward, as in Asia or Africa. +Then only economies of process would have counted as new force, and +society would have been better pleased; for the idea that new force +must be in itself a good is only an animal or vegetable instinct. As +Nature developed her hidden energies, they tended to become +destructive. Thought itself became tortured, suffering reluctantly, +impatiently, painfully, the coercion of new method. Easy thought had +always been movement of inertia, and mostly mere sentiment; but even +the processes of mathematics measured feebly the needs of force. + + The stupendous acceleration after 1800 ended in 1900 with the +appearance of the new class of supersensual forces, before which the +man of science stood at first as bewildered and helpless as, in the +fourth century, a priest of Isis before the Cross of Christ. + + This, then, or something like this, would be a dynamic formula +of history. Any schoolboy knows enough to object at once that it is the +oldest and most universal of all theories. Church and State, theology +and philosophy, have always preached it, differing only in the +allotment of energy between nature and man. Whether the attractive +energy has been called God or Nature, the mechanism has been always the +same, and history is not obliged to decide whether the Ultimate tends +to a purpose or not, or whether ultimate energy is one or many. Every +one admits that the will is a free force, habitually decided by +motives. No one denies that motives exist adequate to decide the will; +even though it may not always be conscious of them. Science has proved +that forces, sensible and occult, physical and metaphysical, simple and +complex, surround, traverse, vibrate, rotate, repel, attract, without +stop; that man's senses are conscious of few, and only in a partial +degree; but that, from the beginning of organic existence, his +consciousness has been induced, expanded, trained in the lines of his +sensitiveness; and that the rise of his faculties from a lower power to +a higher, or from a narrower to a wider field, may be due to the +function of assimilating and storing outside force or forces. There is +nothing unscientific in the idea that, beyond the lines of force felt +by the senses, the universe may be--as it has always been--either a +supersensuous chaos or a divine unity, which irresistibly attracts, and +is either life or death to penetrate. Thus far, religion, philosophy, +and science seem to go hand in hand. The schools begin their vital +battle only there. In the earlier stages of progress, the forces to be +assimilated were simple and easy to absorb, but, as the mind of man +enlarged its range, it enlarged the field of complexity, and must +continue to do so, even into chaos, until the reservoirs of sensuous or +supersensuous energies are exhausted, or cease to affect him, or until +he succumbs to their excess. + + For past history, this way of grouping its sequences may answer +for a chart of relations, although any serious student would need to +invent another, to compare or correct its errors; but past history is +only a value of relation to the future, and this value is wholly one of +convenience, which can be tested only by experiment. Any law of +movement must include, to make it a convenience, some mechanical +formula of acceleration. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +A LAW OF ACCELERATION (1904) + + IMAGES are not arguments, rarely even lead to proof, but the +mind craves them, and, of late more than ever, the keenest +experimenters find twenty images better than one, especially if +contradictory; since the human mind has already learned to deal in +contradictions. + + The image needed here is that of a new centre, or +preponderating mass, artificially introduced on earth in the midst of a +system of attractive forces that previously made their own equilibrium, +and constantly induced to accelerate its motion till it shall establish +a new equilibrium. A dynamic theory would begin by assuming that all +history, terrestrial or cosmic, mechanical or intellectual, would be +reducible to this formula if we knew the facts. + + For convenience, the most familiar image should come first; and +this is probably that of the comet, or meteoric streams, like the +Leonids and Perseids; a complex of minute mechanical agencies, reacting +within and without, and guided by the sum of forces attracting or +deflecting it. Nothing forbids one to assume that the man-meteorite +might grow, as an acorn does, absorbing light, heat, electricity--or +thought; for, in recent times, such transference of energy has become a +familiar idea; but the simplest figure, at first, is that of a perfect +comet--say that of 1843--which drops from space, in a straight line, at +the regular acceleration of speed, directly into the sun, and after +wheeling sharply about it, in heat that ought to dissipate any known +substance, turns back unharmed, in defiance of law, by the path on +which it came. The mind, by analogy, may figure as such a comet, the +better because it also defies law. + + Motion is the ultimate object of science, and measures of +motion are many; but with thought as with matter, the true measure is +mass in its astronomic sense--the sum or difference of attractive +forces. Science has quite enough trouble in measuring its material +motions without volunteering