See other formats

Full text of "Letters Of Henry Adams 1858 1891"

LETTERS OF 
HENRY ADAMS 

1858-1891 



Henry Adams 

From a sketch made by Samuel Laurence* 1868? 
%n the possession of Mr. Evelyn Milnes Gaskell 



COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY WORTIIINGTON C FORD 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THB RIGHT TO REPRODUCE 
THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM 



CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED IN THE V S.A, 



NOTE 

HENRY ADAMS gave his version of his career in a volume which is, in 
form and matter, unique in American literature. "The Education 
of Henry Adams" is as remarkable for its reticences as for its frank 
admissions confessions, he would have called them. Measuring his 
capacity by his own standards, in which inheritance formed an impor- 
tant factor; outlining a part of his ambitions in the more modest form 
of aims or purpose of life; estimating his performance in terms of " fail- 
ure"; and seeking to discover a law which could explain, if not control, 
social growth and tendencies, he gave a review of the period in which 
he lived that was as brilliant as it was partial. Above all, he was unjust 
to himself. No one familiar with his writings in history would apply 
the word " failure." No one of the students falling under his teaching 
in his short service as professor in Harvard University would deny the 
influence he exerted upon them. Familiarity with the political history 
of the United States since 1865 only emphasizes the fact that his aims 
were of the highest and that he and his fellow independents in politics 
were unable to effect their ends because of the irresistible tendencies, 
economic, political, and social, against their proposed reforms. He 
possessed the political instincts of his Adams forebears, a leaning 
towards public life; but like them, his views were not of party but 
were national, involving a radical change in party methods, in the 
hope of bringing into the public service moral standards which no party 
was then willing to accept or capable of applying. The " failure" in his 
ambitions was laid upon him by circumstances, and it turned his en- 
deavors from a public career to the writing of history. Even that 
"failure" brought its greater compensation. 

Because of the partial narrative of "The Education of Henry 
Adams" I gathered such letters as I could locate and I give a selection 
in this volume, covering the years of promise, growth, and fruition. 
Beginning with his studies in Germany, after graduating from Harvard 
University, the series closes with the publication of the last volume of 
his "History of the United States, 1801-1816." The letters speak for 
themselves and require no comment. They tell the story, still in his 
own terms, of a youth of exceptional ability, inherited and acquired, 
who passed through the inevitable years of early hopes and wishes, 
disappointed ambition, and domestic tragedies more or less common 
to all. Disillusioned in many directions, he enjoyed life and savored 



vi NOTE 

its best. If these letters result in making Henry Adams better and 
more humanly known than he can be from the detached examination 
of himself in the "Education," my purpose will be accomplished* The 
indiscretions are wholly the Editor's. Frank comment on men and 
things only carries on the tradition of the Adams family, and to sup- 
press or correct that frankness would deprive the letters of their chief 
value, both as records of the man and as history. 

About 1885 Henry Adams destroyed all his diaries, notes, and cor- 
respondence. He also recalled, from time to time, his letters from his 
correspondents and destroyed them- The impulse leading to that act 
is easily understood, however much the loss of record may be deplored. 
It is fortunate that what escaped his attention tells so connected a 
story. 

To the Adams family I owe the greatest debt, and especially to Mrs. 
Charles Francis Adams, of South Lincoln, who permitted the free use 
of the letters to Mr. Charles Francis Adams. 

The family of Mr. Charles Milnes Gaskell readily acceded to my 
request for the letters to that almost life-long friend of Mr. Adams. 

The late Senator Henry Cabot Lodge not only gave me such letters 
as he had, but added notes explaining references in the text. 

Mrs. J. Don Cameron (Elizabeth Sherman Cameron) generously 
contributed the remarkable series of letters in this volume under her 
name. 

The family of Hon. Carl Schurz, through the friendly intervention 
of Mr. Frederic Bancroft, supplied copies of interesting political 
letters. 

To these and to others unnamed I express my thanks. 

WORTHINGTON CHAUNCEV FORD 
PARIS, February 16, 1930 



CONTENTS 

NOTE v 

I. GERMANY, 1858-1860 i 

II. WASHINGTON, 1860-1861 62 

III. LONDON, 1861-1868 90 

IV. QUINCY AND WASHINGTON, 1868-1870 145 
V. SUMMER IN EUROPE, 1870 188 

VL HARVARD COLLEGE, 1870-1872 193 

VII. A EUROPEAN YEAR, 1872-1873 231 

VIII. BEVERLY FARMS AND BOSTON, 1873-1877 255 

IX. WASHINGTON, 1877-1879 302 

X. EUROPE, 1879-1880 312 

XL WASHINGTON, 1880-1886 327 

XII. JAPAN, 1886 365 

XIII. WASHINGTON AND QUINCY, WITH TRIPS WEST AND SOUTH, 
1886-1889 382 

XIV. HONOLULU AND THE SOUTH SEAS, 1890 403 
XV. THE SOUTH SEAS, 1891 457 

XVL FROM SYDNEY TO PARIS, 1891 509 

INDEX 537 



THE LETTERS OF 

HENRY ADAMS 



GERMANY 

1858-1860 
To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

BERLIN, Wednesday, November 3, 1858. 

MY DEAR FELLOW: With that energy of expression and original- 
ity of thought for which you are so justly celebrated, you have re- 
marked in your last that the pleasures and pains of life are pretty 
equally divided. Permit me in the particular instance before us to 
doubt the fact. In the long run it may be so, but as between you in 
Boston and me in Europe I deny it in toto and without hesitation. 

I humbly apologize to you for the remarks in my last letter, which 
were written under the supposition that you had forgotten me. Your 
letter was satisfaction itself. I already knew the main points, but I 
can ask nothing more complete than your particulars. As to the 
nomination I am delighted with the manner of it. 1 The election took 
place yesterday and a fortnight from to-day I shall certainly know all 
about it, if not from you at any rate from Governor Wright a at the 
American Legation. 

Here I am, then, in Berlin. It is now night; I am writing in my 
room, which is about ten or twelve by eighteen or twenty feet; by the 
light of a lamp for which I paid yesterday two dollars; independent; 
unknown and unknowing; hating the language and yet grubbing into 
it. I have passed the day since one o'clock with Loo, 3 who is now here 
and remains till Friday, and with whom I go about to Galleries and 
Museums, and then dine at her hotel. As you say, I am not rich and 

1 Of Charles Francis Adams to Congress. 

a Joseph Albert Wright, of Indiana (1810-1867). 

* Louisa Catherine Adams (1831-1870), married Charles Kuhn. 



LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 



am trying to institute a rigid economy in all my expenses. There is 
one advantage in this place; if forced to it, one can live for almost 
nothing. Today I was extravagant. I ordered a quantity of clothes; 
an inside suit and an overcoat of expensive stuffs. The overcoat is a 
peculiar beaver-cloth, a sort of velvety stuff; and its inside is thick 
fur, like sealskin, I suppose; so thick that I can't have it lined. The 
suit is very strong, fine cloth, as good, I fancy, as the man had. But 
then I had to pay dear. Altogether it cost me fifty-one American 
dollars. Now in Boston perhaps this is not so much, but here it is a 
great deal. 

Then this frightful German! I have had the most amusing times 
with my landlady who's a jolly Dutch woman and who has a power of 
clack that is marvellous. If I have her called in and she once gets ago- 
ing I can no more hope to make her understand what I want than if 
she talked Hebrew. So I have recourse to my Dutch teacher, whom I 
pay very high even for America, and get him to mediate between us 
and look over my bills and see that I am not cheated. He comes every 
morning at ten and I read and talk with him and he corrects my 
exercises. 

What shall I say of this city? Why, Lord bless my soul, I have got 
things enough to see and study in this city alone to take me two years 
even if I knew the language and only came for pleasure. The Museums, 
picture Galleries, Theatres, Gardens; there are enough to occupy one's 
time for the next six months. Then do the same with the half-million 
or so engravings. Lord! Such engravings! 

The truth is, in the soberest earnest, I am quite as pleasantly 
situated as I ever expected to be. Sometimes, of course, I feel a little 
lonely and shall feel more so, I suppose, when Loo goes away and I 
have no one to think of as near me. Sometimes too I get angry at the 
excessive difficulty of this very repulsive language, and wearied to 
death at the continual and fatiguing learning by tote which is neces- 
sary for almost every phrase. But on the whole, life here is exceedingly 
pleasant; there is no relaxation from continual occupation; no excuse 
for the blues, which always with me come from ennui. Here one is 
surrounded by art, and I defy any one but a fool to feel ennuy^ed 
while he can look at the works of these old masters. 

Here you have my life then. It will be for the next two months a 
continual dig at the language varied occasionally by a moment or so 
of Art. The evenings at the Theatres, concerts or balls, perhaps, such 
as they have here, queer affairs, I imagine, and the day in hard study* 

(Saturday eve. Nov. 6.) I resume my letter where it waa broken off. 



FIRST DAYS IN BERLIN 



and hope to send it tomorrow. I have just left Loo, who is still here 
but expects to go to Dresden tomorrow night. She is suffering tonight 
under one of her fearful headaches, or I should be with her. She has 
been very kind to me indeed; very kind; we have been together all the 
time, going from Gallery to Gallery, and I have almost been living at 
her expense these two days, for she would not allow me to pay for my 
own dinners. I sat with her till ten o'clock last night, and have passed 
all the afternoons with her (that is, from eleven till six) every day. In 
consequence I have had to sit up till twelve o'clock to write my ex- 
ercises. 

I have received my clothes, and on the whole they are the best I 
ever wore. The great coat is a miracle. I look in it like a veteran. 
German cloth is, if anything, even better than English. However, 
they ought to be good. They cost enough. 

My friends here are all right. I received a letter today from 
Crowninshield * in Hannover in answer to one of mine, in which he 
represents himself as pretty well except for the fleas. I was very bad 
that way myself on my arrival here and had a very funny scene with 
my landlady on the subject, which reached so involved a point at last 
that an interpreter was called in and as he pretended to speak English 
but didn't, I'm inclined to think the poor woman to this day doesn't 
understand. However, I instituted vigorous measures and have not 
been troubled lately. Anderson 2 is settled here. I went to see him 
once, but he is a long way off, and I've heard nothing from him for 
some time. Plenty of Americans are here; one in the next house; but 
I have had nothing to do with them though I met half-a-dozen at the 
American Legation last Wednesday. They are of all kinds; some, not 
attractive. As soon as possible I shall make German acquaintances 
and in a couple of months I hope to be well enough on in the language, 
to join the University and make acquaintances there among the 
donkeys who walk around with absurd caps on their heads; rather more 
offensive than the soldiers. 

Apropos to this, you ask me what my plans are, here and in life. 
I hardly know how to follow a plan here, for the way is not at all clear. 
When I left America my intention was first to accustom myself to the 
language, then to join the University and systematically attend 
lectures on the Civil Law, at the same time taking a Latin tutor and 
translating Latin into German; and to continue this course in Heidel- 
berg or in Paris or in both. The plan was simple enough; useful 

* Benjamin William Crowmnshield (1837-1892). 
Nicholas Longworth Anderson (1838-1892). 



LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 



enough; and comprehensive enough. But now I see difficulties. I 
must join the University here in the middle of its term; I certainly 
can not join to any advantage before January. Shall I be likely to 
learn much law by breaking in on a course of lectures in this manner? 
To be a student of civil law I must be an absolute master of written 
and ordinary Latin; though I need not speak it or write it myself. 
Now, is it well to study law, Latin and German all at once? Can I 
have time enough to do all this, or ought I to resign the Law and 
devote myself to Latin? But supposing I were to do this, devote my- 
self to Latin; I may as well give up the University for it would be mere 
waste time to attend lectures like Corny FeltonV at Cambridge, and, 
as Carlyle says, these Germans are the worst Dryasdusts on the face 
of the earth. 

These objections will, as I advance further and see clearer, either 
vanish entirely, or gain strength and finally force me into some new 
course. I hope it will be the former. I already see very clearly that 
the two years which are allotted to me here, are not nearly enough to 
do all that I had hoped to do, or a quarter part of it, and i tell you 
now fairly that if I return to America without doing more than learn 
German and French, I shall have done well, and these two years will 
be the best employed of my life. I am satisfied of this, and though I 
shall not work any the less hard because I believe it, still I shall feel 
less disappointed when I return without universal knowledge. At 
present I adhere to my original plan; and this plan, as you see, involves 
the necessity of my omitting Greek entirely. I am sorry enough to do 
it, but I became convinced that to attempt the study of Greek now 
and here, would be hopeless unless I gave up Latin. One or the other I 
must sacrifice. If I were to include this fourth language in my plan, I 
should never do anything. Two years will not teach one everything. 
You may think that as a scholar I should have preferred to sacrifice 
Latin. As a scholar I should, but as a lawyer I must have only one 
choice. I take it. And this brings me to the other branch of your 
question. 

As for my plan of life, it is simple, and if health and the usual goods 
of life are continued to me, I see no reason why it should not be carried 
out in the regular course of events. Two years in Europe; two years 
studying law in Boston; and then I propose to emigrate and practice at 
Saint Louis. Wha^J can do there, God knows; but I have a theory 
that an educated and reasonably able man can make his mark if he 
chooses, and if I fail to make mine, why, then I fail and that's all. 

1 Cornelius Conway Felton (1807-1862), Ehot professor of Greek literature. 



LIFE PLANS 



I should do it anywhere else as well. But if I know myself, I can't fail. 
I must, if only I behave like a gentleman and a man of sense, take a 
position to a certain degree creditable and influential, and as yet my 
ambition cannot see clearly enough to look further. 

In a conversation I had with Mr. Dana a few days before I left 
home, I said all this to him, and the latter part of it he treated with a 
little contempt. He insisted that I was looking towards politics; and 
perhaps he was right. There are two things that seem to be at the 
bottom of our constitutions; one is a continual tendency towards 
politics; the other is family pride; and it is strange how these two 
feelings run through all of us. For my own ideas of my future, I have 
not admitted politics into them. It is as a lawyer that I would 
emigrate and I've seen altogether too much harm done in this way, to 
allow myself to quit law for politics without irresistible reasons. 

So here you have a few of my thoughts about what I am going to do 
Here in Europe, away from home, from care and ambition and the 
fretting of monotony, I must say that I often feel as I often used to 
feel in College, as if the whole thing didn't pay, and if I were my own 
master, it would need more inducements than the law could offer, to 
drag me out of Europe these ten years yet. I always had an inclination 
for the Epicurean philosophy, and here in Europe I might gratify it 
until I was gorged. Give me my thousand a year and free leave and a 
good conscience, and I'd pass as happy a life here as I'm afraid I never 
shall in St. Louis. But now I am hurried; I must work, work, work; 
my very pleasures are hurried, and after all, I shall get most pleasure 
and (I believe) advantage, from what never entered into my calcula- 
lations; Art. 

However, there is no use talking. The magd has just come in to 
prepare my room for the night, and her "Gute Nacht" tells me that 
it is nine o'clock, and I want still to write to John. There will be time 
enough to despond hereafter. Just now I am sure is the pleasantest 
time I shall ever see, for there is entire independence, no cares, and 
endless and inexhaustible pleasures. As for my expenses I cannot yet 
calculate them, but when I square my accounts at the end of the month 
I shall be able to talk with some degree of certainty how I am to 
come out. Incidentally you might remark in the hearing of the 
family circle, that an Englishman the other day said in my hearing 
that Berlin was an expensive place; nothing was cheap in Berlin. 

So farewell. I shall not close this letter on the whole till Sunday 
night, so I may say if Loo goes. 

(Sunday night.) I have just seen Loo off. She had a bad night, but 



LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 



to-day recovered and I dined with them as usual. Tonight at seven 
o'clock they went off for Dresden, They wanted me to go with them 
and you may imagine I should have liked to have done so. I am now 
alone here and shall study hard. I shall write to Hollis* next week 
but probably not home as there will be little to say. Nick came to see 
me today. He is all right but I shall see very little of him. This letter 
will reach you about Thanksgiving, when I am to dine at Magdeburg 
with Crowninshield and the rest. Five of us. Good-bye. 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

BERLIN, December 17-18, 1858. 

MY DEAR FELLOW, Your letter dated Thanksgiving day arrived 
yesterday, and I give you my word that though I have been having a 
delightful time here and have enjoyed life to the hubs, still I have 
never felt quite so glad of being out of Boston as I felt after reading 
that epistle. There was in it a sort of contented despair, an unfathom- 
able depth of quiet misery that gave me a placid feeling of thankful- 
ness at being where I am. If Boston hadn't been to me what you 
describe it; if I hadn't felt society to be a bore even while I was yet 
on the threshold; if I had found one single young woman who had salt 
enough in her to keep her from stagnating; I believe I never should 
have thought of leaving home. John and I have already talked on this 
subject and I know his ideas. For myself, I believe that I can find 
more interesting women among the very dregs of society here, than 
Papanti's Hall can turn out. However, at present I can dispense with 
both. . . . 

I tell you what, my boy, you don't crow over political successes at 
home more than I do here. The old Free Soilers, sir, are about the 
winning hosses, I reckon, just now. What the devil has become of 
your Seward's speeches 2 1 can't imagine, IVe heard so much of them 
that I'd like to read them, but I can borrow the paper here* The 
Courier's howl I glanced at. It was funny, very. As for Mr. Sumner 
I've heard no more about him since he left. He's not written, and Loo 
has not mentioned him in her letter. 

So much for these things. And now for personal matters* You re- 
peat in your letter the kind offer you made before I left, to help me if I 
needed help. The Governor, too, in his letter which I received with 

* Hollis Hunnewell (1836-1884). 

Seward's "irrepressible conflict" speech at Rochester. N.Y.. October a<. and a second, at 
Rome, N.Y., October 29, 1858. 



ECONOMIZING 



yours, has rather a queer passage to the effect, that he is afraid I shall 
spend here in Europe much more money than my brothers did and 
that it will be necessary after my return to make arrangements about 
it. Meanwhile he will keep me supplied, as I send notice. Now this is 
very well, it is true. I am exceedingly obliged to you, and also to the 
Governor, who seems all of a sudden to have forgotten his original re- 
marks about a thousand a year. But nevertheless I am determined for 
various reasons to abide by the original sum. If necessary I can live on 
half of it, even here in Berlin, though not a very pleasant life. I have 
been making, and am now making steady efforts to reduce my ex- 
penses at least two hundred dollars within my income, but that cursed 
journey from Liverpool and the necessary expenses of living here, for 
the first month, have, I'm afraid, brought me hard onto the thousand 
this year. Meanwhile I am now, for the present at least, pretty well 

at ease about European expenses Apropos, perhaps if you'd like to 

buy some German books, I can knock off a little of my debt to you so. 
I can get you what is I believe the best edition of Goethe for twenty- 
five or thirty dollars, thirty volumes, bound, but forty or more, un- 
bound. Lessing and Schiller I shall buy for myself soon. The books 
here are nicely bound, and very cheap. The Goethe and Lessing higher 
than the others, though I can get you editions of both for almost 
nothing. As for engravings, etc., I mean to pick some up, but not here. 
Everything is dear in Berlin. There is nothing that I have heard of, 
here, that is worth the expense of buying to take home, and I shall 
only get a few engravings of the pictures in the Galleries, and photo- 
graphs of the city. 

I wrote in my last that I was going to leave these rooms. They are 
too dear and too many Americans are round. I have taken others 
quite as good, or rather decidedly better than these, but one story 
higher, and at least half an hour's walk from the University. They 
cost with my coffee and bread for breakfast, service, heating, etc., 
about ten dollars a month. My present ones cost about $16.50. The 
difference itself is not great, but you will know, if you ever have oc- 
casion to live economically, that where one's rooms cost much, every- 
thing else costs proportionably. It is not however this expense that 
will hurt me. But you see, a single bat, a single evening passed as is 
sometimes done, from six in the afternoon till three in the morning, at 
the theatre and concerts and wine-shops and bier-locals and balls; a 
single evening may make necessary a week's economy. And in my 
new rooms I can economize more easily than here, I think. 

Meanwhile I live a quiet life here, occasionally about once a week 



8 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

looking in at a ball, and going pretty regularly once a week to a 
classical concert and the Theatre. This week I've been three times 
to the theatre; twice to the Opera House to see the Zauberflote and 
Fidelio, great German operas which I can't appreciate; and once to 
the Schauspielhaus to see Hamlet. It was well done; remarkably well 
done. Setting aside the scenery, which is always perfect here, it was 
an exceedingly well acted piece. But Dessoir 1 was not equal in stage 
effects to Booth and I've seen Mrs. Barrow (?) do Ophelia much 
better than the little Fraulein Fuhr, who didn't at all satisfy me. 
Then the German spoils it to an Englishman. The speech "'Tis not 
alone my inky cloak, good mother" begins in the German "Gnadige 
Frau." The whole thing sounds flat to me in German. Othello was 
given the other night but I could get no seat; I fancy however it was 
not better. They have good actors here, but no wonders; and as for 
the singers, I've heard no particularly good one. But the orchestra, 
the scenery and the ballet in the Opera House are glorious. 

As I said, I live a quiet life, usually ending the day with a beef- 
steak, or some sausage and a glass of bier and a pipe, though this 
evening I'm on the economical, having dissipated yesterday in taking 
dancing lessons. Nick Anderson and I took a lesson of two hours. I 
usually write as much German as possible in the daytime, and read in 
the evening, but it is desperately slow work, and I expect to be occupied 
by little else but the language all the winter. The University will be of 
little use to me, but I may take a private Tutor in Latin. At present 
I am still at the rudiments. I can't once in a dozen times speak a 
grammatical sentence, and understand what is said only when very 
slowly spoken. As for a continued lecture, I can't catch anything at 
all, and at the theatre very little. But there is certainly a regular 
advance, and I am desperate in my attempts to talk it. 

The great drawback to one's enjoyment here is the weather. Today 
is the first day for four weeks that the sun has been out, and that we've 
not had a heavy, muggy fog. Today has been clear and cool and very 
enjoyable. 

And so, my poor boy, condemned to labor in that happy city of 
Boston, don't you wish you were here? Perhaps Berlin may not be so 
pleasant as Vienna or Paris, but I think you wouldn't object to be here 
notwithstanding. Christmas comes off soon and if the fellows from 
Hannover come on, there'll probably be a pretty loud time, and the 
masked-balls, etc., will hear of it. At present, however, I'm draw- 
ing back from most of my American acquaintances, but I have not yet 

1 Louis Dessoir (1810-1875) or his son Ferdinand (b, 1835). 



THOUGHTS OF HOME 



succeeded in supplying their places with Germans. There seems to be 
no place here where German students meet much. Very little student 
life in Berlin, and what I've seen of that is dirty and fleay. 

I have however made one philosophical discovery here; and that is 
that it doesn't matter where I live or what I do, there will come oc- 
casionally fits of crossness and disagreeable feelings. The advantage 
of living here is however that when one gets bored and cross, there are 
so many means of driving it away. I myself usually prefer a beef- 
steak and a bottle of Rhine wine, with a companion, or "vielleicht" 
two bottles, but I have known a ball to be tried with success, or in fact 
almost any change of action. One is always doing something new here, 
if it's only discovering a new bier-local, or going to a new concert- 
room- I mean some evening to set out on a tour of exploration and 
visit two or three dozen concert-rooms and balls. As yet I know 
comparatively few. 

As for the inhabitants of Boston, I can't say that I feel any very 
absorbing interest in their affairs, and though it is rather amusing to 
hear what is going on, still I can't say that I should care much if I 
didn't hear a word except from the family, while I am away. I am 
however always very glad to hear from home. Since I began to prepare 
to wander, I have thought a good deal more of home than I ever did 
before. I assure you, my dear fellow, one doesn't appreciate home 
properly, at home. Especially before I started, I had my attention 
drawn to one thing, to which it ought to have been drawn long ago; 
how excessively selfish and exacting we children always were toward 
mamma, and still more, how much she felt it. Before I came away, I 
had two or three long talks with her, and I came out of them feeling 
more like a selfish, low-minded fool than I ever did before in my life. 
I determined then that I would at least try not only to show more 
respect and affection for her in my manner towards her, but also try 
to get you and John to do so. I spoke to John about it, and he took it 
as I hoped he would, and as I meant he should. I write now to put 
the same thing before you, if John has not already done it, not, of 
course, intending to find fault or interfere, but only to represent that 
we are now men, grown up and independent or nearly so; that we owe 
a certain amount of respect and affection to our mother, and that it is 
not enough to merely have this affection; we ought to show it more in 
those little matters that a woman feels most. I do believe that a 
reasonable amount of delicate attention and respect from her sons, 
would make mamma perfectly proud and happy. 

She felt too very deeply the way we treated Brooks, and I think 



io LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

myself that we ought to try our hardest to tolerate the child, who is 
really a first-rate little fellow, apart from his questions, and we ought 
not to snub him so much. It will break his spirit, or at all events, can 
have no good effect. That boy's disposition will either make some- 
thing of him or kill him. Perhaps our influence, well applied, might 
give him a start and keep him straight. At all events it will be very 
bad to make home disagreeable to him, and drive him off to learn all 
sorts of low things from his companions. That is the very worst that 
can happen. 

As for Mary, I don't know what will become of her. It seems to me 
that she'll be a great strapping girl, with as little consciousness of what 
God made her for, or of what she wants to do besides getting a hus- 
band, as any of our other friends. Her manners too will never be 
good I'm afraid. She has too many brothers. 

I am sure that you'll take as I mean, all that I have written. 
To me, the first one of us that has left home, the real feelings that 
existed there were probably shown clearer than often happens. I felt 
more strongly than ever before that it was an entire mistake for me to 
suppose that I had only myself in the world to care for; and I appreci- 
ated for the first time that there were those who would feel much more 
for my death or misfortune than I should myself. It made a strong 
impression on me at the time, and I am not likely to forget it in 
Europe, where the tone that I hear is so low, so selfish and so irreligious, 
that it compels me more and more to a love for what is pure and good. 
I should become a fanatic, I believe, and go into the pulpit if I re- 
mained here long. 

With this letter I send a list of the letters I have written and the 
letters and papers I have received. I'm inclined to think some must 
have missed. Either with this letter or by the next steamer will come 
a letter for papa, but I shall mail this first, though IVe no idea how 
soon it will go. I'm much obliged to you for your offer about the 
paper but I don't much care for one. They're at the Legation. Pray 
send the Atlantic Monthly though, as I wrote papa, and if there's any- 
thing in the papers, like Seward's speeches, for instance, I'd like to 
see them. These had better be sent by Bremen. 

I've sat up till one o'clock to write this, and shall close it here as 
I have a lot more to do before bed- time. I turn night into day a good 
deal. Yours, etc. 



FAMILY LETTERS n 



To Charles Francis Adams , Jr. 

BERLIN, January 18, 1859. 

MY DEAR FELLOW: Don't crow too quick about the pleasures and 
pains of life.^ To prove to you that I am not inclined to change my 
position, I will merely remark that I should decline for the present any 
offer^of increasing my allowance, if any such offer were made. The 
deficit must be made up if, or when, it comes, but that is all. I re- 
ceived a short enclosure from the Governor on this subject in a letter 
dated the ijth December. He says that he means to send a hundred 
pounds more, after New Year's, and his concluding passage was in- 
comprehensible to me till I received your last. He says: "On the 
general subject" (that of money affairs) "I shall have some ideas to 
suggest hereafter which may have the effect of arranging the affair 
more satisfactorily." Meanwhile he seems to think that I'm "putting 
up with privations of all kinds," and he's right too, but I'm happy and 
what's the odds. All the privations I see won't hurt me, except going 
without a good breakfast in the morning and having to run to school 
so fast that I can't enjoy my cigar. 

It's rather a good joke that you should blame me for not acknow- 
ledging what I've received, when to this minute I don't know how 
many of my letters have reached home. If you'd put off your re- 
proaches till my next letter to you arrived (dat. Decem. 18) you would 
have received the whole list. Also the directions about newspapers, all 
of which I have received, that you sent, but want no more except in 
case something remarkable happens. I'm exceedingly obliged to you 
for both your letters and papers. You are altogether the most valuable 
correspondent I have, and I can tell you, I always gloat over your 
letters and do them the especial honor of reading them twice; a dis- 
tinction granted to no others, except perhaps the Governor's when 
they come. 

Your news too I acknowledge. Bear my greetings to the hub of 
creation and its society. If any remarkably attractive young woman 
who is marriageable and has a large property at her own disposal en- 
quires after me, give her my love. Perhaps you might induce her to 
enter into a correspondence which may produce the best results. My 
own female friends haven't, so far as my present information extends, 
put their affection for me to so great a test as to show it by letter, and 
so far as I know, there are very few whom I should think would shine 
in such a demonstration. So much the better. I wish nothing more 
than to be wholly forgotten by them all. 



12 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Your new set are strangers to me. Miss Crowninshield I never spoke 
to; Susy Amory I knew very little. Georgy Blake, however, I did 
know, and rather wonder how she has managed to break down the 
wall of exclusiveness. For my sake treat her tenderly. Add, too, in 
your next, if convenient, who my successor is with the fair Caroline. 
I have vacated the place by her side which I held with some obstinacy 
for two or three years, and now I am curious to know what new Tele- 
machus that truly innocent Syren has caught, for indeed I'll do her the 
justice to say that she is as innocent a Syren as ever was growed, and 
never fished for any one while I knew her. I wish she had. In that 
case there'd have been more life and spirit in the acquaintanceship. 

If there is any message that I ought to send to any one, just be kind 
enough to make it for me. I give you carte-blanche to say what you 
will to everyone, and will acknowledge any speech or message that you 
put into my mouth short of an offer of marriage. 

I watch American politics with much interest, and feel disgraced 
when a German asks about them. By Jove, it is humiliating to have to 
acknowledge the condition of our statesmanship. I am often ashamed 
to be known as an American here. Sumner can't return and won't 
resign, I'm afraid. I received a letter from him and wrote one to him, 
hinting that I wished and hoped that he would give up all idea of re- 
turning until he was really recovered, and rather resign his seat than 
return to relapse again. I wrote as delicately as I knew how, but of 
course I could not help implying a wish that he would resign. He has 
not answered it as yet. Perhaps not received it; perhaps ne will not 
write again though I asked him to. 

But how of greater literary works? Could I write a history, do you 
think, or a novel, or anything that would be likely to make it worth 
while for me to try? This too is not adapted to me, and yet, rather 
queerly, this is the only one of the branches of your idea that has 
struck me as practicable. I don't know whether you had it in your 
mind or not when you wrote, but it seems probable that the duty of 
editing our grandfather's works and writing his life, may fall on one of 
us, and if it does, that alone is enough for a man, and enough to shape 
his whole course. I don't think this occurred to you, however, and it is 
too far off to found any plausible argument on. 

Now, my dear fellow, my mind may be pretty but it's not original 
and never will be, and I shall never get any good out of it if I allow it 
to sprinkle all its little vigor away in newspapers and magazines* 
Adams the scholar prefers to live, but Adams the scholar would rather 
disconsolately die, and let Adams the lawyer do as he can, than make 



THE LAW VERSUS LITERATURE 13 

one of that butterfly party which New Yorkers seem to consider their 
literary world. To become more, the law must be my ladder; without 
it, you might as well at once press me out into so many pages of the 
Atlantic Monthly. 

My ^dear fellow, we must make some income; that is necessary. 
To do it by literature is less to my taste than to do it by law. Behind 
the law, and with it as a support to fall back on if necessary, I can do 
as every other man in the same circumstances has done. Without 
some firm footing we shall go to the devil. With it, God knows what 
we may be able to do. I hold still by my plan. I hope that you will not 
succeed in shaking it, for then I shall lose myself entirely, and there 
^will be an end to me. In it I see an object worth fighting for, and one 
"to which I am trying to direct all my resources. Without it I lose my 
-whole life and gain nothing. Stick by the law. Ten years hence we 
will see how things look, and use our best weapons; not now. 

Meanwhile, nevertheless, I acknowledge gratefully your offer to 
negotiate for me about any article I may care to write. It has occurred 
to me that as I am here at school, it would not be impossible to write 
an article on the Prussian schools, which, if thrown into a sufficiently 
conversational form, and hashed up with an intermixture of my own 
personal experiences, might be made as they say, at once readable and 
instructive. There is no hurry about this, however. I shall remain 
three months here, and you can give me your opinion of this plan in 
your next. You see, the subject, as I would treat it, offers a pretty 
wide surface for anything that I should care to say, whether political, 
metaphysical, educational, practical, or any other "caL" If you like 
the plan pray give me any ideas developing it that happen to come 
[into your head, and I will send you my own to criticise. 
\ I have no more to say just now till receipt of your next. If we don't 
find out what we want in life, why the devil must be in it, that's all. . . . 

I shall write to Mary as soon as I have time, so I hope she won't be 
impatient. As I am a school-boy again I am not responsible for delays. 
By the by, I've not given you my reasons wholly for becoming a school- 
boy and changing my plans again. Nevermind! If you find fault Til 
justify myself in my next letter. I shall expect to hear in my next 
whether I shall send you any books or not. They are very cheap here 
and sometimes very good. Yrs. etc. 



14 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

BERLIN, February 9, 1859* 

DEAR CHARLES I will pay your last letter the compliment to 
say that it had effect enough over me to make me feel unpleasantly for 
two days. Not that I found fault with it. I do not do so, and hope that 
you will continue to write just so. But it bothered me damnably. 
For what you say as to my remarks on the Boston young ladies, 
though your criticisms are rather hard on me, I acknowledge that you 
are wholly in the right. What one writes is considerably influenced by 
the accidental state of his mind at the instant of writing, and it is not 
strange if, among so many letters, when I am hurrying to put down 
the first thing that comes into my head, and fill out a sentence as 
quickly as possible, it is not strange, I say, if I say many silly things. 
Your remark about care in writing what the Governor is to see, sur- 
prised me much more than your criticisms, for possessing as I do a men s 
conscia recti y I would be perfectly willing to have him see all my 
thoughts in reference to my country and believe he would approve 
them all. If he has expressed unfavorable opinions I wonder that his 
letters say nothing about them. They, on the contrary, have been 
very kind and mild, and his last, on finances, the contents of which you 
seemed to know, was even very liberal, so that I have not a single word 
to say against his mode of treating me. It is true I shall do my best to 
make no use of this liberality, but am none the less obliged to him, on 
that account. It is a satisfaction to feel that I can spend, and have an 
ample margin 

Money matters are now very easy with me. I have about six hun- 
dred dollars on hand, counting the Governor's late remittance as only 
five hundred; and this here is equal to eight hundred. I owe not a 
cent except to you and Hill. This latter I should like to see off my 
hands, and I'd pay him myself devilish quick if he were here, but as I 
can't do that nor get the money to him, I'm afraid that I shall have to 
ask you to see to him. For God's sake, though, don't do it if it will in- 
convenience you. I feel now that I am perfectly well in condition to 
pay him myself if I could only send the money, but it is so small a 
sum that it is hardly worth while to send it by the Barings...* 

In politics you can judge better than I, but I myself believe that 
Douglas will win. He is playing a devilish hard game; in fact he is 
repeating in the nation the operation which was so successful in his 
own state. We shall see. 

About myself I have hardly anything to say beyond what I have 



DAILY LIFE IN BERLIN 15 

said in my last letters. I cannot say that my present life is wildly ex- 
citing, nor that the capital of Prussia has as yet shown itself to me in 
any violently attractive light. But at least if I have not had an excit- 
ing time, I have at all events not had an unpleasant one, and if the last 
month has been particularly quiet, there is at least the satisfaction of 
knowing that it has been a particularly instructive one. My school is 
perfectly satisfactory, and I am better satisfied of the wisdom of the 
step than of anything else I have done. I go a good deal to the Opera, 
which is a great temptation; to the Theatres not so often for the play- 
ing is almost poor and the plays, except when Schiller, Goethe, or 
Shakespeare is produced, not much. I've not been on a real bat for 
ever so long, being in a very quiet and economical set, and though 
often indulging after the theatre in a steak and glass of bier or bottle 
of Rhine wine, this never leads to anything worse. As I have to get up 
six mornings in the week at either seven or eight o'clock, I have also 
to go to bed early and not drink too much. I'm virtuous as St. Antony 
and resist temptation with the strength of a martyr. I've not been to 
a disrespectable ball for a month or nearly a month, but can't say how 
long this will last. The way the virtue of the purest is corrupted here is 
wonderful. 

You can imagine that my school lessons don't take up much of my 
time out of school, though the poor little devils of boys have to work 
all the time. The master inquires if I can recite, and I say yes or no as 
it happens. My German is slowly advancing under this pressure, but I 
must say that I never expect to master it as I once expected. It is 
terribly long and tedious and my advance can be measured not by 
days but by months. I read very little German, for most of my time 
for reading is occupied by my Latin. It may seem to you that this 
sort of life is not exactly what we usually connect with our ideas of life 
in Europe, but my experience and observation to the slight extent of 
four months, goes to show that the American idea of life in Europe, as 
given by such men as Gus Perkins, the Hammonds, etc., etc., etc., is 
an absurd one and just worthy of them. I've not seen Paris yet, but 
it's my impression that to a sensible person who has no particular ob- 
ject in staying there and is not in French society, it's just as slow as 
any other city, and except in its Galleries and Palaces, no better than 
New York. Indeed I've heard sensible fellows who had lived in both 
places assert, that in its means of enjoyment New York was ahead of 
any city in Europe that they had seen. I don't undertake to indorse 
this, but it shows how differently people think on this point, and for 
my own part I never feel thoroughly jolly anywhere till my whole 
time is employed. 



16 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Lately, it is true, I've been rather more out of my room in the even- 
ings than usually, but I hope not to do so much of this after this week. 
Consult John's sheet for information as to my sights and dissipations. 

I will now proceed, my amiable brother, to discuss the last philo- 
sophical propositions of yours, and the plan which you propose for my 
course in life. I confess that it filled me with wonder and general be- 
wilderment. I think in my last I said that you paid me a left-handed 
compliment, in your idea of my mind. Permit me to retract; humbly 
apologize. I never made so great a mistake in all my life. I have usu- 
ally considered myself a conceited fellow. Every one told me so, and I 
believed *em. I had thought that I set about as high a price on my 
mental capacities as most other people; perhaps a peg higher. I was 
mistaken; I've put its market value up at least twice as high again 
since your last. 

Were you intoxicated when you wrote that I am to "combine in 
myself the qualities of Seward, Greeley and Everett"? Mein lieber 
Gott, what do you take me for? Donnerwetter! do you suppose I'm a 
statesman like Seward, or that my amiable play-philosophy would 
ever set me up to guiding a nation; do you imagine that I have a tithe 
of Greeley's vigor, originality and enterprise; are you so blinded by the 
tenderness of your fraternal affection as to imagine that the mantle of 
Cicero has fallen upon my shoulders, or that I inherit the pride and 
ample pinion that the Grecian sophist bore? Nimmermehr! What 
would be the result if I were to return home and gravely and coolly set 
myself to doing what you propose? Bah! mine brother, you seem to 
have written under the idea that I am a genius. Give that idea up, once 
and forever! I never did any thing that I should be treated like this. I 
know what I can do, and I know what a devilish short way my tether 
goes, and the evening before I received your letter, I had, in my daily 
lesson in Ovid, read the fable of Phaethon, whose interesting and sug- 
gestive story you'll find at the end of the first and beginning of the 
second Book of Metamorphoses. 

Now a word as to my own condition, and then for our discussion. 
You know by my last that I have joined a Gymnasium, like our Latin 
School, only much larger and thorougher. Here I go every day from 
three to six hours. It is not very good fun; that is of course, But it 
admirably answers my purposes. Here I pursue my original design of 
studying Latin and Greek. Here is tremendous practice in hearing and 
talking and learning German. Here it is very cheap. Here I am free 
enough and yet must obey the rules where they are not excepted in 
my lavor. I go four mornings in the week at eight o'clock. Three 



GYMNASIUM LIFE 17 



afternoons there is no school and the others are no trouble to me. The 
boys received me with open arms and my proceeding caused some 
noise in Berlin, for every one of the four hundred and odd told it at 
home, and I became quite famous. One or two of the little fellows I 
am quite fond of, and you would split if you could see me walking 
away from school with a small boy under each arm, to whom I have to 
bend down to talk to. None of them know English, so of course I 
speak only German, and am familiar enough with it to get along very 
well. I am stared at as a sort of wild beast by the rest of the school, 
who only see me when I come and go, for there is no recess, and no out- 
door playing, so that I know only the boys in my own room. As yet I 
only see the boys at school, where they treat me with a certain sort of 
respect, and yet as one of themselves. They never push me or trouble 
me in any way, nor play tricks on me. Perhaps they think that I know 
how to box, and it's as well to let me alone, but anyway, they are 
many of them first-rate fellows, and two especially I cherish with pater- 
nal affection. IVe not as yet recited in Latin or Greek, but soon shall 
begin; to translate, that is, into German. I can study all the time, or 
not at all, but I must go to school, and that is study enough to satisfy 
my conscience. 

I am also busied during my leisure odd minutes or hours in studying 
art, and reading and studying theoretically painting. Music occupies 
me too, during certain hours every week, and more than these certain 
ones, if there is any that I wish to hear. So you see that I have enough 
work (or play-work if you prefer to call it so) to occupy me all my 
time. I seldom do nothing. In my new rooms I seldom see Americans, 
but know very few Germans indeed. In short I am busy, contented, 
and only once in a while cross..,. 

So the world wags on here, quietly as possible. The weather is 
detestable. Formerly it was always bad. For a month we didn't see 
the sun. Now we have one fine day, and two bad ones. It grows cold 
and clears, then thaws and clouds up. Still, when one passes nearly all 
his daytime in school, it doesn't matter much what the weather is. 

In money matters I have to be very careful, and this month have 
rather overstepped my bound as I have bought several expensive 
books, but I hope to need no more money from home till the first of 
March, and unless next summer ruins me, I shall get through. It isn't 
pleasant to have to calculate every cent one spends, but independence 
is a great thing, and I shall do my best to hold to it. I keep my ac- 
counts most rigidly; have no debts except my monthly accounts with 
my landlady; and always know where I am. As I have always had to 



1 8 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

be very careful, it is not so hard now. I economize as much as I can, 
but sometimes can't resist spending too much. 

And now as to the last part of your letter, over which I have thought 
a good deal, and been a little troubled. I acknowledge the force of 
what you say, and yet I disagree with your conclusions. Let me pro- 
ceed systematically if possible. 

You try to put me on the horns of a dilemma. You attribute to me 
a certain kind of mind, and argue that if I am to be a lawyer, or in 
other words, follow my own plan which I have followed for several 
years, then what I learn in Europe is worse than thrown away. 
Hence, to be a lawyer I must cease to be what I am. If I acknowledge 
that my mind is not adapted to my plan, I must give my plan up. If 
on the other hand I assert that my mind is adapted to my plan, I must 
give Europe up- This I take to be the ground of your letter. I dis- 
agree with it, and think that you are mistaken not only in your judge- 
ment of my mind, but also in your idea of the necessary result of two 
years in Europe. But I shall not go into this subject now. Perhaps in 
another letter I may give you some reasons for believing that what I 
am learning here in Europe is not in opposition to what I propose to do 
hereafter. Just now I prefer to attack your position rather than to 
defend my own. It's easier and there's more fun in it. 

I don't deny the truth of what you say, that law is not a pleasant 
study, and that we are not adapted to make great lawyers. But be- 
yond this I think you lose yourself and run aground. You say that I 
am not made for a lawyer; but hardly hint at what I am made for. 
The same things that you say of me, you also apply to yourself. Now 
let me see if I can carry out your idea to any result that will give a 
fellow a minute's firm footing. 

The law is bad, you say. Wohlan! what then? Why then, you con* 
tinue, take something that suits you better. And what would be likely 
to suit me better? What is this kind of mind that you give me? I 
must say that you pay me a very left-handed kind of compliment in 
your estimation of me. You seem to think that I am adapted to 
nothing but the sugar-plums of intellect and had better not try to 
digest anything stronger. You would make me a sort of George Curtis 
or Ik. Marvel, better or worse, a writer of popular sketches in maga- 
zines; a lecturer before Lyceums and College societies; a dabbler in 
metaphysics, poetry, and art, than which I would rather die, for if it 
has come to that, alas! verily, as you say, mediocrity has fallen on the 
name of Adams. 

But, I suppose, you will deny that your letter leads to this and 



THE LAW VERSUS LITERATURE AGAIN 19 

assert that such men as Mr. Everett, Mr. Sumner, the Governor, Mr. 
Palfrey and the like, are a wholly different class. I would just suggest 
that all these began either as lawyers or clergymen; and I merely 
propose to do the same. But now let's go back to generalities, and see 
whether something can't be fished up. 

In the most general terms then; you would say, I take it, that my 
mind if not adapted to law, at least is adapted to literary pursuits, in 
the most extensive meaning of the term; and to nothing else. I 
couldn't be a physician or a merchant, or a shopkeeper or anything of 
that kind, so well as I could a lawyer. Literary pursuits are very 
extensive, but I must make some money to support me, so we must 
say, "literary pursuits that produce money." Now literary pursuits 
that produce money and that I am eligible for, are very few. 

To begin with, perhaps, if I were a better man, I might feel inclined 
to become a clergyman. But as I'm very much a worser man, we'll 
count that out. 

Then you once proposed to me to go into the newspaper line and 
become an editor. The objections to this are as many and as strong as 
to the law, but if you don't see them, will reserve the subject for 
further discussion. 

Of Atlantic Monthly and Putnam and Harper and the men who write 
for money in them, my opinion is short. Rather than do nothing but 
that, or make that an object in life, I'd die here in Europe. 

No, mein Liebster, this is one of these propositions which would kill 
any man's chances in America, even though he had all the training of 
Gorgias (if that was the beggar's name), and all the philosophy of 
Frank Bacon; (I refer to the Viscount Verulam and not to the young 
Bostonian of the same name). Yet after all, your idea is not so very 
distinct from mine, except that it throws out into the strongest relief 
the object that I proposed to make dependent on circumstances and 
success in other respects. We are considerably in the same box, brother 
mine, and what applies to me, applies also, with slight alterations, to 
yourself. As you say, there are differences between us, and my charac- 
ter isn't yours; in fact, I know many respects in which I wish it were; 
but still we have grown up in the same school and have, until now, 
drawn our mental nutriment from the breasts, metaphorically speak- 
ing, of the same wet-nurse; indeed we may consider ourselves a case of 
modern Romulus and Remus, only omitting their murderous pro- 
pensities. What is still more, we are beautifully adapted to work to- 
gether; that is, you are. I stand in continual need of some one to kick 
me, and you use cow-hides for that purpose. So much the better. 



20 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Continue to do so. In other words, I need you. Whether there's any 
corresponding necessity on your side, is your affair. But it's a case of 
"versteht sich" that we can work better together than apart. Under 
these circumstances, let us be very careful how we take a step that will 
probably knock one of us in the head forever, or so separate us that 
our objects would become different. I shall hesitate a very long time 
indeed before I decide to earn my living by writing for magazines and 
newspapers, for I believe it to be one of the most dangerous begin- 
nings that a man can make. Recollect that thread-bare old Arabian 
Nights magnetic mountain that drew all the metal out of the ships and 
then sunk them. 

I say that our ideas are not far different. The real difference is this: 
Yours begins by assuming as your ground plank and corner stone that 
I am capable of teaching the people and of becoming a light to the na- 
tions. Mine on the contrary begins by leaving that to develop itself in 
the future or to remain proved on the other side, without suffering a 
public disgrace from slumping as I infallibly should do under your 
idea. I said in my last what I wanted of the law; that I considered it 
the best grounding in the world for anything that we wish or are likely 
to do; that is the strongest point to fall back upon and the best position 
to advance from; at once offensive and defensive, it gives one a position 
as literary as if he did nothing but write for periodicals and a good deal 
more respectable; as a profession it offers many inducements; as 
merely an occupation it offers still more, and there is much more 
chance both for you and me to work up from it, than there is doubt in 
my mind that I at least should drop like a stuck monkey from the 
perch on which you want me to place myself. Perhaps it is my wish 
and hope that we may do something of the sort you propose, but I do 
not wish for so large a scale of action, because I know my own weak- 
ness; I do not wish to go to work in the way you propose, because in 
the first place I believe it to be a wrong way, tending to fritter away 
the little power of steady and long-continued exertion I have, and in 
the second, it seems to me not to offer that firm and lasting ground 
work that the law does. I do wish to adhere to my original plan be- 
cause, though even that is more, I am afraid, than my powers are up 
to, yet it seems to me as feasible as any that has yet come before me, 
and if I can do nothing in that, why let me go to the devil at once, for 
there's no use staying here. Gott bewahr mich from funny Lyceum 
lectures and rainbow articles in Atlantic Monthly with a proof of 
scholarship as exhibited by a line here and there from " the charming 
old Epicurean Horace" or "the grand thunderbursts of superhuman 



ENTERTAINING MR. APTHORP 21 

strength " from God knows what old Greek trotted out for the occasion. 




letter has been written partly in school, partly here, and is the work of 
some six or eight different sittings, I'll excuse you for finding fault with 
it, as with my former one, but you must also excuse the faults. On 
your theory of my proper plan of life, however, I ought never to say 
any foolish things,^ but my lips should drool wisdom and my paths 
should be by the side of Socrates, and Isocrates; (by the way were 
these two men related and why have they so similar names?) I hope 
your next will take a more practical view of life. 

Meanwhile this last week I've been exceedingly dissipated; out 
every night in one way or another, and able to do very little real work. 
The last two days too, the weather has been charming. Yesterday 
Jim Higginson * and I took Mr. Apthorp* out on a spree. He has had 
us there to dine and gave us some of the best champagne I ever tasted; 
perhaps the very best; I've dined twice with him and got talking very 
fast both times. The ladies retired to their room and left us to our 
wine, and as Mr. A. doesn't stint the supply and I make it a rule 
never to refuse a good glass when it's offered, the inevitable conse- 
quence is very clear. A bottle of wine is the outside of what I can carry, 
and in both cases I drank devilish close onto the limit. Yesterday we 
returned the hospitality by taking Mr. A. out for a day of it, to show 
him the style of our ordinary life. Higginson and I went for him at two 
o'clock and carried him off to our dirty little restauration, and there 
dined him and gave him a glass of been You know the style of our 
dinners from my letters, I think. Then we went to a concert till six, 
and leaving the concert before it was over, we walked down to a little 
theatre called Wallner's, a devil of a way off, and saw a drama called 
"Berlin wie es weint und lacht"; a thing very popular in Berlin, and 
has run 137 nights. It's by far the best drama of the sort that I've seen, 
too. Thence we walked back and sat till twelve o'clock in a wine-cellar, 
or Wein-Stube as they call it which was crowded with exceedingly re- 
spectable old people, but which, though very clean, yet hasn't the ves- 
tige of a table-cloth on ary a table, and was hot as hell and filled with 
clouds of tobacco smoke. Here we eat and drank and talked and Hig 
and I smoked, and passed a very jolly evening, drinking two bottles 
and a half of Rhine wine, really better than I've often tasted at home, 
for which two bottles and a half we paid something less than an 

1 James Jackson Higginson (1836-1911). ' Robert East Apthorp (d. 1882). 



"22 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

American dollar. This is a dear place for wines too. On the Rhine, I 
am told, they cost much less. I very often come in here after the 
theatre and drink a bottle, commonly with Higginson, or if I'm on the 
heavy cheap, go to a cellar and get a couple of boiled sausages and a 
mug of beer. The sausages I tell you are good. My supper commonly 
costs quarter of a dollar or less. My dinner the same. As for cigars, I 
consider myself extravagant when I smoke really good ones which 
cost me $15.00 the thousand. They're not proud like yours, but curse 
me if they don't taste as good as any I used to pay at the rate of $50 
and $60 for. 

So I will now wind up this letter, which though not so long as yours, 
has yet the excuse that IVe more letters to write than you. I will now 
proceed immediately, as you say, to put on my paint and feathers 
(devilish dirty paint in the shape of my old dress suit) for a grand ball 
in the Opera House, at which I suppose all the Court will be, and 
which I shall try to tell about in my letter to John. I go from a sense 
of duty, though it costs me three thalers, and I'd rather stay at home, 
but one ought to see these things and I presume it will be handsome 
and stupid as double-distilled damnation. I don't know any one ex- 
cept Americans there and if I did, it wouldn't make any difference. 
Meanwhile, allerhochstgeborner Herr, accept the assurances of my 
deep respect. If I knew enough of this cursed language I'd write you a 
letter in German, but I don't and never shall, curse it. 

Give the tokens of my highest consideration to the family at large. 
My last letter home was February 5th to mamma; before that, January 
to the Congressman. No letters as yet received this week. Yrs. 



To Charles Francis Adam$> Jr. 

BERLIN, March 13, 1859. 

MY DEAR FELLOW: Yours of the i4th came to hand on the day I ex- 
pected, just after I had sent off a letter to mamma. I received a letter 
from mamma on the ^th and one from papa on the cast, I sent an 
answer to papa on the ^d, and to mamma's on the ad. Papa's letter 
contained as I expected from what you said before, indications of 
trouble, which were expressed in a manner that irritated me a good 
deal, and I sat down on the spot and wrote rather an impertinent reply, 
which may settle the question or may only make him angry, I don't 
know which. I hope an end will be put to all this stuff. I'm doing my 
best to do well here, God knows, and it's excessively unpleasant to be 
told without any why or wherefore that I'm becoming a damned fool. 



A MAN AMONG BOYS 23 

Your warnings and advice I've taken readily, and been very glad to 
take, but you don't deal in enigmas. What the deuce does the Gov- 
ernor mean by a perfectly Delphian vaticination in his last, from which 
all that I could understand was that some one (of the Apthorps I sup- 
pose) had been abusing me, and I'd better be careful? Confound it, a 
fellow must know a little more than this before he can work straight. 
Understand, I don't want to be told that I'm a good boy and deserve a 
sugar-plum in the shape of encouragement, but I do want to know the 
why and wherefore of things in a sensible manner, 

I'm glad that you approve my Gymnasium course, and still think 
myself that it's the best thing I could have done. You estimate the 
effect of school too highly however. It has enabled me to give method 
and concentration to my studies, but I have found here that it is im- 
possible to go back ten years in one's life, or graft on to one system the 
growth of a very different one. I am a man among boys here. They 
sit on my knee and pull my whiskers and ride on my back and listen to 
my marvellous tales of home, and yet know five times as much as I do 
on many things. I too cannot feel their rewards or punishments, nor 
study except what I please. The mill in which they are placed is form- 
ing their minds, but my mind is already formed in a very different way, 
and the process has very little influence on me. However if it teaches 
me a little German, I'll thank God and be satisfied.... 

My life here in Berlin is in no way changed. I cannot stagnate 
simply because new ideas are pouring into my mind so fast that I have 
always something to think of. My only trouble is want of time, and I 
economize in it as much as I care to. School every day; more or less 
music, opera or concert every week; study in the evening, or some- 
times a call or a blow-out of some sort which occasionally keeps me up 
very late. I'm anything but dissipated. Indeed the little tendency I 
ever had that way has almost wholly disappeared. I can't say that 
life is unpleasant, and it isn't certainly exciting, but I hope that I'm 
learning something, and am waiting patiently till the time comes for 
me to go down to Dresden. Nothing could tempt me to remain in 
Berlin later than May, if I could get away. 

It seems probable that we shall have war next summer, but no one 
knows except Napoleon and he won't tell. His behavior is very strange 
and contradictory. His latest declarations look towards peace, but 
very soon war will be inevitable unless he declares himself plainly and 
honestly. All Europe except Italy is against it, and yet every one says 
that all Europe will take part in it; probably France, Russia and Sar- 
dinia against Austria, England, and the German Confederacy. Italy 



24 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

is in a confoundedly hard position it is true, and so far as Austria is 
concerned I'd like to see that nation wiped out, but the good that war 
may possibly do to the Italians is almost sure to be more than counter- 
balanced by the evil it will do to the Germans. 

War however will not change my plans. It isn't probable that any 
Austrian will shoot me in the valleys of the Tyrol, nor that any 
Frenchman will chase me up to the top of Mont Blanc. Italy will be 
the seat of war, and I doubt if the Tyrol feels it, at least in the first 
campaign. However, after all, it seems to me contrary to reason to 
suppose that Napoleon is going to do so crazy a thing. Every one here 
is so perplexed, the papers so full of contradictory rumors; all nations 
arming; ambassadors rushing from Court to Court in hot haste; stocks 
rising and falling at every breath; and no one knowing anything about 
the matter except Napoleon himself; that no fair and cool judgment 
can be made. We must wait and see, but meanwhile I shall do as I 
intended. If they chase me I'll run to Turkey like Charles the twelfth. 

For our discussion I have little more to say. Our ideas are really not 
very widely separated, and if I didn't feel my own weakness so much, 
I might perhaps try to change a very little. But I am tired of trying to 
direct what I have no power over. It's been a great consolation to me 
to know that these things will work themselves out for us, and that 
they will come right of their own accord if they come right at all. I 
shall stick to my present course, which up to a certain point is identical 
with your plan. When that point comes, I'll be ready to decide. 

You have already come to the point and must either decide or leave 
time to unravel the twist. Even a decision will not necessarily settle 
the matter if it's against your tastes and wishes. For my own part I 
feel as certain that I shall never be a lawyer, as you are that I'm not 
fit for it. If you are cut out for one, why go in, and God help you. I 
believe myself however that you'll not get far, and I hope you'll not 
stay long. Yet what else to do just now I have no idea, unless you 
beguile the time which your absent clients leave you, by the pursuits 
of writing, etc., which you recommend to me. 

As for the family papers I know only one thing; that it is not in me 
to do them justice. I am actually becoming afraid to look at the 
future, and feel only utterly weak about it. This is no new feeling; it 
only increases as the dangers come nearer. 

I am collecting materials to write an article on the schools. How 
soon I can do it, or whether I can do it so as to satisfy myself at all, I 
can't say. I shall^adopt the first person in it, and write just as I always 
did and do. It will interfere somewhat with my studies, but six weeks 



IN A DISAGREEABLE POSITION 25 

I hope will change my present arrangement and Dresden will give me 
more time. 

This warm weather and a glimpse or two of clear sky lately, are so 
extraordinary that it almost makes me homesick, for it seems as if 
there was no fine weather in Berlin. For nearly five months I have 
seen very little but clouds, or rather a dead dull sandy sky, and dark, 
rainy or damp days. The thermometer has only twice fallen below 
thirty since I've been here. I hardly ever wear a great coat, day or 
night, yet have never had so little trouble from colds or sickness. The 
Americans are beginning to leave Berlin. A number went down to 
Vienna this last week. Nick Anderson goes in a fortnight to Dresden 
and in June to England probably, to meet his father. Crowninshield 
leaves Hannover and we expect him here very soon, to abide with us a 
few weeks before also going to Dresden. . . . 

Now that my time's nearly up at my school, only three weeks more 
to run before the examinations, I am beginning to find myself in 
rather a disagreeable position there. Within the last two or three days 
I have seen indications, very slight to be sure, but still awkward for 
me, that the masters don't like me. My own master behaves with the 
most perfect regularity, and they are all very polite, but naturally 
they find it very hard to know how to treat me. Tomorrow evening I 
am to call on Schwarz, the Ordinarius of my Class, to get some in- 
formation from him about the schools (of course I've said nothing to 
any one about writing of them) and I mean to find out what the diffi- 
culty is. Of course, you know, if I find I am giving trouble, I shall with- 
draw at once, and perhaps now that my three months are nearly over, 
it will be as good a thing as remaining, for, you see, by doing this in a 
polite manner, I can get some claim on Schwarz's gratitude, and make 
him a friend instead of a master. Now, I want to visit several of the 
schools here, and also to obtain a large amount of information that I 
should perhaps not be able to get except through him. So, if I find to- 
morrow evening that my suspicions are right, I shall strike while the 
iron's hot and do my best to turn the trouble to my advantage. On 
the other hand, if I am mistaken, and have imagined all this, I shall 
hold on at the school, which really is quite pleasant, till the term's 
over and try to get what I want gradually. More than the three 
months I cannot remain, for many reasons, a part of which you will 
see of course in what I said at first about the general result of the ex- 
periment. But more directly than that is the fact that after the warm 
weather sets in I should not dare go there. It would give me the 
typhus fever or something horrible in a fortnight. So soon therefore as 



26 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

I can get things wound up here, I shall go on to Dresden, taking my 
same course of study with me. 

I was at the Legation last evening talking with Governor Wright, 
returned Californians, young medical students, etc., etc. I see that my 
visit to Humboldt has got into the papers as I supposed it would, con- 
found 'em. Nick was also at the Legation. He leaves Berlin on the 
24th not to return. We expect Crowninshield very soon, perhaps this 
evening, but he may not come for a week. I hear that Billy Howe * is 
at Vienna, Secretary of Legation, I was told. It is possible, if I feel 
rich, I may go down the Danube to Vienna before going into the Tyrol 
in July or August. If so I shall look for William 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

BERLIN, 6 April, 1859. 

Verily, my beloved Brother, thy last gave me pleasure. Thy wit is 
well-favored though coarse withal, and i' good faith pleases me. For 
my own part I imagine that my letters for the last few months can 
hardly have caused much delight, inasmuch as they have neither been 
written in good spirits, nor always in good temper. I received at the 
same time with your last, one from the head of the family in answer to 
a particularly cross effusion of mine. The paternal rejoinder was good- 
natured, though with a not unhappy strain of sarcasm, which for a 
person of his time of life was really not so bad. You know the usual 
run of the article in elderly individuals. We can only gently pity the 
weakness and forget it. I answered the letter (omitting the satire) in a 
dignified manner and hope it will rest there. Really these liberties 
must be discouraged. We cannot allow Congressmen to address us in 
this familiar way. 

Thy own letter, mine Brother, needs an answer in extenso. Our dis- 
cussion I will let drop. The truth seems to be that your idea is on a 
large scale and mine on a smaller one. I'm drifting that way and have 
been all my life. On the other hand youVe struck on a snag, but I'm 
in hopes the Governor's political life will give you something to think 
of and to do. My path is clear to me for five years yet, and, I think, 
for any number of years. 

As for your "hitting me," though one is softer in this atmosphere 
than anywhere else, yet I don't beg off. Hit away, my boy, as hard 
as you please and if you're always as right as you were in that matter, 
Til stick it out. We're all mortal and all liable to feel cross and blue; 

1 William Edward Howe (d. 1875). He was not secretary of legation. 



GERMAN SOCIETY 27 



especially when one doesn't see a clear sky or a bracing atmosphere 
more than three days in six months. So peg away as much as you like. 
I'm expecting a sisserara all round from home in consequence of my 
last letters, but as I'm a good way off I shall bear it philosophically. 
There is a comfort in getting a blow-up a month old. Independence is 
a mighty pleasure. 

I tell you what, young man, Boston's a little place, but damn me if 
it isn't preferable to this cursed hole. I don't think I've ever heard 
more promiscuous swearing than I have from all sorts of fellows within 
these three months about this sort of life. Such a cussin' and a damnin' 
from religious individuals, such a consumption of steaks and Pisporter 
of evenings to raise one's spirits, such an amount of study from disgust 
at everything else, is unparalleled in history. Society! Good God, a 
man might as well try to get into the society of the twelve Apostles as 
any society worth having here. They're as proud as damnation and as 
mean as the vile climate. I never saw a flirtation going on, though 
they've got some jolly places for it. I've no idea where the balls are, 
that is the fashionable balls, for their palaces aren't any too good for 
one, and the private lodgings utterly incompetent. The aristocracy 
all belong to the Court and hate everything that smells of America. 
They seem to have no hospitality, as we do, and as for "making a 
house one's home," no one but a Prince of the Blood dares to invite 
any one to dinner. I really believe that there is no society in Germany 
that would give me any great pleasure, it seems to be so different from 
all I ever met before. The idea of every one's living in suites of rooms, 
cursed holes that at home no man with two hundred and fifty dollars 
a year would be willing to look at. Then this keeping mistresses is all 
very well, but from what I've seen of it, I'd rather have one respect- 
ably bright girl to talk to if she was as ugly as my German shoes. 

Now, my good youth, don't air your sarcasm on me for running 
into extremes in this way. The truth is I've pent up my wrath till 
I'm tired, and now that I'm on the point of leaving Berlin for six 
months, I'll just abuse it as much as I damn please. Not that it's 
worse than other places. Paris is just as bad if I can believe dozens of 
different fellows' reports. Dresden is infinitely worse and Hannover 
just ten times worse. Munich may be better, but I don't believe it; 
and so with Wien. But I've eaten German dishes till I'm nearly run 
to pieces. I've lived in this air till I'm all used up. I've studied the 
damned language till I'm utterly lost in it, and finally despair of ever 
becoming a German. For the last fortnight I've been afraid to eat 
any more of their vile compounds, and have lived on a beefsteak a day. 



28 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

My pleasantest reading has been Cicero de Officiis and v. Ronne, 1 das 
prussische Schulwesen; my only polite society the Ap thorps; my great- 
est amusement Sinfonie Concerts, Mozart's Operas and Rhine wine, 
and now, by God, I'm going. So there you have it summed up nice. 

I'm in a jolly good humor tonight, or I should calumniate this city, 
But as it is, I am rather lenient towards it. I only say the world is 
wide; manners are different; and German customs don't suit my ideas. 
It's got brutally played out. Fellows who can live on music or art or 
women are all very well here. I've done as well as I could at all three. 
The two first are good. The last is a damned humbug. But I need 
something more yet, even if Law is thrown into the bargain 

You ask my plans for the summer. They're not formed yet further 
than I've described in my last letters home. One thing is determined. 
I leave this city on the I2th April. Higginson wants to go off to 
Weimar for a few days and as my school is up now, I may as well go 
off with him. Thence to Dresden. Ain't I glad, though the weather is 
no better than it was last November, December, January, February 
and March. 

My article or articles on the schools is going on to an enormous 
length. At Weimar and Dresden I'm going to re-write it and throw 
it into the form of letters; three or four; but I long ago gave up any 
idea of printing them; I write only to keep my hand in, and for future 
use, after I get home. Don't suppose that this is affectation on my 
part, and that I want to be urged. I merely don't care to write for 
publication now. 

Crowninshield is pottering round here without apparently any 
object, and also Cabot. 2 Ben talks unendingly about Hannover which 
if I hadn't seen it, I should imagine from his account to be a sort of a 
sixteenth Heaven. He hates it bad though; much worse than I do 
Berlin. Joe Bradlee 3 is perfectly happy there with his music and the 
young Unger, 

I'm a philosopher, and eat beef-steaks, the only things, actually 
and truly, that are cooked here so that any nutriment remains in them. 
My God, I wish I could make you eat "erbsen, sauer-kohl and 
pokelfleisch," or "kartoffelnklos," and if you didn't blaspheme, I'm 
mistaken. 

April 9.,.. I'm now busy in packing and taking leave, and as it is 
always well to provide for contingencies, I will just notify you that in 
x Ludwig Moritz Pehr von Ronne (1804-1891). 
9 Louis Cabot (1837-1914). s Josiah Bradlee (1838-1902). 



A CALL ON BARON VON RONNE 29 

a large box which Higginson and I leave at Anhalt & Wageners, filled 
with books, etc., is a package addressed to you. In case I should come 
a Frank Howe game, you must take care that that package does come 
to you and to no one else, for it contains my journal for five years, and 
some of my own letters, yours, John's, HunnewelTs, etc., etc., etc. 
There is also a short letter of directions in it. This providing for un- 
pleasant contingencies seems queer, but can't be helped. I'm sure 
one has warnings enough that he set his house in order, from the way 
that fellows drop off. 

You needn't show the first part of this letter to the parients nor tell 
them how I blow up. ^ The great difficulties here are really only three; 
one that the weather is so bad; the second that the city and country is 
so flat and unpleasant; the last that one cannot get nutritious and 
healthy food. Otherwise the place is pleasant and attractive. 

You can however tell the Congressman that I have just come in 
from a P.P.C. visit to Baron v. Ronne. He gave me a card of admit- 
tance to a debate of the Landtag a little while ago, for which I wished 
to thank him. He was exceedingly kind. He and I had a quite long 
conversation, extending over a number of subjects, from the schools, 
in which I am interested, to the war which he says will surely come, 
though Prussia wants bad to dodge it. Such is fate. Among other 
things he invited me to call on him at Bonn if I was there, and advises 
me next winter to be presented at Court. The Baron looks dreadfully 
unwell, but I sincerely hope I shall find him here next winter, for he 
might be of great assistance. I shall call on him at Bonn where I shall 
be for some time in the fall. 

I've bid good bye to my school, the semestre of which ends the day 
I am to leave Berlin. The boys have always been very polite to me, 
and I've had not a shade of trouble with any one, scholar or master. 
It has taught me a good deal, but the two chief things are 1st. to 
understand what is said; id. to talk with confidence, and not to think 
I mustn't speak because I can't speak like a German. Lord, you ought 
now to hear me coolly wind myself up in German conversation. The 
people laugh, but they understand. At Dresden I am going into a 
family to try that experiment. The arrangement is all made and my 
trunks go right on, while I stop a day or two round in spots, Witten- 
berg, Leipsic, Weimar, etc., etc. 

Don't imagine because I blow up at Berlin that it's so intolerable 
a$ all that. The truth is I've had a great deal of low spirits here, and 
am only now getting really the better of them, permanently, I hope. 
(Don't think I've got the pox or am in love; neither is true.) Still die 



30 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

winter as I look back on it has been by no means so bad, though 
I'm devilish glad it's over. At all events it's changed my ideas and 
course of life immensely. But one of your balls would have been a 
God-send to me any time last month. 

You have my Dresden address. H. G. Bassenge & Co. How long 
I shall stay there I've no idea; perhaps a month, perhaps two* Puchta 
and the Institutes r and Cicero will satisfy my cravings for literature. 
You don't know Puchta. Well, he's a cussed old jurist.... 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

DRESDEN, April 22, 1859. 

MY DEAR FELLOW: Your letter of the jd arrived to-day. I owe 
three to the family; one to mamma which I'm afraid must go un- 
answered except for what you can read for the common benefit in this; 
one to John, which I shall enclose with this; and one to you. Taking 
your letter through in order, in the first place if it's all right about the 
paternal "hints" and my "explosions," I am contented and let it 
remain so. ... You find fault with my wishing that you may not 
remain long in the law, and if your three alternatives are right, I 
acknowledge I'm wrong. I wrote however under the idea that there 
were other branches of development open to you. Society I'll leave for 
John. Yet I will say incidentally that I agree with you in your ideas 
about your position in it, and I wouldn't be sorry to see one or both 
of you married.... 

I know nothing about public and newspaper matters with you. 
Sickles's 2 trial I had not heard a whisper about. I hope he'll hang 
though. Whoever told you that an Atlantic voyage salts a letter, 
never said a truer thing. It gives a most rare and delicate flavor, 
and you never made a greater mistake if you imagine that your 
letters don't repay the trouble they give. If all your effusions are read 
by the public with as much interest as your letters are by me, you'll 
be a devilish lucky fellow. 

Your letter needs so much answering. On the other hand I shall 
have no difficulty in filling up my sheets this time, for I've been off on 
a lark and I've more than enough to say. 

Well, Gott sei Dank, I've seen the last of Berlin for a considerable 
time, and here I am in the good city of Dresden among the Saxons, and 
also a heap of Americans, to all of whom except two or three I've 

1 Georg Friedrich Puchta and his Cursus der Institutionen [of Justinian]. 

Pgniel Edgar Sickles (b, 18*3), who shot PbiUp Barton Key, and was acquitted. 



WITTENBERG, DESSAU, AND WEIMAR 31 

shown and shall show a very cold shoulder. On the twelfth, at seven 
o'clock in the morning I left Berlin in company with Crowninshield, 
Higginson, and Mr. Apthorp with his wife, mother-in-law and small 
son Willy, who went along with us so far as Wittenberg to perform a 
pilgrimage to the shades of Luther and partly to bid us adieu. Never 
mind the particulars. Wittenberg is a dirty, stupid little place, and 
one's elevated sensations turn into extreme weariness after a couple of 
hours in it. Mr. Apthorp's crowd here turned back, and we, after two 
hours of slightly stupid waiting at the little depot, took tickets on to 
Halle. To Halle we should have gone, if some restless devil hadn't 
inspired us with an admiration for the appearance of Dessau from the 
car-window, and induced us at forty seconds warning to step out of 
the car and sacrifice our tickets to Halle. As we had no baggage ex- 
cept our carpet bags, shawl-strap-contents and travelling pouches, 
this was easy. The inhabitants of the charmingly neat little Dessau, 
however, who don't see a stranger more than once in a life-time, 
must have been somewhat bewildered at seeing our procession march 
through their silent streets. For throughout our trip we insisted on 
carrying our own baggage and were usually accompanied to and from 
the hotels by from two to six large men who seemed to think we were 
madmen over whom it was their part to exercise a careful surveillance. 
We used to try all sorts of experiments on them to see what their ideas 
were; stopping short, to see if they also would stop too; walking fast, 
walking slow; but they never left us at any price. I suppose in Ger- 
many no gentleman carries his own carpet bag. Luckily there were 
enough of us not to care whether they did or not. 

So we landed at Dessau and rambled round the town till we found 
a hotel. Never mind Dessau, however. I'm not going to copy Murray 
nor Baedeker, the German Murray, which we always carry. It's a nice, 
funny little Pumpernickel. Read Fitzboodle for the best idea of these 
one-horse principalities. We left it the next morning in the same 
order of march, and went on to Weimar, which is much such another, 
only they bore you to death there with Goethe and Schiller. Vide 
Murray for sights, all of which we saw, the funniest sight however 
being ourselves. Here unexpectedly John Bancroft x joined us, as he 
was removing from Dresden to Diisseldorf. He was a great addition 
to our party. Modest, agreeable, good-natured and both able and 
cultivated, he is a remarkably pleasant companion, and as he talks 
better German than any of us, was usually our spokesman. We never 
put up at the best hotels if there was a cheaper one, and I caa tell you, 

* John Chandler P*ncroft (1835-1901), son of George Bancroft. 



32 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

if it isn't always so comfortable, it is in the long run a great deal 
pleasanter. If you were as tired of great hotels as I am, you'd see why 
this is so, and why I, exclusive of money considerations, prefer to 
sacrifice a little comfort and get a little something new. We travelled 
cheaply sometimes, but when we chose we spent as much as we liked. 
It wasn't much though. 

The next day we went on to Eisenach (my plans of work at Weimar 
were knocked in the head). Eisenach is delightful. The old Wartburg 
above it is covered with romance and with history until it's as rich as 
a wedding-cake. The walks and views are charming and I would 
willingly have remained two or three days, but the next morning we 
packed every shred of extra baggage off to Dresden; made a grand 
immolation of our beavers (except Higginson who clung to his with 
a love that was more than love, and left it with the baggage master, 
"to be called for") and taking an open carriage rode through a heavy 
rain down to Waltershausen, a little place south of Gotha, where we 
proposed to begin what! Why a walk in April through the Thu- 
ringian Wood. 

We carried only our great coats and Ben and I a night shirt. A 
tooth-brush in one pocket; some collars in another, and some handker- 
chiefs in, a third. I strapped the coat over my shoulders with a shawl 
strap; the others tied theirs & la mihtaire. We never wore them while 
walking and though mine is very thick and heavy I never felt it 
disagreeably. We started from Waltershausen that afternoon and 
walked some three hours, stopping once only to drink a glass of bier 
and smoke a cigar. The scenery was very pretty and, perhaps, three 
centuries ago, wild. The sky reasonably clear, and the weather cool 
so that we were not too warm. That night we arrived at a little place 
called Georgenthal where we got a jolly supper and slept in two most 
romantically large, rickety, cold and ghostly chambers, with the wind 
outside blowing like fits and creaking the dismal old sign in the most 
pleasing manner. Up the next morning at about eight and had a 
delectable breakfast of which honey was the great delicacy, and I 
never before appreciated how good honey was. Set out under the care 
of a man who pretended he would guide us through the woods, but he 
was consummately stupid and we soon found ourselves on the high- 
road again. So we dismissed the guide and pegged ahead through 
heavy snow showers which we didn't mind in the least, stopping 
once at a little dorf where we had a glass of bier and smoked a cigar 
and Bancroft sketched a dog. Bier is a first-rate thing to walk on and 
we marched along for an hour up a charming valley with a clear sky 



A WALKING TOUR 33 

and the best of spirits. Crowninshield and Higginson were geese 
enough to tire themselves by running up a tremendous hill on time, 
against bets of a bottle of wine, which they won and which like other 
bets we made, haven't been paid. By and by we began to get deuced 
tired. The road wound up and up and up and it seemed as if it would 
never end. We first got into mud, then into slush, then into snow two 
inches deep, and at last I for one was pretty much used up, and the 
others not much better. Oberhof appeared however after a tramp of 
near five hours; a little village perched on the top of the hills, where 
it was yet dead winter with more snow than Fd seen for a year. 
It snowed heavily all the afternoon, and as I declared I walked for 
pleasure and not to get over ground, and wouldn't stir another step 
that day, Higginson who urged going ahead, was forced to give in and 
we passed the afternoon as well as we could, finishing by a round talk 
and a couple of bowls of a compound known as Gliihwein; claret 
punch, hot, with spices and things. The next morning we set off 
again at eight o'clock in a snow-storm, with from two to eight inches 
snow on the ground, over a mountainous country. You may think 
this wasn't much fun, and indeed I believe I was the only one who 
really enjoyed it, but the glow, the feeling of adventure and the 
novelty; above all, the freedom and some wildness after six months in 
Berlin, made it really delightful to me. I haven't felt so well and fresh 
for ever-so-long. After two hours we reached the Schmucke, a couple 
of houses on the other side of the hills, and here, sir, we indulged our- 
selves in a real American tipple. We procured the materials and under 
Ben Crowninshield's skilled direction, we brewed ourselves a real ten- 
horse-power Tom and Jerry, which had a perfectly miraculous effect 
on our spirits and set Ben to walking down that hill with the speed of 
a locomotive. Bancroft and I took it more gently and fell behind. 
The day cleared; the snow gradually disappeared as we descended and 
we got to Ilmenau to dinner at about two o'clock. Rode on in an open 
wagon from Ilmenau two hours to Konigsee through mostly unin- 
teresting country, and at Konigsee slept. The next morning, in the 
most curious manner and without previous concert we all caved in 
and agreed nem. con. to ride the remaining day's journey. So we did 
ride it, whiling away the time in an intellectual and highly instructive 
series of free fights to keep us warm, which commonly ended in a grand 
state of deshabille all round. The scenery was pretty; one view quite 
charming, but the day was mostly cloudy and cold and for my part 
I was so exhausted with fighting and laughing that I hardly cared for 
anything. We dined at Rudolstadt, the capital of the little Princi- 



34 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

pality of Schwarzenburg-Rudolstadt or something of the sort. It had 
as usual an enormous palace, and the Prince I believe is as poor as a 
rat. Hence we pressed on, hiring a lumbering old travelling-wagon, 
and after six hours of going up interminable hills and going down 
interminable hills, we jolted down by the statue of old Wieland into 
little Weimar and put up zum goldnen Adler as before. So our journey 
was over. It had been made wholly without plan. None of us knew 
six hours ahead what we were going to do. It was jolly as could be and 
the fellows were all pleasant and indifferent to everything except what 
was pleasant, so that we had a jovial time. Still I did not object to 
getting through with it. We none of us cared to lose more time. 
Diisseldorf and drawing were calling Bancroft. Bonn and the Pan- 
dects were yawning for Higginson. Dresden and Puchta shouting for 
me, and whatever Ben's plans are, it was time he should begin some 
application in earnest. So we were not sorry to find ourselves in 
Weimar again. 

So with the exception of a few hours stay in Leipzig, here I am 
comfortably settled in Dresden, thanks to Higginson who got me my 
room. Bancroft is already in Diisseldorf. Higginson sets out in a day 
or two for Bonn. Ben is here seeking a family, but I doubt if he gets 
what he wants. Anderson is here, but unless he changes his set, he'll 
not see me much. Many other Americans are here, but if possible I 
shall not go near them. A Mr. Stockton r is consul and does the hos- 
pitalities, but except under compulsion I shall not go within a mile of 
him. I mean to leave Arthur Dexter's letter on his brother if he's 
here, though I don't expect that it will do me much good. Until I get 
tired, there's no need of seeking this society which, I imagine is con- 
fined to the Americans and English whose name is legion. 

Puchta arrives on Monday, by which time I hope all my arrears 
will be done up and I shall set to work to try and make something out 
of old Herr Justinian's Institutions, which it is quite time I was at. 
Dresden is a pretty place with much more attractive points than 
Berlin; as good a theatre and the best Gallery north of the Alps. It's 
shut now but reopens again soon, when I shall go and learn it by heart. 
Weather of course bad as usual; the worst ever known, say the Ger- 
mans. But as yet I don't mind that and have got plenty to do even 
though in this Holy week every place of amusement is closed and not 
even a concert to be heard, thanks to their idiot of a King's being 
Catholic. The change of residence has done me good and I feel better 
in every way than I did in that damned hole of a 

* P, At Stogkten, consul at Leipzig. 



DRESDEN 35 

So you may count on my remaining here for two months and I 
imagine that they'll be pleasant ones, although after my Berlin 
experience I've become confoundedly skeptical about all places, un- 
less there's some absorbing mental application. It's delightful to live 
a little while in a new city but when the fun is exhausted, it gets 
played out. 

I've received a letter from Loo at Rome in fits about the Dying 
Gladiator. What she means to do this summer I've no idea. I wrote 
to her that if she'd settle anywhere in Switzerland I'd bring my books 
down and walk with her husband. This blasted war which will prob- 
ably break out within a week if they're not at it already, knocks the 
Tyrol in the head. Then there will also probably be fighting on the 
Rhine so that God only knows where a fellow can go, except to Nor- 
way, which indeed I would like to visit. Extras are out to-night which 
indicate that the Austrian troops are preparing to cross the Rubicon, 
and then all Europe's ablaze; Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Hannover 
and Saxony, to say nothing of the various other "Bundesgenossen" 
who contribute ten men and a drummer apiece to the "Reichs 
armee." 

You'll be out in the country when this reaches you, and can philoso- 
phize in peace over it there. But I recommend you if you mean to 
travel, to do it first in America. You speak of astonishing the relatives, 
I suppose by trotting off somewhere, but it don't pay to come to 
Europe and rush over it, and that's just what does pay at home. Go 
out into the wilds, boy; pass a month round among the Mormons and 
then come back with a clear head and a little practical knowledge. I 
don't know how Loo can stand her travels and be in raptures still at 
everything. I get so bored by all these sights that I only want to get 
out of their way. A Gallery ought to be visited once a week an hour 
each time, to really enjoy it; otherwise one loses his power of apprecia- 
tion. . . . 

To Charles Francis Adams,, Jr. 

DRESDEN, May 15-17, 1859. 

MY DEAR CHARLES, I suppose by this time you've received my 
letters all square. I've answered every one of yours most religiously; 
one arrived April 1st, and was answered April loth. Another received 
April 22d was answered April 25th with John's. The present one 
arrived two days ago. 
I wish I could write as long us you, and 1 admire yow 



36 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

ingly. You've made a first-rate letter out of common-place materials. 
But the truth is, though I have probably a thousand things to your 
one to say, I get so tired of writing them that it comes hard. However 
Fll do my worst and let her go 

For my school article, I've already written to you about my change 
of plan. It's now finished in the form of two letters, about the same 
length, very poorly written and excessively stupid. Don't imagine 
I'm modest. If you ever see them you'll appreciate that my remarks 
are not at all unjust. At present they are lying in my trunk, and are 
likely to remain undisturbed until when years are over, I shall have 
occasion perhaps to use them. They are now in a wholly unpublish- 
able state, and of no use except as a series of notes and references. 
The last Atlantic was remarkably good. I passed a whole rainy morn- 
ing reading it, and my laughter over parts of the Review of Wilson's 
Mexico aroused the Frauleins in the next room to the belief that my 
reason was yielding In other words, I'm really obliged to you for 
your offers but, as I felt here just as soon as I began to write, I can't 
do anything to satisfy myself or anyone else, and as I have here a 
very positive objection to making myself uncomfortable, I think I 
shall let the matter remain in its "trunk-ated" state. 

I feel precious little like working very hard here, I can tell you. 
With the exception of a few pages of Roman law every day, I don't 
do much labor, unless you call long walks on fine afternoons, and talk- 
ing nonsense with the Frauleins labor. This place is a most decided 
improvement on Berlin and my position here is much pleasanter in 
every way. In the first place I'm far enough along in the language to 
be able to feel at my ease among the people. Then it's summer and 
we occasionally have a real American day. Then the country round 
Dresden is delightful. In fifteen minutes one can walk out on any side 
to very pretty scenery and get a glass of beer in thousands of pretty 
little restaurations. Then I'm in a family and don't feel lonely. And 
finally and perhaps the greatest reason of all, it's still new and I 
haven't yet got tired of it. 

You think I suppose of course that one must be happy as pie under 
such circumstances, and I confess that I do enjoy myself exceedingly 
and can imagine that it will be tough to come home into an amiable 
lawyer's office. But the deuce of it all is that one gets so used to it, and 
doesn't at all appreciate his position. It's only when I think of you 
and your daily routine and your necessary confinement in Boston that 
I feel the contrast and see in what a pleasant place my lines have 
fallen. Still,. the longer I remain here and the more I wander about, 



A GERMAN WEDDING RECEPTION 37 

the firmer my conviction is that old Milton was right when he talked 
about the mind's being its own place, etc., etc., and sich. I believe I 
enjoyed myself just as much at home as I do here, though of course 
there were times when it was infernally slow. The difference is that 
the whole ground is changed. My pleasures and my troubles are all 
different from what they were at home, and I shall have really to get 
home and at work before I shall appreciate how much I really have 
enjoyed myself here. 

Society with you is over. With me it is just begun. Perhaps too 
ended^at the same time. Last Wednesday, one of the brothers of my 
establishment, a Lieutenant, was married and I was invited to the 
feast. So at five o'clock I came to my room and costumed myself in 
that same old dress coat which has seen so many experiences on both 
sides of the ocean; and then taking one of those nondescript one- 
horse carryalls which are known through Germany as droschkes, I 
rode over the bridge and arrived at the Hotel known as the Stadt 
Wien, or H6tel de Vienne. Here I was shown upstairs and had taken 
off my coat and was calmly drawing on a pair of gloves, when the 
servant opened the folding-door and I was horrified at seeing before 
me an army of white dresses and sternly fixed countenances arranged 
in order, and all staring, gravely, as if it were a funeral, at me as if I 
was the coffin. With that grace and suavity of manner for which I am 
famous, I marched up and stormed the phalanx by a series of bows. 
I did attempt one speech at a person whom I supposed to be the father 
of the bride, but he looked so alarmed and seemed so thoroughly over- 
whelmed with his white cravat, that I backed off and took to flight 
without an answer. Probably I should have remained smirking in the 
middle of the floor all the evening if I hadn't caught sight of one of my 
Frauleins grinning at me. I bolted to her and began chattering non- 
sense fluently. Admired the bride's dress as in duty bound. She wore 
all white, as is necessary, and a myrtle wreath on her head, fastening 
her veil and a bouquet of white flowers in her hand. The bridegroom 
who had just that day received his promotion as Ober Lieutenant or 
First Lieutenant, was very polite to me, probably because I had pre- 
sented to my four Frauleins, his sisters, bouquets all round just before 
they set off to the church; a piece of extravagance which I had in- 
tended should cost me six dollars but which through a stupid blunder 
of the gardener who didn't understand my German and sent smaller 
bouquets than I ordered, only did cost one American dollar and a half. 
So here I ensconced myself, behind the muslin, and talked idiocy till 
all the officers and guests had arrived. It is true I found myself alone 



38 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

among the female portion; all the males standing in a corner and 
talking together. However it wasn't my business. I did know some 
of the women and didn't know any of the men and they didn't seem 
to care to trouble me or make my acquaintance, so I didn't trouble 
them. At last a movement was visible. The alarmed old party in the 
white cravat paired off with a stiff old lady who had made a bow when 
I was presented to her. The officers bolted for their partners and I 
was notified to take the Fraulein Emmeline Strauss into the supper 

room the which I did. Here we 
Bndesrelatlons were arranged at table as per 
Bnde diagram. I was placed in a seat 

Groom which I imagine was not the seat 

Groom's father o f honor and had my partner on 
do. mother my right and a small boy on my 
* I left who eat and drank largely 

P SI | and didn't answer my only ob- 

. w 8 8 servation to him. Other small 

> boys opposite who drank too 

tt> i i i 

much and eat quite enough. 

Dinner began (seven o'clock) with soup; then meat, game, all sorts 
of German dishes, wine (sherry, claret and Rhine). I talked at inter- 
vals and the Lieutenant next my partner also talked largely and we 
had rather an amusing time, making a good deal of noise so that the 
papa came down and reproved Fraul. E. Strauss. 

Presently after the first course one of the numerous officers arose 
and recited a piece of poetry which I couldn't understand very well 
and which he himself hadn't committed very well. However it passed 
and ended with a call for a grand "hoch" or hurra, so we all "hoched" 
and marched round and touched our glasses with the bride and bride- 
groom. Then another course, another speech, another "hoch" and 
drinking. And so on till the program was at last varied by quite a 
pretty ceremony. The sister and brother of the bride came up behind 
her and took off from her head the myrtle wreath, which only maidens 
can wear, replacing it with a simple little band of flowers, and at the 
same time the sister reciting another piece of poetry applicable to the 
occasion. This again ended with a "hoch" and more touching of 
glasses, and then another course. In the next interval one of the 
young ladies appeared as a market woman in costume, with a great 
basket strapped on her shoulders as the common women wear them 
here; and standing behind the bride she made her another poetical 
address producing from her basket the emblems of her household 



A GERMAN WEDDING RECEPTION 39 

duties, such as a lot of eggs, flour, butter, etc., etc. I couldn't under- 
stand the poetry very well. It was none of it original, but as I was 
told made for the occasion by poets whose business it is and whose 
advertisements are to be seen in the papers. 

After this the supper ended. The company left the rooms for a 
while, and when the tables had been removed we came back and the 
dancing began. We had had music on and off all the evening. As I 
was talking with one of the young ladies, the bridegroom came up and 
asked me if I wouldn't come and take a glass of wine, so I went with 
him into a smaller room which looked into the supper room and 
where most of the gentlemen were smoking and drinking. Not to be 
peculiar I also took a cigar and a glass of wine and made an effort to 
talk with one of the officers. The conversation naturally fell on the 
war, and I expressed a regret (which the Lord knows I don't feel) that 
the Austrians should have let their two days start be lost by negotia- 
tions. My very modest remark was taken in such dudgeon that I 
dropped the whole affair and walked off into the dancing room where 
I took a turn or two in the polka. They dance very fairly here indeed, 
though I don't like it so well as our own style at home. So the even- 
ing passed in variations of dancing and cigar, but I confess that what 
with the fish, etc., at supper, I was fearfully and overpoweringly 
sleepy towards twelve o'clock. It was all very quiet though. I didn't 
see any overdrinking as I'd expected. There was no noise nor indeed 
any very large amount of liveliness that I saw, and at about half after 
twelve (the married couple having disappeared) we separated and I 
conducted my large flock over the quiet old bridge in the moonlight, 
home; for the father is sick and had to retire early and I had the keys. 

There may have been about forty or fifty people there. Almost all 
the men were Lieutenants. The women were as German women 
usually are, but dressed I think in less bad taste than the Berlinese. 
German women don't please me; at least those of this class, which is 
second or third rate. I've not met any of the nobles or first society and 
probably never shall, but these that I have met, all look too coarse 
complexioned and dowdy; remind me too much of their diet and want 
of soap and water. None that I've seen have any ideas beyond their 
households and little general information. They are good-natured 
and polite, but evidently an American is not the thing here. America 
is much disliked now in Europe and no one will believe anything good 
of it, I never allow myself, or very seldom to get into a discussion on 
the subject for they are wholly incapable as a rule of understanding 
our ideas on these points. They live in another atmosphere. 



40 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

This is a good place for engravings if you want me to get some for 
you. I myself have thoughts of being extravagant in this connection 
and I want you to do a small commission for me. I want you to go 
down to your engraving man, 1 forget his name, and ask him whether 
he has a good engraving of the Madonna di San Sisto, by Muller, and 
how much he charges for it. You can also if you will, find out what he 
calls his best engravings of this picture and send me the engraver's 
name and prices annexed. I saw last winter at his store a number of 
these engravings and I want to find out whether the difference in price 
is enough to warrant my buying one here* Midler's engravings of this 
picture have the highest reputation here; so I wish you particularly to 
ask about the prices of the same man's works in Boston. 

The world goes on here quietly enough. I know very few persons in 
this city, Ben Crowninshield being the only American I see much of. 
We walk together a good deal, if the weather suits, which happens 
about once a week. I wonder whether they ever have good weather in 
Europe. I've seen just four days, I think, really clear and bright 
straight through. 

I remain in Dresden pretty certainly till the 1st of July. Not having 
heard from Loo for ever-so-long, I sent off last week a laconical note 
to her which I think will bring an answer, if she's received it. Of course 
I can't settle any plans till I hear from her and this cursed war, which 
has already reduced Austrian paper money fifty per cent, and makes 
me give nearly five per cent discount on my drafts on London, they 
say, though I've drawn none since the war began. 

My God, my boy, what a bad affair that Sickles trial was. What 
cursed fool made that " Sunday morning " opening for the prosecu- 
tion? How can the people act so like idiots as to treat such a man so? 
It horrifies these German idiots here and makes me damn mad, for 
I can't defend it. Yours, H. 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

DRESDEN, June 7, 1859. 

MY DEAR CHARLES, You're unlucky. You say in your last that 
you never took so little pleasure in going out to Quincy as this year. 
In your first letter from Boston last fall you said you had never been 
so sorry to leave Quincy as then. Get your mind into a right state 
again.... John, I see, will be a farmer yet. If he wishes, I'll write a 
series of "Farmer Letters from Europe" for his benefit, to tell how 
things are not done here. Take the stupidest way possible and you'll 
know how they are. . . . 



THE WAR BETWEEN AUSTRIA AND SARDINIA 41 

For the philosophy of your letter, I'm now in such a jovially pleas- 
ant and lazy condition that I can't for the life of me discuss it. Work 
is really out of the question. I've looked for Gibbon but can't find 
him. Try again next winter in Berlin. Really now the weather is 
too fine, the country too pretty and the life too lazy to allow of 
energy. 

^ Why, this life is regal. I don't recollect to have done a great deal 
since we began our fine weather, but I lounged lots. 

Just this instant the Herr Secretar bolted into my room in his shirt 
sleeves with a telegram that the French had entered Milan. Luckily 
the Herr Secretar is himself no friend of Austria, and as I always 
affirm that "Frankreich und Oesterreich sind mir ganz einerlei," I 
don't get into arguments. Still it's deuced hard to avoid cheering and 
kicking somebody when the good news comes. For some time Ben and 
I tried to remain neutral but 'twas no go, Sir. I thank God that as yet 
I've met no Austrian in Dresden who doesn't side with Sardinia. In 
conversations with Germans I never mention the subject, not because 
I'm afraid of the police, for there is little danger of that here, but be- 
cause it's a disagreeable subject. Just once though I'd like to open my 
mouth and express to assembled Saxony that I, H. B. Adams, con- 
sider them a pack of cowardly, stupid idiots. Ben has once or twice 
let out his opinion roundly and quite eloquently, of course not in 
public nor to everybody, but quietly at home. His host is a republican, 
as are very many people here, but they are all so scared about France 
that they've lost all presence of mind. Prussia alone keeps cool and 
knows what she's about. Ben and I have regular old hallelujerums 
together every night when a fresh battle's won. If Milan's taken, 
citadel and all, before July first, I lose a dinner to him at Munich. 