help to the historian, but the historian +needs not much help to measure some kinds of social movement; and +especially in the nineteenth century, society by common accord agreed +in measuring its progress by the coal-output. The ratio of increase in +the volume of coal-power may serve as dynamometer. + + The coal-output of the world, speaking roughly, doubled every +ten years between 1840 and 1900, in the form of utilized power, for the +ton of coal yielded three or four times as much power in 1900 as in +1840. Rapid as this rate of acceleration in volume seems, it may be +tested in a thousand ways without greatly reducing it. Perhaps the +ocean steamer is nearest unity and easiest to measure, for any one +might hire, in 1905, for a small sum of money, the use of 30,000 +steam-horse-power to cross the ocean, and by halving this figure every +ten years, he got back to 234 horse-power for 1835, which was accuracy +enough for his purposes. In truth, his chief trouble came not from the +ratio in volume of heat, but from the intensity, since he could get no +basis for a ratio there. All ages of history have known high +intensities, like the iron-furnace, the burning-glass, the blow-pipe; +but no society has ever used high intensities on any large scale till +now, nor can a mere bystander decide what range of temperature is now +in common use. Loosely guessing that science controls habitually the +whole range from absolute zero to 3000 degrees Centigrade, one might +assume, for convenience, that the ten-year ratio for volume could be +used temporarily for intensity; and still there remained a ratio to be +guessed for other forces than heat. Since 1800 scores of new forces had +been discovered; old forces had been raised to higher powers, as could +be measured in the navy-gun; great regions of chemistry had been opened +up, and connected with other regions of physics. Within ten years a new +universe of force had been revealed in radiation. Complexity had +extended itself on immense horizons, and arithmetical ratios were +useless for any attempt at accuracy. The force evolved seemed more like +explosion than gravitation, and followed closely the curve of steam; +but, at all events, the ten-year ratio seemed carefully conservative. +Unless the calculator was prepared to be instantly overwhelmed by +physical force and mental complexity, he must stop there. + + Thus, taking the year 1900 as the starting point for carrying +back the series, nothing was easier than to assume a ten-year period of +retardation as far back as 1820, but beyond that point the statistician +failed, and only the mathematician could help. Laplace would have found +it child's-play to fix a ratio of progression in mathematical science +between Descartes, Leibnitz, Newton, and himself. Watt could have given +in pounds the increase of power between Newcomen's engines and his own. +Volta and Benjamin Franklin would have stated their progress as +absolute creation of power. Dalton could have measured minutely his +advance on Boerhaave. Napoleon I must have had a distinct notion of his +own numerical relation to Louis XIV. No one in 1789 doubted the +progress of force, least of all those who were to lose their heads by +it. + + Pending agreement between these authorities, theory may assume +what it likes--say a fifty, or even a five-and-twenty-year period of +reduplication for the eighteenth century, for the period matters little +until the acceleration itself is admitted. The subject is even more +amusing in the seventeenth than in the eighteenth century, because +Galileo and Kepler, Descartes, Huygens, and Isaac Newton took vast +pains to fix the laws of acceleration for moving bodies, while Lord +Bacon and William Harvey were content with showing experimentally the +fact of acceleration in knowledge; but from their combined results a +historian might be tempted to maintain a similar rate of movement back +to 1600, subject to correction from the historians of mathematics. + + The mathematicians might carry their calculations back as far +as the fourteenth century when algebra seems to have become for the +first time the standard measure of mechanical progress in western +Europe; for not only Copernicus and Tycho Brahe, but even artists like +Leonardo, Michael Angelo, and Albert Durer worked by mathematical +processes, and their testimony would probably give results more exact +than that of Montaigne or Shakespeare; but, to save trouble, one might +tentatively carry back the same ratio of acceleration, or retardation, +to the year 1400, with the help of Columbus and Gutenberg, so taking a +uniform rate during the whole four centuries (1400-1800), and leaving +to statisticians the task of correcting it. + + Or better, one might, for convenience, use the formula of +squares to serve for a law of mind. Any other formula would do as well, +either of chemical explosion, or electrolysis, or vegetable growth, or +of expansion or contraction in innumerable forms; but this happens to +be simple and convenient. Its force increases in the direct ratio of +its squares. As the human meteoroid approached the sun or centre of +attractive force, the attraction of one century squared itself to give +the measure of attraction in the next. + + Behind the year 1400, the process certainly went on, but the +progress became so slight as to be hardly measurable. What