You mustn't complain if we talk a good deal about the wan It 
occupies a very large angle in our thoughts and talk here, and gives 
zest to our life. 

I tell you what, old fellow, I begin to appreciate what the beauty of 
European life is. In Berlin I had no idea. This is considerably a 
different thing. The weather is somewhat ahead of everything yet. 
The city is full of strangers and occasionally a pretty face. One hears 
Russian on one side, French on the other, English everywhere, Ger- 
man occasionally and samples of every other tongue at intervals. 
From five o'clock in the afternoon till nine we are usually walking or 
at concerts. Sun doesn't set till after eight and I tell you that a sunset 
concert on the Briilsche Terrasse at Dresden, sitting under the trees 
and smoking with a view down the Elbe at the sunset, and a view up 



42 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

the Elbe to the pine hills above, is something jolly. I don't deny it, 
I enjoy this life. 

We have enough excursions planned to keep us going every day of 
a stay here. Last Sunday I walked out to a village named Kesselsdorf 
(where Napoleon fought; one of his greatest battle grounds is almost 
under my window) with two of the Frauleins and the father, to visit 
that couple whose marriage I described in one of my last letters. They 
are established there; a battery of artillery quartered on the town. We 
passed the morning here and dined with them, driving down to a 
Brewery in the afternoon and remaining here till sunset. Just imagine 
a father and two young ladies and a German boarder setting out 
from Boston on foot at eight o'clock Sunday morning to walk to 
Quincy and visit a friend. This was a good two hours' walk and 
none of us noticed it in the least, or felt tired after it. Indeed from 
eleven o'clock in the morning till I went to bed at night I was in a 
state of continual boozyness from repeated seidels (or toppfchens as 
they're called here) of bier which I had to drink and which quite 
opened my heart. 

One afternoon Sauren (who is now gone) and I took the steamer and 
went up the Elbe to a famous fortress called the Konigstein, to which, 
in case of a war the king of this great land always packs off the Ma- 
donna and some other great pictures, the contents of what is known 
as the Grimes Gewolbe, including the regalia, and finally his family 
and himself. I believe the various Royal Majesties have several times 
had opportunities to see their armies surrender, and yet had the satis- 
faction to know that there was no getting at their own royal persons. 
Neither Frederic the Great nor Napoleon could take this place. We 
didn't bother about the fortress, for which see Murray, but the river 
was deuced pretty and parts of what they call the Sachsen Switzerland 
were quite fine. 

As for social position it's much as usual. The Frauleins are well 
apparently and I am on the best of terms with them all. I strive with 
giant resolution to do the pretty, but don't effect much on that score. 
Luckily there's no danger of my affections being made away with, 
though I like the girls and try always to be polite. 

As for sights and all that I've tried to see them, but except the 
gallery it was rather a bore. Goodish collection of armor and weapons; 
best in the world I believe in some respects. Grimes Gewolbe, lot of 
old knick-knacks, precious stones and all that; decided bore. Palace, 
frescoes, rather good but no great. In short sight-seeing is an infernal 
nuisance and I now cut it down as short as possible. 



IMPROVEMENT IN GERMAN 43 

My German is I believe really profiting by my stay here and has got 
on quite a step. It is poor enough, Lord knows, but it serves and im- 
proves. Ben and I talk it a good deal together and I've worked quite 
hard on it this last week, writing and committing it. However it's 
a beastly matter and I never expect to speak it really well. Such a 
hobbly, hopeless matter I never saw. Only occasionally I feel con- 
soled, as the other day on the steamer for instance when I stepped 
in to help an Englishman who couldn't even ask for anything to eat. 
It's the set conversations that knock me, especially when I get excited 
and can't recall words. 

No one is here or has been here that I know of. I doubt if I should 
trouble them if they did come. I read the stranger list every morning 
and always see more or less Americans' names, but as I've not yet 
troubled the Consul, it does not seem very probable that extra- 
society will trouble me. One evening at the theatre I sat next to a 
young fellow whose bill I borrowed and who was polite enough to offer 
me his glass. Thereupon I made sundry remarks to him in German, sir, 
that were worthy of a double-distilled native. He didn't answer. 
Says I to myself he's a foreigner and isn't up to Deutsch. Then I 
racked my brains to invent a French sentence but all my small stock 
of French was long since driven out of my head by German. So 
finally I addressed him in English. It turned out that he was an Ameri- 
can, a young fellow named Storrs, from near Worcester in Massachu- 
setts, come abroad for his health, been in Italy, and left Milan in the 
last train that came through. Since then he has left his card on me and 
I shall call on him. He seems to be a very quiet, gentlemanly "boy," 
perhaps nineteen years old, and further I know nothing about him. . . . 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

NURNBERG, July 3, 1859. 

DEAR CHARLES: I've just come in from a walk in the dusk alone 
through this exquisite old city. Ben has gone to bed.... 

This week has been a tremendously busy one and at the same time 
hot as tophet. Last Tuesday afternoon Ben and I visited Tharandt, 
a pretty little town some nine miles from Dresden. The next morning 
at seven we took the cars and went up the Elbe and came to Konig- 
stein, a great fortification perched on a high rock. From here we 
crossed the river to a place below which is pretty and commands a 
beautiful view. This country is called the Saxon Switzerland. I tell 
you what, this seeing sights on a flaming July day is tough. However, 



44 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

I found it very pleasant, for when at about three o'clock we came 
down to take the steamer, we fell in with a gentleman and two ladies, 
one of whom was young and quite pretty. Naturally we entered into 
conversation with the gentleman who was pretty well on in life. He 
was a Russian-Swede; spoke six languages but not English; "my 
daughter speaks English, however." Ja wohl! I made a note of that. 
We continued our conversation, steamer was late; ladies sat a little 
way off and were unapproachable; steamer at last came and I ma- 
noeuvred so as to get a seat by the pretty girl and under the apology 
of bad German entered into an English conversation with her. She 
was clever, highly cultivated and interesting. Had just come from 
Italy and was strong Italian. Spoke pretty English. Was a little taller 
than I in figure; slim; light eyes; distingue. We talked of travelling, 
of poetry, of art, of Italy and of many other things. I passed a pleas- 
ant summer afternoon and liked my friend very much. We arrived at 
Dresden; left the boat; touched our hats; I never shall see the pretty 
Swede again, but that's a traveller's luck and God forbid that I ever 
see enough of a woman in Europe to care for her. That would make 
a fuss. Ten chances to one it makes a fellow unhappy. But now my 
pretty Swede's in Hamburg, I'm in Niirnberg; we never shall meet 
again, but I have a pleasant recollection and count myself richer than 
before by some agreeable hours. 

That evening I ordered down some ice-cream and wine and treated 
my assembled family to an abschiedsfest We all got tight, played 
Schwarzen Peter or old maid at cards and as the Frl. Camilla lost, I 
corked a pair of moustaches on her face. This Frl. is quite nice; we 
abuse each other and call each other names, but I rather like her; she's 
bright and not bad looking. What the family think of me I can't say. 
They seem to think that I'm lazy and selfish. The first I plead guilty 
to, but the last not. They wanted my photograph but I told them I 
was far too handsome to give away my likeness in that way and they 
must wait till all other prior claims are settled. Finally so far as this 
family goes I've nothing more to say than that they were aways kind, 
good-natured, and obliging; I have learned here twice as much Ger- 
man as I knew when I came here and my recollections of this place 
are all pleasant. 

On Thursday morning began packing up in earnest. Ben left a 
trunk here in which I deposited ten shirts and other articles in that 
way and a number of books which will all go on to Boston. I visited 
too the Gallery for the last time and the Madonna, the most exquisite 
of all exquisiteness. After dinner I just managed to get my trunk 



LEIPZIG 45 

packed as the time for departure came, and waited for the droschke 
which ought to have come at quarter past two. It knew better and 
nary appeared. Waited till the last instant, then rushed off with a 
carpet bag and travelling pouch and great coat in a shawl strap. 
Since then I've had no handkerchiefs, nor drawers nor stockings nor 
linen shirts nor anything else. Rushed like a mad bull to a droschke 
station; ordered the coachman to drive as fast as possible to the depot; 
arrived as the door shut but bolted for a ticket "to Nurnberg." On 
tearing out my purse to pay I discovered I had only four thalers and 
the ticket cost eight. My money had gone beyond all idea and I had 
relied on Mr. Ben, who was already in the cars. I said that I had not 
enough money and wished a ticket to Leipsic instead. No! I had or- 
dered Nurnberg; it was stamped and I must take that or none. With 
a tempest of choice English and German execrations I bolted towards 
the glass door to get in without a ticket. No go. Guard forced me 
back. At this instant as I turned round in despair to leave the whole 
concern, Ben's host who was there and had learned my position hur- 
ried up with Ben's purse which held just enough. I got on board the 
train which had probably waited for me, and in a state of pure heat I 
indulged in a general curse to the whole affair, continuing steadily 
fifteen minutes till I got cool. Then we set to work to calculate our 
resources. Ben's position was the same as mine and we could raise 
only four thalers between us. Both of us had however Baring's letters 
in our pockets and our tickets were already paid to Nurnberg. 

So we went on to Leipzig in a heat that made us gasp for air, and 
amused ourselves by reading, talking with a couple of Cadets, and 
also by smoking, as I do, but Ben doesn't indulge in the flagrant 
Bremen. At Leipzig we stopped an hour and attempted to raise 
money but the fool of a banker wouldn't do it and we had no time to 
enquire further. Baring has no agent here. At seven or so we started 
again. In our wagon was a traveller's real set. A Russian with won- 
derful hair and beard parted across his chin; three Poles who spoke 
their native language, which is a mixture of French, German, Italian 
and Greek; one German who said Ja and Nein and no more; and our- 
selves. We fraternised with the hairy Russer and the Poles and had 
quite a jolly time and lively talk till the night came on and towards 
twelve o'clock at a place called Plauen, the Poles departed. We then 
had each a seat and it was cooler. We stretched ourselves out and 
slumbered as well as we could. So we went on all night, changing cars 
at the Bavarian frontier, till towards five o'clock I woke up feeling 
dirty as you please, and sticking my head out of the window got some 



46 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

cool morning air and watched the pretty fields of Franconia with their 
old road-side saints, crucifixes and Madonnas. At six or so we came 
to Bamberg and Ben and I here got out; we wanted to see the city and 
the Cathedral. Cleaned ourselves; breakfasted on milk, hard boiled 
eggs, bread and butter and then rambled up and saw the Cathedral 
which is peculiar and remarkably pretty. Here again we applied for 
money, but as they said we could certainly get it at Niirnberg we didn't 
insist on drawing here. We bought a large quantity of cherries instead 
and went back to our hotel, eat, drank and slept till the cars came at 
two and we had to go out again into the burning heat. 

Two hours on to Nxirnberg. A jolly Nurnberger was our only 
companion, and we were dead of heat. At three we arrived here and 
came straight to this house, the Hotel Zum Strauss. So there are our 
travels! 

Monday ', tfh. Our grand American spread eagle has been remem- 
bered by us today but not celebrated. We drank a glass of wine and 
water to him and let him swim. 

Ben hurries me on. I would stay here a week but we go tomorrow 
morning. My amiable brother, what do you want me to say of this 
city. I hardly know how to express it at all. Think me spooney if 
you will, but last evening as I wandered round in the dusk smoking a 
cigar in these delightful old peaked, tiled, crooked, narrow, stinking 
lanes I thought that if ever again I enjoy as much happiness as here 
in Europe, and the months pass over bringing always new fascinations 
and no troubles, why then philosophers lie and earth's a paradise. 
Ben and I have passed the day in a couple of great churches, lying 
on the altar steps and looking at the glorious stained glass windows 
five hundred years old, with their magnificent colors and quaint 
Biblical stories. So fascinating these things are!... There's no use 
talking about it. Let it go ! Niirnberg is Nurnberg. If I go on I shall 
be silly, even if I've not been already. 

So tomorrow we bid good-bye to Diirer and old Peter Vischer, the 
churches and the streets; the glorious old windows and the charming 
fountains and all the other fascinations of this city, and march on to 
Munich. The weather bids fair to last forever; we roast and broil in 
this absolutely cloudless sky, but sleep well and enjoy life. How long 
Miinchen will take us is a problem, but not more than a week. Ben 
wants to get through. As I'm determined at any price not to return 
to Berlin before the November semester begins, and hate the very 
idea of seeing that city, I'm in no hurry. 

I've not got your letter by me. As to the lecture you administer in 



SWITZERLAND 47 

regard to writing and money, I'm obliged but just now can't under- 
take to discuss it. As for my studying, although I still assert the prin- 
ciple that it is well to work I must confess that any slight efforts I've 
made in that direction have ludicrously failed. Since I left Berlin I've 
not done a thing except pretend to read a page of law a day, an effort 
which unhappily never succeeded. In fact I've acted precisely as you 
recommended, and am quite well satisfied that so far as real work goes 
I shall do little in Europe. At the same time I do not think that the 
time could be better employed and believe that what I'm picking up 
now is of more use than my two years of Blackstone and Carry Bige- 
low, etc., would have been at home. Nevertheless you need not scare 
the Governor by this reflection. Next winter in self-defense I must peg 
away and probably hard. But as for the law I learn in that way mak- 
ing me a jurist, I doubt it. That it may help to make me a strong 
man is more possible; that it may be a mere extra accomplishment 
kept for show is most likely of all. ... 

To Charles Francis Adams > Jr. 

THUN, August 6, 1859. 

DEAR CHARLES, I received your letter of the 2d-9 July the day 
before yesterday together with a splendid batch of others, including 
one from papa and one from John who seems like the ancient Phoenix 
to have become young again and this time so thoroughly that I can't 
begin to keep along with him. When my unhappy conscience will be 
relieved from this weight of letters Heaven only knows. Some time 
ago I wrote a line to mama from Zurich and since then have had every 
moment taken up, what with mountains and general accelerated mo- 
tion. Loo however still writes I suppose h la steam engine and she 
supplies all gaps. 

Here I am as you see in Switzerland and have seen this lion or a part 
of him at last. Very fine he is too, but Englishmen have rather in- 
jured the primitiveness of the beast. Here in Thun we have been for 
several days leading a delightfully primitive and lazy life; Kuhn, 
Theodore Chase, 1 Ben Crowninshield, Loo and I; all economising, and 
I in particular looking forward to that 100 that should be here in a 
week, with a firm consciousness that if it doesn't arrive I shall have 
my movements rather stopped off. Travelling is perfectly frightful. 
A pound a day is the lowest a man can calculate on. You can see 
about where I shall be at the ist of November. 

1 Theodore Chase (1832-1894). 



48 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Tomorrow I'm off for Mt. Blanc, shall see Fred Hauteville * at 
Vevay, be back here on the I5th and set off immediately with Kuhn, 
Loo and Theodore over the St. Gothard into Italy where we shall visit 
Turin and Milan and I shall again leave them at Como and come over 
the Splugen onto the Rhine. This is an innovation on my original 
plan, but Loo wants me to do it and it will only take about two days. 
Then I shall rejoin Ben at Baden and we shall do the Rhine together. 

This is the program. Hope they wont find fault with it at home. It 
will all be done before you receive this letter. 

My own conscience smites me at times when I think of what a big 
plum-cake I've got hold of and what an indigestion it may give me. 
I wish to God I was not the first of the family who had done all this, 
for it renders necessary all sorts of carefulness and puts me as it were 
under obligations and bonds for future conduct. Travel as modestly, 
yes, as meanly as I will, it is wholly impossible to keep independent of 
the Governor's assistance and that will bring its discount, I suppose, 
with it, if not in one way, then in another. But what can't be cured 
must be endured. . . . 



To his Mother 

DRESDEN, November 8,1859. 

At No. 4, Kleine Schiessgasse we're getting on as well as could be 
expected. Frightful kindness overwhelms me from all sides, and I am 
put to my trumps to be polite. I daren't even joke except in my letters, 
and ever have a benign smile on my face. Certainly if I don't become 
as stiff as a German it's not because I don't try. You would scream to 
see me contest with the Herr Hofrath 2 which of us shall enter a room 
first. I open the door and stand back with a bow; he says with a 
gesture towards the room: "bitte recht sehr; aprs vous;" to which I 
smile deprecatingly and remark: "bitte, Herr Hofrath, wollen Sie so 
gut sein;" if he still insists, I yield and precede; if not, he enters and I 
close the door after him with the highest respect. He is frightfully 
learned and buried in science, so that he seldom comes out, but is a 
good old soul and very kind. This afternoon he has been showing me 
all over the royal natural history collection, of which he has the care. 
He wants a stuffed swordfish and a lot of American sea-weeds. I 
should like to help him, but hardly know who to apply to. 

The Frau Mutter is benign as ever. Yesterday afternoon we all 

1 Frederic Sears Grand d'Hauteville (1838-1918). 

a Heinnch Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach (1793-1879), botanist and geologist. 



AN AMIABLE FRAULEIN 49 

went to a concert; that is the Professor, the Mother, the Augusta and 
I. There we met two of our friends, a Countess Rodolorowowski or 
something that sounds like that, and her mother. Goodness gracious, 
the formalities, the bowing and scraping and hopping up and down, 
the air of majesty with which those corpulent ladies swelled about and 
visited their acquaintances at the other tables. My eye, wasn't it 
rum. Meanwhile I sat next the amiable Fraulein (who looked deuced 
pretty and all the Lieutenants envied me) and I think, take the four 
hours through, I may have spoken about ten words an hour; in the 
interval sitting still and looking at my kid gloves. The Countess, too, 
was particularly gracious and addressed several remarks to me. Only 
think! 

As for the Fraulein, ain't she a one-er, that's all. She reminds me all 
the time of Nelly Lowe; in fact I call her "Miss Nelly" now. She's a 
will of her own and gives me the most immense delight. A perfect 
little Tartar, and smooth as a cat. I'll do her the justice to say how- 
ever, she doesn't seem to have any designs on my person, and it's only 
within a few days that she has begun to recognize my presence at all, 
for I don't talk a great deal and haven't paid her any profuse atten- 
tion, seem' as the German girls never know what to make of it when a 
person takes any notice of them. So I laugh at her nonsense and avoid 
personal contact. 

With the brother, Theodor, about twenty-four or five years old, I'm 
better acquainted. He has a large collection of coins and is passion- 
ately fond of all sorts of antiquarian rubbish. If papa wants any par- 
ticular German coins I might perhaps be able to get them through 
young Reichenbach. The other day we went off on a foot-excursion 
and from nine o'clock till nearly four we hardly stopped. Visited a lot 
of villages, old churches, graveyards, and pretty walks and views. The 
neighborhood of Dresden is, as you know, remarkably pretty, and as 
the Theodor knows every foot of it and its history, and the local 
legends in which Saxony abounds, it is very pleasant to wander about, 
though I was pretty tired when I returned. Just now I am in hopes of 
getting up a still more interesting excursion. You must know Saxony 
has lots of ghosts, ruined castles, haunted churchyards and the like. 
Madame Reichenbach is superstitious and in her heart, if she only 
dared say it, believes them all. Indeed I believe every man in Ger- 
many, high or low, has more or less of this, and they gravely assert 
that the White Lady who is said to haunt half the royal places in 
Germany, and announce by her appearance the death of the King or 
the birth of an heir to the throne, has been seen so often and the fact 



50 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

so clearly authenticated that it is impossible to doubt it, and they tell 
a lot of ordinary ghost stories to prove it. 

When sensible people talk this way, I can only make a face, shrug 
my shoulders and politely smile. Of course I believe that it's all stuff 
and nonsense, and wish I could see one of their white ladies. But as 
this is impossible, I have set to work to see if we couldn't hunt up a 
ghost, and just as sure as I can find a promising one, I am going after 
him; and we propose (to Madame's horror) to select some haunted 
ruin and sleep there a night to see if the spectre will be hospitable. Of 
course it must be really romantic; otherwise it will only be a bore. 

I'm pretty well settled now for the winter. Three mornings in the 
week at nine o'clock I go down and take riding lessons; three others my 
fencing master comes and teaches me how to use a rapier. This secures 
a tolerable amount of exercise and regularity. At eight o'clock in the 
evening I am summoned to tea and we talk till past nine, but then 
usually to bed. At one we dine. Madame is horrified that I don't eat 
anything. She's accustomed to German appetites and seems to think 
that a man must starve if he doesn't swill sauerkraut and pickled 
potatoes. Still I will say she does spare me the sauerkraut as much as 
possible, and her table is the best I have yet seen. . . . 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

DRESDEN, 23 November, 1859. 

MY DEAR CHARLES, Your letter arrived this morning and I will 
try to answer it at once though I can't make my answer as long as 
yours. I've too many letters to write for that. But I do what I can. 

To condense then. As you seem to begin by wishing to force me to 
eat my own words I will grant you that pleasure without an argument. 
I'm not the first nor likely to be the last whose ideas on subjects of 
which he is ignorant have turned out to be silly. I acknowledge there- 
fore as broadly as you wish, that so far as my plan went, I have failed 
and done little or nothing. At the same time I feel for myself convinced 
that this last year has been no failure, but on the contrary is worth to 
me a great deal; how much depends on the use I make of it; but the 
worth is there. You say you think I'm a humbug. That implies that 
you once believed I was something. I don't pretend to know how far 
you're right or wrong, but I protest against your judging about the 
advantages of a few years in Europe from my case. The problem is in 
fact just this. I have acquired here great advantages; if I am a hum- 
bug, they wont help me; but I shouldn't have done any better if I'd 



ON WRITING 51 



remained in Boston; if I am not a humbug, we shall see; but in either 
case the advantages are there, and the failure, if failure it is, will be in 
me and not in the European experiment which may be of immense use 
to a capable man. 

As to my occupation for the next year, I am now going on in a gen- 
eral course of German reading mostly in the constitutional history of 
various countries and desultory light reading, but the German is still 
the main object. This means you see in point of fact that I'm doing 
nothing. So far as learning a trade goes, idle Fm likely to remain until 
I return home. So far as education goes, I consider these two years as 
the most valuable of my life. Indefinite, you will say. But so far as 
I can see, it is what you yourself recommend. 

You recommend me to write. My dear boy, if I write, I must write 
as I think. Amusing, witty, and clever I am not, and to affect the 
style would disgust me and bore you. If I write at all in my life out of 
the professional line, it will probably be when I have something to say, 
and when I feel that my subject has got me as well as I the subject. 
Just now this is anything but true, for I can't seem to master any of 
the matters that interest me. So don't ask me to be sprightly and 
amusing for that is what I never was, am not, never shall be. . . . 

Your suggestion about rouge et noir is therefore a mistake, though 
not uningenious. The money I won paid my hotel bills several days and 
I have never seen a gambling table since. As the Governor has been 
kind enough to leave me here without money I've had to write to 
London to ask an extension of credit which I got and the Governor 
may send when he chooses. 

This contest of purpose; this argument about aims, you began 
against, or if you will, for me. You blame me very fairly no doubt, 
and try to protect yourself from retaliation by pleading guilty; a 
sort of Yankee Sullivan tactics, hitting a lick and going down. Face 
the music yourself. I acknowledge I've failed but I believe I've dis- 
covered a treasure if I can but use it. But you; why do you plead 
guilty to the " tu quoque" before I'd said it. Why do you recommend 
writing to me who has been hurrying around Europe like a steam 
engine and am so busy with learning that I can't spare a second for 
teaching; why recommend this to me when you yourself are smoulder- 
ing worse than I, when you have never published a word so far as I 
know. Busy you are, no doubt, and have worked and studied hard; 
I believe it; but physician, heal thyself. Nearly three years older than 
I, plead guilty to a "tu quoque" and pass the 5 +xth winter dancing 
with little girls just out of the nursery. The Governor's last letter 



52 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

warned me against writing magazine articles on the ground that they 
are ephemeral. Is that your objection too? Or why have you, who 
urge it so on me when I'm busy with another language and haven't 
properly any right to talk, think or write English, why have you in 
those three years of law not broken the path yourself? You haven't 
even used the chances you have. Of the society of Boston outside of 
Beacon Street, I don't believe you know a soul. Of the distinguished 
men there who could aid you a little and change your course of 
thought, I doubt whether it ever occurred to you to make the ac- 
quaintance of one. There is a very good literary society whom it 
would be well worth while to know, beginning with Waldo Emerson 
and going down, and it's from able men that one learns; not from 
talking old woman nonsense with girls, however good fun that may be. 
You talk about being stifled in Boston and I don't believe you know 
anything of Boston except half a dozen drawing rooms and bar ditto. 
You haven't or hadn't a friend in it, worth having. You try to be a 
society man and yet want to do work that would necessarily cut you 
off from that society. 

Do as Frank Palfrey 1 does, according to Mr. Hillard. 2 "Oh, he's 
very well; getting along quite encouragingly. Works hard. Only he is 
suck a favorite in society that he has to go out more than he ought. 
It distracts him, but among the young ladies he is so liked that the 
temptation is too much/' 

You mention the position I shall have to take when I come back as 
if you expected me to return a complete lawyer or a Professor or 
something. Of course I shall stand to all appearances as you stood on 
entering an office. I don't see how you can expect anything else, 
though I am fully prepared to hear the Governor lay the fault of 
every failure and every error in my life to Europe. God Almighty 
could not get an idea out of his head that had once got in. I shall 
return and study law; when that's done I shall call my preparations 
finished, and shall toss up for luck. What I have learned here is a 
part of my capital and will probably show itself slowly and radically. 

I have dived into your letter and hauled out these few points to 
answer. If it pleases you to criticise the answers, do so. No doubt it's 
good practice, this fencing with each other, and I certainly, as it con- 
cerns me, am the very last to find fault. If I had more time and could 
dilate more, I should like to do it, but home letters come round so fast 
that I have to hurry them off as fast as I can. 

You mention politics. It's my own opinion, believing as I do in an 

1 Francis Winthrop Palfrey (1831-1889). George StiUman HUlard (1808-1879). 



AMERICAN POLITICS 53 

"irrepressible conflict," that I shall come home just in time to find 
America in a considerable pickle. The day that I hear that Seward 
is quietly elected President of the United States, will be a great relief 
to me, for I honestly believe that that and only that can carry us 
through, even if that can. We've set our hands to the plough and 
wouldn't look back if we could, but I would thank God heartily to 
know that comparatively conservative men were to conduct this 
movement and could control it. If the Governor weathers this storm 
he has a good chance of living in the White House some day. All 
depends on the ability he shows as a leader now. 

But if things go wrong as they easily may; if a few more Sumner 
affairs and Harper's Ferry undertakings come up, then adieu my 
country. I wouldn't give a bad grosschen for the United States debt. 
We shall have made a brilliant failure with our glorious Republic and 
the prophet can't say what'll turn up. If our constitution stands this 
strain, she's a stunner, that's all. 

What effect all this may have on our lives, we can't calculate in 
any way. I mean to come home prepared as well as I know how for 
luck or unluck, and not be frightened if I can help it. In America the 
man that can't guide had better sit still and look on. I recommend to 
you to look on, and if things don't change within a year then I'll eat 
my head. If all goes right, the house of Adams may get its lease of 
life renewed if, as I've various times remarked, it has the requisite 
ability still. Till then we needn't compromise ourselves and will 
watch what comes. 

So much for philosophy and that sort of thing. In reference to life 
here I have a good deal that I could say, but this letter would then be 
the size of yours and that I can't allow myself who write a letter a day 
almost. So Til digest. 

My family satisfies me and gives me all I want. They are kind and 
very German, poor, as you say, and proud in proportion. I think Frank 
Brooks needn't have been so delicate in his ideas about writing to 
them; on the contrary I think a short letter on the occasion of intro- 
ducing me, would have pleased them if written diplomatically enough. 
Luckily I never mentioned having asked him for a letter, so his refusal 
didn't embarrass me at all. 

They rather spoil me here. German politeness is a cumbrous affair 
consisting chiefly in elephantine compliments and profuse lies. The 
Frau Hograthin is master of the art, but I have learned to watch the 
countenances of her son and daughter as indexes, and can now nearly 
tell when there's a deviation from truth. The daughter, the Fraulein 



54 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Augusta, is a brick. She might be dangerous if well, if it only 
weren't that to me she isn't. I don't know why. One can't explain 
these things. 

Billy Howe is in great feather here. He got disgusted with Vienna; 
you ought to hear him cut up Glancy Jones; 1 and is now living here 
waiting Sidney's 2 arrival. A few evenings ago he gave a stunning little 
card and supper party in his rooms. Governor Lawrence, two daugh- 
ters and that amiable son 3 who was your friend and messmate in 
College and who has just arrived here; Mr. and Mrs. Stockton, the 
Consul, and myself. Just enough for two whist-tables and a pleasant 
sit-down supper. Of course it was stylish and very jolly; I didn't get 
home till three o'clock. The next night there was a little blow at the 
Biddies', son of old Nick Biddle, at least so says Billy, This was rather 
slow, but Billy, the Miss Lawrences and I had our whist and heard an 
Italian woman sing. Afterwards we smoked and drank punch in his 
room and I got home at two. 

On the 22d Shep Brooks 4 walked into my room. He was from Paris 
for Vienna and leaves on the 25th he says. I kept him that day to 
dine with me, and family and all went out to a concert in the Grosser 
Garten in the afternoon, at which he seemed to be pleased. I did what 
I could to make his stay agreeable; introduced, or rather got him ac- 
quainted with Billy Howe and the Lawrences and we all went under 
Bill's care to the Biddies. 

Mr. Robert C. Winthrop and his family has also arrived and we 
three Bostonians sent our cards into him yesterday, as we happened 
to be all dining at the hotel. This morning his courier brought his 
card to my house, so he lost no time about it. It's queer how the 
Americans are piling in here now just when the season's over. The 
Gans's are here; I believe either you or John knew Miss Bertha at 
Sharon; I don't care to be introduced to her; in the first place I should 
feel as if I were flirting with my aunt, to follow in your elderly foot- 
steps; and then Madame objects to my talking so much English and I 
don't go out more than is absolutely necessary. I myself prefer a quiet 
life at home with a fight about once a week and a flirtation now and 
then, but lately I've talked more English than German. 

Wiggins' catalogue as I have already twice written reached me in 

1 John Glancy Jones (1811-1877), United States Minister to Austria. 
9 Henry Sidney Everett (1834-1898), son of Edward Everett. 

Albert Gallatin Lawrence (1834-1887). The father was William Beach Lawrence (1800- 
1881). 

Shepherd Brooks (1837-1922). 



HUMBOLDT'S LETTERS 55 

Miinich and I've had no time to attend to it as I wanted to. As my 
own expenses will be this year larger than last, I shall probably spend 
as little money for myself as possible though I have no objection to 
paying off my debt to you in this way. I mean to devote a few hours 
to engravings this winter and shall get the Hograth to introduce me 
to the overseer of the royal collection. If I see any good heads in the 
shops, I shall buy a few, though not without advice as to their state, 
for I know nothing about these things as yet. 

Beecher's sermon has not yet arrived. 

Yesterday was Thanksgiving I suppose. Shep, Billy and I drank 
to the health of those at home. Last night we saw Dawison,* a famous 
German, as Hamlet. It was a very remarkable rendering, something 
entirely new and very striking, but repulsive and painful. I don't 
want to see it again and yet it showed more genius than any I ever 
saw. Yours affectly. 

November 25. 

To his Mother 

DRESDEN, March 4, 1860. 

Tonight, or last night, for it's now six o'clock and the day breaking, 
I've not been to bed, having just received a new book which interested 
me exceedingly. It is a volume of Humboldt's letters to a friend of his 
in Berlin, and from distinguished characters to him, and it is making a 
great talk in the world. They say it's to be suppressed by the Govern- 
ment, but the cat is already out of the bag. The letters are personal to 
the tip-top, and there's hardly a public man or interest that doesn't 
come in for a notice. Half the Princes in Germany are ridiculed in it, 
and Prince Albert of England comes in for a scorcher. All Berlin is 
ridiculed and abused, to say nothing of the very strong political 
opinions and religious ideas which will set the stupids into a howl. 
And yet it does more honor to Humboldt and shows more what he was 




wonder to me, for it certainly cuts dreadful close and the letters reach 
to within two years. ... 

March 6. It's aggravating to have to sacrifice the carnival and even 
the Easter week at Rome, which I regret more than all the rest. But 
it will be worse if war comes, and Napoleon is playing Villa Franca 

1 Bogumil Dawison (1818-1872). 



56 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

over again. People say there'll be no war. I think they are crazy. War 
or revolution, or both, and it's my belief that if Napoleon hopes to 
turn conservatist now, it'll only make the troubles worse and the suc- 
cess less. I should think the statesmen and premiers in these days 
would go crazy with the responsibility and more than that, with this 
uncertainty and swaying to and fro. To us who stand so far on the 
extreme left that all European parties and party fights seem matters of 
the last century, this doubt about the present is irritating to a degree. 
Humboldt's 1 book or letters are suppressed in Berlin and also here. 
Apropos, American slavery comes in for its notice; a letter of Baron 
Gerolt's is in it, anti-slavery, but not up to our points; Humboldt's 
own ideas were ours. A letter of " the great American Historian Press- 
cott" is in it not political. 

To his Mother 

DRESDEN, March 10, 1860. 

Billy Howe has just given me a Boston Advertiser? which contains a 
letter from Washington partly filled with papa and his action in the 
matter of the House Printer. My opinion one way or the other is of 
course of no account, but as I can imagine how disagreeable and vexa- 
tious the affair is, and how many hard words it must have cost, and as 
I see how very cautiously and treacherously the Advertiser's corres- 
pondent expresses himself, I think I can allow myself a little word about 
it. Papa may not be much encouraged by knowing that his son ever 
so far off, and without much acquaintance with the matter, thinks as 
he does, and enters with all his heart into his view of what are his duties; 
but at least it will spare him the doubt as to whether I can appreciate 
the position he has taken. I am too far away to know how public 
opinion stands on the matter, but I feel sure that whatever the 
momentary impression may be, his action can in the long run only give 
him strength and position; and as for me myself, if that can be of in- 
terest to him, I'm ready and willing, in perfect and common sense, to 
lay all my hope and ambition for the future, on the same stake. I have 
not an instant's doubt that every one whose opinion we value, feels as 
I do about it; and as for his constituents, if there isn't enough honor 
left in the Third District to back up such a position as this, then so 

1 Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt. Brief e ...an Varnhagen von Ense [ed. 
by Ludmilla Assing]. Leipzig, 1860. English and French translations appeared in the same 
year. 

a Boston Daily Advertiser^ February 25, 1860. 



AN HONEST MAN IN CONGRESS 57 

much the worse for the Third District. Thank God, we're not reduced 
so far as to truck and dicker off our principles in that way, even 
though much more depended on it than a seat in Congress. But in 
spite of the hint of the Advertiser, I have enough faith in morality still 
to believe that this affair, far from weakening papa's strength in 
Massachusetts, will increase it tenfold; and if he can maintain himself 
on the floor of Congress, and hold to this beginning, he'll soon be the 
most popular man in the State, as his father was before him- So far as 
I can judge from the various papers I've seen, the spectacle of an honest 
man in _ Congress seems to be something wonderful and beyond all 
calculation. No one seems to know what to say to it; whether to 
praise or blame; and I think I can imagine the various newspaper 
articles as clearly as if I had them here. Luckily it's not the first time 
we've been in a minority of one, and if the campaign of '48 hasn't 
broken us in to sneers and abuse, it's time something else did it. 
Sneers and abuse have got to be taken; there is no help for that; we 
must only get callous to it; but at least there's one comfort, and that 
is that we needn't be afraid of it. There's no " spot on our scutcheon " 
that I know of, where anything can take hold. 

We must all feel the importance of this start. It's the first declara- 
tion of the colors we sail under, and whether successful in its immediate 
object or not, it cannot fail to have a good result and make an impres- 
sion on the honest part of the people. I know it's a hard trial for you 
and papa; even at this distance I feel it; but it must have come sooner 
or later, and on this matter as well as another. We young ones don't 
count much now, but it may at least please papa to know that those 
who are nearest and dearest to him, go heart and soul after him in this 
path. 

To Charles Francis Adams > Jr. 

DRESDEN, March 26, 1860. 


Your letter is healthier than usual. It doesn't smell of Boston Com- 
mon and State Street and I was devilish glad to get it. I'm glad you 
had a good time in society. There is no society in Europe as we under- 
stand it, so I can't imitate you. Your first letter about the printing- 
affair I happened to see through Billy Howe; without knowing who 
wrote it; I executed a, pas seulwith variations and warwhoop accom- 
paniment in my apartment on reading it. Then I sat down and wrote 
a florid letter to mamma in which I honored your epistle with the 



58 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

epithet "treacherous." A few days afterwards I was rather taken 
aback by receiving a package of papers with your initials as "Pember- 
ton." * The game is a risky one; take care of your incognito or else it 
may react and people think it was a political trick of the Governor's 
to help himself. Putting this aside, it was a great success. Indeed I'm 
inclined to believe that papa's "coup" owed a very considerable part 
of its success to that letter, and not a small part to its low tone. 
Even the Courier's "Giant among Pigmies" 2 was quite as much a 
hit at the Advertiser as a bonbon for papa. The Courier fell into that 
trap beautifully. Anyway I congratulate you on your success which 
is in its way quite as decided as papa's. As none of my home letters 
have mentioned all these letters as your work, I've said nothing about 
it either, nor to any one here, and shan't till I hear that you've avowed 
them. 

Seward's speech 3 is a great thing. I think there are as few assail- 
able points in that speech and yet as broad a position, as is possible. 
Even the New York Herald will blunt its dirty teeth on that. As a 
statesmanlike production too I'm proud of it, and we shall do well 
to take a lesson from it. The Senate in its best days never heard any- 
thing better done 

You come down in your political philosophy to the principle of edu- 
cation; from different grounds I did the same here some time ago, 
It's the main idea of all progressists; it's what gives New England its 
moral power; Horace Mann lived in this idea, and died in it. Goethe 
always said that his task was to educate his countrymen; and that all 
the Constitutions in the world wouldn't help, if the people weren't 
raised; and he and Schiller did more for it than anyone else. Our 
people are educated enough intellectually but its damned superficial 
and only makes them more wilful; our task so far as we attempt a 
public work, is to blow up sophistry and jam hard down on morality, 
and there are as many ways of doing this as there are men in the 
country. This idea was at the bottom of my letter of the 2ist January, 
and it's only the manner in which we can invest our strength to the 
most advantage in prosecuting this idea, that can trouble us. For I 
for one haven't the courage of Horace Mann. As for the union, our 
field of action remains about the same, whether it stands or falls. 

However because we are virtuous we'll not banish cakes and ale. 

1 A second letter of Pemberton appeared in the Boston Daily Advertiser, February 28, 1 860. 
4 An editorial under that title, praising the course of Mr. Adams, appeared in the Courier, 
February 22, 1860. 
s In United States Senate, February 29, 1860. 



PRIVATE LETTERS FOR THE NEWSPAPERS 59 

I've been trying this winter to make my path clear to myself but 
haven't quite succeeded. I still waver between two and shall leave 
fate to decide. In the meanwhile I mean to have as good a time as 
under the circumstances will do, and shan't interfere with others. . . . 

Your Washington letters have stirred me up. As you know, I pro- 
pose to leave Dresden on the ist of April for Italy. It has occurred to 
me that this trip may perhaps furnish material for a pleasant series of 
letters, not written to be published but publishable in case they were 
worth it. This is my programme. You may therefore expect to receive 
from week to week letters from me, beginning at Vienna and continu- 
ing so long as I don't get tired of it. What the letters will be about 
depends of course on circumstances. Now, you will understand, I do 
not propose to write with the wish to publish at all hazards; on the 
contrary I mean to write private letters to you, as an exercise for my- 
self, and it would be of all things my last wish to force myself into 
newspapers with a failure for my first attempt. On the other hand if 
you like the letters and think it would be in my interest to print them, 
I'm all ready. In any case you can do just what you choose with them 
so long as you stick by your own judgment. But if, under any absurd 
idea that I wish to print, you dodge the responsibility of a decision, 
and a possible hurting of my feelings; by showing me up to the public 
amusement without any guarantee against my making a slump, 
you'll make a very great mistake. I could do that without your help. 
But it needs a critic to decide what's copper and what silver and I 
suppose you have courage enough not to be afraid to tell me in case my 
coinage should turn out copper or copper-gilt. So gird on your sword 
and don't be idiotic enough to bother yourself with family affection or 
brotherly sympathies. 1 

The life here doesn't change a hair. I feel like a snake thawing out 
after being frozen in all winter. My family here bores me. Once or 
twice IVe sat up all night playing cards with the Howes. That was my 
only excitement. I never make calls for they're slow. My books are 
now all sent off so I've nothing to do but write. The Howes leave this 
week; the gambling shop in the Prager Strasse is to be closed, and 
there will be another winter a closed book. In the whole of it I've not 
had one good-time. I've digged like a Freshman; hardly once has my 
pulse beaten faster than usual except at news from home or over plans 
and thoughts of my own. On the other hand my health has been excel- 

* Letters were printed in the Courier as follows: April 30, May 9, June i, July 10 and 13, 
1860, dated: Vienna, April 5; Venice, April u; Bologna, April 16; Palermo, June 9; and 
Naples, June 15. 



60 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

lent; my spirits uniform; I've never been unhappy; hardly felt the 
blues; not been discontented; and usually been more or less amused. 
So there's pro and contra. The life has been a pleasant life enough 
and very useful and such as it is, I'm satisfied with it. 

Billy and I presented a letter on a Mr. de Cramer of the Russian 
Legation which the Mogul (Uncle Sidney 1 ) sent me. At my request he 
included Billy's name. What on earth induces the Mogul to notice me 
for the first time in his life? Very kind indeed; very; but quite a new 
trait. He doesn't intend to remember me in his will, does he? No such 
luck. That's all for his namesakes 

To his Mother 

ROME, May 6, 1860. 

* 

You mention Charles's Advertiser letter about the printing affair. 

When I wrote to you I called it "treacherous" without knowing that 
it was his, till a copy from him arrived a few days afterwards. That 
changed the case entirely. As the matter stands, I think it couldn't 
have been better, and papa owes to that letter a good half of the credit 
he has got from his action. It was an admirably clear and even partial 
statement of the case, and the more effective on account of its lowness 
of tone, and appearance of impartiality. You would see that from the 
noise it made, and the way it was quoted and attacked. There was a 
force in the statement independent from the force of papa's position. 
I am watching from here with a sort of sickness at heart, the course of 
American politics. These Connecticut and Rhode Island elections and 
the contemptible tone politics take with us, are no pleasant forerun- 
ners to an election like next Fall's. Not that I feel discouraged; but 
that each postponement of the final victory confuses matters so dread- 
fully. However I hope we shall do better as we go on and as long as 
there's no dodging or begging the question on our side, I'm not 
afraid, . . . 

To his Mother 

PARIS, i July, 1860. 

* 

I'm waiting patiently for papa's speech to arrive. The sketch I've 
seen of it and die papers which Charles sent me, gave me the general 

* Sidney Brooks. 



PLANS FOR STUDY IN WASHINGTON 61 

idea, which was precisely what we would expect. It's all right. This 
session has gone off admirably for him, and couldn't be better. As for 
you, I know that in many ways you must feel homesick; but have there 
never been times at home when you felt homesick and unhappy too? 
For my own part, I'm getting dreadfully old and cautious. I find that 
people are unhappy everywhere and happy everywhere. Charles 
writes me a plan according to which I should study law in Washington 
and stay with you always. I never knew before this how I liked Qumcy 
and Boston, and how sorry I should be to cut loose of them altogether; 
but this course, which certainly is the one I should choose and follow, 
if it will go, finishes setting me afloat. I shall make up my bed in 
Washington, and no doubt it will be just as pleasant as anywhere else. 
At all events, whether it is or not, it's the place that my education has 
fitted me best for, and where I could be of most use. So if papa and 
you approve this course and it's found easy to carry out, you can have 
at least one of your sons always with you. For my own part, it's 
the only idea I've met with as to my own course that satisfies me 
entirely 



II 

WASHINGTON 

1860-1861 
To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

[WASHINGTON], December 9, 1860. 

DEAR CHARLES : I propose to write you this winter a series of 
private letters to show how things look. I fairly confess that I want 
to have a record of this winter on file, and though I have no ambition 
nor hope to become a Horace Walpole, I still would like to think that 
a century or two hence when everything else about it is forgotten, my 
letters might still be read and quoted as a memorial of manners and 
habits at the time of the great secession of 1860. At the same time 
you will be glad to hear all the gossip and to me it will supply the 
place of a Journal. 

The first week is now over and I feel more at home, though I've not 
made many acquaintances. It's a great life; just what I wanted; and 
as I always feel that I am of real use here and can take an active part 
in it all, it never tires. Politically there is a terrible panic. The weak 
brethren weep and tear their hair and imagine that life is to become a 
burden and the Capitol an owl-nest and fox-hole. The Massachusetts 
men and the Wisconsin men and scatterers in other states are the only 
ones who are really firm. Seward is great; a perfect giant in all this 
howling. Our father is firmer than Mt. Ararat. I never saw a more 
precious old flint. As yet there has been no open defection, but the 
pressure is immense and you need not swear too much if something 
gives at last. 

Of course your first question would be about Seward. He came up 
here last Tuesday evening and I heard him talk for the first time. 
Wednesday he came up to dinner and was absolutely grand. No one 
was there but the family, and he had all the talking to himself. I sat 
and watched the old fellow with his big nose and his wire hair and 
grizzly eyebrows and miserable dress, and listened to him rolling out 
his grand, broad ideas that would inspire a cow with statesmanship 
if she understood our language. There's no shake in him. He talks 
square up to the mark and something beyond it. 

He invited us down to dine with him on Friday. His wife x hasn't 

* Frances Adeline Miller, daughter of Elijah Miller, 



DINNER AT SEWARD'S 63 

come here this winter, so he has persuaded Mr. and Mrs. Israel 
Washburn I to put up with him till they go off. We six had a dinner, 
at which the Governor caused a superior champagne to be brought 
out; not his usual tap. Israel was as usual; ugly as the very devil, but 
good-humored and nervous and kindhearted as ever. The Governor 
was chipper as a lark and swore by yea and by nay that everything 
was going on admirably. The state of society here worries mamma 
very much and she was sorrowing over the bitterness of feeling and 
change of bearing in her acquaintances, but the Governor was im- 
placable. He swore he was glad of it and delighted to see 'em down. 
He'd been through all that and come out on the other side. They had 
been all graciousness to him as a Whig while they tabooed Hale 2 and 
Sumner and Giddings.s They had tried to taboo him too, later, but 
then it was too late, and now he was glad they did feel cut up and 
meant they should. 

He is the very most glorious original. It delights me out of my 
skin to see the wiry old scarecrow insinuate advice. He talks so 
slowly and watches one so hard under those grey eye-brows of his. 
After our dinner we went into the parlor and played whist. Gradually 
a whole crowd of visitors came in, mostly staunch men such as Potter 4 
and Cad. Washburne, Sedgwick 5 and Alley 6 and Eliot, 7 etc. Among 
others who should turn up but the two Rhode Island Senators, 
Anthony and Simmons, 8 both very fishy and weak-kneed. Anthony is 
the man whom mamma gave a tremendous hiding to last spring, for a 
remark he made more than usually treacherous, but he called on us 
the other evening notwithstanding. The whole company knew all 
about it, however, and Seward knew they did. I was sitting somewhat 
back, just behind Anthony and Seward and watched them both care- 
fully. Anthony remarked deprecatingly : Well, things look pretty bad, 
Governor, don't you think so? No, growled Seward, I don't see why 
they look bad. Well, said Anthony still more timidly, these financial 
troubles coming so with the political ones. Why, answered Seward, 
you can't run a financial and a political panic together, the first will 

* Israel Washburn, Jr , brother of Elihu Benj amm Washburne and Cadwallader Golden Wash- 
burn, a representative from Maine. He married Mary Maud Webster. 
John Parker Hale (1806-1873), of New Hampshire. 

3 Joshua Reed Giddmgs (1795-1864), of Ohio. 

4 John Fox Potter (1817-1899), of Wisconsin. 

s Charles Baldwin Sedgwick (1815-1883), of New York. 

6 John Bassett Alley (1817-1896), of Massachusetts. 

7 Thomas Dawes Eliot (1808-1870), of Massachusetts. 

James Fowler Simmons (1795-1864), and Henry Bowen Anthony (1815-1884). 



64 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

regulate itself. Poor Anthony fairly broke down and acquiesced. The 
manner in which Seward spoke fairly bluffed him. But Seward was 
unmerciful. The first thing we knew he dragged mamma out; wanted 
to put her against some of these Carolinians; she was the person to 
take care of them; put 'em in a dark room and let 'em fight it out, etc., 
etc.; to all which mamma of course answered laughingly while every- 
one in the room was on the broad grin. I thought he'd never leave off 
this talk. He wouldn't stop, but rubbed it in and in till Anthony 
looked blue. At the very first pause and change of topic he got up and 
took leave. Of course it did not please mamma too well to be used as a 
sort of a false target in this way, but the Governor only smiled grimly 
and neither apologised nor confessed his intentions. 

December 13. This letter is still waiting to be finished and this week 
I've been regularly jammed up for time. What with the duties of 
secretary, of schoolmaster, of reporter for the papers, and of society- 
man, I have more than I can do well. 

Frank Parker arrived here day before yesterday and will be with 
you nearly or quite as soon as this. To me fell the duty of guiding his 
steps and I think he imbibed good republican doctrine and lots of it. 
All day yesterday we were up at the Senate talking in the cloak-room 
and today I left him in the House where he was well looked to. Last 
evening I took him down to Seward's, and today Seward and Mr. and 
Mrs. Israel Washburne came up to dine with us and him. By the way 
W. H. S. was urgent on me to tell you that he had lately received a 
letter from his wife in which she said that a letter dated last October I 
believe, and addressed "Auburn, Mass.," had arrived from you after 
going to its direction. With various complimentary remarks the 
Governor said that as he was epistolarily exhausted, he wanted me to 
acknowledge the receipt of this letter, etc., etc., etc. Mrs. S. sent him 
on the letter I believe, saying that it was too good to be lost. 

We had an interesting time today. As you of course see, all the 
mean material we've got is coming out now. Dixon of Connecticut x 
flattened out, and so has Sherman; 3 so will Anthony, Foster, 3 Col- 
lamer I believe, and a heap in the lower House. The Thirty-Three 
committee is sitting now every day and all day, and they'll be report- 
ing some damned nonsense or other soon. Today we were all waiting 
for our good father before dinner, when in he popped in a state of con- 

1 James Dixon (1814-1873), Senator from Connecticut, 

2 John Sherman (1823-1900), Representative from Ohio. 

3 Lafayette Sabme Foster (1806-1880), Senator from Connecticut. 
Jacob Collamer (1792-1865), Senator from Vermont. 



NORTH AND SOUTH 65 

siderable friction and reported that his committee had sprung a resolu- 
tion on them yielding everything, which had passed in spite of him 
with only eight negatives; New England, New York and Wisconsin. 
Seward looked blue and little Washburne was disgusted. However, 
as it's not to be submitted to the House, but only intended for effect 
on South Carolina, there's no immediate danger, though it embroils 
things badly and will inevitably break the Republican line. So we 
went to dinner and Seward almost killed me by telling some stories 
and laughing over them. He goes home tomorrow to be gone a week 
and Mr. and Mrs. Blatchford who are coming to stay with him will be 
received by John and entertained by the Washburnes. Why he goes 
home I don't know. He says it's not politics that drives him, but 
W. H. S. is not to be sounded by ordinary lines. 

I shall write for the Monday's Advertiser setting some things forth. 1 
You may be aware that our good papa bears up the opposition in the 
Thirty-Three. I have therefore reserved my fire so far as he is con- 
cerned, but now he will have to be sustained. My communications 
will perhaps be on the crescendo principle and if the battle waxes hot 
and Charles Hale does not rise to it, you must thumb-screw him a little. 
Send Dana and Horace Gray 2 round. I shall write to Hildreth too, 
probably. My theoretical letter of last Monday was good. I say it 
because I have my doubts. It takes forty-eight hours for a letter to go 
and be published so I didn't send one this evening as it would wait till 
Monday. 

We're chipper as can be here and I try to keep a general look-out 
over things. Our men are not afraid, but you must prepare for any 
compromise that the South chooses. Our only hope is that they'll 
kick us out and refuse everything. This is not improbable, but nothing 
is sure. 

I am only making acquaintances so I can't give you much outside 
news. There is little or no society as yet and will be very little all 
winter unless the Southerners accept the olive-branch. As I am very 
busy, I don't care much, for there is so much life here as to allow one 

* The Boston Daily Advertiser does not appear to have had a regular correspondent in Wash- 
ington, and in its issue of December 3, 1860, appeared a letter from that city, signed "Nunrod," 
as " Correspondence of the Boston Daily Advertiser." A second communication thus signed ap- 
peared December 5, but beginning with the third, December 7, the signature was dropped and 
"From our own Correspondent" was adopted. Communications with that caption appeared m 
the Advertiser on December 10, 13, 20, and 27; January i, 11, 15, 16, 17, 22, 24, 26; February a, 
6, 8, ii. After that Charles Hale himself went to Washington and took over the correspondence, 
signing his communications " Carolus." 

Horace Gray (1828-1902). 



66 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

to dispense with balls. Sidney Everett I've seen twice but as yet not 
to make any treaty with him, so to speak, and I am the less anxious to 
do so, as he seems wholly taken up with his Carrolls and I see no hurry 
to get in with them 

We are all well and happy. Our mother allows herself to be dis- 
tressed somewhat by disunion, but in action she is straight and has a 
reputation such that the fishes are afraid of her. Parker will enlighten 
you verbatim as to matters here, as he has seen all our side and has 
gone deep into the state of affairs. I'm afraid however I only speak 
exact truth when I tell you to prepare yourself for a complete dis- 
organization of our party. If the South show any liberal spirit, the 
reaction will sweep us out dreadfully and thin our ranks to a skeleton. 
Luckily we have our President and can hold orf till the next flood tide. 
How many there will be faithful unto the end, I cannot say, but I fear 
me much, not a third of the House. But the Governor will be great: 
our Governor I mean. 

EGnts of any sort are welcome. 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

[WASHINGTON,] Tuesday, December 18, 1860. 

DEAR CHARLES: I'm a confoundedly unenterprising beggar. It's 
an outrageous bore to make calls and as society is all at odds and ends 
here, I make no acquaintances except those of the family. Even 
political matters are slow. There are no fights. Every one is good- 
natured except those who are naturally misanthropic and even those 
who are so frightened that they can't breathe in more than a whisper, 
still keep their temper. 

This makes it almost slow work. Then we dine at five and after 
that I don't feel as if I wanted to run much, especially as there are no 
parties nor receptions. The President divides his time between crying 
and praying; the Cabinet has resigned or else is occupied in committing 
treason. Some of them have done both. The people of Washington 
are firmly convinced that there is to be an attack on Washington by 
the Southerners or else a slave insurrection, and in either case or in any 
contingency they feel sure of being ruined and murdered. There is no 
money nor much prospect of any and all sources of income are dry, so 
that no one can entertain. You see from this that there's no great 
chance for any violent gaiety. 

Every one takes to politics for an occupation, but do you know to 
me this whole matter is beginning to get stale. It does not rise to the 



THE COMMITTEE OF THIRTY-THREE 67 

sublime at all. It is merely the last convulsion of the slave-power, and 
only makes me glad that the beast is so near his end. I have no fear 
for the result at all. It must come out right. But what a piece of mean- 
ness and rascality, of braggadocio and nonsense the whole affair is. 
What insolence in the South and what cowardice and vileness at the 
North. The other day in that precious Committee of Thirty-Three 
where our good father is doing his best to do nothing, in stalked the 
secessionists with Reuben Davis r of Mississippi at their head, and 
flung down a paper which was to be their ultimatum. That was to be 
taken up at once or the South would secede. The committee declined 
to take it up till they had discussed the Fugitive Slave Law. So out 
stalked the secessionists but not wholly away. They only seceded into 
the next room where 'they sat in dignity, smoking and watching the 
remaining members through the folding doors, while Davis returned 
to say that he did not wish to be misunderstood; they seceded only 
while the other proposition should be under discussion. Is that not a 
specimen of those men? Their whole game is bare bluff. 

The heroism of this struggle is over. That belonged to us when we 
were a minority; when Webster was pulled down and afterwards in 
the Kansas battle and the Sumner troubles. But now these men are 
struggling for power and they kick so hard that our men hardly dare 
say they'll take the prize they've won. In Massachusetts all are sound 
except Rice, 2 but we've some pretty tight screws on him, and I think 
he'll hold. Thayer 3 I count out. Of course he's gone. But Pennsyl- 
vania is rotten to the core just as she was in the revolution when John 
Adams had such a battle with Dickinson. There is some sound prin- 
ciple in the western counties but Philadelphia is all about our ears. 
Ohio is not all she should be, and Indiana is all she should not be, just 
as that mean state always was. Illinois is tolerably well in some re- 
spects and Wisconsin is a new Vermont, but there's too low a tone 
everywhere. They don't seem to see their way. 

December 20. Mr. Appleton 4 and Mr. Amory s have been on here 
the last four or five days engaged in saving the Union. Mr. Appleton 
has buried himself among his southern friends so as not to encourage 
much any politeness on our side. After passing two whole days in the 
senate chamber with Mason 6 , and his other attachments, he tapped 

1 Reuben Davis (1873-1890), Representative from Mississippi. 

a Alexander Hamilton Rice (1818-1895), Representative from Massachusetts. 

3 Eli Thayer (1819-1899), Representative from Massachusetts. 

4 William Appleton (1786-1861). s William Aniory (1804-1888). 
James Murray Mason (1798-1871), Senator from "Virginia. 



68 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Sumner on the shoulder and pretended to be very glad to see him. 
Sumner had not taken any notice of him of course till then, but on this 
notice he turned round and they shook hands. The conversation 
however was not very brotherly, as Sumner in answer to some remark 
on the state of affairs, immediately began to haul the Boston Courier 
and Caleb Gushing over the coals as the great causes of the present 
misrepresentation, which Appleton of course couldn't quite agree in. 
However, it was all friendly enough, I believe. Appleton called here 
when he knew that our father must be at the House, without asking 
for mamma, and never has called on Sumner at all. 

Mr. Amory dined here today. Mr. Etheridge x was invited to meet 
him but didn't come. Anthony of Rhode Island was also invited and 
did come. We had a very pleasant dinner. Mr. Amory was amusing 
and told us his experiences in saving the country, which don't seem to 
have been very successful. He had talked with Douglas a long time 
and Douglas had been moral, demonstrating from the examples of 
Wellington and Peel, that a change of sentiments in cases of urgency 
was the duty of good citizens. Mr. Amory seemed to think that 
Douglas was the very dirtiest beast he had yet met. He is, by the way, 
by his present course, destroying the power he has left. Pugh's a 
speech today was disgusting. Those men are trying to build the 
Democratic party up again. 

That blessed committee is still at work all the time and tomorrow a 
vote will be taken on the territorial question. Our father's course will 
be such as not to need much active support since Winter Davis 3 is 
assuming the decided course of breaking with the South and he will 
bear the brunt of the battle. It seems likely that no minority report of 
any consequence will be needed. Tomorrow will decide and I have a 
letter all ready for next Monday's Advertiser in case the vote should go 
right. As to last Monday's letter, which has not appeared, I am not 
sorry for it, as it was written when everything looked fishy. You can 
tell Hale this and mark what he says or looks, for I do much mistrust 
me that he suppressed that letter. One ought to have appeared this 
morning and I shall look with curiosity tomorrow to see. 

I am not sorry that affairs have taken such a turn as to relieve our 
father. He will be strongly pushed for the Treasury and I don't care 
to have him expose himself now. Lincoln is all right. You can rely on 
that. He has exercised a strong influence through several sources on 

* Emerson Etheridge (1819-1902), Representative from Tennessee. 

* George Ellis Pugh (1822-1876), Senator from Ohio. 

3 Henry Winter Davis (1817-1865), Representative from Maryland. 



C. F. A. AND THE CONSTITUTION 69 

this committee and always right, but as yet there is no lisp of a 
Cabinet. Not even Seward had been consulted a week ago, though 
perhaps this visit of his to New York may have something to do 
with it. 

As for my Advertiser letters it will take a little time for me to make 
headway enough here to do much. But I do not wish to hurry matters. 
As yet there has been no great demand; that is, no active fighting, and 
I doubt if there will be. But these things will arrange themselves so 
soon as I begin to take a position here. 

Johnson's z speech yesterday was a great relief to us and it cut the 
secessionists dreadfully hard. Jeff. Davis was in a fever all through it 
and they all but lost their temper. Sumner dined here yesterday and 
was grand as usual, full of the diplomatic corps. He told Alley a little 
while ago that of course if he went into the Cabinet it could be only as 
Secretary of State, and Alley recommended him to give up all idea of 
it. I think he'd better. 



To Charles Francis Adams , Jr. 

WASHINGTON, December 22, 1860. 

MY DEAR BOY: I sent you off a letter last night, but begin an- 
other at once as events pass quick here. I sent off a letter this evening 
to Hale which is important: the most so of any yet, and perhaps a little 
indiscreet, but as I don't know how much the world knows, I can't 
judge exactly how much I ought to say. I hoped yesterday that our 
M. C. for the 3d. would get through quietly, without fubbing, but it 
may not be so. They've been discussing the Territorial business in 
the Thirty, and Winter Davis has fairly cut himself loose and de- 
clared his intention to vote against the Missouri-Compromise line as 
an amendment to the Constitution. He did this yesterday in a speech 
which followed one from C. F. A., and this speech of C. F. A.'s may 
cause some kicking. Our men are now tolerably firm and face the 
music. Those who voted for the resolution a week ago, offering con- 
cession, "whether just cause of complaint existed or not," have been 
so dreadfully pulled over the coals for it by their constituents that 
they're now stiff. The President elect has signified too in more ways 
than one, what the Committee had better do and what leave undone. 
Now our good father in considering this ultimatum of the South de- 
clared that rather than consent at this day, before the eyes of the whole 
civilized world, to see a constitution which did not countenance slavery 

1 Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), Senator from Tennessee. 



7o LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

and was made for freemen, turned into an instrument discountenanc- 
ing freedom and protecting slavery, he would see the Union dissolved 
and endure the consequences whatever they might be. 

Now if the Post or Courier get hold of this and misrepresent it, you 
must see that the case is rightly stated. Don't dodge the issue. Pro- 
claim that sentiment as loud as you please. We shall stand by that. 
But recollect to state, in case of attack, that this sentiment was not 
an ultimatum of Mr. A[dams]'s. The ultimatum came from the other 
side, and it was an answer to a demand from the South. New England 
will mostly stand up to this mark, but it is not wished to force it on 
the Republicans, as a majority cannot be got up to it in Congress and 
there would infallibly be a disastrous split. However, it looks pretty 
well here now. After papa's speech, Winter Davis came out with his 
declaration, which had the effect of utterly discomfiting the Southern- 
ers and of combining the North. So they did not take a vote, seeing 
that their ultimatum would be rejected by three or four majority, and 
today, finding that it was no use, they concluded to adjourn the com- 
mittee over to next Thursday, so that we have a week's respite to draw 
breath and get ready for the next round. 

The tone of the Republicans improves. Even Corwin * is kept down, 
and some of the fishy ones are wholly converted. Tappan a of New 
Hampshire and Washburne 3 of Wisconsin swear they won't move a 
hair nor concede a bad cent's worth. Dunn 4 of Indiana is all right and 
Kellogg 5 of Illinois will keep. You will see by my Advertiser letter our 
ideas about compromise, and will understand that we would yield a 
good deal to avoid a split now which would be very bad. C. F. A, is 
decided to vote for Winter Davis' proposition, but this is private. 
It may never come up. Davis says that Maryland is all right; he has 
seen Governor Hicks and is sure that there's no secession about her. 

That cursed Senate will make trouble if it can. Douglas recants all 
his heresies; his past life is to be wiped out, and he inscribes the slave 
power as his deity on the first page of the new book. I'll bet my head 
to his old whiskey bottle that this step will lay him out cold in Illinois. 

The Pacific railroad bill has been pressed as a bribe to the Pacific 
states. But it's not a good bill and at any other time our friends would 
all have voted against it. 

1 Thomas Corwin (1794-1865), Representative from Ohio. 

9 Mason Weare Tappan (1817-1886), Representative from New Hampshire. 

s Cadwallader Golden Washburn (1818-1882), Representative from Wisconsin, 

* William McKee Dunn (1814-1887), Representative from Indiana. 

* William Kellogg (1814-1872), Representative from Illinois. 



THE PRESIDENT AND THE PRESIDENT ELECT 71 

There's nothing more to say. We are in a state of anarchy so far as 
the President goes, but I doubt the story of his allowing Fort Moultrie 
to be given up. It can't be true even of him. Mr. Amory told us the 
other day of a letter he had seen from a New York stock merchant, 
which ran like this: "The market today much affected by political 
rumors of disturbing tendency. Towards the close of the day a report 
was circulated that President Buchanan had gone insane, and stocks 
rose." Pretty commentary on the popular opinion of the President of 
these Disunited States. But General Scott is reported as saying that 
Mr. Lincoln is a man of power. Several letters have passed between 
them. 

Old Cass, after having been kicked by all his colleagues for three 
years and ten months, has brilliantly invested the remaining two by 
resigning. He never made such good use of any other two months in 
his life. 

Weed x is said to be coming here and if so, there will be trouble per- 
haps. He has behaved too badly. It may come to a struggle to get 
Seward to give him up. If he urges concession, C. F. A. will perhaps 
have to step in. Yours ever. 

To Charles Francis Adams , Jr. 

WASHINGTON, 26 December, 1860. 

MY DEAR CHARLES : I received a letter from you last night, al- 
most wholly occupied with criticisms on my Advertiser letters. What 
you say is perfectly true and I am and have been as sensible to it as 
you. Naturally it is hard at first for a beginner as I am to strike the 
key note; still I think I can manage it in time; and meanwhile criticise 
away just as much as you please. I've had the deuce's own luck, 
though, for my last letter, intended for Monday's paper, seems to 
have missed too, and as my next was to have been a pendant to it, I 
wouldn't write it till I had seen the first in print. I wanted in them to 
explain the position that Winter Davis and papa are taking on a pro- 
posed measure of settlement to be offered by the Republicans on the 
committee through papa. So I shall have to begin again and do it all 
over, I suppose. I can't imagine what has happened to the letter, for 
I'm sure Hale would have published it if he had received it. 

I have been rather busy this week in the recess in making calls and 
getting into a little society, though nothing has begun in that way 
yet. The only great political excitement has been about the de- 
* Thurlow Weed (1797-1882). 



72 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

falcations which I'm not in a way of knowing much about. Governor 
Andrew has been on here and I had some talk with him which didn't 
lead to much. But his visit here will have a good deal of effect on his 
course- He saw all the people, and there is, I believe, no great differ- 
ence of opinion among the leaders as to the course to be pursued. He 
told us of a curious conversation he had had with Senator Mason, who 
is one of that class of secessionists who want to use secession as a means 
of forcing the North ultimately into yielding everything. They have 
even a plan by which all the states except New England, New York 
and Wisconsin and perhaps Michigan should secede and reconstruct 
the Union without those states. Mason said that he knew of no pos- 
sible compromise; that slavery and freedom were in conflict and must 
be; but that if all the northern states would repeal all their laws pro- 
hibiting slavery, perhaps something might be done. But, says Andrew, 
Massachusetts never passed a law prohibiting slavery. Her courts 
held that slavery was abolished in Massachusetts by the adoption of 
the Bill of Rights. Well, rejoins Mason, the bill of rights is of the na- 
ture of a law. Andrew repeated this conversation to us one morning 
when he came in to breakfast, and papa, who is posted up, immedi- 
ately broke out: George Mason, this man's great-grandfather, was vir- 
tually the author of that Bill of Rights. John Adams merely adopted 
his idea. 

So, you see, we are to be towed out to sea, up there in Massachusetts, 
and left to ourselves. Bon Voyage' 

Seward has come back but I've not yet seen him. The position of 
the Republicans is getting stronger every day, thanks to these defal- 
cations and the treason of the Administration. I rather think they'll 
have to impeach Buchanan in the end. Tomorrow I expect to hear 
of this settlement measure of the Republicans on the Committee. It 
will be based on Winter Davis' proposition to admit New Mexico as a 
state, but I don't know the particulars. Papa will be made to father 
the thing, being, as Corwin says, the Archbishop of antislavery. 
Davis will support it, I suppose. Andrew accepts it, but the Massa- 
chusetts men look very doubtful when they first hear it. With a few 
exceptions it will however have the support of all the Republicans and 
the South will have to take the responsibility of its rejection, which 
they will do. 

Our good father stands in a position of great power. Crittenden 
says that he is the greatest block in the way of conciliation, and some 
one else says that his speech on the territorial question in the Commit- 
tee will prevent his confirmation as Secretary of State, which is rather 



WASHINGTON COOLING DOWN 73 

a wild remark in more ways than one. Now he will have to bear the 
brunt of all attacks from the ultra men. But he can stand that well 
enough, and it may even do him good. 

Gushing is said to be encouraged. On the one hand he labors under 
the delusion that there's a great popular reaction in Massachusetts. 
On the other, the feud between the Douglas and Breckinridge wings 
of the Democracy is healed, and they hope that the southern states 
may be brought back, in which case we should be in a devil of a fix. 
Still, it is hardly probable that they should be such miserable idiots as 
to come back before the 4th of March, and once the Cabinet con- 
firmed, it's only a question of time anyway. 

You see we feel much better here than usual. What may happen, 
God knows, but if we can drag on to the 4th of March, it's all right. 
I've written a long letter to Hildreth and shall probably write to- 
morrow to the Advertiser, but nothing can appear till Monday.... 

To Charles Francis Adams > Jr. 

WASHINGTON, 29 December, 1860. 

MY DEAR BOY: I'm sorry to see that you've worried yourself so 
badly about the "back-down," but as I've written a long letter to 
Hale about it and as you can obtain from Andrew all the information 
you want, I can't undertake to discuss it. Just wait till the matter 
is aired, as it must soon be, for the Committees, after having con- 
sumed much time and leaving matters precisely as they stood at first, 
have adjourned in disgust, and must very soon report. In which case 
the speaking will begin. 

As you up North begin to get mad, we here are getting cool. Sizzle 
away. Perhaps when the North has been kicked enough, people will 
stop saving the Union. When the northern Democrats have had their 
noses sufficiently ground down by South Carolina, perhaps they'll get 
tired and resist. It's coming hot and heavy and in a month you'll be 
cool again, as we are, and the Union-savers will be howling for war. 

We had a funny dinner here yesterday which would have done you 
much good. Seward was here with Buffinton J and the messenger with 
the electoral votes, I've forgotten his name. As usual, Seward was 
great. He kept all the talking to himself and was as chipper as could 
be. He assents to the "back-down" as you see by the vote on a 
similar proposition in his committee. We talked away on all the 
matters of interest and he cussed and swore as usual. I said incident- 

1 James Buffinton (1817-1875), Representative from Massachusetts. 



74 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

ally that if Major Anderson were disavowed and cashiered it would be 
a most unfortunate thing. Why so, says he? Why because it would 
make the North wild, said I, and provoke an outbreak of violence. 
And what harm would that do? rejoined he in his gruff way. I hope 
they'll cashier Anderson and make Scott resign. I want the North to 
be mad. So long as the Democrats up there, and the great cities, stick 
to the South, they'll bully us. If they can only be kicked hard enough 
to make 'em hit out, there's some chance of settling this matter. 
Screw 'em up to the war pitch and the South will learn manners. But 
so long as New York city has it in its power to cut me off from New 
York state, we can't settle this matter. 

The old file has taken a great shine to my cigars and we smoke our 
good papa perfectly dry after dinner. He submits like a Christian 
however, and the Governor always finishes two and pockets a third 
for the way home. He gave us last night a dissertation on dress which 
was magnificent considering his style of raiment. 

After he left, old Pennington x came in and sat a couple of hours. 
He delighted me to a degree inexpressible. I never had seen him before 
and had a precious tough piece of work to keep my countenance. He 
rambled ahead in his usual "bonhommy" style, gave his opinions on 
politics, told how his barn had been burned down at Newark with his 
horses and carriages; what a splendid run he had made in his District, 
nearly three thousand ahead of Lincoln and only two hundred behind 
his opponent, and how his defeat had all come about; what a piece of 
work he'd had in forming the Committee of Thirty-Three, and how Eli 
Thayer expected to represent Massachusetts; how the Southerners 
were overrated and what a set they were, etc., etc., etc., till we all were 
tired to death. He seems to be a good-natured soul, with a great deal 
of shrewdness, and weak on the side of his self-esteem. He and Seward 
are two remarkable specimens of the men one meets here. Pennington 
is a big man and his legs sprawl out over the room and his boots are 
very prominent and he keeps his knife in his hand opening and 
shutting it while he talks. Seward sprawls about too, and snorts and 
belches and does all sorts of outrageous things, but Pennington's talk 
is feeble and Seward's, though he says the same things, is brilliant 
from his manner of putting them. He is by far the roughest diamond 
I've ever seen, and the originality makes half of the attraction. . . . 

The Cabinet is in another row as the telegraph will tell you. Poor 
old Buchanan! I don't see but what he'll have to be impeached. The 

'William Pennington (1796-1862), Representative from New Jersey and Speaker of the 
House. 



INFLUENCE OF CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS 75 

terror here among the inhabitants is something wonderful to witness. 
At least the half of them believe that Washington is to be destroyed by 
fire and sword. Some are providing for a retreat for their families. 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

WASHINGTON, i January, 1861. 
* ....... 

As to my letters, your remarks are very just. I shall try to work on 
them. I see that the Times of this morning reprints one of my letters 
with copious italics. I don't like this. Can they suspect or have they 
been told whence they come?... 

Towards night I got over to Mrs. Douglas, where I sat a little while 
and told Mr. Rust x of Arkansas that I was very glad to see with how 
much moderation and forbearance gentlemen acted now, for that I 
thought if all bitterness of manner could be done away with, it would 
end three-quarters of the trouble. Mr. Rust is the only man in the 
Committee who is rude and overbearing. 

People are in the dumps here; vide my Advertiser letter on Friday or 
Saturday. But the battle is over, I believe, with Floyd's resignation. 
Meanwhile our good father is becoming a very Jove in his committee. 
He has now pretty much the entire control of it, and has fairly driven 
the extremists out of the field a as vide my Advertiser letter Saturday. 
He is making himself a great reputation here and on the whole he is 
sustained at home. He has an immense hold on Massachusetts. No 
other man could have done what he has done, for he has changed the 
whole course of the State and is throwing her whole influence, and 
more than her due influence into the scale now. I consider that the 
unity of the Republicans is due in a very great measure to him, as well 
as the unity in the entire North, and I believe that his action alone 
may turn the scale in the border states. 

Wilson a was in here tonight and gave us some news about the 
Cabinet. He says that Seward will be Premier, or rather that he is it 
already. This is good, Cameron's appointment to the Treasury is 
thought very bad. People fear jobbing. Bates is good; he will be 
Attorney General, says Wilson. From New England we shall have 
Mr. Gideon F, Welles, which is also good. Of course our father re- 
mains where he is to be Premier, I expect, in '64. He prefers his 
present position, which is certainly one of great power, and I don't 

1 Albert Rust (d. 1870), Representative from Arkansas, 
a Henry Wilson (1812-1875), Senator from Massachusetts. 



76 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

know that he's not right for the present. He's a growing man and will 
soon have a national fame and power inferior to no one unless it be 
Seward. 

His position on the present difficulties will, I think, be sustained 
in the country, and if it is, as I hope, made the means of uniting the 
whole North and securing the border states, our good father will be 
invincible in Massachusetts. His strong point is in not being a mere 
Massachusetts politician, nor confined to one idea. This is the second 
time he has kicked over the traces in Congress and I think it will be a 
great thing. 

South Carolina has got to eat dirt; yea, and repent in sackcloth and 
ashes. I doubt if any other State goes so far, but all the cotton states 
may go and welcome, if we can keep the border ones. YouVe no idea 
how deep the treason is. Joe Lane x is said to be at the head of it; that 
is, when Washington is seized, he will be declared President. Caleb 
Gushing knows about it too. Couldn't you hang him ? I tell you we 
have just escaped a cursed dangerous plot, and if we have indeed 
wholly escaped it, it is by God's grace, not for want of traitors. 

Seward is well and speaks of you. He's a precious foxy old man, 
and tells no one his secrets. I'm inclined to think that he has arranged 
or is arranging everything with Lincoln through Thurlow Weed. 

It's one o'clock at night and I've been writing all day. So I must 
stop off. What did the New York merchant reply to the order of a 
Charleston house for flour? "Eat your cotton, God damn ye." 
Yours ever. 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

WASHINGTON, 8 January, 1861. 
. 

I think we do not feel so confident here as usual. Seward is evidently 
very low-spirited, though that is owing partly to the labor of preparing 
his speech. But I have noticed a marked change in the tone of our 
excellent father, consequent on information which he has received 
but has not yet confided in me. Until now he has steadily believed 
that the border states would not go, and his measures were intended 
to influence them. But now I think he gives it up. His theory is that 
all depends on Virginia and that Virginia is lost. If this turns out to be 
the case, it increases our difficulties very badly. It makes war inevit- 
able; war before the 4th of March. 

* Joseph Lane (1801-1881), Senator from Oregon. 



IMMINENCE OF WAR 77 

God forbid that I should croak or foresee what is not to come. You 
and I are young enough to be sanguine where others despair. For one, 
I intend to remain in this city. If there is war I intend to take such 
part in it as is necessary or useful. It would be a comfort if such times 
come, to know that the Massachusetts regiments are ready, and if one 
can be formed on the Cromwell type, I will enroll myself. Of course 
we can not doubt the result; but I must confess that I had hoped to 
avoid a real battle. If Virginia and Maryland secede, they will strike 
at this city, and we shall have to give them such an extermination that 
it were better we had not been born. I do not want to fight them. Is 
thy servant a South Carolinian that he should do this thing? They 
are mad, mere maniacs, and I want to lock them up till they become 
sane; not to kill them. I want to educate, humanize and refine them, 
not send fire and sword among them. Let those that will howl for war. 
I claim to be sufficiently philanthropic to dread it, and sufficiently 
Christian to wish to avoid it and to determine to avoid it, except in 
self-defence. Tell your warlike friends in Massachusetts that we want 
no blood-thirsty men here. If the time comes when men are wanted it 
will be men who fight because there is no other way; not because they 
are angry; men who will come with their bibles as well as their rifles and 
who will pray God to forgive them for every life they take. 

I am confident that if an actual conflict could be kept off for a few 
months, there could be none. The South are too weak to sustain such 
a delay. There would be a reaction among themselves from mere 
starvation and ruin. But if Virginia goes out, I do not see how it is to 
be avoided. 

This is solemn, but I have enough self-respect to keep me from 
joining with any body of men who act from mere passion and the sense 
of wrong. Don't trust yourself to that set, for they will desert you 
when you need their support. They don't know what they're after. 
Support any honorable means of conciliation. Our position will be im- 
mensely strengthened by it. We cannot be too much in the right. It 
is time for us who claim to lead this movement to become cool and to 
do nothing without the fear of God before our eyes 

My letters have, I think, done some good in sustaining papa at 
home and it was a relief to see the Advertiser of yesterday declare itself 
at last. I am convinced that his course is the only true and great one, 
and that it will ultimately meet the wishes of the whole North. You 
need not fear a compromise. The worst that is to be feared is, in my 
opinion, a division in the party. No compromise would, I think, call 
back the South. We are beyond that stage where a compromise can 



78 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

prevent the struggle. Let them pass their measures if they can; the 
contest is on us and all the rotten twine that ever was spun can't tie 
up this breach. Yours ever. 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

WASHINGTON, n January, 1861. 

Edward Pierce's r step in attacking papa in the Atlas and Bee sur- 
prises me. I wish to God he would publish papa's letter to him in an- 
swer to one to papa; that would I think end him; not that it was severe, 
for it was not, as his own letter was very polite; but I think the State 
would prefer our lead. Du reste, what he says is easily demolished and 
amounts to a misrepresentation and gross ignorance of his subject. 
It is not that which troubles me. It is the fellow's treason. He thinks 
papa will go into the Cabinet and he wants his place, but in such a case 
I hope Claflin 2 will get it. 

Apropos of the Cabinet, things are going all round the lot. Lincoln 
offered Cameron the Treasury without Seward's knowledge. Seward 
was utterly taken aback and would have preferred any other man. 
He sent Thurlow Weed on to Springfield to urge C. F. A. for the 
Treasury, but the New England man selected was Welles and Lincoln 
seems jealous of C. F. A., as too Sewardish. He wants some one to 
balance Seward's influence. Meanwhile Cameron's appointment has 
raised a tremendous storm round Lincoln. Every one is violent against 
it, and Cameron has actually been forced out. He told Alley lately 
that he was for C. F. A. for the Treasury, which is queen He will 
probably keep the War Department for himself, as he can job there too. 
The Massachusetts delegation were raving that Massachusetts was 
left out in the cold and all united in a memorial recommending 
C. F. A. as the New England member. Lincoln as yet has resisted all 
this influence and what will be the end, he knows, I do not. At all 
events it is not so sure that C. F. A. may not come in after all. He 
rather dreads the place as the hardest in the whole Government. 

We had a very pleasant dinner of nineteen yesterday. General 
Scott, Winter Davis and his wife, 3 the two Connecticut Senators 4 and 
wives, with Pennington and his three women, 5 etc., etc., etc. Winter 
Davis wanted to be remembered to you. Scott was pompous as usual. 
He seemed to hint that the President was vacillating again, but we 

1 Edward Lillie Pierce (1829-1897). a William Claflin (1818-1905). 

3 Nancy (Morris) Davis. 4 Lafayette S. Foster and James Dixon, 

5 Caroline (Burnet) Pennington. ' 



COOLNESS IN THE CHAOS 79 

have him under the screws now so that I think he must go right. His 
Adjutant Keyes x wants Major Anderson to bombard Charleston in 
case they fire on his reinforcements. I am utterly delighted with the 
course of things down there, if only they Ve hurt some one on the Star 
of the West. It puts them so in the wrong that they never will recover 
from it. Then it will raise the North to fever heat and perhaps secure 
Kentucky. My own wish is to keep cool. No man is fit to take hold 
now who is not cool as death. I feel in a continual intoxication in this 
life. It is magnificent to feel strong and quiet in all this row, and see 
one's own path clear through all the chaos. 

Many remonstrating and many impertinent letters come from the 
North about papa's propositions, but all either from Garrisonians or 
men without weight and generally both. Meanwhile his name is kept 
before the country, which is the great balance to any loss on that side. 
As a measure of statesmanship, I will stake my head on it. As a mere 
measure of low political policy I think it will help him too.... 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

WASHINGTON, January 17, 1861. 


I tell you we have been watching the political weathercock hard 
here for the last six weeks. Hard driven on this lee-shore, as we have 
been, and forced to sail so close on the wind that the sails keep a con- 
tinual flapping, we have watched and prayed for a lull in the storm 
and some sign of a break in the sky. It is hard to say whether it has 
come now or not, but we think it has. Seward's speech a has done great 
good. As you must see, it sustains and relieves our father on one side, 
and cuts the ground right from under the feet of the agitators in the 
border states as well as the northern Democrats and Whigs on the 
other. It is next to impossible now to get Maryland out of the Union 
before the sixth of March whatever may happen, and I think Ken- 
tucky and Tennessee are all right, so that we may sail through it all yet. 

As you might suppose, our people are a good deal divided. In 
Massachusetts, only Rice and perhaps Wilson will support Seward 
openly; the others have not the courage though several would be glad 
to. I was present at a funny little scene last Sunday, when Sumner 
and Preston King 3 came up to dine here. You know what sort of a 

1 Erasmus Darwin Keyes (1810-1895). 

In United States Senate, January ia, 1861. 

Preston King (1806-1865), Senator from New York. 



8o LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

man King is; the most amiable, fat old fanatic that ever existed. 
Sumner is always offensive to his opponents; he can't help it; but he 
can no more argue than a cat. He states his proposition and sticks to 
it, but the commonest special-pleader can knock him into splinters in 
five minutes. King is never offensive and is always so good-natured as 
to be pleasant, even when saying things that in Sumner's mouth would 
be unpardonable. 

After dinner, when mamma and Loo and Mary had gone up, and 
King had got his cigar and decanter of wine, we got into conversation 
on the settlement measures of the Committee of Thirty-Three and the 
New Mexican proposition and King attacked them in his genial way 
and Sumner sustained King in those round, oratorical periods that you 
know so well. I have noticed for some time past that our good father 
has been getting restive at Sumner. That speech last winter was 
against his advice, but then Sumner always acts with his eye on his 
personal figure before posterity and our father with his eye on the 
national future; which, as you see, are two different ends. This even- 
ing I foresaw fun, and sucked my cigar and kept still. Soon it began. 
After a little good-natured preliminary sparring King hit out rather 
harder than usual with something about compromise, and papa parried 
the blow with some energy. Then Sumner struck in on the other side, 
with a re-assertion of our being right, and that the South must be 
made to bend. Egad, it would have done you good to see how papa 
faced round on him and hit in, one, two, three, quick as lightning. 
"Sumner, you don't know what you're talking about. Yours is the 
very kind of stiff-necked obstinacy that will break you down if you 
persevere," etc., etc. All which Sumner took mildly as a lamb and 
hardly attempted an answer. Still he did make some remark about 
the unreasonableness of the southern troubles and the want of dignity 
in our descending to quiet them, whereupon I got out Lord Bacon and 
read him a few lines of the Essay on Seditions and Troubles which 
seemed to trouble him badly. The battle went on between King and 
papa after Sumner had been thus squelched and King maintained 
himself very well till they talked themselves out and agreed on the 
points where they should agree to differ. It amounted to this, that 
King thought that coercion was the only satisfactory end, and that 
papa declared coercion out of the question if the fifteen slave states go 
out together. 

Sumner was up here again yesterday when papa rapped him again 
over the knuckles. Ultra as he is, he is the most frightened man 
round; not personally that I know of, but in believing and repeating 
all the reports and rumors round town. 



SEWARD VIRTUAL RULER 81 

Yesterday we had the funniest little party. Seward once invited us 
all down to dinner, but we insisted that not more than one of our 
younger set should go at a time with the parent birds- So finding that 
he couldn't manage it any other way, he invited us four children to 
dine with him yesterday; Loo, Mary, Brooks and L Loo had to leave 
her bed to do it, as she was just under one of her head-aches, but do 
it we did in grand style. The Governor was grand. No one but his 
secretary Mr. Harrington was at table with us, but he had up some 
Moselle wine that Baron Gerolt z had sent him and we managed to be 
pretty jolly. He is now, as perhaps you do not know, virtual ruler of 
this country. Whether he is ever made President or not, he never will 
be in a more responsible position than he is in now, nor ever have 
more influence. Since the eighth of December he has been virtually 
Secretary of State and has been playing a game of chess with the 
southern men and beaten them too. To-night he was full of the 
criticisms on his speech, and the Courier s delighted him. If the 
Courier said that, he knew he must have said exactly the right thing. 

After dinner, the instant we got back into the parlor, out came the 
cards and he made Loo and Mary sit down and play whist in spite of 
all resistance on their part. He will have his own way and treats us all 
as his children. The other evening at our house, after taking off his 
boots to dry his feet, in the parlor, he patted mamma on the head like a 
little girl, and told her that she might come down after dinner and 
pass the evening with us, if she felt lonely without her children. From 
any other man this would make our dear mother furious, but he is so 
hopelessly lawless that she submits and feels rather flattered, I think. 
I have excited immense delight among some young ladies here by a 
very brilliant proposition which I made, to dye the old sinner's hair 
bright crimson, paint his face the most brilliant green and his nose 
yellow, and then to make an exhibition of him as the sage parrot; a 
bird he wonderfully resembles in manner and profile. If I had a knack 
at drawing, I would make some such sketch for Vanity Fair. 

Today my friend Mr. Lars Anderson dined here; the major's 
brother. He has been in Charleston, has seen his brother and had all 
the talk with him he wants. The Governor of South Carolina allowed 
him to do so. He says they are all crazy down there, but polite and 
chivalrous. Every one is a soldier, but no one holds any rank lower 
than that of a Colonel, of whom there are five thousand. He says that 
his brother can hold out two or three months, though not with com- 
fort, and yesterday when I called and had a talk with him about his 

1 Friednch von Gerolt. 



82 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

brother, he had to wipe his eyes several times in speaking of him and 
the pride he took in his behavior. He has seen the President and 
General Scott and had interviews with them, and the result will be 
one of two things. Either the rebels will allow the Major to have his 
letters and to get fresh provisions from day to day, or else supplies 
will be put in at any price and at all hazards. Mr. Anderson did not 
say this, but I infer it. He is hopeful for the Union, and only asks time 
and line, to let the fit exhaust itself. 

The truth is a good deal depends for us on a little bit of a fight. 
Unless this had seemed inevitable, I doubt whether Seward would 
have made just that speech, or papa his propositions. If that does not 
happen, I'm afraid that the North may not fully appreciate the conces- 
sions of those two gentlemen. But the North ought to be worsted in 
the fight, in order to put the South in the wrong. If Major Anderson 
and his whole command were all murdered in cold blood, it would be 
an excellent thing for the country, much as I should regret it on the 
part of those individuals. 

As for an elaborate paper on things in general here, it's no use. 
Papa will speak soon; Seward has spoken; I regard the critical point as 
passed and think that every day will strengthen those two gentlemen. 
Edward Pierce has dished himself, I believe, and what little tempta- 
tion I once had to try to serve him up, has passed. The Atlas and Bee 
is a venomous little sheet and will do papa all the harm it can, which, 
thank God, is not much. I would like however to have the columns of 
the Springfield Republican open to me. It's the best paper in the State 
and carries most weight. Hale amuses me in his arrangement of my 
letters. . . . 

I am easier about fighting. It is possible that there may be a war, 
but if I understand Seward, it's more likely to be a siege. We shall 
blockade and starve them out. They can be tired out in a year, I 
think, even if they all go; in two years certainly. The cotton states 
can be finished in nine months or I'm a beggar. It's a mere question 
how much money they've got, and South Carolina has spent $x, 400,- 
ooo in sixty days. That can't last long. 

To Charles Francis Adams > Jr. 

WASHINGTON, January 24, 1861. 

I begin a letter to you though I've little to say, as no new develop- 
ments have lately come out. We are waiting here. Our father is pre- 
paring his speech, the rough draft of which I have quietly read, and 



SEWARD A PUZZLE 83 

which I foresee will raise considerable hesitations in your Hotspurs of 
the North. I hardly know what to think of the condition of the North 
now. There are strong signs of a sweeping reaction there. You see 
our friend Washburne has lost his senatorial election in Wisconsin to 
a conservative man, 1 and that in the face of his minority report of the 
Committee of Thirty-Three. Pennsylvania is all gone, headed by 
Cameron, it is hinted, in revenge for having been kicked out of the 
Cabinet. Lincoln's position is not known, but his course up to this 
time has shown his utter ignorance of the right way to act, so far as his 
appointments go. It is said, too, here, that he is not a strong man. 
I'm afraid they'll manage to compromise us, and for my own part, 
believing as I do that the game is ours anyway, unless we're forced 
into a war, I don't care much what they do, except that it splits the 
party. 

January 26, 1861. It's a curious state of things here. I am trying 
hard to comprehend it, but as I only see one side and am so hard at 
work that I don't have much chance to see the other, it is rather hard 
to follow events with a proper appreciation. At all events I think dis- 
union has run its length. With or without compromise it will end, and 
the states come back. All we have got to do is to see that the rebound 
doesn't knock us Republicans over. 

The speaking has been good this week and the South Americans 
have come out bravely. Virginia will go, however, I rather think. 
Still, there's no knowing. I've seen no big men lately to speak of, 
except Seward, who dined here yesterday. He puzzles me more and 
more. I can't see how he works at all. Now, I'm inclined to believe 
that all Weed's motions, compromises and all, have been feelers on 
Seward's part. He will not compromise, himself, but he'll let others 
believe he will, and anyway, this disunion matter must be stopped, is 
his theory. He is in communication with pretty much everybody; says 
he receives as many letters from Virginia as he ever did from New 
York. Scott and he rule the country and Scott's share in the rule is 
but small. 

January 28, 1 861 . I am so crowded with work that I have no time to 
write much on my own account. I have been busy all day copying 
papa's speech for Hale to publish in advance of the ordinary course. 
I hope to get it done tomorrow and he will probably speak Thursday. 
You can judge of it when it appears. As I have not yet read it all in 
its last form, I can't express an opinion. 

The last rumor is a resurrection of the old danger of an attack on 

1 Timothy 0. Howe. 



84 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Washington. Scott is said to have demanded ten thousand volunteers 
and Buchanan is unwilling to give them on account of a fear of irritat- 
ing Virginia. These men are mad if they have such a plan, but mad- 
men are sometimes dangerous. Nous verrons. 

I have written a letter to the Advertiser chaffing the five wise men of 
Boston, which Hale will not publish I suppose. As he always cuts out 
the spicy parts of my letters, I don't expect it. Still I thought I would 
make the attempt. . . . 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

WASHINGTON, January 31, 1861. 

Papa has just spoken. The House listened with a perfectly intense 
attention, and you could have heard them breathe, I believe, if you'd 
tried. They were evidently with him and every word told. The gal- 
leries, which were pretty full, applauded him several times. His hour 
out, an extension was granted which is rather rare now, and he fin- 
ished, applauded at the close. As usual he held them with a regular 
grip, and when he ended, every one got up and a poor devil who wanted 
to speak got mad because no one would listen. I didn't see Sumner 
there, but old Winthrop and Everett were on the floor and seemed 
rather less well pleased than I should have thought they would have 
been. After it was over I saw nearly all the delegation come up to 
congratulate him very heartily, and a perfect host of others. 

In my opinion it's a great speech and one that will tell effectively. 
It's the best stroke the old gentleman ever made yet. It's what the 
republicans have got to stand on, and you'll see that everyone will 
ultimately settle on it except the abolitionists and the disunionists. 

Papa has been perfectly overwhelmed with congratulations, the 
delegation being delighted. Winthrop did not speak to him. Everett 
shook hands and said he agreed with nearly everything he said. 

I've never seen papa more affected than by the reception he met. 
Buffington got it in, inducing Corwin and Sherman to let him have 
the floor on the Pacific rail-road bill. This is a very rare thing. The 
Herald man says he's going to telegraph the whole speech on to New 
York tonight. Fifteen or twenty thousand copies are already ordered 
for Maryland. . . . 

On the whole, cest une grande victoire. Voila tout. 



TROUBLE WITH SUMNER 85 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

WASHINGTON, February 5, 1861. 

Yours of the 17 duly arrived. You find fault with me for not writing 
more, but as I generally have to sit into the morning hours to write 
what I do, I can only say I am sorry. As for my Advertiser letters, 
Hale does not encourage brilliancy. Chaff seems to be his horror and 
he promptly expunges all that I write of an unfavorable personal 
character. The consequence is that I lose all interest in what I'm 
saying, as I'm never sure he will print it. So it is with all our Boston 
papers. Indeed the Journal has cut Poore's z letters so that he pretty 
much stopped writing at one time I believe. I never see the Journal, 
so I can't say. That was the story here. 

Thirty-odd letters arrived this morning full of the most enthusiastic 
praise of our speech. Personally I am more than satisfied with it and 
its reception, but so far as its influence on the South goes, I believe it 
might as well not have been spoken. I'm afraid the game is up and 
that we shall have to make a new Capital on the Mississippi, for a new 
Northern Union. 

Virginia has decided our fate today. If she has gone, the trouble 
and violence will begin at once and I have little doubt there will be 
actual war before the 4th of March. Still, do not repeat this to anyone. 
It will be known soon enough before there will be any need of getting 
into a funk over it. 