was gained +in the east or elsewhere, cannot be known; but forces, called loosely +Greek fire and gunpowder, came into use in the west in the thirteenth +century, as well as instruments like the compass, the blow-pipe, clocks +and spectacles, and materials like paper; Arabic notation and algebra +were introduced, while metaphysics and theology acted as violent +stimulants to mind. An architect might detect a sequence between the +Church of St. Peter's at Rome, the Amiens Cathedral, the Duomo at Pisa, +San Marco at Venice, Sancta Sofia at Constantinople and the churches at +Ravenna. All the historian dares affirm is that a sequence is +manifestly there, and he has a right to carry back his ratio, to +represent the fact, without assuming its numerical correctness. On the +human mind as a moving body, the break in acceleration in the Middle +Ages is only apparent; the attraction worked through shifting forms of +force, as the sun works by light or heat, electricity, gravitation, or +what not, on different organs with different sensibilities, but with +invariable law. + + The science of prehistoric man has no value except to prove +that the law went back into indefinite antiquity. A stone arrowhead is +as convincing as a steam-engine. The values were as clear a hundred +thousand years ago as now, and extended equally over the whole world. +The motion at last became infinitely slight, but cannot be proved to +have stopped. The motion of Newton's comet at aphelion may be equally +slight. To evolutionists may be left the processes of evolution; to +historians the single interest is the law of reaction between force and +force--between mind and nature--the law of progress. + + The great division of history into phases by Turgot and Comte +first affirmed this law in its outlines by asserting the unity of +progress, for a mere phase interrupts no growth, and nature shows +innumerable such phases. The development of coal-power in the +nineteenth century furnished the first means of assigning closer values +to the elements; and the appearance of supersensual forces towards 1900 +made this calculation a pressing necessity; since the next step became +infinitely serious. + + A law of acceleration, definite and constant as any law of +mechanics, cannot be supposed to relax its energy to suit the +convenience of man. No one is likely to suggest a theory that man's +convenience had been consulted by Nature at any time, or that Nature +has consulted the convenience of any of her creations, except perhaps +the Terebratula. In every age man has bitterly and justly complained +that Nature hurried and hustled him, for inertia almost invariably has +ended in tragedy. Resistance is its law, and resistance to superior +mass is futile and fatal. + + Fifty years ago, science took for granted that the rate of +acceleration could not last. The world forgets quickly, but even today +the habit remains of founding statistics on the faith that consumption +will continue nearly stationary. Two generations, with John Stuart +Mill, talked of this stationary period, which was to follow the +explosion of new power. All the men who were elderly in the forties +died in this faith, and other men grew old nursing the same conviction, +and happy in it; while science, for fifty years, permitted, or +encouraged, society to think that force would prove to be limited in +supply. This mental inertia of science lasted through the eighties +before showing signs of breaking up; and nothing short of radium fairly +wakened men to the fact, long since evident, that force was +inexhaustible. Even then the scientific authorities vehemently resisted. + + Nothing so revolutionary had happened since the year 300. +Thought had more than once been upset, but never caught and whirled +about in the vortex of infinite forces. Power leaped from every atom, +and enough of it to supply the stellar universe showed itself running +to waste at every pore of matter. Man could no longer hold it off. +Forces grasped his wrists and flung him about as though he had hold of +a live wire or a runaway automobile; which was very nearly the exact +truth for the purposes of an elderly and timid single gentleman in +Paris, who never drove down the Champs Elysees without expecting an +accident, and commonly witnessing one; or found himself in the +neighborhood of an official without calculating the chances of a bomb. +So long as the rates of progress held good, these bombs would double in +force and number every ten years. + + Impossibilities no longer stood in the way. One's life had +fattened on impossibilities. Before the boy was six years old, he had +seen four impossibilities made actual--the ocean-steamer, the railway, +the electric telegraph, and the Daguerreotype; nor could he ever learn +which of the four had most hurried others to come. He had seen the +coal-output of the United States grow from nothing to three hundred +million tons or more. What was far more serious, he had seen the number +of minds, engaged in pursuing force--the truest measure of its +attraction--increase from a few scores or hundreds, in 1838, to many +thousands in 1905, trained to sharpness never before reached, and armed +with instruments amounting to new senses of indefinite power and +accuracy, while they chased force into hiding-places where Nature +herself had never known it to be, making analyses that contradicted +being, and syntheses that endangered the elements. No one could say +that the social mind now failed to respond to new force, even when the +new force annoyed it horribly. Every day Nature violently revolted, +causing so-called accidents with enormous destruction of property and +life, while plainly laughing at man, who helplessly groaned and +shrieked and shuddered, but never for a single instant could stop. The +railways alone approached the carnage of war; automobiles and fire-arms +ravaged society, until an earthquake became almost a nervous +relaxation. An immense volume of force had detached itself from the +unknown universe of energy, while still vaster reservoirs, supposed to +be infinite, steadily revealed themselves, attracting mankind with more +compulsive course than all the Pontic Seas or Gods or Gold that ever +existed, and feeling still less of retiring ebb. + + In 1850, science would have smiled at such a romance as this, +but, in 1900, as far as history could learn, few men of science thought +it a laughing matter. If a perplexed but laborious follower could +venture to guess their drift, it seemed in their minds a toss-up +between anarchy and order. Unless they should be more honest with +themselves in the future than ever they were in the past, they would be +more astonished than their followers when they reached the end. If Karl +Pearson's notions of the universe were sound, men like Galileo, +Descartes, Leibnitz, and Newton should have stopped the progress of +science before 1700, supposing them to have been honest in the +religious convictions they expressed. In 1900 they were plainly forced +back; on faith in a unity unproved and an order they had themselves +disproved. They had reduced their universe to a series of relations to +themselves. They had reduced themselves to motion in a universe of +motions, with an acceleration, in their own case of vertiginous +violence. With the correctness of their science, history had no right +to meddle, since their science now lay in a plane where scarcely one or +two hundred minds in the world could follow its mathematical processes; +but bombs educate vigorously, and even wireless telegraphy or airships +might require the reconstruction of society. If any analogy whatever +existed between the human mind, on one side, and the laws of motion, on +the other, the mind had already entered a field of attraction so +violent that it must immediately pass beyond, into new equilibrium, +like the Comet of Newton, to suffer dissipation altogether, like +meteoroids in the earth's atmosphere. If it behaved like an explosive, +it must rapidly recover equilibrium; if it behaved like a vegetable, it +must reach its limits of growth; and even if it acted like the earlier +creations of energy--the saurians and sharks--it must have nearly +reached the limits of its expansion. If science were to go on doubling +or quadrupling its complexities every ten years, even mathematics would +soon succumb. An average mind had succumbed already in 1850; it could +no longer understand the problem in 1900. + + Fortunately, a student of history had no responsibility for the +problem; he took it as science gave it, and waited only to be taught. +With science or with society, he had no quarrel and claimed no share of +authority. He had never been able to acquire knowledge, still less to +impart it; and if he had, at times, felt serious differences with the +American of the nineteenth century, he felt none with the American of +the twentieth. For this new creation, born since 1900, a historian +asked no longer to be teacher or even friend; he asked only to be a +pupil, and promised to be docile, for once, even though trodden under +foot; for he could see that the new American--the child of incalculable +coal-power, chemical power, electric power, and radiating energy, as +well as of new forces yet undetermined--must be a sort of God compared +with any former creation of nature. At the rate of progress since 1800, +every American who lived into the year 2000 would know how to control +unlimited power. He would think in complexities unimaginable to an +earlier mind. He would deal with problems altogether beyond the range +of earlier society. To him the nineteenth century would stand on the +same plane with the fourth--equally childlike--and he would only wonder +how both of them, knowing so little, and so weak in force, should have +done so much. Perhaps even he might go back, in 1964, to sit with +Gibbon on the steps of Ara Coeli. + + Meanwhile he was getting education. With that, a teacher who +had failed to educate even the generation of 1870, dared not interfere. +The new forces would educate. History saw few lessons in the past that +would be useful in the future; but one, at least, it did see. The +attempt of the American of 1800 to educate the American of 1900 had not +often been surpassed for folly; and since 1800 the forces and their +complications had increased a thousand times or more. The attempt of +the American of 1900 to educate the American of 2000, must be even +blinder than that of the Congressman of 1800, except so far as he had +learned his ignorance. During a million or two of years, every +generation in turn had toiled with endless agony to attain and apply +power, all the while betraying the deepest alarm and horror at the +power