I have little that is new to tell you. Yesterday I went in to see 
Sumner and found that old beast Gurowski 3 there. Fm afraid Sumner 
is going to make a fool of himself. His vanity has been hurt and that 
is enough for him. The difficulty was a miserably small one and not 
worth the noise it has made. It seems he was consulted as to this ap- 
pointment of Commissioners to come here. 3 He wrote a letter against 
it without consulting any of his friends, as any man, asked such a 
question, of no great importance, might do. The next day John P. 
Hale, who had managed New Hampshire, wanting to be supported, 
came to C. F. A. and urged him to recommend the measure to Andrew. 
Accordingly C. F. A. wrote a short form which was signed by all the 
delegation until he came to Sumner, who then told him that he had 
written against it the night before. Sumner is said to be hurt with 
Hale's behavior, which was certainly not open, for though Hale says 
he did not know that Sumner would oppose it, he probably believed 

* Benjamin Perky Poore (1810-1887). a Adam Gurowski (1805-1886). 

3 To the Peace Convention. Mass. Hist. Soc., Proceedings^ LX, 225. 



86 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

he would, and ought at any rate to have consulted him. But mean- 
while, Sumner was put in 'Opposition to the delegation, and the Legis- 
lature in Massachusetts telegraphed forward and back, making a 
mountain out of a potato-hill, till it was almost a trial of strength be- 
tween the two sides. When I saw Sumner, nothing was said, of course, 
and he told me he expected to dine with us, but he didn't come and I 
fear he means to make a personal matter of it. He thinks that C. F. A. 
has ruined himself, and no doubt the whole Garrison wing are doing 
their best to widen the breach. 

Seward on the other hand received the speech with the most gen- 
erous praise, calling it what he had tried to say and had not said so 
well. A majority of the delegation are with us, I believe, and at all 
events I have no fear that they will hurt us. But Sumner is no great 
mind in these things. His vanity, or modesty, or what you will, is 
sensitive as a woman's. 

I have seen no one lately except Colonel Keyes, Scott's aid, who 
was here yesterday and full of war. He says that there is undoubtedly 
a plot against the Capital, and to put down every doubt and make us 
all right and as we should be, we need ten thousand men here. If 
Virginia goes we must have them instanter. 

Of the Cabinet I know nothing. It is said that Fogg went to Spring- 
field some time since with letters of introduction from various Sena- 
tors, and told Lincoln that Cameron was not an honest man. Cameron 
heard it and says he shall hold those Senators to account for it. 
Cameron's a mean rascal and will do harm if he can. 

You need not be surprised if a joint resolution is sprung on Congress 
and the votes counted and the election declared before the usual day. 
It is talked of, but I'm not sure that it can be done. I've not looked up 
the laws nor heard them discussed 

To Charles Francis Adams > Jr. 

WASHINGTON, February 8, 1861. 

You counsel boldness at the very time when a bold slip might close 
my mouth permanently. It was but this morning that C. F. A. cau- 
tioned me against writing too freely. The New York Times, which has 
always shown particular respect towards my letters, gave to one of 
them the other day an official character, reprinting it as a leader, with 
comments. This makes it very necessary that I should be exceedingly 
cautious in what I say, unless I want to be closed up altogether. 
Besides, in the present state of the delegation, when there are but 



SUMNER AND HIS DlGNITY 87 

three or at most four who will follow our lead, I can't be very bold 
without bringing Pangborn on my back, and getting not only myself 
(which I would rather like) but Papa into hot water. 

As for Sumner, the utmost that can be expected is to keep him 
silent. To bring him round is impossible. God Almighty couldn't do 
it. He has not made his appearance here for more than a week, 
though there is as yet, so far as I know, no further change in the posi- 
tion of matters between him and C. F. A. As usual I suppose he will 
stand on his damned dignity. Once Governor Seward and he had a 
quarrel. The Governor wanted him to vote for an Atlantic steamship 
bill, and after exhausting all other arguments, tried to act on his feel- 
ings and urged him to vote for it as a personal favor in order to aid his 
re-election. Sumner replied that he wasn't sent to the Senate to get 
Mr. Seward's re-election. On which the Governor, losing his phSo- 
sophical self-command, said, " Sumner you're a damned fool," and they 
didn't speak again for six months. I'm of Seward's opinion. Let Sum- 
ner get the Idea that his dignity is hurt, and he is a damned fool. 
However, you can rely upon it, we shall do all we can to prevent his 
bolting, and I mean to flatter him all to pieces if I have a chance. 

The Convention is in secret session. Like most meetings of this sort, 
I suppose they will potter ahead until no one feels any more interest in 
them, and then they may die. I have not yet seen any of our Massa- 
chusetts men. 

This temporizing policy is hard work. I'm sick of it, but the 4th of 
March is coming and we shall soon be afloat again. These cursed 
Virginians are so in-grain conceited that it's a perfect nuisance to have 
anything to do with them. Let the 4th March pass and unless I'm 
much mistaken they will be allowed to send their secession ordi- 
nance to the people, and have it rejected too. Just now however 
there is nothing for it but to delay. Our measures will pass the House, 
and perhaps the Senate; at least I think so, but we shall see. Forty or 
fifty on our side will oppose them, but not violently 

The ancient Seward is in high spirits and chuckles himself hoarse 
with his stories. He says it's all right. We shall keep the border states, 
and in three months or thereabouts, if we hold off, the Unionists 
and Disunionists will have their hands on each other's throats in the 
cotton states. The storm is weathered. 



88 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

WASHINGTON, February 13, 1861. 

The family have gone up to the Capitol to see the counting of the 
votes. As I don't anticipate any show, and am no longer a reporter 
and wanted a little leisure to write to you, I've remained at home. 

Charles Hale has come on and means to stay over the 4th. I have 
of course stopped writing for the Advertiser, and left it to him. He 
evidently had no objection, though complimentary in his remarks 
generally. On looking back over my letters this winter, I am on the 
whole tolerably well satisfied with them and their effect. They have had 
some good influence in shaping the course of opinion in Boston, and 
the Advertiser and the New York Times have both profited by them. 
Now that I'm out of the traces I'm not sorry for it on some accounts. 
Pm no longer at home, and living out of the house destroys my even- 
ings. Then our house is so full, and there are so many people here 
and so much society that it's next to impossible to do anything. And 
finally, the Convention has assumed the whole affair and I should 
have to take a world of trouble to find out what was going on, and 
probably couldn't do it at all. At any rate Charles Hale can do it 
better than I, and wants to, so I am willing. 

I don't think much of the Convention. I don't see much ability in 
it, nor much life. I don't believe any great good can come from it, ex- 
cept to gain time. I think the battle is won. I'm beginning to lose my 
interest in it since the Tennessee election. In my belief everything is 
going to simmer down, and wise men will keep quiet. The next 
administration will give us trouble enough, and I for one am going 
upon the business or the pleasure that shall suit me, for every man 
hath business or desire such as it is, and for my own poor part look 
you I will go write an article for the Atlantic Monthly, intituled " The 
Great Secession Winter of 1 860-61." x 

Mrs. Douglas * gave a crush ball last night. Her little beast of a 
husband was there as usual; God pardon me for abusing my host, 
whose bread and salt it is true I had no chance to touch, but a very 
little of whose champagne I drank, diluted with water, the common 
property of the human race. Mamma and Fanny went first to the 
President's reception and afterwards to the ball, and I assure you, the 
young Crowninshield was some astonished with the sights she saw. 
It was without any exception the wildest collection of people I ever 

1 Printed in 1910, in Mass. Hist. Soc,, Proceedings, XLHI, 656. 
Adele (Cutts) Douglas. 



MRS. DOUGLAS'S BALL 89 

saw. Next to the President's receptions, the company was beyond all 
description promiscuous. Mrs. Douglas, who is said to be much 
depressed by the general condition of things, received and looked as 
usual, handsome "Splendidly null/' Poor girl! what the deuce does 
she look forward to! Her husband is a brute not to her that I know 
of but gross, vulgar, demagogic; a drunkard, ruined as a politician; 
ruined as a private man; over head and ears, indeed drowned lower 
than soundings reaching in debt; with no mental or literary resources; 
without a future; with a past worse than none at all; on the whole I'd 
rather not be Mrs. Douglas. Still, there she stood and shook hands 
with all her guests, and smiled and smiled. 

A crowd of admiring devotees surrounded the ancient buffer Tyler; x 
another crowd surrounded that other ancient buffer Crittenden. Ye 
gods, what are we, when mortals no bigger no, not so big as our- 
selves, are looked up to as though their thunder spoke from the real 
original Olympus. Here is an old Virginia politician, of whom by good 
rights, no one ought ever to have heard, re-appearing in the ancient 
cerements of his forgotten grave political and social and men look 
up at him as they would at Solomon, if he could be made the subject 
of a resurrection. I nearly got into several fights with various men and 
women, in the attempt to get through the crowd. . . . 

I have little to tell you in politics. I am so taken up with work and 
play that I've no time to hunt secrets. Sumner still holds out and has 
not been near us, though he is very cordial when we meet. The trouble 
there was greater than I supposed. Our irascible papa got into a pas- 
sion with him for attempting to call Alley to account in his (C. F. A/s) 
presence. Perhaps Sumner might have forgiven this, but then Massa- 
chusetts has preferred C. F. A/s lead, and that finished him. However, 
all quarrels and secessions must be healed soon. It's the order of the 
day. 

I've not seen Seward very lately and don't know much about him. 
He is hard at work I suppose, and I don't like to go down and inter- 
rupt him. I can't get over my modesty about those things. The last 
time he was here he was very jolly indeed and sanguine as could be. 
Between Lincoln and the secessionists he must have a hard time. . . . 
Dana's step is a great thing. It raps those confounded Rump Whigs 
who are doing their worst to hurt us. As its ground is more than 
usually distinct and independent it will support us the more. 

Ex-President John Tyler, who presided over the Peace Convention. 



Ill 

LONDON 

1861-1868 
To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

LONDON, 1 May 16, 1861. 

We are planted here in London, as no doubt other people's letters 
have told you, in a way that is to me anything but pleasant. Our 
hotel is poor, our quarters confined, our eating to my overeducated 
mind miserable. I feel in poor health myself and am easily tired and 
irritable. London is a great unpleasant body, and my freedom seems 
to me now of more worth than this sort of existence, where one has 
Earls' cards on one's table but can't stir a step for fear of violating 
etiquette. As yet I have no acquaintances. No one has asked me to 
dinner; nor have I found that my reputation has crossed the Atlantic 
before me. I pass my time in doing errands and am not sure that this 
will not be my duty and only duty always. I can assure you, my own 
share in matters in general will be very small. The Governor was pre- 
sented today and the Queen was gracious, but made no remark further 
than to say she believed he had been in England before. Mr. Dallas 8 
goes off tomorrow and leaves the Legation today in our hands. 
Papa and Wilson 3 have been informally introduced and now we have 
pretty much got going, except that we've not yet found a house. I've 
been to see several and there's one in Grosvenor Square that would 
do for six months, but the rent is five hundred dollars a month for 
three months and it's doubtful whether we could get it for six, even 
putting aside the rent question. As for taking one for the whole 
term, I am rather opposed to it now, until we've had time to look 
about. 

The Governor is in the hands of all the usual crowd of old buffers 
and will begin his dinings out at once, I suppose. Mamma is in good 
hands and laboring hard with etiquette. Of course we have each 

x A good part of Henry Adams' letters from London to his brother Charles, 1861-1865, was 
printed in A Cycle of Adams Letters. 

9 George Mifflin Dallas (1792-1864). 

* Charles Lush Wilson, of Chicago (d. 1878), Secretary of Legation. He had been editor of the 
Chicago Daily Journal. 



SOCIETY IN LONDON 91 

day's lesson rehearsed four or five times for our benefit and that of 
visitors and friends, till there is no danger of any one's forgetting it. 
A hen with a brood of ducklings is a joke to it. Madam Bates and her 
daughter, Mrs. Van de Weyer, 1 give us law, and their names are in- 
scribed in high places in our household Gods. Altogether I feel pretty 
sick and tired of the whole thing, though I am no more than a listener. 



To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

LONDON, June 10, 1861. 
* 

The expences in this city are enormous and if the Ambassador's 
private income fails we must cut our establishment down to a very 
low figure, as one can do little here with less than forty thousand, and 
nothing with less than twenty-five thousand dollars. People must 
occasionally live on less, but if so, they must have assistance from the 
public charities. The scale of living and the prices are curious ex- 
amples of the beauties of a high civilization. 

As for myself, I have only the same old story to sing which I have 
chanted many times, especially in my letters to you. I have done 
nothing whatever in the way of entering society, nor do I mean to take 
the plunge until after my presentation on the igth. Getting into soci- 
ety is a repulsive piece of work here. Supposing you are invited to a 
ball. You arrive at eleven o'clock. A footman in powder asks your 
name and announces you. The lady or ladies of the house receive you 
and shake hands. You pass on and there you are. You know not a 
soul. No one offers to introduce you. No one even looks at you with 
curiosity. London society is so vast that the oldest habitues know 
only their own sets, and never trouble themselves even to look at any- 
one else. No one knows that you're a stranger. You see numbers of 
men and women just as silent and just as strange as yourself. You 
may go from house to house and from rout to rout and never see a face 
twice. You may labor for weeks at making acquaintances and yet go 
again and again to balls where you can't discover a face you ever saw 
before. And supposing you are in society, what does it amount to. 
The state dinners are dull, heavy, lifeless affairs. The balls are solemn 
stupid crushes without a scintilla of the gayety of our balls. No one 
enjoys them so far as I can hear. They are matters of necessity, of 

* Joshua Bates (1788-1864), of the house of Baring Brothers, married Lucretia Augustus 
Sturgis. Their daughter married Silvain Van de Weyer, Minister of Belgium at London. 



92 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

position. People have to entertain. They were born to it and it is one 
of the duties of life. My own wish is quietly to slide into the literary 
set and leave the heavy society, which without dancing is a frightful 
and irredeemable bore to me, all on one side 

You want to be posted up politically. If the Times has published 
my letters without mutilation, you will see what I think about it. We 
arrived here just as the Queen's Proclamation was issued. Of course 
the question arose what course to take. Papa's instructions and es- 
pecially a later despatch would have justified him in breaking off at 
once all diplomatic relations with this Government, and we felt no 
doubt that, as you say, the Americans would have upheld him. But 
I must confess such a policy appeared to me to be the extreme of 
shallowness and folly. In the first place it would have been a tre- 
mendous load for the country. In the second place it would have been 
a mere wanton, mad, windmill-hitting, for the sympathies and the 
policy of England are undoubtedly with us, as has been already shown. 
In the third place it would have been ruin in a merely private point of 
view. Two such wars would grind us all into rags in America. One is 
already enough to cut down incomes to a dreadful extent. 

Papa took the course that seems to me to have been the correct 
one. He had an interview with Lord John and told him, without bra- 
vado or brag, how the matter was regarded in America, or was likely 
to be regarded, and announced plainly what course he should be com- 
pelled to take if the Government really entertained any idea of en- 
couraging the insurgents, and demanded a categorical answer as to the 
course the Government meant to pursue. Lord John promised to send 
this answer by Lord Lyons, protesting at the same time the unreason- 
ableness of the American feeling, and the perfect good-faith of his 
Government. Since that time no opportunity has escaped the Govern- 
ment of proving their good-will towards us and unless you in America 
are run mad, and are determined to run your heads right against a 
stone-wall there need be no more difficulty whatever. 

Feeling as I did in the matter, of course I did my best in my letters 
to the Times to quiet rather than inflame. If you choose you can 
suggest to the Advertiser a leader developing the view which I take, 
and pointing out the good sense of our worthy Ambassador in main- 
taining the dignity of the country, and yet avoiding a rupture, as con- 
trasted with those noisy jackasses Clay and Burlingame, who have 
done more harm here than their weak heads were worth a thousand 
times over. I believe it to be essential to our interests now that Europe 
should be held on our side. Our troubles have gone too far to be closed 



SEWARD AND WAR WITH ENGLAND 93 

by foreign jealousies. The cotton states would rather annex them- 
selves to England or Spain than come back to us. 

I have tried to get some influence over the press here but as yet 
have only succeeded in one case which has, however, been of some use. 
That is the Morning Herald, whose American editor, a young man 
named Edge/ came to call on the Ambassador. He is going to Amer- 
ica to correspond for his paper; at least he says so. If he brings you a 
letter, let him be asked out to dine and give him what assistance in the 
way of introductions he wants. He is withal of passing self-conceit 
and his large acquaintance is fudge, for he is no more than an adven- 
turer in the press; but his manners are good, and so long as he asks 
nothing in return, it's better to have him an ally than an enemy 

Tuesday, nth. To return to politics, and this in absolute secrecy, 
for I let you know what I've no business to. A despatch arrived yester- 
day from Seward, so arrogant in tone and so extraordinary and un- 
paralleled in its demands that it leaves no doubt in my mind that our 
Government wishes to face a war with all Europe. That is the inevi- 
table result of any attempt to carry out the spirit or the letter of these 
directions, and such a war is regarded in the despatch itself as the 
probable result. I have said already that I thought such a policy 
shallow madness, whether it comes from Seward or from any one else. 
It is not only a crime; it's a blunder. I have done my best to counter- 
act it; I only wish I could really do anything. I urged papa this morn- 
ing, as the only man who could by any chance stop the thing, to make 
an energetic effort and induce the British Government to put us so 
much in the wrong that we couldn't go further. I think he has made 
up his mind to some effect of the sort and I hope it will succeed with all 
my soul. 

Does Seward count on the support of France? It is not likely, for 
this despatch applies as much to her as to England. But if he does he 
is just as much mistaken as he ever was in his life. Any one who knows 
Napoleon knows that he means to stick with England. I cannot tell 
you how I am shocked and horrified by supposing Seward, a man I've 
admired and respected beyond most men, guilty of what seems to me 
so wicked and criminal a course as this. 

I do not think I exaggerate the danger. I believe that our Govern- 
ment means to have a war with England; I believe that England knows 
it and is preparing for it; and I believe it will come within two months 
if at all. If you have any property liable to be affected by it, change 
the investment. Don't go into the army yet. Wait for a Canadian 

* Frederick Mdnes Edge, 



94 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

campaign and meanwhile live if you can on hay. Our incomes will 
soon have to go to pay our taxes. There's only one comfort that I see 
in the whole matter and that is that within a year we shall all be ut- 
terly ruined and our Government broken down; in other words, the 
war on that scale must be short and we of the commercial interests 
shall be the first to go under. If I have any marine insurance stock, sell 
it and invest in Dick Fay's woollen manufacturing arrangement if you 
can; if not, in anything reasonably safe; Massachusetts or Boston city 
stocks. 

I'm in a panic you see. 

To Charles Francis Adams , Jr. 

LONDON, 20 February, 1863, 

I wish you were out of your "long siege in mud and rain/* which is 
likely to be as unpleasantly famous as any in Flanders. Hilton Head, I 
should have thought, would have been a Paradise compared with this. 

Bad as your report is about the army of the Potomac, and bad as I 
fully expect the news to be of the attack on Charleston and Vicksburg, 
still I have derived a grain of comfort from what I think looks like a 
gleam of improvement in the political look of things at home. Of all 
results, a restoration of the Union on a pro-slavery basis would be 
most unfortunate. Yet I dread almost equally a conquest that 
would leave us with a new and aggravated Poland on our hands. 
If we could only fight a peace that would give us Virginia, Tennessee 
and Mississippi river, then we might easily allow slavery to gather to 
a head in the cotton states, and crush it out at our leisure on the first 
good opportunity; but such a vision is reserved for the just made 
perfect. 

As to your avowal of belligerent intentions for life, if you expect me 
to quarrel with you on that account, you will be disappointed. As 
the Chief always says, when his lady complains of my follies: "My 
dear, Henry is of age and can do what he likes." You are of age, and 
even if you choose to become a Methodist minister, I don't propose to 
forbid the consecration. Perhaps I am prejudiced against your career 
from my observations on military men in Europe, where so far as I can 
judge, they are the greatest curse and nuisance in existence. The life 
of a soldier in time of peace seems here to have had a very bad effect 
indeed upon the mass of the officers. If I know it, our country has 
had about as much war as she wants for the present, and if we don't 
have peace and long peace, our game is up. You and I look at things 



THE POPULAR PRINCE OF WALES 95 

from different points. My view is that peace and small armaments 
will be our salvation as a united and solvent nation. You prefer to 
speculate on the chances of war or convulsions, and throw your net in 
troubled waters. 

Though I don't propose to bother you with useless remonstrances, I 
must decline in toto to have anything to do with opening the subject 
in the family. My belief is that it had better not be mentioned till the 
time comes. Whenever the war does end and you then do become 
obliged to inform your relatives of your intention to cool your heels for 
life in some fortified swamp in Louisiana or Arkansas, I shall take a 
month's vacation and visit you till your said relatives come to the 
earth again. We can then discuss this and other matters over a pipe of 
peace, if you can provide mild tobacco. Otherwise I prefer a cigar.... 

We are beginning to be gay here. By the way, Monckton Milnes, 1 
who is the only man in England that ever did me a kindness, I believe, 
has had me invited to a literary club here, for a time, where I have a 
great chance to meet the curiosities of the place. Tom Hughes 2 has 
been of great use to me and has introduced me to a number of very 
pleasant acquaintances ; few young men there, however. The season is 
beginning again too, and I am nerving myself to all the torture that 
invariably follows and accompanies all my attempts in this line. I have 
serious thoughts of quitting my old projects of a career, like you. My 
promised land of occupation, however; my burial place of ambition 
and law, is geology and science. I wish I could send you Sir Charles 
LyelTs new book on the Antiquity of Man, but it wouldn't do very 
well for camp-reading. 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

LONDON, 6 March, 1863. 


Such a bother and a fuss as all the world keeps up about this un- 
happy Prince of Wales, who would give his best pair of new breeches 
to be a very humble private individual for the next week. He is quite 
popular here, for he is thoughtful of others and kind, and hates cere- 
mony. So it seems as though a temporary bee had lodged in the 
bonnet of this good people, who have set to work with a sort of deter- 
mined, ponderous and massive hilarity, to do him honor* I suppose 
you will get from first hand a correct account of the events of last 

1 Richard Monckton Milnes, Baron Houghton (1809-1885). 
Thomas Hughes (1822-1896). 



96 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Saturday at Court. Also you will receive a photograph of our sister 
as she appeared. She is now fairly launched. Pretty, attractive, 
sympathetic and well-informed; but time and contact with the world 
will have to do much to develop her. To my mind, London fashionable 
society (routs, receptions, dances, I mean) is intolerably stupid* IVe 
not the genius to find anything in it worthy of tasting, to one who has 
drunk the hot draughts of our flirtatious style of youthful amusement. 
If she can learn to prefer the heavy patronage of stupid elder sons, to a 
gayer style of thing, she will learn, no doubt, to have a good time, 

As to public affairs I have nothing to tell you, as we are going on 
excellently well. We have done our work in England, and if you mil- 
itary heroes would only give us a little encouragement, we should be 
the cocks of the walk in England. But diplomacy has certainly had no 
aid from the sword to help a solution of its difficulties* Couldn't some 
of you give us just one leetle sugar-plum ? We are shocking dry. 

Of course, there is plenty to do. I am busy writing, recording, filing 
and collating letters and documents four or five hours every day, and 
my books and files for the last two years are beginning to assume a 
portentous size. Still it is very easy and mechanical work and doesn't 
prevent me from another sort of application which is more on my own 
account. But it's precious hard to work on one's own account in these 
times, when the chances are indefinitely against one's ever succeeding 
in bringing the results into action. 

Tomorrow is to be the entrance of the Princess Alexandra, and all 
the world is going to see it. Next Tuesday is the wedding and an 
illumination. Ye Gods! what an infernal row it is!... 

To Charles Francis Adams > Jr. 

LONDON, 20 March, 1863. 

We are in a shocking bad way here. I don't know what we are ever 
going to do with this damned old country. Some day it will wake up 
and find itself at war with us, and then what a squealing there'll be. 
By the Lord, I would almost be willing to submit to our sufferings, just 
to have the pleasure of seeing our privateers make ducks and drakes 
of their commerce. I'll tell you what I mean to do. ... 

But meanwhile, as I say, we are in a worse mess here than we have 
known since the Trent affair, and the devil of it is that I am in despair 
of our getting any military success that would at all counterbalance 
our weight. Where our armies try to do anything they are invariably 



ENGLISH FRIENDS 97 

beaten, and now they seem to be tired of trying. I'll bet a sovereign to 
a southern shin-plaster that we don't take Charleston; either that we 
don't try or are beaten. I'll bet five golden pounds to a diminutive 
greenback that we don't clear the Mississippi, and that we don't hurt 
Richmond. My only consolation is that the Southerners are suffering 
dreadfully under the tension we keep them at, and as I prefer this to 
having fresh disasters of our own, I am in no hurry to see anyone move. 
But meanwhile we are in a tangle with England that can only be 
cleared with our excellent good navy cannon. If I weren't so brutally 
seasick, I would go into the navy and have a lick at these fat English 
turkey-buzzards. 

At the same time, individually, I haven't at all the same dislike 
to the English. They are very like ourselves and are very pleasant 
people. And then they are quite as ready to blackguard themselves 
as anyone could wish, if they're only let alone. There are all the ele- 
ments of a great, reforming, liberal party at work here, and a few years 
will lay in peace that old vindictive rogue who now rules England and 
weighs like an incubus on all advance. 1 Then you will see the new gen- 
eration, with which it is my only satisfaction here to have some ac- 
quaintance, take up the march again and press the country into shape. 

Thanks to Monckton Milnes, Tom Hughes and a few other good 
friends, I am tolerably well known now in the literary and progressive 
set. I was amused the other day to hear that I was put up for a Club in 
St. "James's Street, by Mr. Milnes, and seconded by Lawrence Oli- 
faunt, 2 a thorough anti-American; and better still, I am endorsed by 
your friend, Frederick Cavendish, 3 as he is commonly called here; the 
brother of Lord Harrington; the son of the Duke of Devonshire. Sev- 
eral other names are on the paper, I believe, but I don't know what 
they are. I'm thinking my character would not be raised in America 
if I were known to keep such malignant company. Certainly, however, 
aristocracy is not my strong point. My most sought acquaintances are 
men like Hughes, and his associates, the cultivated radicals of England. 

How long I shall remain in contact with this sort of thing, who can 
say? Verily, the future is black and the ocean looks as though it were 
yawning for us on our approaching passage. 

1 Palmerston. 

a Lawrence Oliphant (1829-1888). 

(1836-1882). He was second son of William Cavendish, seventh Duke of Devonshire and 
was murdered jn the Phenix Park, Dublin, on the afternoon of the day on which he had taken 
the oath as chief secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. 



98 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

To Charles Francis Adams > Jr. 

LONDON, 23 April, 1863. 
* 

I sympathize with you in your blueness. Not that I am blue now. 
I like excitement at times and I enjoy all this row and confusion im- 
mensely, on my own account, as a spectacle and study, though of 
course, in a national point of view it is a cause of anxiety to us all. 
But your position is by no means a pleasant one, and I don't wonder 
that you are down in the mouth. The camp as you now have it, must 
be a very unpleasant place. . . . 

I see that you and everyone speak of Fitzhugh Lee as commanding 
against you. Surely this can't be my friend Rooney. 1 It must be his 
brother, I suppose. I doubt whether Rooney would make a good 
cavalry colonel, though he might do well as a major or captain. I 
wonder what's become of Jim May a and Ben Jones. I suppose that 
they too have been "gobbled" by this voracious cotton-demon. And 
Julius Alston ! 3 do you ever hear of him ? If we can keep these foreign 
countries off some three months more, I rather think we shall hear of 
trouble down south. This long steady pressure must be terrible to 
them; worse than fighting; and if their rail-roads are worn out and 
their food eaten up; riots in their cities; laziness or worse among their 
slaves, and strange corruption in all branches of their Richmond 
Government, it seems to me that their cause is, I do not say, desperate, 
but liable to be overturned at what would seem a small thing. Davis 
now alone unites them. Would Lee do so? or Johnson? We hear of an 
attack on Charleston, but as you know, I have no faith in its success. 

To Charles Francis Adams , Jr. 

LONDON, 25 June, 1863. 
* 

We are dragging our weary carcasses to balls and entertainments of 
every description. I had occasion to go last night to a reception over 
in Kensington, about three miles from us, and as it was a soft moon- 
light night, I walked part of the way. Accustomed as I am to London, 
and after seeing three seasons in it, I could not help feeling impressed 
by the extraordinary scene. I passed through Grosvenor Square and 
round Hyde Park to Apsley House, and the streets seemed alive with 

* William Henry Fitzhugh Lee (1837-1891). Education, 57. 

a James May (1837-1876). John Julius Pnngle Alston (1837-1863). 



THE RUSH AND Fuss OF SOCIETY 99 

carriages in every direction. Gentlemen in white cravats were scuttling 
about, like myself; cabs were rushing furiously in all quarters, hun- 
dreds of carriages were waiting, or setting down or taking up their peo- 
ple before great houses, as I passed from street to square, and from 
square to street. There was a rush and roar all through the West 
End, that one can see only in London. Six weeks hence, if I go through 
the same streets again at midnight, there will not be a soul there except 
a policeman. Acres and miles of houses will be as silent as a Virginia 
forest. And so they will remain until next April. 

There is no doubt about it every one, except children in their first 
season and a few peculiarly constituted people, feel all this riot to be a 
bore. Every one looks intensely bored. Nobody enjoys it and nobody 
can enjoy it. These great routs are a sort of canonization of medioc- 
rity. No one attempts to have a good time, and if they did, they 
would be voted vulgar. In the whole system I see nothing to admire 
and sincerely believe that it hurts everyone who gets into it. 

Lothrop Motley, however, says it's the perfection of human society. 
If his remark applies merely to a few dinners and a few visits to coun- 
try houses with clever people, I shouldn't quarrel with it. But as for 
fashionable society here, I say clearly that in my opinion it is a vast 
social nuisance and evil. . . . 

To Charles Francis Adams > Jr. 

LONDON, 3 July, 1863. 

* 

The rush and fuss of society is still going on and will last another 
week. We have been here and there, knocking about at dinners, balls, 
breakfasts, from Rotten Row to Regent's Park, and entertaining at 
home in the intervals. We had a tremendous ball at a neighbor's on 
Tuesday and the dawn looked in on us while we were still at it. We 
watched the gathering light from the conservatories, and looked faded 
and pale. But the ball-room was the most magnificent I ever saw, and 
I really had a very tolerable time, for once, though only enough to re- 
mind me of the want of that happy absurdity which I feel in American 
society. Sleep in these times is scarce. One rides in the Park two hours 
in the morning, dines out in the evening, and goes to a ball; rises to a 
breakfast the next day; goes to a dance in the afternoon, and has a 
large dinner at home, from which he goes to another ball at half after 
eleven. Luckily this only comes by fits and starts, for two or three 
days together, and leaves the intervals tolerably clear. . . . 



ioo LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

LONDON, 10 July, 1863. 

Our news brings us down to the ayth of June, and leaves us without 
the slightest conception of what is really going on. Of course we are 
extremely anxious, and though various and innumerable idiots about 
me are croaking hoarse notes and putting on that "I told you so" ex- 
pression of complacent misfortune which always irritates me beyond 
bearing, I find it needs an effort even on my part to sustain the ap- 
pearance of placid confidence which we always make it a rule to bear, 
and which alone has any effect in shaming the sparrows. I wish people 
at home in respectable positions would at least hold their tongues, and 
not maunder over misfortunes before they come. . . . Our people would 
do well to recollect that ancient maxim of Frederick the Great, or some 
one, that it's best to wash one's dirty linen at home. They have a way 
of putting it all out to wash, and the dirtier it is, the louder they call 
foreign nations to look at it 

In these days I have very little work to do except in a domestic 
way, and of course I am becoming more and more uneasy and dis- 
contented. It hardly seems consistent with self-respect in a man to 
turn his back upon all his friends and all his ambitions, during such a 
crisis as this, only for the sake of conducting his mother and sister to 
the opera, and a ride in Rotten Row. I cannot tell you how much I am 
disgusted at this situation. If it were not for the Chief, I would not 
stay here a moment, but at least I hope my presence here is necessary 
for him, since I feel as though it were simple suicide for myself. My 
consolation is that we are approaching the end of our stay, and if 
things get worse we shall be recalled, while if they get better at home, 
the Chief will probably resign so soon as he can without appearing to 
shirk his duty 

I met your friend Sir Edward Cust, 1 some time ago, who expressed 
great interest in you, and envied you your position, picket duty being 
according to him, the liveliest and pleasantest part of a military life 
and a light mounted regiment being the pleasantest branch of the serv- 
ice. He told me various stories of his adventures in Spain, while en- 
gaged on similar duty, and I tried to learn from him what the best 
manual of cavalry tactics was that I could send you. On this subject he 
said he was not well posted. The German books were the best, and the 
Germans were better cavalry than the English. They took more care of 

^(1794-1878), who had served in the Peninsular campaign, and had written military his- 
tories, acceptable in their day. 



FIVE DAYS ON THE ISLE OF SKYE 101 

their horses. If they were to march at five o'clock in the morning, they 
would up at three, groom their horses, and give them a feed, so that 
they would be all awake and fresh for the start. Whereas an English 
trooper would turn out and kick up his horse at the very last moment, 
and hurry him off without any sort of care. Sir Edward likes the 
German soldiers, though they will steal, he says. They don't get 
drunk like the English, and they are careful and soldierlike. . . . 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell* 

INVERGARRY, FORT AUGUSTUS, N.B., 

Tuesday, 18 August, [1863]. 
MY DEAR GASKELL, 

I had supposed you were in Persia or Astrachan by this time, for 
your ancestral majestic whom I cross-questioned in Stratton Place (if 
that's right) was profoundly ignorant as to your whereabouts. As I 
left with a sigh of happiness all the delights of Rotten Row and 
Portland Place, a fortnight ago, I failed to get your letter till today. 
But having at last turned up in a Christian spot again, I take a 
spare moment to give you what little light I can. Consider that I 
have been, according to the pious writer, where I could read my 
title clear to mansions in the Skye, but as yet am far from bidding 
farewell to any tear or wiping my weeping eye on that account. 
Href, I've just passed five days on the isle of Skye, of which the rain 
descended and the floods came during three, with a vehemence that 
would have done justice to the tropics. I have fed on nothing but oat- 
meal porridge and hard boiled eggs, and short allowance too, and my 
opinion of Skye, its inhabitants, climate, and "umliegende Ort- 
schaften" (to use a phrase which I know you can't understand, for it's 
bad German) is one which I will have a regard for your feelings as 
an Englishman and a Britisher and not expatiate upon. 

I have a letter from William [Everett] which you may peruse I 
suppose, taking care to forget the somewhat too characteristic allusions 
to his surroundings. I know nothing more of him than that. It is pos- 
sible that he may try a little soldiering, as many do, but probably on 
some officer's staff, if anywhere. 

Apropos to Octave Feuillet! You say you have read him through. 
Have you done so with his last work, Sybilkl* I have read it since 

1 Charles George Milnes Gaskell was son of James Milnes Gaskell, Member for Wenlock. The 
story of the meeting of Adams and young Gaskell, which resulted in a lifelong friendship, is told 
in Education > 204. 

Histoire de SybiUe had appeared in Rnut des Deux Mondes> Aug.-Oct., 1862. 



102 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

starting* As one can't quite think that everything depends on belief 
in the efficacy of prayer, I am sorry to say that Octave looks very like 
a dependent of the Faubourg, writing what he knows to be decayed 
matter (vutgo, rot) for an earthly reward at its hands. 

To Charles Francis Adams y Jr. 

LOWOOD HOTEL, WINDERMERE, 

Thursday, 3 Sept., 1863. 


From Banavie, where we slept, our road lay for several miles along 
the head of Loch Eil. Then it rose among the mountains, wild and 
desolate scenery, where hardly even a miserable cabin is to be seen for 
miles together. At intervals it rained, and at times we caught a little 
sunshine, which had a wonderful effect in lighting up a scene so sad 
and dark without it that even our spirits could only counteract the 
impression by attempts to learn Gaelic phrases from our driver, a 
divertissement which kept us roaring for miles. At length, after some 
twelve miles of this work, we suddenly came upon a marshy plain at 
the head of a long loch [Shiel], where a solitary stone column rose in a 
way that impressed me curiously with the dreary nature of the place. 
Of all things in the world a monument of that size seemed to be the 
thing one least expected there. I asked the driver what it was, and 
he told me it commemorated the spot where Prince Charles the Pre- 
tender was killed. I could not conceive what the blockhead meant, 
being aware that the Pretender had not gratified his enemies by get- 
ting himself put an end to. But as the dogcart came to a halt for an 
hour to rest, a short distance further on, Brooks and I walked back, 
and after much wading and jumping and wetting, we reached the spot 
and found a long inscription in English, Latin and Gaelic, stating that 
it was here Prince Charlie raised his standard in 1745. A more deso- 
late, repelling spot I have seldom seen, and I appreciated for the first 
time the courage of that young fellow, who could drag himself from 
Paris and sunlight, in order to lead a desperate venture of filthy bar- 
barians and to plant his standard on a spot like this. 

In long reaches of Scotch mist, diversified by gleams of gray sun- 
shine, we climbed mountain after mountain, all barren as your saddle, 
except for heath and waterfalls, and all stamped with the same char- 
acter of stern and melancholy savageness. The roads however are 
excellent and as there is never much snow or great cold, they keep in 
good order. We changed our horse some ten miles further on, and then 



THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND 103 

began descending towards the sea. As our miserable horse, urged on 
by steady and vigorous chastisement, slowly worried forwards, the 
weather began to improve, and to my surprise, the country began to 
take on a civilised aspect. When at last we reached the sea-shore, we 
found a lovely landscape wide woods, and green pastures, cattle 
and even deer, a mild air and a pleasant sun beaming upon us, as 
though there had never been a Scotch mist (a phrase which means a 
heavy rain). This is the peninsula of Arisaig; a sort of Wood's Hole, 
only much larger. A little hamlet lies on a pretty harbor, silent and 
deserted in the afternoon sun, and at an inn, the only one, we de- 
scended and dismissed our vehicle. Two cares oppressed my mind. 
The first was to order some dinner, for it was five o'clock. The second 
to procure a boat to take us over to Skye. The first was soon eased. 
We had our dinner, if a dish of burnt steaks and potatoes deserves 
that honored title. The second was also relieved, but as it takes every 
Highlander two hours to do what should occupy fifteen minutes, and 
as our men had to be summoned from the plough and the anvil, it was 
seven o'clock before we were on board. Three men made our crew, and 
a boat like a man of war, and in this form, in consideration of the sum 
of five dollars, we were to be conveyed to the nearest public house in 
Skye, a distance of ten or twelve miles. 

The evening was calm, hardly a breath of air helping us, but it was 
fine. A gentle roll swelled against our quarter, and yielding to its 
influence, I lay down on the seat across the boat, and watched our 
course. . . . The long mountainous coast of Scotland, lighted by the 
sunset and twilight, looked very grand in the distance, and on our left 
were the mountains of Skye covered with heavy folds of mist. For 
three hours or more we went on in this manner, the men relieving each 
other at the oars, for they had to pull thewholeway. lenjoyedimmensely 
this evening sail on the Hebridean seas. Civil wars, disgust and ego- 
ism, social fuss and worry, responsibility and worry, were as far at 
least as the moon. They left me free on the Sound of Sleat. I felt as 
peaceful and as quiet as a giant, and saw the evening shades darken 
into night, and phosphorus waves of light swell in the air and under the 
boat, with a joyful sense of caring not a penny when I had my break- 
fast. 

Arrive we did at last, though Brooks thought we never should, but 
this part was rather embarrassing. The little hamlet near Armadale 
Castle boasts a landing place only at high tide, whereas the tide was 
now low. We had therefore to land on the rocks and paddle in the 
dark over the bogs to firm land. As we stepped along, our shoes, 



104 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

crushing the wet seaweed, called out at every movement bright, flash- 
ing phosphoric flames, so that we seemed to be walking on liquid fire. 
Pretty thoroughly wet, we did at last reach a road and made our way 
to a wayside inn, from which much merriment and singing proceeded. 
The maid who appeared at our call, was innocent of the tongue of 
Shakespeare and Milton, She owned allegiance only to her native 
Gaelic* A man, however, was at length produced, who seemed morti- 
fied to have no better to offer us, but the nearest town was fifteen 
miles and more, and there were no vehicles. If there had been, we 
shouldn't have used them. There we were and there we meant to 
sleep, so we took possession of two rooms, which were new and there- 
fore reasonably clean. Our sheets were clean but ragged, and the other 
bed-clothes! Well they were rough! After nearly being assaulted by 
one of the band of minstrels, who were salmon fishers, drinking and 
howling a monotonous song, which they accompanied by stamping 
their feet, I got some supper, tea, toast, boiled eggs, etc., and Brooks 
and I having sleepily supped, and waited long for the salmon fishers* 
drunken dirge to cease, turned in towards midnight and so slept in 
peace. 

The sun was bright on our first morning in the Hebrides. I looked 
out at about nine o'clock, shuddered at the sight of my resting-place, 
and dressed with a cheerfulness and a light heart. Poor Brooks, how- 
ever, came into my room, looking very fishy, and complained of a sick 
headache. We had breakfast, and I swallowed much porridge, a dish 
that is in itself neither savory nor rich, but which is far superior to 
tough ham drowned in bowls of oil, or even to hard boiled eggs. I 
then desired a conveyance to the next town, seventeen miles, but to my 
alarm (on Brooks' account) learned that no conveyance was to be had 
except one, which I proceeded to examine and which proved to be a 
heavy farm cart, which might have been drawn by oxen, but which in 
fact was conducted by a horse. Quefaire! Seventeen miles in an ox 
cart with a sick headache! Still, our baggage must go and my mind 
resigned itself. The sluggish cart was drawn before the door, and my 
pipe being lighted, I sounded boot and saddle. Before we departed, 
however, the Gaelic damsel persuaded me through an interpreter to 
buy a pair of woollen socks knit by her fair hands, which I may send 
to you, and in case their proportions be too elephantine, you can make 
them over to some deserving foot. 

I can't tell you how I enjoyed this morning. England boasts of few 
days in her year. For ten miles I walked along the shore of the Sound, 
and a more splendid scene I couldn't put my finger on. The west coast 



THE ISLE OF SKYE 105 

of Scotland is rugged and wild, with deep scorings or indentations that 
form salt water lochs. Towards this shore I was looking, across a 
sound some five miles broad, which gradually was lost in the lands to- 
wards the north. Mountains were all around, but they were so soft- 
ened by the sun that again and again I fancied myself in Italy. This 
corner of Skye is quite civilized too. There are trees, hedges and green 
pastures towards the sea-shore, and it was only as I advanced and at 
length turned away from the east, that we reached a desolate region, 
where heather and peat-bogs are the sole articles of production. I 
shall always remember my morning between Armadale and Broadford 
as a day comme il y en a peu. 

Poor Brooks was far from enjoying it. Between the effort of walking 
and the jolting of the cart, he was put to it to make a choice, but after 
trying each, he subsided in moody silence into the cart. I was anxious 
about him, but could only press on, and one by one the slow milestones 
crept by. Resting myself at the tenth, having walked about two hours 
and three quarters, I too took a turn in the cart, and so at last we 
reached our aim, both coming in on foot. Here we again struck the sea, 
but this time on the northern coast of the island, and opposite to us 
was another part of the Scotch shore, while the ocean lay nearly open 
towards the northwest. As yet we had crossed no mountains, the land 
being only rolling and peaky. 

At Broadford I wished to stay, but Brooks said no! So I ordered a 
dog-cart and dinner. The dinner even to my appetite was barely 
touchable. Brooks cursed it and lay on a sofa. We were glad to be off 
again at four, leaving the small village and dirty inn behind. 

If the morning's walk from Armadale was lovely and made me think 
of Italy, the afternoon's drive to Sligachan was enormous and belonged 
to no country on God's earth except Skye alone. Between smooth 
conical mountains, whose sides were tinged with a doubtful green 
where the gaunt skeleton did not break out, and the blue sea, our road 
drove on, round silent lochs and through a howling wilderness strewn 
with the debris of ancient glaciers, and offering not one blade of grass 
or grain, except on a narrow strip along the sea-shore. The mountains 
of Skye are peculiar, but more of that hereafter. Not only was our ride 
delightful on account of the beauty of the scenery, the exquisite even- 
ing and all that, but Brooks showed signs of returning peckishness, 
and from the rapid fire of questions which he, h la Charles Kuhn, began 
to open on the driver, I knew he felt better. Several miles of the dis- 
tance we walked, and when we rounded the last headland and had but 
two miles more, I sent them ahead, and in a solitude and deadly silence 



io6 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

walked up the long loch at the head of which stands the solitary inn of 
Glen Sligachan, where I arrived just as the purple mountain tops were 
changing to a dark, cold, and solemn gray. It reminded me of my 
voyage with Ben Crowninshield up the Furca Pass in Switzerland. 
Solitude of utter barrenness on every side. 

A supper of broiled salmon made up for our dinner, and Brooks had 
at last found his appetite. The inn was not a paradise, being like all 
highland inns, of an ugly, mouldy and throat-cutting appearance. 
But you will have no great sympathy for me on this reckoning. 

The next morning was cloudy, and I felt that a storm was brewing. 
As I have no fancy for early rising, and am quite ready to leave to you 
the benefits of that habit, I ordered breakfast at our usual hour of nine 
o'clock and ponies for ten. As Brooks and I were seating ourselves at 
breakfast, contemplating the broil with pleasure, in comes a new ar- 
rival, seats himself at the table and coolly asks me to help him to some 
of the salmon; my salmon, by the Lord, and he poached it as coolly as 
though he were proprietor of fish in general. This man is a sucker, 
thought I to myself, and we will avoid him. Consequently, when we 
mounted our ponies and I saw that the person had also ordered a pony 
and joined himself to us and our guide, I was very short and sharp, and 
ignored him entirely, treating with silence his mild hints as to the 
route. So our caravan of three ponies and a guide moved slowly off, up 
Glen Sligachan. 

We were to see the one great sight in the island. About mid-way on 
the southern coast, a cluster of mountains, called the Cuchullin or 
Coolin Hills, rises abruptly, and encloses a small lake called Loch 
Coruisk. To reach it, one has to cross the island by a very rough 
bridle-path, and at last to climb a tough hill, from the top of which one 
looks down upon the lake and the sea. Glen Sligachan is itself a speci- 
men of desolation. Along the whole seven miles there is no human 
habitation, no cultivation, not a tree or a shrub, and at best only a few 
highland cattle and sheep try to support life on the heather and tufts of 
grass that partly cover the base of bleak mountain ridges. The path 
winds over the chaotic mounds of earth and loose rocks, that are called 
moraines, and that are the invariable indication of former glaciers, 
I walked much of the way, and climbed on foot the steep hill at its 
end. Beyond this there was no path at all. Our guide told us that we 
must walk down to the lake, and so we did, if scrambling down a 
precipitous mountain and over bogs can be called walking. It was only 
a mile to the shore of the lake, but it took us a long time and was 
precious tough work, - 



THE ISLE OF SKYE 107 

Quietly and between ourselves, I am no admirer of the Scotch 
mountain scenery. It is too uniform in its repulsive bareness. I like 
another sort of thing. Grand mountain peaks covered with glittering 
snow, whose base descends towards Italian plains and is green with 
olive trees and vineyards; that is my ideal of the sublime and beauti- 
ful. Yet certain it is that the scenery of Loch Coruisk made an im- 
pression on me that few things can, and like all great master-pieces, 
the more I think of it, the more extraordinary it seems to be* Evi- 
dently it was formerly the bed of an enormous glacier. A vast volume 
of ice, creeping down year after year, to the sea, carried with it every 
trace of soil, and scored and polished the rocks over which it passed. 
When the glacier yielded to some unexplained change of temperature, 
it left behind it nothing but this lake among the rocks close to the sea, 
and in a semi-circle around it, a series of sharp mountain peaks, jagged 
and excoriated, whose summits seem to have raised a barrier against 
the outside world. I might give you a good-sized volume of epithets 
without conveying the least idea of the really awful isolation and 
silence of this spot. There is as yet nothing human within miles of it, 
nor any trace of man's action. Even in Switzerland I recollect nothing 
like it, nor can there ever be, unless the ocean is brought to the foot of 
the Alps. Should you ever come to England, by all means go and see 
Coruisk. I would like to have a chance to go with you, and even to 
pitch my tent there and pass a few days in examining this melancholy 
district. 

For about an hour we lay on a point of rising ground above the 
lake, and looked about us. Then, feeling rather bothered by the idea 
of our return climb, we turned back, and dug our way with a tremen- 
dous amount of labor and some doubts as to our road, back to our 
ponies. It was just as well that we did not delay, for the rain began 
before we reached our inn at five o'clock, and a drenching storm set in 
that evening with tremendous force. 

My original idea had been to go on to Portree and the extremity of 
the island, but as I found there was little or nothing to see there, 
and as the weather was so unpromising, I concluded to turn back and 
make my way to a civilised land. So the next morning we set out on 
our return. The salmon poacher asked to join us in a carriage, and we 
departed in an open wagon. Before we had gone five miles, the rain 
descended and the flood came. Tremendous gusts of wind from the 
mountains drove down regular waves of water on us, and coats and 
umbrellas were wet through like sieves. The fifteen miles were long 
as the road to Heaven, and the scenery was, ah! quantum mutatus ab 



io8 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

ilk! When we arrived at Broadford I determined to go no further, and 
incontinently ordered a lunch of broiled herrings, which were indeed 
savory. 

The storm, which was furious, showed no signs of slackening that 
evening, and the next day, which was Sunday, it continued with the 
same violence. As the passage to the mainland was an unknown road 
to me, and as there are no inns near the ferry, I did not venture to 
leave my quarters. It was not gay. Brooks tried going to church, but 
having entered in the middle of service at about one o'clock, and 
listened some time to the Gaelic parson, he asked his neighbor how 
long it would last and on hearing that it would be over at five, he 
precipitately fled. I made no such venture. The only satisfactory 
thing I did was to have a long talk with a man who had some reason 
to be acquainted with the island, as to the people. You must know 
that I have been greatly disgusted with the appearance of the brave 
highlanders. They strike me as stupid, dirty, ignorant and barbarous. 
Their mode of life is not different from that of African negroes. 
Their huts are floorless except for earth; they live all together in them 
like pigs; there are no chimneys, hardly a window; no conveniences 
of life of any sort. Dirty, ragged, starved and imbruted, they struggle 
to cultivate patches of rocky ground where nothing can mature, and 
in wretched superstition and prejudice they are as deep sunk as their 
ancestors ever were. One of the best things in Scott's novel of the 
Pirate^ which indeed apart from its absurd story, I rate higher than 
most men do, is a character of the people of Zetland put into the 
mouth of Triptolemus Yellowley. It would do tolerably well for the 
Hebrides as well. The character of such out-of-the-way people must 
always be narrow and ungenerous. Everything tends to crystallize 
and remain stationary. They are envious, jealous and prejudiced. 
Any population is too much for such barren regions, and the numbers 
of the people always tend to undue increase, for they pup like rabbits. 
Hence a continual struggle for existence, and eternal misery and 
degradation. 

Monday morning, it did not rain. We had some difficulty in' getting 
away, and had to share a dog-cart with a lunatic-inspector as far as 
Kyle Rhea ferry. As the lunatic was slow, we walked ahead, intending 
to be caught about five miles out. When we had gone the five miles, 
it began to rain again, and as no lunatic made his appearance we 
trudged on the whole eleven miles, to the wretched inn at the ferry. 
Here we waited and eat oatmeal porridge, Brooks amusing himself by 
feeding a small dog with it, till, as he expressed it, he "burst"; that 



To HENRY LEE HIGGINSON 109 

is, became very ill. At last the lunatic appeared and we got across the 
strait, which is here hardly a mile wide, to Glenelg, where after much 
highland delay we had to take a carriage and went on, cold and wet, to 
Shiel Inn, where we got a dog-cart and pressed forward ten miles more 
to Clunie Inn. Imagination had painted here a luxurious supper and 
snowy beds. Reality showed squalidity and starvation. Unable to 
stomach it, we took another dog-cart and drove on another ten miles 
across the mountains to Tomdown Inn. From its neat appearance we 
imagined wealth and plenty, as we came to it at ten o'clock at night, 
but our supper consisted of broiled ham and two eggs, all they had, 
which we eat ferociously. 

The next day our family picked our baggage up as they passed from 
Mr. Ellice's to Invergarry, and Brooks and I walked the eleven miles, 
and went to stay several days with Mr. Peabody and Mr. Lampson. . . . 

To Henry Lee Higgmson 

LONDON, 10 September, 1863* 

MY DEAR MAJOR: Your letter, after slumbering in my brother's 
pocket for an indefinite period, did at last manage to cross the Atlantic 
and, not finding me in London, had to take another long journey and 
follow me to Scotland. There at last I received it, and as I was at that 
time on my vacation travels, and not able to attend to labors, I had to 
put off all action till my return a few days ago. It was then so long 
since your directions as to the garments that I had some doubt 
whether I ought not to refer it back to you for confirmation and new 
directions, but concluded on reflection that military men are well 
known to be ferocious, and that as they like to be implicitly obeyed, if 
I were to fail to carry out orders, I might get my ears cut off with 
such a ferocious sabre as I forwarded to Ben Crowninshield. Accord- 
ingly, I hurried straightaway to Poolers and the articles are now in 
process of making and will be sent on in due course. May they be 
pleasing to your eyes and soften your wrath against your slave. 

I remain in no little trouble about Jim [Higginson]. As yet I have 
had no account of how he was taken or when he is likely to escape. 
So soon as he does get again into the land of the free, I hope he will 
write me a letter, especially as I wrote the last to him. Give him my 
energetic sympathy whenever you can, and tell him that I exalt in 
the punishment of Rooney Lee (not his hanging, however) as a make- 
weight on our side of the account. 

You are more fortunate than I. After your work you will enjoy your 



no LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

fun, and when you do again come abroad what a good time you will 
have. Whereas I, who now for so long have been living as a Sybarite, 
am no longer able to enjoy America or Europe. I want to come home 
badly, and when I do come, I shall expect an invitation to reside with 
your regiment as a volunteer, until I have had some experience in 
military life and duties, and can make interest to get an appointment 
on some cuss's staff. As for the army as a profession, video metiora y 
proboque\ but can you expect a vile diplomat who has a profound con- 
tempt for Courts and a still profounder disbelief in the virtues of 
camps, to follow so illustrious an example? I fear that the experience 
of an amateur will be all that I can swallow, long custom having given 
me tasks which are decidedly inconsistent with dirt, routine and salt 
pork, but who knows! Perhaps we shall have a war with France or 
England, and in that case we may all hope for honor. 

News I have none, not even of Berlin, Vienna or Paris. It is now 
more than a year since I was at the latter spot, but I trust to run over 
there again soon. Joe Bradlee has gone home, and no one except 
Fez Richardson x is left at Paris, and he is politically on the fence. 
New friends I have none, and the old ones don't seem to turn up. Why 
doesn't John Bancroft come back? I hope he doesn't mean to become 
soldier. Floods of people are perpetually passing and repassing, but as 
we have to dine them all, and as I don't meet any pretty girls among 
them, our acquaintance stops there. We feel tollable well just now, and 
talk up pretty plain to the Britishers, only I hope you will manage to 
give the rebs another gentle suasion before the year's out, as a quiet 
hint to hurry. A good dose once in three months keeps the Britishers 
quiet. 

The particulars as to your garments shall be sent hereafter. How 
to get them over I don't know, but they shall come. Ever yours. 

P.S. I have omitted to offer sympathies for your wounds, especially 
because I am brilliantly in the dark as to their nature and extent. 
Hoping they were only enough to get you a pleasant vacation, I trust 
you'll be spared any more. 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

LONDON, 13 Nov., 1863. 

As the Lord liveth, I have not one word to say to you this week. 
Positively there has nothing happened under the light of the sun and 
moon that I can tell you about, except it be our friend Napoleon's 

1 Henry Hobson Richardson (1838-1886), the architect. He was from Louisiana. 



MINDING ONE'S OWN BUSINESS in 

Congress and speech to the Chambers; but I suppose the Cuisinier 
will give you the benefit of his solemn judgment on that affair. I 
came up to town the day before yesterday as usual, and have been 
busied with a heap of things, none of which are epistolary. It is 
astonishing, even to me, how long I may remain in a place without 
growing to it. Friends ! I have none, and my temper is now too bad 
ever to make another. Society! I know it not. Laziness, stupidity 
and self-distrust have shut its doors to me. It is wonderful, stupen- 
dous to consider, how a man who in his own mind is cool, witty, un- 
affected and high-toned, will disgust and mortify himself by every 
word he utters or act he does, when he steps out of his skin defences. 
Thus it has happened that now, after five years of uninterrupted travel 
and mixing with the world, and after a steady residence of half that 
time in this place, surrounded by the thickest of the rush of society 
and fashion, I now find myself in London alone, without a house I 
care to go to, or a face I would ask to see. Melancholy, is it not! And 
yet I never was so contented since the last time I was in love and 
fancied, like an idiot, that man was a social animal. 

Apropos to the Congress, you may perhaps be pleased to know that 
I am as ignorant on the matter as an Irishman. Of course my Club 
is a turmoil of excitement on the subject, and there I should learn the 
daily news war or peace Congress or none and so on. But 
although I believe I did once know an attach^, such is not the case 
now. My circle of acquaintance does not include any of the sources 
of information, and is restricted to a few English fellows, the farthest 
removed from political connection that I can find. You, my dear 
Brother Imperator, will probably sneer at me for this neglect of op- 
portunities. To skulk away like this, when I might make myself so 
necessary, so useful and so well known! Truly such were my ideas two 
years ago.... But my present course is not entirely without system 
and justification. Your military experience has probably cured you of 
much of that lechery for publicity which always marks our young 
men. Here of all places in the world a man must guard himself from 
exposure, and must mind his own business. Moreover the European 
powers are all socially connected and there is a bond of union among 
their representatives. We, on the other hand, are democrats, and you 
may be sure that in Europe a democrat is never and never can be really 
received into the circle of monarchists. In purposely keeping aloof 
therefore, and forestalling the people I meet, in maintaining a mysteri- 
ous reserve on public affairs, I believe I can best maintain our own 
dignity and alone retain any good position.... 



ii2 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

LONDON, 18 Deer., 1863. 

Nothing, I imagine, could be emptier than the ordinary run of 
letters you receive from here in these days. What indeed is there to 
tell you? We do nothing. Life is merely a habit, so far as we are con- 
cerned, and it is the toughest of all work to describe or enliven a habit. 
I don't want to talk about the war, yet what else is there to mention? 
The Chief, I know, is at this instant describing to you at his table over 
there, the Westminster play that we went to last night together, where 
he and the Archbishop of Canterbury were seated side by side m the 
front row, the dignitaries of the occasion. I was amused with the per- 
formance and came to the conclusion that the Greeks and Romans 
knew precious little about play-writing, however clever they were in 
other matters. In many respects, however, the piece shows a state of 
society quite ahead of our own. I could wish that we could return to 
the excellence of their primitive views respecting the relations be- 
tween the sexes, for instance. But our age is hopelessly lost. 

The letter of Mr. Lawley, 1 which I inclose to you, will probably 
have been published in the American papers before you receive 
this. The truth is, it tells us more than I had ever hoped. Mr. Lawley 
is demoralized. On the question of Meade's fighting, he is, as you 
perceive, of our opinion, and I was therefore the more pleased to see 
that the General had saved us from another Fredericksburg. I suppose 
Meade will be removed. Nothing indeed can surprise me since the 
removal of Rosecrans, and I fully expect that our eastern army will in 
the end be utterly disorganized by this repeated interference of the 
War Department. In the end Stanton must be turned out, but he has 
been probably as bad a Secretary of War as circumstances allowed 
him to be, and if he can deprive us of success, he will. Lawley says 
distinctly that it takes weeks to transfer a single corps to the West, 
and that co-operation does not exist between the armies. This being 
the case I had hoped to hear that we had brought half Grant's army 
to Virginia to cut between Lee and Richmond while Meade held him 
on the flank. But I fear, the opportunity is gone. From Lawley's 
intimations, I have no doubt that we could put two armies into 
Virginia, each nearly double Lee's force, before he could get a division 
from the South. 

Meade, whether removed or not, has my sympathies, and I believe 
him to have done us more good by avoiding a great battle than if he 
had done as Burnside did and fought against his judgment a 

1 Francis Charles Lawley, correspondent of the London Times. * Referring to Fredericksburg. 



HENRY HIGGINSON'S MARRIAGE 113 

Life flows on here in such an equable, peaceful way that I really 
believe we shall go ahead till we wake up some morning and find 
ourselves quietly dead in a green old age- We are rooted here thor- 
oughly. Your mamma has found a new set of friends who insist upon 
kissing her just as the women used to do in Boston, and the Chief, if 
he has no set of intimates like the immortal trio of Boston, is still 
contented and placable. As for me, my old tendencies grow on me 
more and more. If we lived a thousand years ago instead of now, I 
should have become a monk and would have got hold as Abbot of one 
of those lovely little monasteries which I used to admire so much 
among the hills in Italy. Those who choose to play the Luther may 
try it for all me. They had better let it alone in my opinion, for the 
universe is rather too big to be so precisely gauged by their yard- 
stick. I prefer the character of Luther's friend, Melanchthon wasn't 
it, for my own part, and the difficulties that can't be conquered by 
plain reason had better be left to that weapon till they can. 

All which is written to fill up a page in want of anything else to say, 
as well as because you being a man purely of action are bound to call 
it all damned nonsense. 

To Henry Lee Higginson 

LONDON, 18 Dec., 1863. 

You wrote me last May asking me to order some clothes. My 
brother Charles kept your letter three months in his pocket and it 
reached me in August when I was in Scotland. So soon as I came back 
to town I ordered the garments and at the same time wrote a letter to 
you on the nth of September explaining the delay. But before either 
the clothes or the letter could have reached you, I received a second 
epistle from you, from which I infer that you think my dignity 
damaged by being asked to do a commission. Keineswegs, mein 
Feld Mareschal! But as I hoped you would in the interim receive my 
letter of Sept. nth (sent through Charles), I delayed answering yours 
of September in the hope of again hearing from you. 

Not having had that pleasure, I resume my letter-paper. And first 
of all, let me say one word as to your announcement to me. As a 
general principle and in the most offensive sense of the word, I con- 
sider him who marries to be an unmitigated and immitigable ignora- 
mus and ruffian. In your particular case, however, I incline to the 
opinion that there are palliating circumstances. I have not the honor 
of knowing Miss Agassiz, 1 though I have an indistinct recollection of 

1 Ida, daughter of Louis Agassiz. 



ii4 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

once seeing her somewhere. But I have heard a great deal about her, 
from an early youth, and this has induced me to believe that she is a 
person whom weak-minded men like you and me instantaneously, 
profoundly and irredeemably adore. Probably I shall have some 
occasion to tell her so some day if ever a misguided Providence per- 
mits me to go home. Meanwhile I only hope that your life won't be 
such an eternal swindle as most life is, and that having succeeded in 
getting a wife so much above the common run, you will succeed in 
leading an existence worth having. If I knew your fianc6e, I should 
congratulate her upon getting for a husband one of the curiously 
small number of men whom I have ever seen, for whom I have morally 
a certain degree of respect. This perhaps wouldn't be quite so enthusi- 
astic praise as one might give, but it's more than I ever said of any one 
else. The truth is, a good many of my acquaintances have been get- 
ting engaged lately, and I believe yours is the only case that has 
made me really, sincerely glad to hear about. 

Under these circumstances I have a favor to beg of you, or her, if 
necessary. It is that you will give me photographs of you both. I do 
not know what latitude is now allowed in America to photograph- 
giving, but if you choose, the likenesses shall go into my sister's book 
and be called hers. They will do us honor and shall be pointed out to 
Dukes and democrats. I shall be greatly pleased and flattered if you 
will do me this kindness. 

Colonel Ritchie x gave me the first real information I had about your 
wound, for Charles's letters are few and short in campaigning, and 
as for Boston correspondents, I doubt whether in the whole city a 
single person ever takes the trouble to remember the existence of a 
five-year absentee. To this day I never have heard what has become 
of Jim since his capture at Aldie, nor have I the least idea whether he 
has yet been exchanged or not. Now, my long residence in England 
has not increased the very small number of friends I ever had, and it 
would be gratifying to hear occasionally what has become of the old 
ones. I see no reason why you shouldn't be heard from unless your 
wound is still too bad. Do try and send me a little news. 

Your first informed me that your home was in future to be with the 
regiment and that you hoped after the war to run over here again for 
a visit. Your last announced your^engagement and countermanded the 
clothes you had ordered. Am I to understand that you have changed 
your mind as to a military life? As the clothes had already gone, I 
couldn't countermand them and can only hope they arrived all right. 

1 Harrison Ritchie (1825-1894). 



To GASKELL FROM SORRENTO 115 

The war progresses. I'm glad Meade didn't fight. Let's have no 
more battles north of the James. We stand here with our noses pretty 
high in the air now. Ever yours. 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

LONDON, 10 June, 1864. 

As I sat last Sunday at our Club window (by the by, we've built 
out a bow a-nd made it the best in the street) reading the weekly 
papers, a brute of a man running along outside, shouting "Great 
Federal Defeat" and brandishing his vile Observers. My face was of 
iron! Quite so. But my stomach collapsed and stopped working. I 
rose presently with a frown, and lounged with an indifferent air out of 
the door and round the corner, at which point I pursued with vindic- 
tive animosity the wretch, who began now to cry "Great Federal 
Victory." When caught, he sold me a paper, from which I learned 
that Lee had retired to the No. Anna. Naturally the revulsion in my 
mind was not a little pleasing. At the same time there is no danger of 
my becoming very sanguine. In fact, so far as I can see, our turning 
Spottsylvania is only a proof that we have failed to defeat Lee there, 
which I presume was Grant's purpose. Nevertheless, to go forward 
is an immense gain and as the war seems now destined to assume more 
than ever its peculiar pulverizing character, I can only hope that each 
step gained is something added to us and lost to them.... 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

SORRENTO, 3 March, 1865. 

MY DEAR GASK: Since I last saw you, I have made a ponderous 
march across Europe. It took precisely four weeks to reach this place, 
never sleeping more than three nights in the same house. I took a 
vettura at Nice and we did the Cornice, coming down to Spezia in 
that way. Our whole journey was a success, but that part of it was 
a triumph, and I consider myself to have earned the laurels of high 
Generalship in my skilful direction of this arduous campaign in mid- 
winter. We had weather fit for Gods to travel in, and not a mishap nor 
a difficulty. 

At present behold me installed at the Tasso, surrounded by my 
amiable and interesting family, over whom I exercise a mild and 
paternal sway. My prime minister is my Italian courier, and my form 
of Government is constitutional, not absolute. Like other kings I 



n6 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

reign but do not govern, and my premier, though gentle and protect- 
ing, is my master. As I do not travel for my own amusement, this 
state of affairs is not burdensome. 

Sorrento is empty or nearly so, except for a str-ay American or two 
whom we do not know. Amalfi would be better, with equally good 
hotels. But the air is soft and the orange and lemon groves full of fruit. 
I can contrive to drag on a burdensome existence, even though it does 
rain today; especially as the cuisine is good. I could wish that the 
weather was a little steadier and that there was some medium be- 
tween a rainy Sirocco, and a howling Tramontana, but if one must be 
a victim to weather, one suffers as little at Sorrento as at most places. 
I can still smoke my Italian cabbages under the oranges, and cultivate 
philosophy in the shade of the olives, with one eye on Naples and the 
other on Vesuvius. My courier could do it better than myself, for he 
squints like a colossus. 

At Pisa I saw Sir Robert Cunliffe's * name on the board, as occupy- 
ing a room in our hotel, and I took the occasion of sending you a mes- 
sage, to make his acquaintance. As he said he should write to you, he 
probably has, or will inform you that he came in to make us an evening 
visit, and to make himself very agreeable. The next morning we went 
on to Leghorn to suffer miserably on the sea, and he went on to 
Florence, so that I saw him no more. 

I asked him to inform you that our plans forced us to leave Rome 
aside, so that your letter and commission would be a trifle stale if it 
waited my arrival at the holy city. It is to be hoped that you con- 
templated this possibility in writing it. Otherwise you can write a new 
one, once a month; codicils, so to speak; and I will deliver them all, 
with proper directions for reading. I say "once a month,'* for I have 
not the most distant idea when I shall turn my face northwards, or 
when it will please my father to order me to some new occupation. 
If I am to remain here abroad to enact the honorable and active part 
of sheep-dog, I shall certainly do my best to keep the sheep quiet, and 
to keep them here, as I do not delight in moving my flock when it 
has found good pasturage. 

We have met one or two acquaintances at different places. The 
last was Edward Ellice, who was here when we arrived. I have no 
wish to meet any more. My sheep are always made more or less rest- 
less by them, especially since the middle-aged traveller is always a 
confirmed grumbler. All the plagues of Egypt are loose in the land, 

1 Sir Robert Alfred Cunkffe, fifth Bart. (1839-1905); manned (i) Eleanor Sophia Egerton, and 
(2) Hon. Cecilia Victoria Sackville-West. 



To GASKELL FROM ROME 117 

according to the way-side rambler, who has nothing to do but to find 
them out. We are innocent and we are happy. It is the true doctrine 
of the true Church. 

I trust that as I have nothing whatever to tell you, the equilibrium 
of correspondence may be kept up by your sending me a quantity of 
news. I understand that Her Majesty has at last invited me to Court, 
and that I have respectfully regretted being a thousand miles away, 
more or less. As it has taken four years for my existence to be re- 
cognised by authority, I'm in hopes it will be kept in mind should I re- 
turn. But I can't say that I mean to come back this time, for the 
pleasure of again showing H. M. my legs in pink silk stockings 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

ROME, 23 April, 1865. 

CARO AMICO MIO: Your letter reached me duly at Naples, for 
which receive my thanks. Meanwhile I have transferred the family 
quarters to Rome, coming up here on the 8th for the functions of Holy 
Week, and meditating a contingent remainder till May. Thus far my 
expedition has not met any mishaps, but I am still in the dark as to 
our future movements. 

Your letter and book have been duly delivered and cards duly ex- 
changed. But I am told that the Marchesa has been very ill this 
winter, and not able to go into society nor entertain as usual. Before 
I go away I shall make an effort to see her, and to take any return 
message she may have to confide to me. Meanwhile my society re- 
lations are quite limited and the care of a family as exigeante as mine 
takes up all my time. But happening to be at a reception of Mrs. 
Story's the other evening, and looking about me in that distrait man- 
ner acquired from long practice in London drawing-rooms, I saw 
quite a pretty blonde in blue enter the Barberini halls, and I at once 
inquired her name, supposing her a fellow-citizen of the Republic one 
and indivisible. "Miss Macallister," was the response. Vague re- 
collections of her name as associated with you, entered my mind. 
Not remembering however, what you had said about her, I thought it 
would be easiest to ask herself, what it probably had been, and I ac- 
cordingly requested Mrs. Story to introduce me, which she at once 
did. No sooner was I in her august presence than I suggested your 
existence as a fact possibly productive of topics of conversation. Not 
having ever had the pleasure of meeting the gentle female before, I 
can't say whether she was embarrassed or blushed, or was natural as 



n8 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

usual, but I am quite confident that her powers of conversation ap- 
peared remarkably limited, and though she certainly did acknow- 
ledge the general fact of your existence as possible, and perhaps even 
probable, it was all she seemed prepared to grant. I was therefore 
rapidly driven from the field and was soon glad to escape from the 
monosyllabic Hebe, much discomfited. This is all I can tell you of 
your Roman friends. 

Rome, however, in spite of the cantankerous men and women in it, 
is as enjoyable as ever. That is to say, whatever power is still left for 
enjoyment in a miserable and worn-out ruin like myself, is as available 
here as elsewhere. I am in no hurry to leave it, for the summer has 
come, and the Borghese is not a bad place to lie at the feet of damsels 
in blue, and to smoke cigars at one scudo e mezzo the hundred. 

[FLORENCE, 10 May.] I should begin a new letter, but the above is a 
sort of guaranty that my intentions were better than my performance. 
In fact I delayed finishing this epistle at Rome for two reasons. The 
first was that I might get from Story two MSS. which were from the 
unpublished correspondence of my cousin William, and which were 
said to be most extraordinary productions of his pen. Story had lost 
them, so that I was deprived of the amusement of reading them, and 
you also must go without it. If you see or write to Will do not ask for 
them nor mention them. . . . 

My second reason for waiting was to see your friend the Marchesa, 
who was ill of bronchitis and whose husband was in Naples. I did 
succeed in my object, but except to tell you that she has been very ill 
and is now, I suppose, on her way to England, I have little to say. 
She told me that I might tell you that the serene Anglo-Roman soci- 
ety had been extremely quarrelsome apropos to the races, which 
everyone had wished to manage in his own way. I might say the 
same of the Americans who are slandering each other like angels. 

I remained in Rome until the jd of May. It was full summer, hot, 
green and fascinating, but the charge of a family has made me pre- 
maturely grey and bald, and Heaven forgive me if I was glad to make 
a new step towards London. * I was absolutely glad when we rolled 
under the Porta del Popolo with our faces northwards. I dragged my 
party round by Terni and Perugia, and came down to Siena, before 
reaching Florence, where we arrived on the evening of the 8th. We 
stay here till the iyth or so; then go through Bologna to Venice, 
Milan; and (if I can manage it) into Switzerland by June 1st; but not 
stay there. If alive, I mean to be in London before the 1st July. lam 
rabid to get back there. You can imagine my reasons in public 



THE ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN 119 

matters without baptising me with any new-born adoration for that 
city. 

Lady Francis Gordon desired me to get her some stones of tur- 
quoise-blue. Did she say for a necklace or a bracelet? I have racked 
my brains to recollect which, but without success, and finally I got a 
half dozen stones which she can do what she likes with. Between you 
and me, in your secret ear, she said lava of turquoise-blue. I find that 
the thing does not exist. What she had is a composition made in 
Rome, and moulded, not cut. Altogether it gave me more trouble 
than Lady F. is ever likely to deserve at my hands. But if you men- 
tion it, you will surely perish. 

We have been nearly broiled to death on our way from Rome. We 
have not had a drop of rain since April ist. This city is going into 
fits over the Dante festival, which I wish was in Dante's Inferno. 
Such is my news. 

I received today a letter from Ralph Palmer all about the Presi- 
dent's assassination. He seems (forgive the equivoque) rather proud 
that Englishmen are disgusted by it. To us the assassination of the 
President is a matter of personal feeling, the result of his qualities as 
a man. If other people don't feel as we do about it, we might be 
disgusted, but that they should is so much a matter of course that 
I should never have doubted it. But as for the nation, pity is 
wasted. I am much too strong an American to have thought for a 
moment that we are going to be shaken by a murder. I shall answer 
Ralph's letter soon. 

If you know Miss Montgomery (the blonde) tell her that she looks 
like the Venus of Medici. I am coming back to write a new work on 
art, which is to smash the Greeks. You shall get the Westminster [Re- 
view} to publish my introduction. If you answer this, send it to the 
Legation. 

To Charles Francis Adams , Jr. 

FLORENCE, 10 May, i86j. 

I can't help a feeling of amusement at looking back on my letters 
and thinking how curiously inapt they must have been to the state of 
things about you. Victories and assassinations, joys, triumphs, sor- 
rows and gloom; all at fever point, with you; while I prate about art 
and draw out letters from the sunniest and most placid of subjects. I 
have already buried Mr. Lincoln under the ruins of the Capitol, along 
with Caesar, and this I don't mean merely as a phrase. We must have 



120 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

our wars, it appears, and our crimes, as well as other countries. I 
think Abraham Lincoln is rather to be envied in his death, as in his 
life somewhat; and if he wasn't as great as Caesar, he shows the same 
sort of tomb. History repeats itself, and if we are to imitate the atroc- 
ities of Rome, I find a certain amusement in conducting my private 
funeral service over the victims, on the ground that is most suitable 
for such associations, of any in the world. 

But the King being dead, what then? Are we to cry "Live the 
King" again? To me this great change looks like a step downward to 
our generation. New men have come. Will the old set hold their 
ground, or is Seward and the long-lived race about him, to make way for 
a young America which we do not know? You may guess how I have 
smiled sweetly on the chains that held me here at such a time, and 
swore polyglot oaths at Italy and everything else that keeps me here. 
I have looked towards London as earnestly as What's-her-name looked 
from Bluebeard's tower, for the signs of the coming era, but no sign is 
given. The Minister is waiting also apparently. I have written to him 
that of course now he must remain where he is, but whether he agrees 
to the of course or not, I can't say. It is clear to me that if Seward 
lives, he must stay; and if Seward retires, he should leave upon the 
new Secretary the responsibility of making a change. To throw up his 
office would be unpatriotic; it would be a blunder. Do you assent to 
my doctrine? To be away from my place at such a time is enough to 
enrage a tadpole. And I can't be back before the end of June, . . . 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

LONDON, 14 July, 1865. 
,* 

We reached London only at the very end of the season, but I had 
time to find it changed since I went away. America is a subject 
dropped out of sight now, except by those who have been our friends. 
Society avoids it as a disagreeable topic. They feel that they went too 
far, and they feel that we know their feelings. The only question now 
upon which they venture to be aggressive, is the fate of Davis. They 
take the keenest interest in him, and talk very impertinently about 
our executing him. Even our best friends here are very earnest in 
begging to have him spared. 

We are in the middle of a general election, the only feature in which 
is the return of John Stuart Mill; a creditable thing to do. Tom 
Hughes also comes in. In fact our friends everywhere show very 



THOUGHTFULNESS OF EUROPEAN SOCIETY 121 

strong, and so far as America is concerned we have nothing to do but 
to restore peace and arrange our finances, and our influence on Eng- 
land will be strong enough to carry a new reform through within ten 
years. Circumstances might hurry it, but naturally and peacefully it 
will come in about ten years, I think. Then there will be another long 
step forward here. Piece by piece the only feudal and middle-age 
harness will drop off, that still remains. I look to see in Europe during 
the next quarter of a century, the public acknowledgment of a heap of 
changes that are now simmering quietly in the minds of society with- 
out much expression. You have no idea how thoughtful society is in 
Europe; even more so in some respects than in America, because there 
are practical hooks to hang thought on, like the church, education, 
poverty and the suffrage, which are points all forgotten with us > but 
very much alive here and lead men far > when they once begin..*. 

Politics seem queerly confused in America. Sumner, Dana and the 
rest are in an amusing provincial hurry to get into opposition. Why so 
fast? We have done with slavery. Free opinion, education and law 
have now entrance into the south. Why assume that they are power- 
less, and precipitate hopeless confusion? Let us give time; it doesn't 
matter much how long. I doubt about black states. I fancy white is 
better breeding stock. 

To Charles Francis Adams > Jr. 

LONDON, 20 October, 1865. 

Before this letter reaches you, the American papers will have re- 
published our passage at arms with Earl Russell. These notes made 
here a very deep sensation, and have created a very uneasy feeling. 
The newspapers have treated our portion of the documents with great 
respect, for them, and hammer away, day after day, with long leaders, 
trying to overthrow our positions. All this is, of course, a great per- 
sonal triumph, and I think that your papa's reputation as a public 
man is scarcely inferior now in England, to that of any of their own 
men. In point of fact these notes of his are, in my humble opinion, not 
surpassed. I do not know whether America will notice them. Others 
as good have lain and will be buried forever in Seward's hopeless 
volumes of Pub. Docs. It is possible, however, that so unusual an 
English endorsement may persuade the Americans that some good 
writing may come out of their own country, and induce them to honor 
us with their notice. At present your papa's English reputation is 
greater than his American. I flatter myself that the dictum of this 



122 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Legation now is listened to with a respect and reflected upon with an 
earnestness not usual in the English mind, nor ever before felt in such 
a degree. We hold at this moment the whole foreign policy of England 
in our hands. She can't express even an opinion. If she tells Count 
Bismarck that he'd better mind his eye, the Count winks at us, and 
puts on his heaviest cowhides, and administers to her a licking that 
excoriates her figure. She can't resent it, because our Legation, while 
she meditates revenge, comes forward with profound bows and pre- 
sents a few more items of our little bill. This process has already 
lasted two years, and Lord Russell is aware of it even to a degree of 
lively sensibility. We have already checkmated them against Russia 
and Prussia, and if I could suggest an idea secretly to the Emperor of 
Russia, it would be to strike now for Turkey. We wield a prodi- 
gious influence on European politics now, and the time is coming 
when the world will see it with a painful clearness. At the same time 
we have never touched an intrigue and have not even a single secret 
source of information, or a single channel of communication other 
than those that are regular and legitimate, with any Court or party in 
Europe. 

A system more directly opposite than this to the old practice of 
European diplomacy, could not be invented. Lord Palmerston and 
Lord Russell have belonged both to the old school of secret and in- 
triguing diplomacy, though the former was much deeper in it than the 
latter. We have got the better of both of them. How much better, 
time will show. Lord Palmerston was a man without any fixed opin- 
ions. If a clear and decided majority of the people had by some per- 
verseness decided to turn back upon its track and re-enact all the abuses 
that flourished under Lord Castlereagh, Palmerston would have un- 
done the work he had helped to accomplish, with perfect good nature, 
and maintained that he merely went with his time, forward or back- 
ward, it mattered little. But for all this, our friend who is dead, had 
one really active antipathy, and that antipathy was America. He 
would have worked with her, or flattered or conciliated her, if neces- 
sary, for he was as callous as a rhinoceros, and to get a useful in- 
strument would swallow his strongest attachment or his strongest dis- 
like with an equally cheerful face. But he would much have preferred 
to do her a harm, and he did what he could for that purpose. We not 
only survived his attempts, but we have survived him, though he 
lived long enough to see us assume our offensive, and throw England 
on her back. What is to be the result of his disappearance? I think it 
will weaken England and strengthen us. Lord Russell is no match for 



THE CHANGE OF MINISTRY 123 

us, as has been long evident, and Lord Clarendon would certainly not 
be an advance on Lord Russell. Palmerston gave the Government 
great internal strength. A new Ministry must inevitably devote itself 
to internal affairs and face serious questions at home. Our attitude, 
therefore, will become more than ever embarrassing to them, and our 
action or abstinence from action may in future preserve or ruin 
Ministries. 

Under these circumstances I must confess that I doubt whether Mr. 
Seward will care to change our representation abroad or would be wise 
to do so. I have much doubt whether we shall be released next spring, 
as your papa still pretends to expect. Seward as yet has given us not 
even the ghost of a sign, although the resignation has been for three 
months in his hands, and Mr. Evarts, to whom I wrote on the subject, 
after seeing Mr. Seward, could not give me any reason to suppose that 
a change was practicable. If the change of Ministry, coming as it will 
on the published correspondence on our claims, does not give Mr. 
Seward a good reason for compelling us to remain here, if he really 
wants us to do so, I am much mistaken. For my own part, I should not 
object. I am doing as much for myself here as I should be likely to do 
anywhere-.. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

54, PORTLAND PLACE. 
Wednesday, 2 May, [1866.] 

DEAR CARLO: Many blessings light upon the wig! I too once 
hoped to reach the proud distinction you have gained, but now that 
this hope has been permanently crushed, I hereby make over to you to 
have and to hold in fee simple or by any other tenure you prefer, all 
my right and title in any glory, gain, or emolument whatsoever, which 
might have become mine in the pursuit of a legal career. 

You are either so early or so late that your note found me still in bed 
this mtfrning. I studied it for ten minutes before comprehending its 
meaning. Five minutes before, my mind had been crossing the Isth- 
mus of Panama, and was greatly exercised at having left its boots at 
Aspinwall in the hurry of departure. On returning to 54 P. P., it was 
still hazy in its vision. I sent a verbal 'Yes* at last in reply, and to- 
morrow evening will appear in my war-paint and feathers at quarter 
to eight. 

Where think you that I go tonight? To swell the noble Houghton's 
train, I dine for the Literary Fund and if you were the man I took you 



124 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

for, you would go there too. But the world grows dull and duller. 
Lady Cranborne has not asked me. But Mrs. Gladstone remains. 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

LONDON, I March, 1867. 

Do you know things look awfully black to me at home. I begin 
seriously to doubt whether the country can ever get out of it. The 
whole South must be soon like Greece and Asia Minor, a society dis- 
solved, and brigandage universal. Eliot's and Stevens* bills x ought to 
produce that effect, if any, and though it is now law that the negro is 
better than the white man, I doubt whether even the negro can restore 
order to the South. The issue presented to the President in answer to 
his advance, is sharp. He has no alternative but to meet it, for these 
bills are monstrous. The impeachment, therefore, seems to my mind 
to have come a long stride nearer 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

LONDON, 26 March, 1867. 

MY DEAR BARRISTER, I am nearly at the point of death from 
pure curiosity to hear your travels. Reflect however, that if you pub- 
lish, you will at once be known, and therefore moderate the personali- 
ties. I think you might entitle your work: "Journey etc: By various 

hands;" and include a chapter by H. E. L. J m; and another by 

Lord P n. I am going to ask Sir C. Lyell whether there are any in- 
vestigations now going on near Liege; if not, there's no chance of our 
seeing anything. If there are, I shall be able to get the proper direc- 
tions. It is easy enough to write on the subject without any acquaint- 
ance with it, but a dash of truth would add a certain base to the dish. 
Could you not hammer out a few couplets in the style of Heine or 
some other fellow, on the Bos primigenius^ Or any other subject? 
There is nothing like an experiment. Catch an idea, and then hammer 
out the rhymes. Or omit the rhymes and do it in classic style; Horace, 
Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, or some other blessed antique. You 
send me one verse and I will try to cap it. 

Palgrave, by the way, is scoring my North American a wildly. I've 
not read his comments yet, but I saw the thing at his house, and the 

1 Thomas Dawes Eliot, of Massachusetts (1808-1870), and Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsyl- 
vania (1792-1868). See New York Nation, February ai, 1867. 
a His essay on Captain John Smith appeared in the North American Review, January, 1867. 



THE FAILURE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 125 

marginal notes made it look like a variorum edition of Plato. He has 
instigated me into going to an auction sale and giving 12.0. for a 
Cuyp. He swears it's dirt cheap at the price. You shall see it when 
you come up. I Ve sent it to be framed and shall hang it in my room. 
I fully expect to be ruined by him ultimately, for drawings are my 
mortal point and I can't resist. . . . 

I have literally nothing on hand but Belpertia. You may imagine 
that I find it a trifle dull. To amuse myself I study currency. 

Bye-bye! Let me know how the travels come on, and do hunt up 
one or two good Latin quotations, with a sting in their tail, out of 
some imaginary middle-age poet. Ever yours, 

H. B. RAMPHO. 

To Charles Francis Adams > Jr. 

LONDON, 3 April, 1867. 
. 

It is curious how rapidly the tides shift at home. You recollect last 
autumn how quickly it rose between your leaving England and reach- 
ing America. Only a month or six weeks has passed since my last 
letter, and the change has been equally decided. 

In February I overestimated the radical strength. I tested it by 
the passage of Eliot's Louisiana Bill in the House, and by the known 
energy and determination of Stevens and his associates. I knew that 
the impeachment alone would give them success, and I thought their 
party could see at least that to stop was ruin. But the event has 
proved that the party was little better than a mob of political gam- 
blers and timid time-servers. They funked the whole issue. They saw 
a turn of public opinion in the air, and they knuckled down on the 
spot. 

The crisis is over, with the month of March, and I breathe free 
again. The New Hampshire election satisfied me, and that in Con- 
necticut I felt too sure of to doubt ^ 

You are quite wrong, I believe, in thinking that the American peo- 
ple are disposed to abrogate or alter the Constitution, or that they can 
do so. The last month proves it to me. The truth to my mind is that 
the duty of guarding the Constitution was put by the people in the 
hands of the Republican party; that party has betrayed its trust, and 
the Democratic party has succeeded to it, since the people had no 
other choice. And now your friend Dana, and Andrew, and Palfrey 
and the rest, see the false position they are in when the Democrats 



126 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

turn upon them and ask what they have done with the Constitution. 
John 1 alone has acted the part of a man. I care mighty little who gets 
the offices or the popular applause, but I admire John all the more for 
what he has done, in proportion as I feel how in his place I should 
have fallen. 

I tell you frankly that when I think of the legislation since last 
year, my blood boils and I feel my lazy temper ready to break out in 
any sort of expression that could signify direct and personal hatred of 
every man in that Congress. Depend upon it that what affects me so 
violently will affect the average man at last. The Connecticut election 
is a sign. As for the President, he may be an object of supreme con- 
tempt, and he may do all the harm he can; but for all that it may not 
be impossible that the Democrats should renominate him next year 
and elect him too. Popular fluctuations are queer things. Remember 
Lincoln's case. It is sacrilege now to name the two together: but four 
years ago!... 

To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

54, PORTLAND PLACE, LONDON, 
4 April, 1867. 

MY DEAR CARLO, Since receiving your note I have seen your 
mother, who leans to the idea that we shall start on Wednesday morn- 
ing by the early mail. For my own part, I assent to this arrangement. 
I find that I have a ball on Tuesday evening at Mrs. Ewing Curwen's, 
and that house is very convenient to the Victoria Station. Though 
why we should go by Victoria I can't see. Charing Cross is nearer and 
nicer. 

Let me have your opinion on this point. If you decidedly prefer it, 
I am willing to go down to Dover on Tuesday night, and if it's calm, to 
cross and sleep at Calais. If stormy, take the chance of better weather 
by the morning boat. 

I dined out twice in succession this week, which always does for my 
stomach. In consequence I have been seedy. The truth is, we eat too 
many sweet things, and drink too many wines not too much> you 
understand. That I should deny. 

I have a suggestion to make to you. Will you tell me the most dis- 
agreeable thing you ever heard said of me? Without giving its author 
of course. I will in return set the conversation with all my acquaint- 
ances running upon you, and when anything sufficiently ill-natured 
has been said, you shall have it hot. 
* John Quincy Adams. 



LUXEMBURG AND GERMANY 127 

Lord have mercy upon us, miserable sinners! I would do anything 
to experience new sensations, even disagreeable ones, and a good, 
spiteftd, vicious attack is such a tonic! 

I met Lady William and the two Sweet Williams, at Mrs. Baillie's, 
as well as Miss Wortley, and a number of other young women who 
looked all manner of dislike at me for not dancing. It was a nice 
ball, I should think, although I am not very learned in such matters. 
I stayed till half after one, and talked incessantly gabbled, in 
fact. 

Since your departure I have got me Owen's Paleontology, which has 
a list of all the Greek names at the end, and their meanings. I am try- 
ing to look over the book, but one idea in ten pages is the best I can 
collect. Geology is low comedy in comparison. 

If this devilish wind continues to blow, we shall have a mauvais 
quart cTheure on the channel. 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

LONDON, April 30, 1867. 

The North American improves. . . I shall have one more article in the 
October number, on the Bank of England Restriction, 1797-1821. 
Then I shall stop.... 

I wish you would subscribe for me to the New York weekly, the 
Nation, isn't it? There seems to be merit about it. I wish also that 
you would send out to me anything that appears to you worth notic- 
ing in American literature, anything new, I mean, which seems to you 
to be capable of standing criticism. If I write here, I shall write what 
I think, and not be soft on people's corns. And as I shall write merely 
for practice and not for reputation, it matters little what I say. There- 
fore if you hear of anything that owns a voice and not an echo; that 
talks itself, and not Dante or Tennyson, send it me, and add your 
own comments on the margin.... 

Since my last letter I have been to Luxemburg, Treves, down the 
Moselle, up the Rhine, round by Saarbruck. Saarlouis, Saarburg r. 
[Rhine] and back by way of Spa. You see it was a military and strate- 
gic excursion. I come back inclining to France. We all hate cant, I 
suppose. I hate, for instance, your cant of submitting to all that is be- 
cause it is; as much as you hate mine of objecting to it for the same 
reason. Among other cant, I detest the German rot about nationality. 
Luxemburg is really French more than Prussian, and as to its military 
value to Prussia except as a menace to France, it's utter fallacy. 



128 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Luckily both nations are now so equal in strength that they hesitate 
before fighting. Otherwise we should have had a war long ago. But 
sooner or later they will fight, and it is just as well to remember that 
fact. If you speculate, remember that well-informed people here ex- 
pect war, . . , 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

LONDON, 8 May, 1867. 
*.. 

I said, and I say it again, that your theory of "fighting it out within 
the party" is a piece of self-delusion which you use to cover your own 
intellect from seeing and confessing what is really fear of public opin- 
ion* I said that Dana and all his friends and the whole conservative 
Liberalism of New England had been whipped and kicked like a 
mangy spaniel by Sumner and his party, and had cowered under the 
flogging without a growl or even a whine. Did they ever try to "fight 
it out within the party"? Was ever a voice raised within the party? 
If so, it didn't reach us. Dana is a sucking M. C. and at nurse. He 
couldn't risk popularity. Andrew was better, but he too had too much 
to lose by open rebellion. John alone said that his soul was his own. . . . 

Practically, however, we are tolerably agreed. The epithet "mon- 
strous" which seems to have weighed on your mind, was applied by 
me to Eliot, the other man's Louisiana Bill and the tariff bill, not to 
Sherman's measure, which I then supposed to be a general application 
of Eliot's. We all consider, I suppose, that the Southern states had 
better try to do something with the existing law. As to the Constitu- 
tional question, it will in such a case merely lie in abeyance. I don't 
believe you will find it very easily settled, however. 

As for the Republican party, the future will have to decide what 
our relations to it are to be. Next year, I expect that party lines will 
be pretty much rubbed out, unless the Republicans try to nominate 
some other candidate than Grant. After that we shall have a new 
division of parties, I hope. You and John and I are likely to be found 
together in such a case, and I suspect, not in Republican ranks. But 
we shall have first to wait and see what the issues are to be. 

Dana meanwhile writes an elaborate letter which it would amuse 
you to read, I am sure. Dana seems to have become as thorough a 
politician as Sumner, and to have lost far more than he the faculty of 
looking at things from an "objective point " of view, if you will forgive 
my using the term. He is or seems to be tormented by the fear that 



LADY WALDEGRAVE'S BALL 129 

our chief is going over to the Democrats. His fear of Democracy is 
very like an English Bishop's hatred of dissent. 

You can quiet his mind on that point. I believe nothing is further 
from the mind of the party in question. The time for such a change, 
when it could have done good, is passed for the present, and no occa- 
sion whatever exists for changing the position hitherto occupied. 

This brings me to the last part of my reflections. I think another 
effort will be made to get out of our present situation, and I think that 
the close of this year will see us free. In that case our return would not 
take place, however, till August 1 868. Many reasons combine to make 
me think it desirable that this arrangement should be carried out. 
What say you? Do not write to the family as though the idea came to 
you from me. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

54, PORTLAND PLACE, 
Saturday, n May, '67. 

DEAR KARL, Your departure was a surprise to me. Hervey, Lady 
William, and the Sweet Williams, were all expecting you at Lady 
Waldegrave's ball; and when I called the next day in Stratford Place 
to see what had become of you, behold you were gone. For your sake 
I was glad. You know I have always preached change of air and no 
medicine. Turn over a new leaf. Scour the Edge and dig Nummulites 
or some other fellah out of the limestone. Grow fat. But don't take 
drugs. I live on pepsine and cod-liver oil, but then I don't call those 
drugs. 

Of course you want to know about Lady WfaldegraveJ's blow-out on 
Wednesday evening. By the way, I went to Lady Goldsmid's first, 
and I assure you I have never seen so superb a display as her rooms 
made, in any private house. It was actually royal. But I had to escape 
through the conservatory in order to go down to Lord Stanley's; and 
thence to Lady W.'s. 