they created. The teacher of 1900, if foolhardy, might stimulate; +if foolish, might resist; if intelligent, might balance, as wise and +foolish have often tried to do from the beginning; but the forces would +continue to educate, and the mind would continue to react. All the +teacher could hope was to teach it reaction. + + Even there his difficulty was extreme. The most elementary +books of science betrayed the inadequacy of old implements of thought. +Chapter after chapter closed with phrases such as one never met in +older literature: "The cause of this phenomenon is not understood"; +"science no longer ventures to explain causes"; "the first step towards +a causal explanation still remains to be taken"; "opinions are very +much divided"; "in spite of the contradictions involved"; "science gets +on only by adopting different theories, sometimes contradictory." +Evidently the new American would need to think in contradictions, and +instead of Kant's famous four antinomies, the new universe would know +no law that could not be proved by its anti-law. + + To educate--one's self to begin with--had been the effort +of one's life for sixty years; and the difficulties of education had +gone on doubling with the coal-output, until the prospect of waiting +another ten years, in order to face a seventh doubling of complexities, +allured one's imagination but slightly. The law of acceleration was +definite, and did not require ten years more study except to show +whether it held good. No scheme could be suggested to the new American, +and no fault needed to be found, or complaint made; but the next great +influx of new forces seemed near at hand, and its style of education +promised to be violently coercive. The movement from unity into +multiplicity, between 1200 and 1900, was unbroken in sequence, and +rapid in acceleration. Prolonged one generation longer, it would +require a new social mind. As though thought were common salt in +indefinite solution it must enter a new phase subject to new laws. Thus +far, since five or ten thousand years, the mind had successfully +reacted, and nothing yet proved that it would fail to react--but it +would need to jump. + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +NUNC AGE (1905) + + NEARLY forty years had passed since the ex-private secretary +landed at New York with the ex-Ministers Adams and Motley, when they +saw American society as a long caravan stretching out towards the +plains. As he came up the bay again, November 5, 1904, an older man +than either his father or Motley in 1868, he found the approach more +striking than ever--wonderful--unlike anything man had ever seen--and +like nothing he had ever much cared to see. The outline of the city +became frantic in its effort to explain something that defied meaning. +Power seemed to have outgrown its servitude and to have asserted its +freedom. The cylinder had exploded, and thrown great masses of stone +and steam against the sky. The city had the air and movement of +hysteria, and the citizens were crying, in every accent of anger and +alarm, that the new forces must at any cost be brought under control. +Prosperity never before imagined, power never yet wielded by man, speed +never reached by anything but a meteor, had made the world irritable, +nervous, querulous, unreasonable and afraid. All New York was demanding +new men, and all the new forces, condensed into corporations, were +demanding a new type of man--a man with ten times the endurance, +energy, will and mind of the old type--for whom they were ready to pay +millions at sight. As one jolted over the pavements or read the last +week's newspapers, the new man seemed close at hand, for the old one +had plainly reached the end of his strength, and his failure had become +catastrophic. Every one saw it, and every municipal election shrieked +chaos. A traveller in the highways of history looked out of the club +window on the turmoil of Fifth Avenue, and felt himself in Rome, under +Diocletian, witnessing the anarchy, conscious of the compulsion, eager +for the solution, but unable to conceive whence the next impulse was to +come or how it was to act. The two-thousand-years failure of +Christianity roared upward from Broadway, and no Constantine the Great +was in sight. + + Having nothing else to do, the traveller went on to Washington +to wait the end. There Roosevelt was training Constantines and battling +Trusts. With the Battle of Trusts, a student of mechanics felt entire +sympathy, not merely as a matter of politics or society, but also as a +measure of motion. The Trusts and Corporations stood for the larger +part of the new power that had been created since 1840, and were +obnoxious because of their vigorous and unscrupulous energy. They were +revolutionary, troubling all the old conventions and values, as the +screws of ocean steamers must trouble a school of herring. They tore +society to pieces and trampled it under foot. As one of their earliest +victims, a citizen of Quincy, born in 1838, had learned submission and +silence, for he knew that, under the laws of mechanics, any change, +within the range of the forces, must make his situation only worse; but +he was beyond measure curious to see whether the conflict of forces +would produce the new man, since no other energies seemed left on earth +to breed. The new man could be only a child