The best thing I did at Lady W.'s was to march up and talk to the 
Comte de Paris, who didn't know me in the least. I nad to patronise 
him a good deal before he remembered me. 

I have made such violent love to Lady William that the conse- 
quences will be disastrous to me, as the young ladies will consider me 
a bore. The whole Hervey clan was on parade at Lady W.'s, j ewels and 
all. 

On the whole I enjoyed the ball. I admired John Hervey who danced 



130 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

like a sylphide. There was a very swell tribe of people, whom I did 
not admire so much. Two or three dozen Duchesses who looked awful. 
By the way I did the Argyll girl, and rather liked her. She has a pretty 
complexion; and is very fresh and unaffected; at least, so I thought, 
after ninety seconds conversation. 

Console yourself on your absence. I have on my engagement book 
just three names three and no more and what do you think they 
are. No. I, the best, is a dinner at my friend Forster's. No. 2, Mrs. 
Darby Griffith!! No. 3, The Lady Mayoress!!! ^ 

What have I done to suffer humiliation like this? And what are we 
to do, if it goes on ? 

I've not seen your mother since her return, in spite of my efforts, 
but I shall try again tomorrow. 

I am regularly done by those brutes of tailors. I ordered my spring 
clothes on the 23d and have not been able even to try them on yet. 
What to do! 

P.S. My termination, as above, would satisfy Hubert. 
To Charles Milnes Gaskefl 

BADEtf-BADN,25 August, '67. 

MY DEAR KARL, Life has been a burden to me for the last fort- 
night so that I have not been able to put pen to paper since I left Eng- 
land. We crossed to Paris on the tenth and in that infernal city we re- 
mained till the twentieth, waiting for ladies' dresses and the milliners' 
bills. You should run over to Paris by all means. Otherwise you will 
be deprived of the precious privilege of abusing it; a privilege which I 
value so highly that I have done little else but exercise it since I ar- 
rived there. I do not hesitate to say that at present it is a God-for- 
saken hole, and my party unanimously agreed that their greatest pleas- 
ure since arriving was in quitting it; and as we are all more or less 
familiar with the town, our opinion is entitled to weight. I never 
imagined the city so thoroughly used up, and given over to hordes of 
low Germans, English, Italians, Spaniards and Americans, who stare 
and gawk and smell, and crowd every shop and street. I did not de- 
tect a single refined-looking being among them, but there may have 
been one or two who like ourselves had drifted there by accident or 
necessity, and were lost in the ocean of humanity that stagnates there 
in spite of its restlessness. As for the Exhibition, I advise you to go to 
see it, but go at eight o'clock in the morning and come away at ten, 



PARIS AND VERSAILLES 131 

and don't go too often. Plaster temples of Karnac, and canvas Mexi- 
can structures, and eastern palaces in slightly worn-out stucco may be 
seen once. The pictures are worth a good deal of study to fully appre- 
ciate that they are not worth it. For the rest, I recollect a chaos con- 
founded. The devil only knows what is in it. I did not go there as a 
sensible being ought, in the reserved hours from eight to ten, and the 
consequence was that I was disgusted. I went five times, and hate it 
in consequence. 

You will be delighted to hear that I got into a row which came very 
near being serious to us. We went to Versailles on the I5th, the/fo? 
Napoleon. Coming back, our train was overfilled and at a station 
about half way a great crowd of ouvriers in blouses could not get seats. 
About twenty were at our door trying to get in, so I stood up in the 
doorway to stop them till the guard came. A big devil tried to force 
his way in, so I put my shoulder against him and pitched him out into 
his friends' arms. Upon this the crowd flared up into a regular French 
passion. We pulled the door to; the foremost of them tried to force it 
open, or struck in through the window at my brother and me; my big 
friend I saw howling in the middle of the mob, shaking his fist at me 
and shrieking at cet homme-l^ while I, expecting to be dragged out by 
the legs, was preparing to hurt as much as I could the first fellow that 
got in, sure of getting no mercy from the rest. Luckily the crowd got 
in each other's way, so that although the door was several times partly 
opened, no one could enter. It must have been nearly a minute before 
the guard came and just then the train started. One blouse did then 
come in, but the rest, my vengeur among them, were left on the plat- 
form howling. 

In short our ten days in Paris were horribly expensive hotel bill 
frs. 2,500 and far from agreeable. We threw up our hats on reach- 
ing this place, not that there is not a shocking crowd here too, but at 
least we have fresh air and some one decent or indecent to look 
at. Everyone who is usually at Paris, seems to have taken refuge here. 
Such a swarm of our country-people! The twang of my native land is 
echoed in every direction by the British burr. The two nations glare 
contempt at each other in the correct fashion. I have found no English 
acquaintances here, but we are already in three days overrun with 
American, and knowing well the national jealousies I am quite willing 
not to have to combine the two. It is hopeless to try the management 
of a double team. 

Morally Baden is delicious. The females one sees, are enough to 
make one's hair stand out in all directions. The men are mostly vulgar, 



132 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

but whether Germans, French,,, English or Americans are most vulgar, 
is a serious question about which I am led to reflect much. The styles 
are different, but the result reached is identical. Play runs high. A 
brother of the Viceroy of Egypt, after losing 6000 at Homburg, has 
come here, where he plays day and night, but whether he has won or 
lost I do not know, though I saw him lose nineteen thousand francs in 
half an hour. Modern version of the Egyptian Sphinx. A beast he is 
to look at, but very like his brother. I occasionally try a five franc 



piece at roulette, but as yet have lost nothing. 

We stay here a fortnight or so longer. If you write, address care of 
F. S. Meyer, Banker. Remember me to your father and mother. I 
hope you keep on writing, but after all, writing is only one half the art; 
the other being erasure. No one can make real progress that doesn't 
practice the latter as vigorously as the first. I have done it so effect- 
ually as to have expunged all my last thing. 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

BADEN, 4 September, 1867. 
* 

We passed two days in Paris while on our way here, and there I saw 
Hunt's 1 picture of the Minister, which he completed while we were 
there. As you and John no doubt feel an interest in it, I want to say a 
few words about it. 

The picture is not a full-length; it comes only to the knees. The 
ground on which the figure is painted is perfectly simple; a warm foxy 
color, which age will darken to black. There is no background other 
than this. The figure itself stands out boldly; the face slightly turned 
to the left; the black frock coat buttoned up, a scarf covering the shirt, 
and only the collar showing any bit of white. There is no color any- 
where. One hand is thrust into the coat front; 'the other hangs down 
with a roll of paper. The expression of the face is marked, but not ex- 
cessively so, and I think you and I have seen him rise to speak in pub- 
lic, when he had almost precisely the same air and manner. 

You can understand from the description that Hunt has dealt with 
his subject in the most honest and straight-forward way. There are no 
tricks nor devices in the picture. It is in the severest and truest style; 
so severe that most people will think it commonplace. I imagine that 
you and everyone else, except a few professional men, will look at it 
with a sense of disappointment, and feel that something is wanting; a 

1 William Morns Hunt (1824-1879). 



HUNT'S PORTRAIT OF THE MINISTER 133 

bolder or freer touch; a more expressive attitude; more animated 
features; a less subdued background, or a dash of color in the dress. 
There is nothing for the eye to fasten upon and to drag away from 
the whole effect. In your language, as applied to literature, it is 
dull. 

You know by this time my canons of art pretty well, and you know 
that what pleases the crowd would have a poor chance of pleasing me. 
Whoever is right, the majority is wrong. I consider Hunt's picture to 
be just what a portrait of our papa should be; quiet, sober, refined, 
dignified, a picture so unassuming that thousands of people will over- 
look it; but so faithful and honest that we shall never look at it with- 
out feeling it rise higher in our estimation. I need to see it among 
other portraits in order to get at its relative merit, but at any rate I 
don't hesitate to say that I think we have a first-rate likeness of the 
Governor. . . . 



To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

BADEN, 22 September, 1867. 

CARO CARLISSIMO, What the deuce is Frank Doyle's r rank, regi- 
ment and address ? I am afraid I've got it wrong and so I send it to 
you to correct. If you will forward it, I will pay you the postage by 
cheque or otherwise as you prefer. The youth must have his letter 
after I've taken the trouble to write it. 

To my astonishment who turned up here the other day but Polling- 
ton mit Gattin und Bedienung, also mit papa-in-law and other sister. 
I went at once to see him and we chatted a while. He swore you were 
a humbug for not writing to him, so I read him your letter to me. 
Since then I've not heard of him, whence I infer that he is still swal- 
lowed up in the arms of the Gattin. He has not gone however, for I saw 
him in the distance last night, hedged in by Erringtons. As I am occu- 
pied all the time by my woman-kind, I infer that he is ditto (to use his 
own elegant style). She was very chatty however, the moment I saw 
her. 

The Houghtons also appeared on the same day, and went on to 
Berne. They said they were in better health and to winter at Nice or 
elsewhere. 

As you can imagine from seeing us still here, we find Baden too 
pleasant to care for leaving it. We pass almost the whole day in the 
woods, among the hills, and trouble ourselves very little about the 

* Francis Grenville Doyle, who died in 1882 from the effects of the Egyptian campaign. 



134 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

world. Fashionable people have gone away. Lord Houghton arrived 
too late to give another breakfast to Cora Pearl. I suppose we shall 
have to move our quarters also this week, but whether up or down the 
Rhine I can't say; probably towards Switzerland, and then some of 
these days back to London, but when or wherefore I know not, inas- 
much as everything is in a muddle and mankind a humbug. 

One thing however seems certain. I shall not get up to the latitude 
of Yorkshire this year perhaps not even the next; so I want you to 
give all sorts of the prettiest messages to your mother and say that the 
weight of several nations on my shoulders all at once could alone pre- 
vent my coming up to see her. I had meditated a letter to her, but on 
the whole thought she would be more bored than pleased by it, so 
abandoned the idea. 

I was shocked at one passage in yours. You say that the hero in 
Gerald Estcourt entreats the heroine to distinguish between "Finfi- 
dehtS du corps et Vinjidllite du cceur" and that this is new. Now, it is 
many years since I read Tom Jones, but if you will turn to Chapter 
something of that work, I am sure you will find this very speech; and 
Sophy's reply is that she will never marry a man to whom the infi- 
delity is not in each case the same. At which Thomas, the town bull, 
as one of my literary friends called him, was disgusted. 

I have amused myself here for the last fortnight by drinking a bottle 
of water every morning and walking about five hours every day, so 
that I am now in good condition. Moreover I had a rapid run (not on 
foot) down to Cologne, and was sorry not to be able to take Tr&ves on 
my way as you would wish to have the last news from the Rothes 
Haus and Doctor Staub. As it is I shall scarcely be able to bring you 
any at all. 

A sigh of regret passed through my soul when I read of your party 
at Wenlock, but when fate takes me by the coat-tails I am only too 
well contented to be dragged to as pleasant a place as this. The gal- 
lant Baronet [Alderson] and my noble friend, I am sure did no harm to 
the partridges. 

54, PORTLAND PLACE, 
Friday, 19 October, '67. 

BRUTE, Your offer is most liberal, but I should think you might 
put yourself down for something and not leave it all for your guests. 
I appreciate deeply Miss Alderson's generosity. As for the Baronet, it 
is only what I expected. 

I am at my desk nine hours a day, doing up awful arrears of work. 



THE FENIANS CALL 135 

Dogs, or red hot tweezers applied to the toe-nails might draw me 
away. Nothing less; not even Thornes. 

This devotion to duty is all on the supposition that we are going to 
Rome and I must then get leave of absence; it will come easier if I am 
laborious now; but I am beginning to fear that things look bad for 
Rome; there's the deuce to pay there, and a grand continental war 
and day-of-judgment on the cards. If there is a war, I suppose Rome 
will be hard to get to and uncomfortable when reached. Nevertheless, 
justum et tenacem y etc. I stand firm though the skies fall. 

Though in person I am compelled to absent myself, yet remind your 
interesting guests that in spirit I am with you even when agitated 
Fenians require most letters. That long-promised sight of Went- 
worth will never come off; but it's not of the least consequence, as poor 
Mr. Toots used to say; I've no doubt it's a humbug; everything is; 
except you and your family, and the Baronet and Lady Alderson and 
the Misses Alderson (2) and Thornes and Wenlock. Shall I also except 
Palgrave? He and his wife 1 dine with us tonight along with the 
Froudes and Browning. 

J saw the sweet Williams last Sunday; mamma and daughter. They 
were cordial, with the usual dash of satire; what do they say of us 
within their happy domestic circle? I suspect we catch it, but we can 
bear much, and after all we have faults; few and slight, it is true, but 
enfin we are not perfect. 

Oblige me by not consuming more of the old port than is absolutely 
required. In regard to the rest of the wine I will not restrict the 
company. 

Remember me to your mother. If I did not know what a pleasant 
party she had, I should come merely to be of use to her; as it is, there 
are no stupid young ladies for me to talk to; besides, the Baronet is 
there. Bye-bye. Fenians call. 

To Charles Francis Adams^ Jr. 

LONDON, 16 November, 1867. 


We have received this morning the election returns. Curious! It 
takes, as you see, only one year for a nation to follow the lead of its 
most sagacious men; a fact which in my opinion is worth noting. It is 
almost equivalent to a vessel's turning on its own length; at least, it 

1 Palgrave married, December, 1862, Cecil Grenville, daughter of James Milnes Gaskell and 
sister of Charles Milnes Gaskell. 



136 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

does obey its rudder. As for our brother John, I kotow before him. 
Tell him that I should write a letter of wisdom to him, if I weren't 
afraid of being suspected of worshipping a rising son and brother. The 
only aspect in which I derive the honest satisfaction from his brilliant 
debut, apart from the fact that he is a S. & B. as above, arises from the 
confident belief that Messrs. Sumner and Wilson have received a 
distinct and dignified reprimand for the insult they thought proper to 
put upon us last summer in respect to the custom house. I confess 
that rankled. I have not forgotten it, nor shall I. There is too a 
certain genial pleasure in thinking that after all, our family and our 
names command sympathy and some support at home. We grow in a 
dry and rocky soil, but we grow. We are a power, if not a very strong 
one. The 65,000 have my thanks. We don't care for the damned old 
Governorship, but we are pleased by 65,000 compliments to our 
youngest. You will say so, please from me. 

The death of Gov. Andrew troubled me principally on your account, 
for my own relations with him were, as you know, limited to having 
seen him. But my second thought was one of deeper regret. I had 
hoped that he would run Sumner out of the Senate next year. In his 
absence who can our conservative friends concentrate upon? Our 
Governor Senior? And if so, are we to fight the Senatorship and the 
Governorship next year? Isn't this cutting it a trifle too fat?... 

Charles Norton's wit improves, in fact, its value has nearly doubled 
since last January. But the triumph of earning $240 in paper in one 
year does not satisfy my ambition. John is a political genius; let him 
follow the family bent. You are a lawyer, and with a few years' pa- 
tience will be the richest and the most respectable of us all. I claim 
my right to part company with you both. I never will make a speech, 
never run for an office, never belong to a party. I am going to plunge 
under the stream. For years you will hear nothing of any publication 
of mine perhaps never, who knows. I do not mean to tie myself to 
anything, but I do mean to make it impossible for myself to follow the 
family go-cart.... I shall probably remain under water a long time. 
If you see me come up, it will be with an oyster and a pearl inside. If 
not, why so!... 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

LONDON, 26 November, 1867. 

MY DEAR CARLO, I have waited for something decisive from 
Ireland until I am ashamed to wait any longer. Nothing comes, at 



FILLING GASKELL'S PLACE AT A DINNER 137 

least down to this moment nothing has come to me, which makes me 
at all wiser than I was last Saturday. So I think it best to write at 
once and proceed on the supposition that you are coming along tant 
bien que mal but still hopefully. A letter is all that I can offer you and 
it may keep up your spirits a little which Cork alone would depress 
sufficiently, and which must be completely used up between Cork on 
one side and your brother's illness on the other. I can't write about 
unpleasant things, for that wretch Palgrave, who on Friday promised 
solemnly to keep me informed, has never sent me a sign, and I only 
know what I can learn at your door. 

Your sudden departure was a thunderbolt in our various camps. 
Within an hour after getting your letter, I received a note from Lady 
Alderson asking me to fill your place at dinner on Saturday, which I 
naturally promised to do. You will be curious to have a report of the 
dinner; I will satisfy your wishes. There were about a dozen people 
there; I took the lovely one to dinner and we were, I am obliged to 
confess, somewhat gay. You can measure it by the fact that we be- 
came sentimental and poetical before we rose from table. I gave a 
short discursive sketch in about fifteen minutes, of the nature and ob- 
jects of love. She blushed and listened. Of course I spoke only as your 
representative. The elder sister flirted abominably with that old 
Hindu idol, that cross-legged Buddha, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, and the 
rest of them I mean the Saturday Review. 1 Remembering the 
wrongs of humanity, I avoided this Juggernaut. I glared at him across 
the table. He told stories after dinner, and I went to sleep in his face; 
I was in my right, for the stories were stupid. That was all I had to 
do with him. Not having received from you authority to act, I could 
not make him disgorge the brains he has swallowed. He did not show 
a proper appreciation of me, by requesting articles for his wretched 
newspaper. My dinner I beg pardon! your dinner amused me 
and I hope I acted your part with feeling and propriety. 

Sunday afternoon I sat one hour and twenty minutes in Cadogan 
Place; a feat which shows that I make progress even as I approach 
thirty. We passed the time in abusing you. I told them I should re- 
peat all that was said, but unfortunately I have forgotten it, all except 
my concluding touch, which was to invite the eldest girl to go down to 
Thornes with me on the first of January; a carriage to be reserved for 
us at Euston Square or King's Cross wherever it is and I to be 
allowed to smoke. This arrangement delighted me. There was a calm 

* Meredith White Townsend (1831-1911) and Richard Holt Hutton (1826-1897) were the 
editors of the Spectator at this time. The reference is probably to Townsend. 



138 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

impudence about it in the touch of my asking her to your house, which 
is equal to our best. She accepted the invitation. We are also all going 
together to Rome, with your mother to matronise. 

Sunday I dined with Mrs. Russell Sturgis. Yesterday I dined at a 
new house, out in Bays water, an American girl who married an Eng- 
lishman. I admired her as a girl; she was fast but handsome and lively. 
I had a dinner there last night which carried me off my legs. I talked 
all the time, eat all the time, drank all the time. In short, I was en 
train. I drank a great deal too much and fell desperately in love with 
my hostess and told her so. There are oases in the desert of life. Such 
a one was Inverness Terrace last night. My only regret was that you 
were probably not finding such an oasis at Cork. 

Tonight I dine at the United University with Ralph Palmer and 
young Malcolm. My family is rejoicing at Rondcomb, where the 
party remains till Thursday. I have a note from my father giving me 
good advice and a list of guests; the Heads; old Mrs. Mildmay; Ad- 
miral and Mrs. Stopford ( ?) ; Mrs. Goldsmid, and " three or four young 
men" making eighteen at table. Which do you think preferable, Cork 
or country-houses ? I don't know myself. After Cork one would cer- 
tainly relish the country-houses, but after the country-houses one 
might relish Cork. 

Work comes forward very slowly. My progress is not only far from 
rapid but very unsatisfactory, I pass most of my time every day in 
erasing what I had written the day before. I have read your chapters 
i, u, in. They are not so good as I have read of your work; all the reli- 
gion will have to come out, as you remarked, I think; but vigorous 
compression is all it wants. I've no doubt they will do, with a little 
filing, and come out like new-laid eggs, warm and fresh. 

Of course all this is for your eye exclusively. I wish I could have 
seen your poor mother before all her trouble came. It seems now so 
long since I came near her, that I feel a stranger. I shall go to Lady 
Doyle's funeral if allowed. If Palgrave doesn't appear soon, I must 
hunt him up for instructions. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskel/ 

54, PORTLAND PLACE, 
Monday, 30 December, 1867. 

Your note arrived this morning. Many thanks for the historical 
information it contains. I have no immediate use to make of it, but 
will put it aside and make it come into something one of these days. 



THE SPIRIT OF REBELLION 139 

I am led to infer that your hopes were disappointed. My poor boy, 
this world is a disappointment altogether. Let us quit it punctually 
next Sunday. 

My impression on the whole is one of relief at not having shared 
your adventures. Now that a new sun is beginning to shine upon me 
from beyond the Atlantic, I am beginning yes, decidedly I have 
begun to be tired of having stupid people with titles sit upon me 
habitually. William the Conqueror was good once, as our view of 
Punch was ; but in the long run he is a bore. You and I have done our 
best to resist the attempt to subdue us. We have carried the war at 
times into the enemies' country and harried their young women. But 
we are but two, and dulness is omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal. I am 
going to run away from it, and you had better give up resistance at 
once. Sooner or later you will be its victim and why prolong the 
struggle? " Ancient associations and a prejudice in favor of" the 
Athanasian creed will get the better of your immortal longings ulti- 
mately. Mammas and brothers and William Rufus put together are 
irresistible when they're not one's own. On the whole, if you are 
driven to accept the English creed and swear that you believe in one 
Duke the master etc, and one mother-in-law who corresponds to the 
Roman idea of the sainte vierge, I hope you will get your own mother 
to make the selection. I've no faith in any of those that we have 
chosen. 

If I were to go to a big place now, so strong is the spirit of the devil 
in me since your departure, I know I should do something shocking. 
Rebellion is good! I like to rebel against everything. Poor Lady 
William! if she knew my feelings she would think you certainly lost 
and destroyed in such company. 

I have seen no one not a living being. I mean to make no calls. 
Certain rheumatic twinges, or some unpleasant pains, warn me that 
we had better start at once. If the Baronet arrives on Thursday, when 
shall you come? He suggests starting on Saturday. In hopes of a cer- 
tain remeeting. 

P.S. Your letter is not burnt. Nor do I understand whether Lady 
M. says she's not a negative or is a positive, or is not positively nega- 
tive; or whether it is that she has not a better appetite after the Athan: 
Cr: or finally whether it is that she has not grown. Grown or not she 
is too tall for you! beware. 



140 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 



To Charles Mtlnes Gaskell 

54, PORTLAND PLACE, 
Wednesday, I January, 1868, 

What the deuce do you mean by talking about being lame and going 
to Suffolk again ? I rather think you had better be here by Saturday 

at latest. If not, ! Never mind! I shall go, even if you and Cun- 

liffe both fail and the eternal skies tumble- Next Sunday I mean to 
be on my way to France. If I am in my bed I can't go, but if des- 
tiny hasn't got some better way of balking a fellow than by the ex- 
ercise of mere brute force, destiny may go hang. If allowed a fair 
field I mean to leave London next Sunday at latest. Come! or 
beware! 

The Palgraves called here this morning! I told a lie to your sister. 
She asked where you had been since Christmas and I said you had 
told me you were going to Cambridge. Let that sit heavy on thy soul 
tomorrow. I don't see but that you must keep the thing secret now 
on my account if not on your own. 

I have no news, having seen no one. London is beastly. The 
weather brutal. I hope we shall be at Vaucluse this day week, out of , 
the reach of snow and ice. I don't want to be caught by the impending 
storm on this side Lyons. 

Nothing more from the Baronet from which I augur well. He should 
report at headquarters tomorrow evening. 

Letters from my brother-in-law and sister [Kuhn] at Florence 
expect our arrival. They are very gay tant soit peu fast I suspect, 
but agreeable. 

Hoo Hoo! mauvais soldat! according to the Grande DucAesse. I 
recognise the Bretton party. I hope you gave an eloquent message on 
my part to Lady Comet; you can't pitch it too strong now that I am 
going away. Intimate a long but hopeless and suppressed passion, and 
that my nervousness won't allow me to meet her again. How is it that 
Lyvedy isn't there? I suppose he is, by this time. Ah, well! another 
Christmas I shall not have the pleasure of losing the charms of Bret- 
ton. You will be there, and I hope you will be caught like poor mute 
inglorious Milton, and yoked to a Beaumont or a Lascelles or some 
such cattle. Then indeed you will have earned your reward like dear 
Wayland. 

I intend to write to your mother before our departure. May I 
mention the engagement ? As things look now I shall not be in London 
or in England much more than two months after we return; three at 



LEAVING LONDON 141 

the outside; perhaps only a few weeks. So in real truth, this departure 
is my breakup. I only return to pack and toddle. 

Alas for Blacky! x Never mind! We will cook up something for him 
among us and you shall put it on paper. If he fails to print that, he's 
a Dutchman. 

By the way, I read nearly all the second volume of Piebald. It 
certainly does read itself. It is natural, simple, easy; there is a vein of 
sentiment in it which seems to me quite "tender," as F. T. P. would 
say. I am not criticising Balzac or Walter Scott or Thackeray, but 
enfin Boyle. And I was agreeably disappointed. 

Sunday, 1.40 P.M. Through. 

To Charles Mllnes Gaskell 

LONDON, 30 March, 1868, 

Got your note your peripatetic note this morning, after so 
long a silence that I was almost persuaded to believe Miss Hervey 
who declares we have quarreled. Glad you are coming, and hope you 
will like London better than I do. I have been regularly to Cadogan 
Place for the last three Sundays to learn news of you to very little 
effect; but was smiled upon. The Sheriff has come to town but is rusty; 
his dignity has turned his head. When he can spare time from his 
aristocratic acquaintance he means to come here to dinner though 
we no longer give dinners. It's so kind of him ! He has promised to 
come on Wednesday (my Governor is out that night) and if you come 
by way of Calais you will have time to come in too and there we 
shall be, the three heroes! I don't go anywhere now, being already 
forgotten by London, not having left cards; but I expect to go some- 
where the Lord knows where out of England, after Easter. I 
pass my days in packing-cases like big baths and have almost finished 
with them. Books, drawings, bronzes and all, will soon be hermetically 
sealed. Dined last night with the Goldsmids, and a good dinner with 
true feeling in the Boudins Richelieu which were not like Roman ones; 
and a divine discovery in the cheese way. You should have been there; 
the others were incapable of taste. Tonight I do Tom Baring! I shall 
be a rude critic, and Thomas may well quail before my eye. No other 
good dinners, only political ones. Had an invitation for you the other 
night to go to Mrs. Benzon's to hear Clara Schumann and Joachim 
play. Frank Palgrave has given me three of his drawings, to my 
great delight. Called yesterday at the Aflderso]ns* and sat an hour 

1 John Blackwood (1818-1879), publisher and editor of BlackwouTs Magazine. 



142 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

alone with Flo ! Nothing came of it. Sir Ivor Guest is engaged to Lady 
C. Churchill! What do I care? The opposition is to have twenty- 
three majority on the Irish Church; if you doubt it, wait till Friday. 
Gladstone's Latin makes me shiver what is exantlatis 1 I've no 
Lexicon and never saw the word. Bye-bye! Oh yet remember me! 
Ever. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

FLORENCE, Thursday, 5 March, [1868 ] 

I ought to have written yesterday and did not pour cause. I 
ought also to have started for London today, but did not also pour 
cause. My reason for not going as I intended was that my sister made 
a point of my staying to a little dance of hers on Friday night, so that 
I shall have to start Saturday morning and travel through without 
stopping even in Paris. After all, I shall reach London Monday even- 
ing, and that is soon enough. 

My second reason is a corallary from the first (a devilish word 
the fourth letter is o d'ailleurs it is spelt right, or I'm a Dutchman). 
You will easily infer that I preferred to wait if I could, till I had some- 
thing to say; which I have accordingly done. 

Hence (let us be logical otherwise why read J. S. M[ill], not to 
mention Aristotle, whom, as in fact you know, I never did read) 
hence, I say, you may rashly infer again that I have now something to 
say. Under all ordinary rules this apparently legitimate deduction 
would be incorrect. I never have anything to say when I write. In 
this exact case, you happen however to be exceptionally right. I have 
something to communicate. 

For two days I hunted hotels in vain. This morning I began at the 
Ponte Vecchio and went down the street knocking at every door, and 
at the last house before the Caseine (I mean the H6tel de la Paix) 
I discovered the names I sought. Disregarding the mendacious asser- 
tions of the porter that they were sortiti, I grasped the trembling 
caitiff of a courier and sent him up with my card. Need I say that I 
was at once admitted? 

My lady was very gracious and told her tale. They had remained 
three days in Genoa which they left yesterday morning coming 
through by our route in one day. Her Ladyship was astonished at my 
having found them so quickly. I explained that I had come to the 
hotel intending to call on an acquaintance, and very much by accident 

* More commonly cxanclo, to draw or bring out as a servant. 



FLORENCE AND PARIS 143 

seeing their names, thought etc., etc., etc. Her Ladyship goes to 
Rome on Monday and has secured rooms at the Europe. 

I was the recipient of various inquiries about you, which I answered 
according to my instructions. Finally with a pleasing air of embar- 
rassment her Ladyship asked whether you had ever received a letter 
from her. Cynic that I am, I thought to myself that I had heard 
people ask that question before, and I looked stolid. No, I thought 
you could have received no letter. At least you might have done so, 
but you had^not told me of it. In fact, perhaps you had, but in short 
I knew nothing about it. 

I was then informed that such a letter had been written late in 
January, requesting you to look out for rooms, and with mixed sensa- 
tions of alarm and horror they had in vain awaited an answer. On 
inquiry I ascertained that it had been addressed to the poste-restante 
at Rome. Hasten there, my friend, and obtain the valuable autograph. 

Other conversation I had, but it was of a general nature. I will 
only add that I saw my Lady Mary also, and as she had her visor 
down, ready to go out walking, I could not tell how she was looking. 
I sat fifteen or twenty minutes and then took my leave for an in- 
definite future, though she says she will be in London late in April. 

Such, oh my Geliebter, is my story. Further I have nought to tell. 
I go to a dance tonight and dance again tomorrow night; what awfal 
riot! Saturday, Sunday and Monday I travel. Rest! oh rest! 

I have found no books to buy, except an Aldus Dante of 1502; forty 
francs; very pretty, but how about the price! 

Addio, caro mio! Remember me in your days of amusement. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

46 RUE NEUVE ST. AUGUSTIN, 

HOTEL D'ORIENT, 3 May, 1868. 

The world runs devilish h travers. (I have not forgotten English, but 
prefer to write so.) Instead of my being back in London today as 
I hoped a week ago, I am as far or further from it than ever. Those 
imbeciles at Washington don't do anything, and are as likely as not to 
let the President off, after all In which case I shall be in a nice way. 
I have clothes with me for one week, which is now up. I abhor Paris 
and am profane beyond belief in my desire to get back to London and 
begin work. But I see no chance of returning before next Saturday and 
perhaps not even then. 

Thus far I have passed my days and nights in my room geologising. 



144 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

I have seen no one. Your friends the Bristols passed me on the chan- 
nel, as you have no doubt guessed. The Paran Stevens tribe I have 
not yet called upon, not caring to provoke an extra visit to my mother 
at a time when she does not want to visit at all. If there is anyone in 
Paris whom I know, I have not heard of it, and I shall not stop the 
individual in the street. 

You may tell our friends in Cadogan Place that I have executed 
their commissions, but do not know when I shall be able to bring the 
plunder over to them. 

I have been twice to the theatre. Once I saw Paul Forestier. 1 I 
thought it very poor; the last act even worse than poor. And once to 
the Gymnase where little Pierson, 2 who becomes very fat, came out 
as a much better actress than I ever supposed she could be. But h61as ! 
I grow old, for I know that eight years ago the women on the stage 
here were the freshest young girls in life. And now they are coarse and 
big. Even Schneider 3 was younger then, though she has always been 
coarse and fat since I've known her. 

Monday morning. I kept this document back in order to obtain the 
information you wanted about the surgeon. But as it may be another 
day or two before I can satisfy myself, I decide to send. 

My father is at the Brunswick House Hotel, Hanover Square. If 
you ever want information about my probable movements, apply to 



1 By Guillaume Victor Iimile Augier. 

a Blanche Adeline Pierson (b. 1842), who was at this time passing from the r61es of an 
ingenue and coquette to more serious parts, gaining in reputation by the change, 
a Catherine Jeanne Hortense Schneider (b. 1838). 



IV 

QUINCY AND WASHINGTON 

1868-1870 
To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

QUINCY, 25 September, 1868. 

Your letter of August 30th arrived here the other day safely. Many 
thanks for it. Write me what the canvass looks like from time to time 
in case anything new turns up, and especially what is the result, when 
the election comes. Of course I am equally interested to hear, no 
matter whether you succeed or not. My own theory is that patience 
carries the day, and that in politics there is no such thing as failure 
to a young man unless he fails to support himself. 

In return I have only to tell you that I am still here, waiting till 
the first frosts shall have made Washington habitable. We have al- 
ready had our first frost in this region and the woods are now dotted 
with scarlet and purple, but in Washington the cold weather comes 
nearly a month later than it does in this polar climate, and I do not 
care to arrive there before the middle of October. Accordingly I re- 
main here doing nothing for a fortnight longer and then go on to New 
York where I must devote several days to seeing different people, and 
shall arrive in Washington about the fifteenth. Then there will be 
rooms to get, and a thousand difficulties to meet before I shall be 
comfortable and able to begin work in earnest. In fact I expect very 
little enjoyment from my first winter. 

So far, life has been really pleasant. After finishing up my article 
on Lyell which occupied me till near the end of August, I went down 
to Newport which is a very gay sort of Torquay, and there I per- 
formed the butterfly with great applause, for a week. Everyone was 
cordial and the young women mostly smiled upon me more beamingly 
than I had been accustomed to, during my residence among the frigid 
damsels of London. In fact I must acknowledge to what Robert used 
to chaff me about: the simple savage never was nor could have been 
entirely tamed. I get along better on my native heath, with toma- 
hawk and feathers, than I did in sword and breeches at Buckingham 
Palace. The life here would not suit you, and in the long run it may 
disgust me too, but at the first start I breathe freer. 

My father and mother have settled down to as quiet an existence 



146 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

as the world has to show, and as for my sister she has been flying about 
the country, visiting her friends, and has scarcely been at home these 
six weeks, I fancy the change is more agreeable to her than to the 
rest of us, for England is a dull place for young girls who have no 
family connection. I used to ask our friend Miss Warren why she had 
no friends of her own age and sex, and she indignantly replied that she 
had one Miss Tollmache. In America young women are as inti- 
mate and generally acquainted among each other as young men are 
among themselves, and of course they are made more independent of 
male society. The system may be bad, but they like it. 

My mother wanted me to send a message about your father's 
orange-brandy. I believe she very nearly lived upon it while on board 
ship, and I know it was all drunk up, and without my ever getting a 
drop. The doctor insisted on her taking stimulants while she was sea- 
sick, and the brandy suited her better than anything else she could 
find. 

Will you do a little favor for me? The next time you are in town, 
ask Bumpus whether he can get for you the second volume of the Eng- 
lish translation of Mommsen's History of Rome. I want it to replace 
a lost one. If he can, will you send it to me here by post? And if you 
will show this note to Mr, Russell Sturgis, he will pay you for the book 
and postage and charge it to me. 

Remember me especially to your father and mother. I shall soon 
write to the latter. To Robert I sent a letter not long ago. Ever 
yours. 

To Edward Atkinson 

QUINCY, 5 October, 1868. 

If you can spare time from brother Butler/ will you write me a 
short line of introduction to Mr. Godkin of the Nation ? I want to talk 
with him when I am in New York next week. 

I watch and shall continue to watch your contest in the 
Essex District with the keenest interest. The General is playing for 
high stakes. Think for a moment what a place he will hold if he wins 
now! He has got Dana and you and all other respectable men in the 
State in such a position that if he goes back to Washington at all, he 
will carry your scalps in his belt. You must crush him now, or he will 
grind your faces in the dirt. 

* Butler had just been renommated for Congress on a policy of paying the United States bonds 
in greenbacks. 



WASHINGTON AND MR. EVARTS 147 

If I can assist you from Washington, I will do so cordially. I hope 
measures have already been taken to bring out from their pigeon-holes 
those reports about Mr. Butler of which so much has been said. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

158 G STREET, WASHINGTON, D.C., 
5 November, 1868. 

Eccolh! If you can master the idea of streets named after letters of 
the alphabet, know that the above is my address. Moreover, " D. C. " 
stands for District of Columbia, though you mightn't guess it. The 
great step is taken, and here I am, settled for years, and perhaps for 
life. Your last letter was sent on to me a few days ago. 

My experiences so far have not been disagreeable, and yet I think 
and hope they have been the least agreeable part of my experiences 
past or to come. I left Boston on the I2th of October and stopped 
several days in New York, intending to come on here and stay at a 
hotel until I could move into rooms. But one day I met Mr. Evarts on 
the street. You recollect his visit to Cambridge with me in 1863, 
since which he has become a great man, saving the President in the 
Impeachment by his skill as Counsel, and in consequence of his serv- 
ices then, appointed a member of the Cabinet as Attorney General 
not long afterwards. He stopped me to urge that I should stay at his 
house in Washington until I settled myself. Naturally I assented and 
we came on together. His family was all away, and he and I kept 
house for ten days. He took me to call on the President, who was 
grave and cordial, and gave me a little lecture on constitutional law. 
The Secretary of State, as we call the Foreign Secretary, Mn Seward, 
was also cordial, and his major-domo selected rooms for me. With the 
Secretary of the Treasury, 1 1 am on the best of terms and he pats me 
on the back, not figuratively but in the flesh. Finally the Secretary 
of War * and I are companions. The account so far is a good one, is it 
not? Unfortunately this whole Cabinet goes out on the fourth of 
March, and in the next one I shall probably be without a friend. 
Politics makes a bad trade. 

I staid ten days with the Attorney General and then I moved to the 
house of an aunt I have here, where I still remain while my rooms get 
into shape. If you come over, I can give you a bed and you can stay 
as long as you will. You will find all my old books in my cases, my 
drawings (and memorials of Cannes) on the walls, and my lion and 

* Hugh McCulloch (1808-1895). a John McAllister Schofidd (1831-1906). 



148 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

ostrich magnificent and beautiful for ever. My establishment is 
modest, for my means are exiguous, but it has more civilisation in it 
than the rest of Washington all together. Come and see. 

In fact this is the drollest place in Christian lands. Such a thin veil 
of varnish over so very rough a material, one can see nowhere else. 
But for all that, there are strong points about it. From the window 
of my room I can as I sit see for miles down the Potomac, and I know 
of no other capital in the world which stands on so wide and splendid 
a river. But the people and the mode of life are enough to take your 
hair off. I think I see you trying to live here. You couldn't stand it 
four-and-twenty hours. Alas! I fear I never shall eat another good 
dinner. 

My geological article was published a month ago, after I left 
Boston and I have heard nothing of it (the best news I could hear), 
except that it has paid me 20. I am now beginning Finance again, 
and you will probably read as much as the title of my next production. 
In about five years I expect to have conquered a reputation. But 
what it may be worth when got, is more than I can tell. The sad 
truth is that I want nothing and life seems to have no purpose. 

Our elections as you see, have passed off as everyone expected and 
we are approaching a new reign. Personally we have nothing to expect 
from it. My father is not in sympathy with the party in power, and 
my brother [John] is a prominent opponent of it. I am too insignificant 
a cuss to have my opinion asked, but my eyes and ears are wide open, 
and we mean to be seen and be heard as well as see and hear. I wait 
now with great interest for your election. Write soon about it. Give 
my best love to everyone. I shall write again soon. 

To Charles Francis Adams , Jr. 

158 G STREET, WASHINGTON, 

Monday, 23 Nov., 1868, 
.... 

My mind is more occupied now about politics than about literature, 
but I have my next article sketched out in my head and expect that it 
will be good, an improvement on my "British Finance," and on the 
same model. Politics are gaining interest and I am studying the 
science in a devilish clever school. If I can hold my own in it, I shall 
think well of my capacity. Should you see Gurney x you may tell him 
that I have a very handsome letter from Sir Charles [Lyell] about my 

1 Ephraim Whitman Gurney (1829-1886), editor of the North American Review. 



RETIREMENT OF CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS 149 

article, which he called " the most original he has yet seen on his new 
edition, and the only one which has called due attention to what is new 
in it." 

13 Dec., 1868. 

Things are beginning to move. I expect Wells * here tomorrow or 
next day, and then I am in for six weeks of hard work, which will be 
over the 1st Feby. and I shall have time for a little intrigue. I mean to 
block the movement to put the Governor into the Cabinet. I don't 
want him there. He would be in my way. Besides, this first Cabinet 
will be a failure. 



To Charles Francis Adams , Jr. 

WASHINGTON, 8th Jany., 1869. 

I have not thought it worth while to answer your remarks about my 
judgment in the Governor's case, because you and I are wider apart 
than the poles. I have not changed my opinions, however, as to the 
wisdom of his course in retiring, and everything I have seen here 
encourages me to think that his position is now far higher and more 
unassailable than if he had remained in London. 

I am working very hard and yet it is work absolutely thrown away. 
It amuses me, however. Q. E. D. 

To Charles Francis Adams y Jr. 

WASHINGTON, 18 January, 1869. 

I will send you Butler's speech as soon as I can get a copy. If our 
Congress were not the trash it is, such a speech ought to be the end of 
Butler. But Garfield,* Wells, Walker 3 and I have held his inquest, and 
Garfield will score him in the House. 

These booksellers haven't the North American, but I shall get it in 
a day or two and will write you about it. 4 As for style, I am rather sur- 
prised at your criticism. You find fault with us for doing precisely 
what I wrote in such despair of ever correcting. Polish be damned. 
I never tried to polish in the sense of smoothing. All I ever wanted 
was to polish away my stilts and get down to firm ground, and that is 

1 David Ames Wells (1828-1889), the economist. 

* James Abram Garfield (1831-1881). s Francis Amasa Walker (1840-1897). 

* The North American Review for January, 1 869, contains an article by Charles Francis Adams, 
Jr., on railroad deflation. Possibly the unsigned paper on "A Look Before and After" was by 
Henry Adams. 



150 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

precisely what I despair of doing. If you glance your eye over my last 
things as compared with the Harvard Magazine you will see how bald 
I have become, thinking that that first step should be to unlearn a 
vicious habit before hoping to start again. That is all I have ever said 
of your style. Get rid of your tricks. What will then come, is accord- 
ing to the will of God and your own good sense. 

If the Governor does not hear this week of his appointment as 
Secretary, I think the moment has passed. I suspect it has already 
passed week before last. I guess this from Seward's manner of talk to 
me. But I grope in the dark. 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

WASHINGTON, aa Jany , 1869. 

.* 9 

There is no news here. Every one is in the dark. I am very hard 
at work and care very little for the new administration, as I find I can 
get on without it. What do you say to this ? Our labored work does 
not gain us all it ought. I want to be advertised and the easiest way is 
to do something obnoxious and do it well. I can work up an article on 
"rings" which, if published in England, would, I think, create excite- 
ment and react through political feeling on America in such a way as 
to cover me with odium. Wells says, don't disgrace us abroad. I say, 
Rot ! The truth is open to expression anywhere. No home publication 
will act on America like foreign opinion. I am not afraid of un- 
popularity and I will do it. 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

WASHINGTON, 27 Jany., 1869. 

I can't do my " Rings " in short time. I am going to make it monu- 
mental, a piece of history and a blow at democracy. I mean to put 
into it all IVe got in matter, thought and style, so that I may be a 
year or two in working it up, but the return in public horror and dis- 
gust will, I hope, make me a "degenerate son," and a "traitor," a 
"cynical sceptic," and a "person whose career is closed before it has 
begun." 

So go on with your article, for I shall be very slow about mine, and 
you will help me rather than otherwise. I have, however, another 
idea, which is to write a popular article showing the practical ex- 
pedients by which traders make a profit out of the currency. These 



POLITICAL CORRUPTION 151 

fields are gloriously rich and stink like hell, if we were only of the force 
to distil their flowers. 

As for disgust at oneself, I feel it every time I steal an idea from 
Evarts, who produces them naturally. My article on Lyell humiliated 
me.^ It was so neatly put together and not an original idea in it. But 
don't be cast down. We are small enough creatures absolutely, but 
relatively to the mass of fools who make mankind, we are at the top of 
the ladder. After all, even Stuart Mill has only added to, and not 
created, his sciences, and I think he is sometimes superficial. Men 
measure people's knowledge usually by their own ignorance.... 

To Edward Atkinson 

158 G STREET, WASHINGTON, i February, 1869. 

I have already a dozen ideas in my head which if elaborated would 
occupy me years. I shall note the suggestion you make and work it 
up, if I get time, but from what I see here I suspect that our people 
may be properly divided into two classes, one which steals, the other 
which is stolen from; and we have got to take the matter up with a 
high hand and drag it into politics if we are to hope for success. If I am 
right, it follows that our time and labor will be most usefully spent in 
a regular hand-to-hand fight with corruption here under our eyes. To 
follow the protectionists over to England is to go off on a false scent. 
I could rather scarify a few of them personally as they stand. The 
whole root of the evil is in political corruption; theory has really not 
much to do with it. 

You in Massachusetts are not really in the Union. Butler is the 
only man who understands his countrymen and even he does not quite 
represent the dishonesty of our system. The more I study its working, 
the more dread I feel at the future. Our coming struggle is going to 
be harder than the anti-slavery fight, and though we may carry free- 
trade, I fear we shall be beaten on the wider field. 

Are our Boston people mad that they petition against the Alabama 
Convention ? * If ever Boston was interested in any matter of Govern- 
ment, she is interested in adopting this Convention. Its rejection 
means a determination on our part to have, sooner or later, a war with 
England, and I fear it will be rejected. If our friends are wise they 
will make all the Eastern Senators support the Treaty, for the West 
will try to shove us into a struggle in which we alone can be the suf- 
ferers. 

1 The Clarendon-Johnson convention, providing machinery for die settlement of the Alabama 
and similar questions between the United States and Great Britain. 



152 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

WASHINGTON, 3 Feby., 1869. 


I have no news for you and am pretty indifferent to news. Follow- 
ing my rule, I have avoided the Capitol till I have ceased to think of it. 
The politicians, I am told, are furious at not being consulted by Grant. 
To an insignificant cuss like me, the reflection that I am at last under 
a silent despotism where the many headed monster is muzzled, has its 
charm. At any rate I know as much as any fellow, and that is, they 
say, the highest wisdom. . . . 

To Charles Francis Adams , Jr. 

Tuesday, 0.3 Feby., 1869. 

No news yet, but look out for it soon. The knowing ones tell me 
that this week will settle it. The Congressional slate contains the 
following names < you can shuffle them as you like and leave out to 
choice. 

Wilson of Iowa * Schofield 

Williams of Oregon a Evarts Pierpont 4 

Holt of Tenn. 3 Fessenden s Boutwell 6 

Wells 

I pity the man that goes into that Cabinet. You are more hopeful 
than I am, if you expect to be pleased by it. We here look for a reign 
of western mediocrity, but one appreciates least the success of the 
steamer, when one lives in the engine-room. I swear I feel as though I 
ought to give my soul a thorough washing. . , . 

To Charles Francis Adams , Jr. 

WASHINGTON, n March, [1869.] 

The last turn of the cards is not altogether satisfactory. Boutwell 
is not a Wells man. Meanwhile Grant has made Congress madder 
than the devil. Between ourselves, the home appointments are not 
what we want. I am afraid there is more favoritism than public good 
in them. It's the old game with fresh cards. But we are in the boat 
and have got to stay there. 

1 James Wilson (1835-1920). * George Henry Williams (1823-1910). 

J Joseph Holt (1807-1894). 4 Edwards Pierrepont (1817-1892). 

* William Pitt Fessenden (1806-1869). George Sewell Boutwell (1818-1905), 



THE NEW PRESIDENT 153 

Nothing from you this long time. I have been awfully worked this 
week; ten hours a day for four days, and politics on top of it. The 
Edinburgh Review will have an article of mine in April Reeve z says it 
is the best article on American affairs ever printed in an English peri- 
odical and that he attaches the greatest importance to it. I don't see 
its astonishing merits, nor will you. But I hope it will make me un- 
popular. ^ Q. E. D. I send an article today 2 to Gurney which will 
help. If it^ embarrasses the Governor, stand by to whitewash him of 
all responsibility. 

To Charles Francis Adams y Jr. 

WASHINGTON, 29 March, [1869.] 