born of contact between the +new and the old energies. + + Both had been familiar since childhood, as the story has shown, +and neither had warped the umpire's judgment by its favors. If ever +judge had reason to be impartial, it was he. The sole object of his +interest and sympathy was the new man, and the longer one watched, the +less could be seen of him. Of the forces behind the Trusts, one could +see something; they owned a complete organization, with schools, +training, wealth and purpose; but of the forces behind Roosevelt one +knew little; their cohesion was slight; their training irregular; their +objects vague. The public had no idea what practical system it could +aim at, or what sort of men could manage it. The single problem before +it was not so much to control the Trusts as to create the society that +could manage the Trusts. The new American must be either the child of +the new forces or a chance sport of nature. The attraction of +mechanical power had already wrenched the American mind into a +crab-like process which Roosevelt was making heroic efforts to restore +to even action, and he had every right to active support and sympathy +from all the world, especially from the Trusts themselves so far as +they were human; but the doubt persisted whether the force that +educated was really man or nature--mind or motion. The mechanical +theory, mostly accepted by science, seemed to require that the law of +mass should rule. In that case, progress would continue as before. + + In that, or any other case, a nineteenth-century education was +as useless or misleading as an eighteenth-century education had been to +the child of 1838; but Adams had a better reason for holding his +tongue. For his dynamic theory of history he cared no more than for the +kinetic theory of gas; but, if it were an approach to measurement of +motion, it would verify or disprove itself within thirty years. At the +calculated acceleration, the head of the meteor-stream must very soon +pass perihelion. Therefore, dispute was idle, discussion was futile, +and silence, next to good-temper, was the mark of sense. If the +acceleration, measured by the development and economy of forces, were +to continue at its rate since 1800, the mathematician of 1950 should be +able to plot the past and future orbit of the human race as accurately +as that of the November meteoroids. + + Naturally such an attitude annoyed the players in the game, as +the attitude of the umpire is apt to infuriate the spectators. Above +all, it was profoundly unmoral, and tended to discourage effort. On the +other hand, it tended to encourage foresight and to economize waste of +mind. If it was not itself education, it pointed out the economies +necessary for the education of the new American. There, the duty +stopped. + + There, too, life stopped. Nature has educated herself to a +singular sympathy for death. On the antarctic glacier, nearly five +thousand feet above sea-level, Captain Scott found carcasses of seals, +where the animals had laboriously flopped up, to die in peace. "Unless +we had actually found these remains, it would have been past believing +that a dying seal could have transported itself over fifty miles of +rough, steep, glacier-surface," but "the seal seems often to crawl to +the shore or the ice to die, probably from its instinctive dread of its +marine enemies." In India, Purun Dass, at the end of statesmanship, +sought solitude, and died in sanctity among the deer and monkeys, +rather than remain with man. Even in America, the Indian Summer of life +should be a little sunny and a little sad, like the season, and +infinite in wealth and depth of tone--but never hustled. For that +reason, one's own passive obscurity seemed sometimes nearer nature than +John Hay's exposure. To the normal animal the instinct of sport is +innate, and historians themselves were not exempt from the passion of +baiting their bears; but in its turn even the seal dislikes to be +worried to death in age by creatures that have not the strength or the +teeth to kill him outright. + + On reaching Washington, November 14, 1904, Adams saw at a +glance that Hay must have rest. Already Mrs. Hay had bade him prepare +to help in taking her husband to Europe as soon as the Session should +be over, and although Hay protested that the idea could not even be +discussed, his strength failed so rapidly that he could not effectually +discuss it, and ended by yielding without struggle. He would equally +have resigned office and retired, like Purun Dass, had not the +President and the press protested; but he often debated the subject, +and his friends could throw no light on it. Adams himself, who had set +his heart on seeing Hay close his career by making peace in the East, +could only urge that vanity for vanity, the crown of peacemaker was +worth the cross of martyrdom; but the cross was full in sight, while +the crown was still uncertain. Adams found his formula for Russian +inertia exasperatingly correct. He thought that Russia should have +negotiated instantly on the fall of Port Arthur, January 1, 1905; he +found that she had not the energy, but meant to wait till her navy +should be destroyed. The delay measured precisely the time that Hay had +to spare. + + The close of the Session on March 4 left him barely the +strength to crawl on board ship, March 18, and before his steamer had +reached half her course, he had revived, almost as gay as when he first +lighted on the Markoe house in I Street forty-four years earlier. The +clouds that gather round the setting sun do not always take a sober +coloring from eyes that have kept watch on mortality; or, at least, the +sobriety is sometimes scarcely sad. One walks with one's friends +squarely up to the portal of life, and bids good-bye with a smile. One +has done it so often! Hay could scarcely pace the deck; he nourished no +illusions; he was convinced that he should never return to his work, +and he talked lightly of the death sentence that he might any day +expect, but he threw off the coloring of office and mortality together, +and the malaria of power left its only trace in the sense of tasks +incomplete. + + One could honestly help him there. Laughing frankly at his +dozen treaties hung up in the Senate Committee-room like lambs in a +butcher's shop, one could still remind him of what was solidly +completed. In his eight years of office he had solved nearly every old +problem of American statesmanship, and had left little or nothing to +annoy his successor. He had brought the great Atlantic powers into a +working system, and even Russia seemed about to be dragged into a +combine of intelligent equilibrium based on an intelligent allotment of +activities. For the first time in fifteen hundred years a true Roman +pax was in sight, and would, if it succeeded, owe its virtues to him. +Except for making peace in Manchuria, he could do no more; and if the +worst should happen, setting continent against continent in arms--the +only apparent alternative to his scheme--he need not repine at missing +the catastrophe. + + This rosy view served to soothe disgusts which every parting +statesman feels, and commonly with reason. One had no need to get out +one's notebook in order to jot down the exact figures on either side. +Why add up the elements of resistance and anarchy? The Kaiser supplied +him with these figures, just as the Cretic approached Morocco. Every +one was doing it, and seemed in a panic about it. The chaos waited only +for his landing. + + Arrived at Genoa, the party hid itself for a fortnight at +Nervi, and he gained strength rapidly as long as he made no effort and +heard no call for action. Then they all went on to Nanheim without +relapse. There, after a few days, Adams left him for the regular +treatment, and came up to Paris. The medical reports promised well, and +Hay's letters were as humorous and light-handed as ever. To the last he +wrote cheerfully of his progress, and amusingly with his usual light +scepticism, of his various doctors; but when the treatment ended, three +weeks later, and he came on to Paris, he showed, at the first glance, +that he had lost strength, and the return to affairs and interviews +wore him rapidly out. He was conscious of it, and in his last talk +before starting for London and Liverpool he took the end of his +activity for granted. "You must hold out for the peace negotiations," +was the remonstrance. "I've not time!" he replied. "You'll need little +time!" was the rejoinder. Each was correct. + + There it ended! Shakespeare himself could use no more than the +commonplace to express what is incapable of expression. "The rest is +silence!" The few familiar words, among the simplest in the language, +conveying an idea trite beyond rivalry, served Shakespeare, and, as +yet, no one has said more. A few weeks afterwards, one warm evening in +early July, as Adams was strolling down to dine under the trees at +Armenonville, he learned that Hay was dead. He expected it; on Hay's +account, he was even satisfied to have his friend die, as we would all +die if we could, in full fame, at home and abroad, universally +regretted, and wielding his power to the last. One had seen scores of +emperors and heroes fade into cheap obscurity even when alive; and now, +at least, one had not that to fear for one's friend. It was not even +the suddenness of the shock, or the sense of void, that threw Adams +into the depths of Hamlet's Shakespearean silence in the full flare of +Paris frivolity in its favorite haunt where worldly vanity reached its +most futile climax in human history; it was only the quiet summons to +follow--the assent to dismissal. It was time to go. The three friends +had begun life together; and the last of the three had no motive--no +attraction--to carry it on after the others had gone. Education had +ended for all three, and only beyond some remoter horizon could its +values be fixed or renewed. Perhaps some day--say 1938, their +centenary--they might be allowed to return together for a holiday, to +see the mistakes of their own lives made clear in the light of the +mistakes of their successors; and perhaps then, for the first time +since man began his education among the carnivores, they would find a +world that sensitive and timid natures could regard without a shudder. + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Education of Henry Adams, by Henry Adams + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS *** + +***** This file should be named 2044-8.txt or 2044-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/4/2044/ + +Produced by Richard Fane + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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