After a good deal of difficulty I have succeeded in getting a copy 
of the report on election frauds, and must now try to get a frank for it. 
As it contains a thousand pages, postage comes heavy. Few copies of 
the evidence were printed, and at the document-room they refused 
me one, but I got round them by corrupt influence. The report, 
however, is not valuable, in fact, the minority report, which is in- 
cluded, suggests more ideas to me than all the rest. I care little 
whether one or fifty thousand fraudulent votes were cast, but I would 
give much to be inside Tammany Hall. 

I have nothing new to say. We are all grumbling here, but you per- 
haps may see some cause for confidence that we do not. I go from 
Wells to Evarts, and from Evarts to Sumner, and so round the list, 
and find them all disgusted in their own branches. Coelum non animam 
mutant qui novum Presidentem etigunt. It is the old regime, and Grant 
is, between ourselves, less capable than Johnson. I am astonished by 
his behavior, but I am even more puzzled than astonished, for I can 
read it only in one sense. Well ! at the end of the end, we shall succeed 
if we have one single element in Gen. Grant that of intelligence. 
But what I see and hear makes me often think with a horrible shud- 
der of John's remark, which you quoted to me, that Grant's mind 
was of the same order, if not of the same degree, as Ward Frothing- 
ham's. 

I propose to return to Quincy on the first of June. In the interval I 
dawdle here. The life is pleasant, rather than otherwise, and I am 
more contented here than I could be elsewhere. Besides, I want to see 
what is going to happen. I assure you the Government in all its 

1 Henry Reeve (1813-1895), for forty years editor of the Edinburgh Renew. 
9 The Session, in North American Review, April, 1869. 



154 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

branches is now a mere bundle of sticks held together by old rags. I 
am curious to see when it will strike root again and sprout. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

WASHINGTON, 30 March, 1869. 

Yours of the tenth from Nevers reached this misbegotten spot some 
days since, curiously enough, arm in arm with one from Palgrave. 
Your journey interested me; journeys always do interest me; I have 
done nothing this fortnight but read books of travels. I wish you would 
send me better news of your family, and in fact of everyone, but so 
long as you are yourself well, I glide over the rest. Poor Lady de 
Tabley! I never see an English paper nor get English news, so all I 
have heard about her is through you. As for Robert, I despise him. 
What the dickens does he mean by giving a ball and not asking me to 
it! I pardon him since I can't help it for never writing, but I 
hate to be left out of a party. 

Upon the honor of a gentleman I have not a single thing to say, for 
my last was written so short a time ago that nothing has happened 
since from which I could make a paragraph. That I am politically 
dissatisfied is unquestionable, but then I have yet to find anyone who 
is not in the same situation, though the newspapers lie in chorus and 
make me laugh, for I know how their editors talk in private. Fortu- 
nately I can't take office, for I care too much for my precious health to 
tie myself to a post; and I won't do it, for I despise the whole calabash 
and prefer to say so publicly. Motley wants to be our Minister in 
England, and no doubt I might go with him if he goes, but you can 
imagine that I don't care for such a position. I shall however try to 
put a good fellow into it, if the chance occurs. I have no great faith 
in its occurring, however, for our foreign appointments are queer. 
Probably no New England man has much chance. 

Meanwhile I am quietly waiting for the explosion of my two fire- 
crackers on the 1st April, and between then and the 1st June I have no 
special plans or projects though I've no doubt there will be plenty of 
work offered if I care to undertake it. On the ist June I return to 
Quincy where a laborious piece of literary work in the line of bio- 
graphy, waits my arrival and will occupy the whole summer except a 
few weeks which I mean to give to nature, geology and Canada. Then 
in October I return again to my residence here and start fresh or 
rather, stale. In the meanwhile I devote four hours every day 
when there's no deluge to rambling over the country here and 



SOCIETY IN WASHINGTON 155 

picking up a sort of familiarity with nature which is the only satis- 
factory companion I have. I live comfortably and rather cheaply on 
the whole; at least, well within my means, and as there are few men 
here who have any means, and the members of Congress and the 
Cabinet have only about twice my income or less, I get along very 
well and am thought a Croesus. It is a prodigious relief to escape the 
oppressive contact of young men who keep a stable and are "gentle- 
men-riders" at the steeple-chase. I detest swell young men who talk 
horse, and here there are none. On the other hand, life is certainly 
common-place. My despondent fit has passed away again and been 
succeeded by cheerfulness and contentment, thanks, I believe, to my 
long walks and careful life, without medical interference, but I am 
thin and bearded and very very bald. 

I hope you picked up a French play or two or a novel for me, miser- 
able mendicant that I am. I can get English books through Bumpus, 
but France is beyond my reach. I have received Browning's poem 
and am at it. If you hear of anything nice in English poetry, tell 
Bumpus to send it. I enclose you a letter for your uncle. Please read 
it, and if it's all right, close and deliver it; so you will obtain my thanks. 

I presume all is well with my family though I seldom hear except 
from my father whose letters are mostly political. Society is extinct 
and I see no one but a few intimates. So write as often as you can, for 
your letters are my sole tie to mankind the European part of it. As 
for the American, Robert has discovered the prehensile tail to be tie 
sufficient. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

WASHINGTON, 19 April, 1869. 

Yours of April ad arrived this morning. You can imagine the im- 
pression it made upon me. But I would rather not write about the 
gloomy side of life. At this distance I can neither assist nor even ex- 
press any sympathy worth hearing. Keep me well-informed as to your 
mother's state. 

Your London gossip proves that I have not lost much by my ab- 
sence, so far as the old tread-mill is concerned. Let it grind! We have 
here a few of these butterflies who belong properly to the cirde of 
Lady Sebright and the Gallo-Anglican set, and it would amuse you 
to see how utterly unsaddled they are. Their only resource is to invent 
here a little bastard set, and play being in a great society. As you 
know, this city does not answer all the proudest desires of my own 



156 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

heart, but at any rate, what with politics, literature, geology, botany, 
and society, I am on the whole happy except when my liver is dis- 
ordered. I have to walk from two to three hours every day to correct 
my liver, but as the country and charming scenery is within a mile of 
my door, I find the walks a great pleasure. But these poor French and 
Germans tear their hair and are fit to die, or even to get married. 
This winter they have had peculiarly hard luck. By the bye, our 
friend Schlozer 1 passed through here on his way to Mexico. I called 
just too late. 

What a thing it is to have a good liver! My walks have cured all 
my ails. Everything otherwise has gone wrong. My hopes of the new 
Administration have all been disappointed; it is far inferior to the last. 
My friends have almost all lost ground instead of gaining it as I hoped. 
My family is buried politically beyond recovery for years. I am be- 
coming more and more isolated so far as allies go. I even doubt 
whether I can find an independent organ to publish my articles, so 
strong is the current against us. But I rather like all this, for no one 
can touch me and I have asked nothing of any living person. I express 
pretty energetically opinions all round, and I wait till the cards are 
played out. I can afford to wait. We have won our rubber on the old 
game. 

That I should figure at the Royal Academy is an alarming event. I 
hope the Motleys will overlook it. These successors of ours will be in 
London in June. You know them and my relations with them. Pray 
keep me informed as to their goings-on. General Grant's historio- 
graph Badeau goes with them. He is a sociable little man with a red 
face and spectacles. I shall give him some letters, but won't bore you, 
although if you meet him you will find him amusing. As I am not in 
sympathy with the foreign policy of my friend Charles Sumner who is 
grand Panjandrum here, little button and all, and who appoints Mot- 
ley to England, I have avoided the whole caravan. 

Of my family I know almost as little as you do. My father writes 
me every week, the others very seldom, having nothing to say. My 
father is deeply engaged in heavy building operations, his real estate 
having run to ruin in his absence and never having been in good con- 
dition. I suppose he feels poor, in consequence, but he has utterly 
abandoned politics, and is devoted to his home projects. My sister's 
last epistle was filled with English gossip out of her letters. My 
mother has not written for a month. You may judge from this that 
their existence is not exciting. I am myself preparing a volume of 

* Kurd von SchJozer (1822-1894). 



No FRIENDS IN THE GOVERNMENT '157 

Memoirs which may grow to be three volumes if I have patience to 
toil. It is not an autobiography n'ayez pas peur! An ancient lady 
of our house has left material for a pleasant story. As for my vagabond 
April articles, Heaven only knows where they are; at least the North 
American has not yet appeared, and if the Edinburgh is out, 1 1 am none 
the wiser. Nor do I much expect that either article will be printed as I 
wrote it. To hope this would display infantile ignorance of editorial 
nature. 

Robert's letter never has arrived. I don't believe it was ever sent. 
Never mind! I shall pretty certainly come over in June, 1870, and 
then I will punch his head, Baronet though he be. I have however a 
long letter from John Bright, one from Ralph Palmer and one from 
Thomson Hankey on my table, and sent off one for F. T. P. this morn- 
ing. Give my best love to your mother. 

To Charles Francis Adams > Jr. 

WASHINGTON, 29 April, 1869. 

I can't get you an office. The only members of this Government 
that I have met are mere acquaintances, not friends, and I fancy no 
request of mine would be likely to call out a gush of sympathy. Wells 
has just about as much influence as I have. He can't even protect his 
own clerks. Judge Hoar has his hands full, and does not interfere with 
his colleagues 

Thank God, all this business is over now and I am left here solitary 
but happy, and busy with an entirely different sort of subjects..,. 

Senator Sprague a has kindly advertised me, as you see. I sent you 
my letter in order that you might not imagine I had been mixed in his 
affairs, the letter being written a month before he made his speeches, 
and Atkinson being responsible for it. Do you notice T. Chase's ef- 
fusion?... Washington is almost empty, and the country perfectly 
lovely. All the trees are in leaf, even the oaks. Such a place for wild- 
flowers I never saw. I pass my days in the woods. 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

WASHINGTON, 17 May, 1869. 

I have received a letter from Reeve calling for another article "some 
months hence" on the "changes of the American Constitution which 

1 The Session, in North American Review, April, 1869. An article on American Finance 
appeared in the Edmburg Review, April, 1869. 
* William Sprague (1830-1915). 



158- LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

have resulted from the war/* As I am not a constitutional lawyer and 
furthermore believe that the essential and fatal changes in our Con- 
stitution were not the results of the war, but of deeper social causes, 
which each need a volume to discuss, I shall decline the invitation. 
The Governor likes that sort of thing and I wish he, or G. T. Curtis, or 
Evarts, had time for it. At all events, I shall not attempt it, and I 
write to tell you that I am ready to offer Reeve your Erie article in 
place of what he wants, if you like. I find that I have unexpectedly 
jumped into notoriety enough for the first go-off, through my two 
April balloons, and mean to hold my tongue carefully till I have more 
to say. If the future goes straight, I will make my annual "Session" 
an institution and a power in the land. But there is time enough and 
patience conquers. I may add for your further consideration that 
Reeve's check was for 30. Make a little sum of it: 30 (gold) = $200 
(paper) or thereabouts. The N. A. R. pays $75. 200: 75 : i : 375, or in 
other words, the N. A. R. pays about % what the Edin. gives for a 
first article of an untried and unknown foreigner. At any rate, there is 
your standard. Insist on at least $5 (gold) a page, or offer your article to 
England. I don't notice that British gold is dirtier than our paper. . . . 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

WASHINGTON, 17 May, 1869. 

I have just received a letter from Thomson Hankey in which he an- 
nounces the death of your aunt x as a thing I should no doubt have seen 
mentioned. As I did not think it likely you would have much time to 
write, I decided not to wait for your next letter, but to send you a line 
at once, not to condole, but to amuse you if possible. Your poor aunt ! 
What a charming, sympathetic woman she was, and how naturally 
one became attached to her! In one sense I wish I were in England, 
and could be of use to you, so that you could have some kind of change 
of atmosphere and throw off occasionally this perpetual sense of gloom 
which is round you. On my own account, the distance is a relief, for 
all our life in England seems now like a novel, except when letters 
come, and you can imagine that I am glad to escape the pain of think- 
ing about your poor aunt and mother whenever I can. Of course the 
real suffering with me was a year ago when I came away, for we all 
knew then that we should never see each other again, and die hardest 
trial in my life, in the way of parting, was when I bade your mother 

1 Charlotte Williams-Wynn, aster of GaskelTs mother, died April a6, 1869. A volume, 
Memorials of C. W. W^ edited by her aster Harriet Hester Lindesay, appeared in 1877. 



NEWSPAPER FAME 159 

good-bye. Your letter of April ipth was therefore a shock without 
being a surprise. I knew what was in it almost when I saw it, as I had 
not expected anything from you so soon. 

I hope soon to hear from you what your plans for the future now 
are, and after this long strain on your spirits, I hope you will feel a sort 
of relief at last as you turn from the past to the future. Luckily for 
you, you can't, like me, become a Bohemian. You must look ahead 
and build up a new family in place of the one destroyed, and make a 
new centre for the branches to lean upon. No doubt you will write me 
about these matters as they happen to come up. If you do, I shall al- 
ways express my own ideas about your affairs without any reserve. 

Now let's drop this dreadful subject which always brings the tears 
into my eyes. You need a little amusement, and I have a magnificent 
story for you. In the first place, my coup d'essai has proved an un- 
expected success. My article on "The Session " in the 'North British* 
(as you call it) or the 'North Atlantic' (as the Secretary of Legation 
here calls it) or the North American as it calls itself, has been read. 
For once I have smashed things generally and really exercised a dis- 
tinct influence on public opinion by acting on the limited number of 
cultivated minds. As evidence of this in a small way, I enclose to you a 
long slip from a Massachusetts newspaper, probably the most widely 
circulated of all these Massachusetts papers, in which I am treated in 
a way that will, I think, delight you. Of course it is all nonsense. I am 
neither a journalist nor one of the three best dancers in Washington, 
nor have I a profound knowledge of the cotillon, though I confess to 
having danced it pretty actively. But you see I am posed as a sort of 
American Pelham or Vivian Gray. This amused me, for you and I 
both have always had a foolish weakness for combining social and 
literary success, but the part of the joke which pleased me less, was to 
come. 

This leader was condensed into a single paragraph of half a dozen 
lines by a western paper, and copied among the items of the column 
"personal" all over the country. In this form it came back to New 
York. Hitherto my skill as a dancer was kept a mere artistic touch to 
heighten the effect of my "brilliant" essay. Now however the para- 
graph is compressed to two lines. "H. B. A. is the author of article 
etc., etc., etc. He is one of the three best dancers in W." The next step 
will be to drop the literary half, and preserve the last line, and I am in 
an agony of terror for fear of seeing myself posted bluntly: "H. B. A. 
is the best dancer in W." This would be fame with a vengeance. 

My Edinburgh article has attracted no notice so far as I know, 



160 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

though I see no English newspapers. Reeve has behaved very well 
about it, praising it highly, printing it too accurately even to clerical 
blunders (the proofs were lost), and paying me 30. He now wants 
more, but I am busy elsewhere on a work that will amuse you one of 
these days. 

I hope to hear from you this week. Give my warm regards to your 
father, and believe me ever yours, 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

Friday, 21 May, 1869. 


I see you are getting back to your old dispute with me on the pur- 
pose of life, by means of an attack on my self-esteem. You are quite 
right in the point you make. I do think too much about my own pro- 
ductions and myself generally. Stick to that and you may kick me 
all day long. I will not go down into the rough-and-tumble, nor mix 
with the crowd, nor write anonymously, except for mere literary 
practice. My path is a different one; and was never chosen in order to 
suit other people's tastes, but my own. Of course a man can't do this 
without appearing to think a great deal about himself, and perhaps 
doing so in fact. The very line he draws requires care to observe, and 
is invidious to everyone else. In America there is no such class, and 
the tendency is incessant to draw everyone into the main current. I 
have told you before that I mean to be unpopular, and do it because I 
must do it, or do as other people do and give up the path I chose for 
myself years ago. Your ideas and mine don't agree, but they never 
have agreed. You like the strife of the world. I detest it and despise 
it. You work for power. I work for my own satisfaction. You like 
roughness and strength; I like taste and dexterity. For God's sake, 
let us go our ways and not try to be like each other. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

WASHINGTON, 20 June, 1869. 

Yours of the l4th May arrived in due course, but as I had already 
answered it before it arrived, I rather preferred to wait in hopes of re- 
ceiving another letter written under more cheerful circumstances. The 
best of all would be that you should run over here yourself for a few 
months, but I suppose you can scarcely get away. I hope to get a 
letter from you this coming week. 



OPINIONS AND A CAREER 161 

Meanwhile the great Robert has actually succeeded in sending me 
his semi-annual despatch which I answered at once by way of encour- 
aging the young man, though perhaps such promptness might be 
rather ^wcouraging. Palgrave, however, has abandoned me, and I 
hear nought of his doings. If you see him, convey my regards. 

I also received a newspaper from you containing allusions to dead 
and forgotten articles written by my humbleness. I have yet to learn 
how this Yorkshire luminary happened to light on my production, and 
can only guess that some London news-sheet had previously picked my 
bones. May the meal prove fattening! 

As you see, I am still hanging about the Capital although the world 
has long ago deserted it, and only a handful of people are- still here. 
One finds so many last things requiring attention and so many prepara- 
tions requiring to be made, that time gets ahead and the weather be- 
comes hotter and hotter until flesh and blood can't stand it. I shall 
hang on yet another ten days before dropping down upon Quincy 
where my family expect me, and I shall take to salt water. The differ- 
ent members of my paternal abode are well, so far as I know, but the 
female portion honors me with extremely few letters, and I have not 
the least idea what is their manner of life. They have been making 
their house habitable, I believe, and the Lord knows the house 
needed it. Also they are building or to build a fire-proof affair for the 
library and the family papers, but what species of thing, I know not. 

As for me, I glide along quietly through life, and enjoy it at times a 
good deal. But my opinions and dislike for things in general will prob- 
ably make my career a failure; so far as any public distinction goes, 
and I am contented to have it so. There are no very clever men here, 
but some very fair ones, and as things are generally going to the devil, 
I don't much care who is uppermost and am well-pleased to have no 
strong personal friends in power. I am looking forward with great re- 
joicing to my visit to England next year. Meanwhile work pours in on 
me, and I can't do half what men urge me to do. But I am sorry to say 
that in a pecuniary point of view, die profit is inconsiderable, not to 
say devilish small. Why is it that the deserving never get their de- 
serts? My deserts are about 10,000 a year, but how far below my 
receipts! 

Fortunately society here pays little attention to one's pecuniary 
means, and as there are few people in Washington even among the 
highest officials, who are relatively richer than I, there is no difficulty 
in getting along. I am tolerably intimate with some members of the 
Cabinet, and have no enemies that I know of, and as there are so few 



1 62 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

cultivated people here, one's social value is out of all proportion to 
what it would be in London. But I don't expect that anything except 
perhaps literary reputation will ever come of it. The pressure for 
office from every part of the country is so tremendous that unless one 
is backed by strong party support and personally worries the Govern- 
ment, there is no chance of obtaining anything. 

I see so few English papers that I know little of what goes on with 
you, and my letters are few and far between. New books I never see, 
unless I write to Bumpus for them, but there does not seem to be any 
extensive supply even in London. I read much Political Economy and 
am deep in the currency and the foreign exchanges. Our foreign rela- 
tions too are interesting and I keep as well posted on them as I can. 
But all is vanity! 

After the terrible experience you have had this year, I am anxious to 
hear that your health has not suffered, and I hope that you are still 
busy with literary and political projects. Stick to it, for even though 
one fails, the occupation is an amusement. I regret bitterly that I 
could not have been with you at Wenlock at the funeral. Sad as it 
was, I would have liked to pay this last sign of respect to your mother's 
memory, but I hope to go down there with you next year, and trust 
that by that time your life will have settled itself in a new course with 
more cheerful associations so that the pilgrimage will not be a painful 
one to either of us. Give my best respect to your father and Mrs. 
Lindesay and believe me as ever. 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

WASHINGTON, 22 June, 1869. 

I congratulate you heartily on Wendell's attack. Besides being a 
perfect gentleman he is a good thermometer. One's value is fairly 
measured by his abuse. I confess always to a desire to do to him what 
we used to do to our dogs that misbehaved themselves in the house 
"rub his nose in it" but reason tells me that this modern Thersites 
is useful for our objects and that we could ill spare the advertisement. 
Give him my love, and send him my articles with the promise of a |io 
note if he will mention them with "good ordinary," or $25, for super- 
fine best abuse. By no means leave out the fine old hit at the Adamses; 
it always tells.,.. 

Wells and Garfield are coming to Boston. I have invited them to 
Quincy. We will have Atkinson too, and Greenough, and cut out our 



THE HOUSE AT QUINCY 163 

work. Garfield will talk about a railway-schedule with you, for his 
census which is a bore. So get ready to help him, for he may help 
you some day. We may never come up, but he probably will swim 
pretty strong* 

To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

QUINCY, ii July, 1869. 

My wrath at the baronet is considerable for having dared to write 
me a long letter five days before his engagement was announced, and 
never hinting at it to me, nor holding back the letter till he could add a 
post-script. 1 I also confess to no little doubt whether I can ever suc- 
ceed in winning the good-will of the young woman whose face I never 
saw and whose character no one knows. However! let us hope that we 
shall sail through. In fact I rather wish you would follow the example 
and show me a mistress to Wenlock next June, My visit would not 
perhaps be better for it, but Wenlock would certainly be improved. 
Only don't attempt the old experiment again. Imitate Robert and 
take a new start. 

Your two last letters are both on my table unanswered. My last 
days in Washington were very busy and disturbed, so that I postponed 
all work I was not obliged to do, and now that I am here my first week 
has already passed without giving me a single day to spare. This is 
alarming, for I have a whole desk-full of stuff which must be attended 
to and no end of visits to make. See what it is to be a busy man! 

Mr. Robarts was sent to me by two gentlemen, one of whom wrote 
that he was a bore, and the other, Sir F. Doyle, hinted it less openly. I 
suppose this is the person- whom you declined to introduce. He ap- 
peared in Washington one morning; and left a letter at my house with 
a message that he should leave Washington the same evening. I do 
not know whether he means to turn up again or not, but if he passes 
only one day at a time in the principal cities here, he is not likely to 
catch me. 

I find my family unchanged and looking very well and contented. 
They are trying to make their house habitable, but Wenlock is a joke 
to it in this particular. I never was in such a wretched old trap, for it 
hasn't even the merit of being well-built. In fact I am not enthusiastic 
about the homes of my ancestors, and only wish their taste had been 
better. Nevertheless I am enticing everyone out here to stay, in order 

1 Sir Robert CunhflFe married August 5, 1869, Eleanor Sophia Egerton, daughter of Col. 
Egerton Leigh, MJP., of West Hall, High Leigh, and Jodrell Hall, Cheshire. 



164 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

that my father and mother may not absolutely go to sleep, as they 
seem bent on doing whenever the outside world stops pushing them. 

Meanwhile I am meditating a series of prodigious efforts next win- 
ter, both political and literary, which will produce astonishing results. 
What they are to be, I don't know, but if you could see the gravity 
with which I attend the private meetings of discussion which are to 
settle our coming policy, you would roar with delight. What a hum- 
bug one is! Nevertheless, I must keep up the illusion, or be trodden 
upon, and at present my hands are full. By-the-way, can you tell me, 
or find out for me a little piece of English family history. About a 
century ago there was a Lady Tyrconnel r of whom I know nothing 
except that she had a mysterious hand or wrist. I want to learn what 
was the matter with her hand, and what there was in it that was su- 
pernatural. This is apropos to literature, not to politics. The two are 
rather mixed up in my mind. As for finance, I carry buckets of it 
about with me, and duck it over the head of everyone I meet. I read 
acres of books on it and know just as little as the rest of mankind. 
What more does anyone want? I should be better pleased if I could 
only find out what I myself want. Certainly not office, for except very 
high office I would take none. What then? I wish some one would 
tell me. 

I must send Robert a wedding-present, but the Lord knows what or 
how. I have not yet had time to think of the matter, but shall do so 
rapidly. Nor have I written yet to the wretch, but you can tell him 
that I forgive him. Would to God that I too could find a mate, but I 
despair of that. So, as it is good that there should always be a few 
unmarried men to maintain society and the social bond, I devote my- 
self to this noble task. Apropos to your offer of one of your mother's 
drawings as a memento, I should be greatly pleased by it, and in fact I 
meant to ask for some little characteristic thing, something that might 
remind me of her and of you all. If you find anything of the sort, and 
can put it into small compass, not larger than a good-sized volume, 
you can send it to the Secretary of our Legation, Mr. Moran, 2 and he 
will forward it. 

I feel at times a little bewildered to think that the first year has gone 
since we all parted, though enough has occurred in it to make it seem 
long. If the great object of life is to experience all the sensations it has 
to offer, this year has put us a long step ahead. I hope better on your 
account from the next. 

1 The Tyrone Ghost Story is In Diaries of a Lady of Quality [Frances Williams-Wynn], edited 
by Abraham Hayward, 43. 
* Benjamin Moran (b. 1820). 



A WEDDING PRESENT FOR THE BARONET 165 



To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

QUINCY, MASSACHUSETTS* 
27 August, 1869. 

Your account of Robert's wedding amused and even touched me. 
Not that there was anything pathetic in your humor, but that I re- 
called to mind Lord Houghton's letter to Odo Russell, and doubted 
which of the two to choose, Jodrell or death. Let us hope for the best. 
At the same time I have my doubts. 

Your Tyrone ghost-story is evidently the one I wanted although my 
authority, I believe, said Tyrconnel. I suppose I ought to have Hay- 
ward^ book. Tell Bumpus to send it to me whenever you happen to 
be in town. Meanwhile many thanks. 

Yet another thing. After much despair I have got a present for the 
Baronet. It is silver, for I did not know what else to find in this land 
where arts are in their cradle. So I got him a little piece of American 
workmanship, a cheese-dish in fact, and on the lower rim of it I have 
had a line from Ovid inscribed, intimating that not only cheese but 
friendship is good at all seasons of the year. I shall send this objet to 
you by the venerable Hooker who will pass through London on his 
way to Rome sometime about the 25th September. Will you see that 
Robert eats his cheese out of it always , since cheese is surely part of 
every Cheshire meal, and there can be no excuse for stuffing so useful a 
dish into a silver-chest. And more. My Latin verse will, I suppose, 
not run entirely round the base. If therefore you can cap my motto by 
another more apposite, embracing not only friendship and cheese, but 
mice also (since two mice look over the edge and serve as handles) let 
some silver-smith put it on, before you send it to Robert, whose ad- 
dress I don't know. Thus shall the offering unite our minds and sup- 
ply to the future port and cheese of the bucolic baronet a subject of 
winey reflection and boosey tears. 

In short, select out of your vast stores of learning in various lan- 
guages and of every period, some apt quotation displaying at once 
your wit and your taste, and with it add to the value of my gift which 
will thus become the owner of eternal fame as a monument to us all. 

After near three months hard labor I am just accouche of another 
ponderous article which is now I hope in the printer's hands. You can 
form an estimate of my impudence when I tell you that I mean to cir- 
culate this as a pamphlet and send copies to all members of the Gov- 
ernment and of the legislature. It is very bitter and abusive of the 
Administration. I expect to get into hot water, but have nothing to 



166 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

lose. Meanwhile I have projects which may affect my mode of life a 
little and of which I shall write to you if anything comes of them. 
My two brothers and I are up to the ears in politics and public affairs, 
and in time we shall perhaps make our little mark. 

Since my arrival from Washington, life has been so quiet and so 
steadily occupied that I have seen no society and gone scarcely any- 
where. I am now beginning to look forward to my return to Washing- 
ton only about six weeks hence. Meanwhile I have seen no one whom I 
have been compelled to fall in love with, and the Bohemian existence 
is more firmly fixed than ever. How can one marry a woman one does 
not love? I am afraid that if I try this I shall never be blessed with 
heirs. 

To return to Robert and his sheep. He sent me a photograph of his 
Audrey, which was very kind of him though I could tell better from it 
what she was not than what she was. You seem not to have lavished 
on her those petits soms which were the means of attracting her fancy. 
If I see her I want to have plenty of sugar-plums to please her with, so 
you must find out what she is like, and what particular class of flattery 
is most to her taste. All is the same to me, but it saves time to know 
beforehand. 

You have had our college crew over there and I offer you my con- 
gratulations on beating them. I had hoped otherwise, but apparently 
Oxford is too much for us. Two of the crew are, I believe, gentlemen 
and good fellows; the others are rather of the unpolished style. 

It is a long time since I have written to Palgrave though I have had 
a letter of his on my table for six weeks, but I mean to rub up my cor- 
respondence now. I hear of parties at the Salisburys', but, alas, you 
and I are not there, and the lovely Blossett mourns for us I hope. Sir 
Henry Holland threatens us with a visit in October. I hear of no 
other Englishmen about. If you have any to send, trot them out. 
Hooker gave me the latest gossip from Rome which was small. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

QUINCY, 13 September, 1869. 

I enclose you a note to Robert as I don't know his address. Almost 
as soon as you receive it, the great Hooker will have left in Stratford 
Place a box for you which contains my wedding present to Robert. 
As he is, I presume, on the continent, you will have to keep it till he 
returns in the Spring, but you can forward my letter. Meanwhile rub 
up your classics and cover my dish with quotations. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 167 

I have nothing on earth to tell you. Never was there a calmer sea- 
son. But the leaves are turning yellow and the nights are growing 
long, warning me that I must soon fly south again. My summer has 
been wasted. I have done little, and enjoyed less. Drat the whole con- 
cern ! I scarcely know what to make of life or of myself, but so we go. 

I had a sort of idea that I should get an epistle from you about this 
time, but I suppose you have no more to write than I. The next time 
you epistolise tell me what Palgrave says about Peabody's statue. 
Has our friend Story raised or lowered his reputation? What is it good 
for? 

My family rejoices in prosperity, so far as I know. Life here is on 
too small a scale for man to sustain it without idiocy, but the idiocy is 
harmless. This year's experiment, however, is too much for me. Next 
year I shall go abroad. The year after, I shall go to the Pacific. In 
fact, nothing but sheer poverty shall ever reduce me to passing a whole 
season here again. It is pleasant enough, but it is dead. There is no 
spring in it, no novelty or freshness, and in this particular I am a fin- 
ished debauch^ and must have excitement. 

I go to Washington about the 2oth of October or earlier if the 
weather is cold. Until then you had best address to me here. I have 
work that ought to keep me but I neglect it. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

QOTNCT, MASSACHUSETTS, 
5 October, 1869. 

Yours of 1 2th September having reached me, I disinterred your last 
three letters to discover what it was I had failed to answer, but am 
still left in the dark. My disquisition on American literature was, I 
think, exhaustive, to use a newspaper expression. I called your atten- 
tion to all that was worth it. You asked about Jefferson and I recom- 
mended his famous Declaration of Independence as the best specimen 
of his style. You can quote a few paragraphs with effect. There is 
nothing in Everett. Webster's best things were legal arguments and 
you don't care for got-up eloquence. By all means quote the whole of 
Lincoln's little speech at Gettysburg and a sentence or two from his 
second Inaugural to show the biblical influence on American minds. 
In poetry you might extract from Bryant the last few lines of Thana- 
topsis, or the lines to a water-fowl, or the "melancholy days have 
come; " from Longfellow a stanza or two of the Wreck of the Hesperus 
or the Skeleton in Armor, both pretty ballads well adapted to a popu- 



1 68 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

lar audience; from Lowell a stanza or two from the first series of Big- 
low Papers, the one signed "Bird o' Freedom Sawin" would be best 
for your purpose and would make your audience laugh, or in another 
poem the "Vision of Sir Launfal" there is a pretty description of June 
and winter as an example of Lowell's other style; from Whittier a 
ballad, say Maud Muller, or two or three verses about scenery, "no- 
where fairer, sweeter, rarer/ 5 in the Ranger. If you want a specimen of 
style from Hawthorne, take the description of old Pynchon sitting 
dead in his chair, in the Seven Gables, or the discovery of Zenobia's 
body, in the Blithedale Romance. Your audience will listen hard to 
either. Mrs. Stowe's scenes with Topsy in Uncle Tom are about as 
good as anything she has done always excepting her Byron. It is a 
pity you can't quote some choice lines from Walt Whitman. In the 
way of letters there is nothing but my old great-grandmother Abigail 
Adams's that are worth reading, and I don't remember anything to 
your purpose in them. You don't want to be didactic and you do 
want to amuse your audience, so I advise you not to dwell long on his- 
torians, essayists or critics, except in the case of Washington Irving 
whose account of Bracebridge Hall might amuse, and is a good speci- 
men of his style. A few sentences or half a page of it would do for you 
to point the customary allusion to Addison upon. Cooper's novels are 
no great. 

But if you want really to run over the old ground there is a sort of 
Cyclopedia of American literature ', full of biographical notices and ele- 
gant extracts, like the English one of Chambers. If you are in London 
you will find it at some of the libraries. There is nothing very new. 
We have no writers now. 

Since my last, we have been invaded by Englishmen. Old Sir H. 
Holland has been with us, as much of a bore as ever. Your friend 
Robarts too has turned up and passed a night here. We were agreeably 
disappointed in him. He is perhaps a bore, but not very radical, and 
decidedly a gentleman in manners and talk. In fact, my boy, if you 
could see the Britishers we do groan under in this country, you 
would think Robarts a model of everything attractive. He returns 
to England tomorrow with Sir H. H. Another individual named 
Lawrence has also been here from Wimbledon way. I know no more 
of him. 

A letter from Robert at Cologne reached me with yours, bringing 
me the pleasant suggestion of honeymoons, the Rhine, Venice and 
Sorrento* I suppose the youth is lost to us, but don't, for the Lord's 
sake, allow youisdf to be lost too. The only condition on which exist- 



READING GIBBON AND WASTING TIME 169 

ence is tolerable for solitary fowl like you and me, is that of living in 
the thickest of the world. Once fall and let it go over us, and we had 
better die. 

Why not a motto for mice? Homer offers you a battle. Theocritus 
ought to yield curds and whey. I never asked you to specify the 
beasts, but to make a triple application. Go to! You have all winter. 
At least I hope the sagacious Hooker has arrived by this time, and 
Robert is not likely to return. 

I have no special news for you. I believe I told you that I am just 
accouchS of another article in the N. A. R. which will appear in a fort- 
night. 1 It is rather bitter, rather slashing, very personal, and the editor 
and my brother speak highly of it. No one else has seen it. I expect to 
get into hot water, and shall be disappointed if no one retaliates on 
me. Three weeks hence I return to Washington to start again, and 
expect to have work to do. Meanwhile I am reading Gibbon and 
wasting time. 

All the members of my family are well and lively. They are sur- 
rounded by visitors and chatter all day. Give my regards to everyone, 
especially to your father. 

To Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 

WASHINGTON, 2 Novr., 1869 

I dined at S. Barlow's * Sunday evening Evarts and I and old 
Judkins. Barlow told some instructive stories about Erie, Atlantic 
and Great Western, etc., including McHenry, 3 whose counsel he is. He 
remarked that he understood both Gould and Barnard had expressed 
the intention of taking hold of you if ever you came to New York. 
Alas ! the chance is gone I came on yesterday and as yet have seen 
no one. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

158 G STREET, WASHINGTON, 
Sunday, 7 November, 1869. 

Your folio of the I5th October was forwarded to me here, where I 
found also your great-aunt, on my arrival. For the letter accept my 
respectful thanks. How you ever filled it, I can't conceive, but as you 

1 Civil Service Reform, in North American Review, October, 1869. 

3 Samuel Latham Mitchell Barlow (1826-1889), connected with the straggle for the control 
of the Erie Railroad. 
James McHenry (b. 1817), 



170 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

hadn't written for an age I cut in halves and called it two, the first 
half being long overdue- . . . 

Confound your majesty's laziness! Aren't you a some-class-or- 
other in classics, and can't you bother me enough with Greek when I 
don't want it? And now you deny me a verse which you can invent if 
you like. Who says there's no analogy between cheese and Leighs! 
The rhyme alone is worth a permanent monument cere perennius. As 
for mice, I firmly believe the Baronet has married a country-mus, who 
will convert him to her destiny. The analogy is astonishing. But my 
amiable one, you baisse, evidently. You are not what you were when 
your polish was fresh. Look out for a de tefabuta. I shall pass the 
rustic mouse as your portrait and have your name in Gothic capitals 
carved under it, unless you provide my inscription. 

So I have happily quitted the home of my ancestors, and am once 
more in winter quarters, planning a winter campaign autour de ma 
chambre. I left all well at Quincy, where they are still freezing, but 
move to Boston next week. On my way hither I passed some days in 
New York, and saw many editors; some thieves; and many more fools. 
The editors were just then very familiar with my name, apropos to a 
certain article of mine of which I wrote you, and which called the 
wasps about me. I will send it to you in pamphlet one of these days, 
and expect you to admire my impudence. 

As yet there is nothing here to instruct or amuse. Except for 
Cabinet officers I am alone in the city, and have nothing to do but to 
set my springes for future woodcock. I notice that you say little of 
your mental condition, your contentment or spleen. For my own 
part I suffer just wretchedness enough at times to make me conscious 
of the sun when the clouds go. Life is more thoroughly enjoyable than 
ever, after a few days when death seems a happy relief. Dyspepsia 
and a guilty conscience, my friend! Beware of champagne, but as you 
love your God (if you have a God) fly from the Rhenish vintage at all 
times! at least, such is my case. 

I will say that your Legation here, considering its size, contains the 
queerest lot of Britishers it was ever my bad luck to meet. When I 
left England I thought I had some vague idea of English society 
not the fashionable part of it, for that I never did know nor care for 
but of society as a whole, good and bad, dull and clever, swells and 
snobs, mixed up and taken at bedtime. You have six or seven men, 
and four or five women here, who are too much for this vile world, and 
should be translated to a better. I will tell you stories about them one 
of these days which will amuse you. All the women are a little mad 



MURDEROUS NOVEMBER 171 

All the men (those that don't drink) are apparently fools. A state of 
things I regret. How is it that people always appear so unfavorably 
out of their own country! 

I can't possibly be in London till [afte]r the first of June, so you can 
take your spring stroll quietly and meet me on your return. My 
principal object in going over is to see my few friends, get some 
clothes, wash my mind out a little, do a few politicians, and come 
home. The shorter such trips are made, the better, and however short 
they are made, half the time is always wasted in wondering what the 
deuce one has come for. Nothing but permanence wears well. Of all 
the horrors I know, a Sunday at York in 1860, combined, I think, the 
widest range, unless it was the succeeding Sunday in the Tavistock 
Hotel, Covent Garden. I wouldn't repeat it for the fee simple of that 
celebrated estate. 

Addiol don't imagine me as having any chance of promotion. My 
last attack on the administration would have ended that, had it ever 
existed, as it never did. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

WASHINGTON, 23 November, 1869. 

I sit down to begin you a letter, not because I have received one 
since my last, but because it is one of the dankest, foggiest, and dis- 
malest of November nights, and, as usual when the sun does not 
shine, I am as out of sorts as a man may haply be, and yet live through 
it. Do you remember how, on such evenings we have taken our 
melancholy tea together in your room in Stratford Place? My heart 
would rejoice to do it now, but solitude is my lot. This season of the 
year grinds the very soul out of me. My nerves lose their tone; my 
teeth ache, and my courage falls to the bottomless bottom of infinitude. 
Death stalks about me, and the whole of Gray's grisly train, and I am 
afraid of them, not because life is an object, but because my nerves 
are upset. I would give up all my pleasures willingly if I could only be 
a mouse, and sleep three months at a time. Well! one can't have life 
as one would, but if ever I take too much laudanum, the coroner's 
jury may bring in a verdict of wilful murder against the month of 
November. Bah ! I never felt it half so keenly when I was in England 
where there is never any sun. 

Now then, where may we sometimes meet and by the fire help 
waste a sullen day, what time we can from the sad season gaining? 
And to think that the brute Robert is happy and gay in the sunshine 



172 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

of Rome! I am as lonely as a cat here. Acquaintances without number 
I have, but no companion. And what avails it to be intimate with all 
men if one comes home at five o'clock and abhors life! Send a decent 
Britisher here, do! 

Do you know I have taken up the ever youthful Horace Walpole 
again, and make him my dinner companion. What surprises me most 
is that he is so extremely like ourselves; not so clever of course, but 
otherwise he might be a letter-writer of today. I perpetually catch 
myself thinking of it all as of something I have myself known, until I 
trip over a sword, or discover there were no railways then, or reflect 
that Lord Salisbury and not Lord Carteret lives over the way. But all 
seems astonishingly natural to me; strangely in contrast to what it 
once seemed. If we didn't know those people Primo-ministerio 
Palmerstonis then we knew some one for all the world like them. 
Florence too ! Peste! how little the world has changed in a century. 
Hanbury-Williams and Watkin-Wynn, Hervey; Arlington Street; I 
know I shall find Lady Sebright further on, and Lady Salisbury will 
come in for a wipe. 

What! shall I imitate H. W. and tell you about this Court; a pack of 
boobies and scoundrels who have all die vices of H. W.'s time, with 
none of its wit or refinement? Or force either, for the matter of that! 
For where to find a Walpole or a Pitt here, I am at a loss to know. We 
are all Pelhams, and our President is as narrow, as ignorant, and as 
prejudiced as ever a George among you. Your friend que void 
alone, and a few others, have any brain. But what of that ! The world 
goes on, and I send you herewith my last political pamphlet which, I 
have reason to know, represents the opinions of a minority, and, I 
think, of a majority of the Cabinet. The violent attack on the Treas- 
ury has done me no harm. 

I am writing, writing, writing. You must take the New York Na- 
tion if you want to read me. I have written that animal Reeve a letter, 
offering him an article such an article! and he does not even 
answer it! I have written to Palgrave to make advances to the 
Quarterly , and I will make my article SUPERB to disgust Reeve. I 
enclose you a puff from my own paper. But it is written by a 
Britisher. 



A COIL OF POLITICAL INTRIGUE 173 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

WASHINGTON, 7 December, 1869. 

Yours of the a4th which is excellent besides being in a manner 
encyclopedical, arrived today, and I start an answer in the ante- 
dinner hour for fear I may be too busy later in the week. Your items 
of news affected me in various manners. My sympathies are strong 
for Lady Rich, and not less so for your sister. The Kenlis-Pollington 
story, however, alarmed me. Is one to expect that kind of thing usu- 
ally now-a-days? Would you and I do it to Robert for example at 
Wenlock? Of course if it's the custom, I'll do it, but let me know in 
time. How stands the Mordaunt scandal now? I never have heard 
the upshot of the story, and would like well to hear about the letters. 
You see, I have no scandal here. We are vulgar but correct. As for my 
acting as scape-goat for Roberts sins, I am glad to be able to serve him 
so well. It doesn't hurt me and it helps people to hope for him. I 
never have been told that I was answerable for you also, but no doubt 
Lady B. would have said so if she has thought it worth while. Con- 
gratulate yourself that you are not classed with me in the ranks of 
sinners and re-publicans. The deuce of it is that here, all my sins are 
laid to you. 

So, you are at the old tread-mill again. I am glad of it, and hope it 
bores you. To be sure it does, A good, healthy, downright, old- 
fashioned bore, in the shape of a country-house, is an excellent thing, 
and one should take it habitually, like weak tea, in small quantities. 
I should imagine Wynnstay a trifle worse, but Bretton will do. To be 
sure you are now a swell and shoot, which is wise, but it would be wiser 
still to hunt. Riding is always pleasant, though I confess following 
the hounds is as great bore as walking with the ladies. I know all about 
it. I did it at Rome. You may remember the occasion. 

Does Florence want my love? Don't allow her to go without so 
slight an ornament. Tell her to say like Mme. Delaunay: Je me 
trouve paree de tout ce qui me manque! 

What do you care to know about my goings on? If I thought you 
really felt the remotest interest in the people who are about me, I 
would tell you who and what they are. I would also tell you of the 
manner in which I am actually winding myself up in a coil of political 
intrigue and getting the reputation of a regular conspirator. My pro- 
gress in a year has alarmed me, for it is too rapid to be sound. I am 
already deeper in the confidence of the present Government than I 
was with the last, although that was friendly and this a little hostile. 



174 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

It seems a little strange that after the violent attack I made on it in 
the pamphlet I sent you, there should be no soreness, but the fact is, 
nearly every member of the Cabinet is in perfect sympathy with me in 
abusing themselves. You see there is a line of division in the Cabinet, 
and I am on the side which has the strongest men, and Reform is al- 
ways a sure card. All this means nothing, however. I am only a very 
small fly on the wheel. But it amuses me as a play would, and so, 
though I have no power whatever and am held up solely by social 
position and a sharp tongue, yet I float till later advices. 

I must now stop to dine. I am fashionable tonight. The Foreign 
Secretary 1 feeds me. Last night it was his sub., the Assistant 
Secretary for Foreign Affairs. 2 Sunday night I had the Secretary of 
the Interior 3 to dine with me and a very small party at which very 
important conversation took place! Voil& man cher! We fishes do 
swim! we eagles do soar! we donkeys do bray! don't show this letter, 
however. I am afraid a third person would not see the joke, and 
think me a well! whatever you like. 

loth. I thought so. I have never had a minute's leisure since I broke 
off above. I have had to write a violent personal attack impugning the 
pecuniary honesty of a highly respectable gentleman who is a friend of 
mine, and after sending it to a New York paper I have had to sit down 
and write another long article abusing everybody for another paper, 
besides a variety of other occupations too numerous to mention. 

Let me tell you a story, which has some mysterious and portentous 
connection with my future fate. You will I am sure be impressed by it. 

A week ago as I was walking through a street, little frequented, in 
the suburbs of this city, I was suddenly conscious of a rushing noise 
behind me, and before I knew what was the matter, I was struck 
violently by a soft substance on the back of the head, and flung to the 
ground so quickly that I did not even make an effort to save myself. 
I was somewhat stunned and a good deal hurt, but I jumped up 
mechanically, with the desire one always has to escape ridicule and 
appear as though one's internal anguish were a pleasure and quite the 
sort of thing one likes. Bewildered by the blow from behind and the 
equally severe fall; covered with sand from beard to boots; my gloves 
torn; one finger flayed ; two others nearly dislocated, and a painful swell- 
ing raised ova- my knee, I staggered to my hat, and picked it up. Per- 
haps in my foggy condition I should have hurried on without ever 

1 Hamilton Fish (1808-1893). > John Chandler Bancroft Dayfe (1822-1907). 

3 Jacob Dolson Cox 



FLOORED BY A GOOSE 175 

stopping to search the cause of my disaster, had the cause not been 
too evident. There, on the ground half a rod in front, flapping pain- 
fully, and gazing at me with eyes to the full as amazed and bewildered 
as my own, was a huge, white, tame goose. 

What does this portend? Will you not write some Latin verses 
describing how I came to my end, not like the poetic bird, by one of 
my own feathers, but by the entire carcass of the beast whose feathers 
had made my wings ? Daedalus was nothing in comparison. He melted 
at the rays of the sun. But I was floored by the stupidest, dirtiest and 
coarsest of domestic dung-hill fowl. Here is a moral! Aesop, relate! 

The worst of it is that I am not yet recovered from the blow. My 
knee is still stiff, and I came very near calling a physician to examine 
it today, as one's knees are sensitive points. I hope, however, it will 
pass away, and that goose will have no such disaster to regret. 

Gen. Badeau, who was Motley's Secretary of Legation last season, 
and has since returned, has taken the vacant suite of rooms below me, 
and we now keep house together in a magnificent manner. We dine 
every day in state, and full dress, including white cravats, and we 
entertain freely, or mean to. Between us we know everybody, and 
those we don't know, know us. We are quite independent in other 
respects, like an old-fashioned nobleman and his wife, but we combine 
for society. I must now break off again to dress and dine with him and 
go to a reception at the Secretary's in the evening. 



At length I expect to conclude this species of autobiography 
which is becoming a volume. I have no news to give you of my family 
except that all were well last week, and actively employed in beginning 
their fashionable season. They seem to be very happy and contented 
as usual. My father is hard at work arranging family papers for pub- 
lication, and is likely to do nothing else for years to come. My mother 
is doing nothing but fuss over her household, which is now quite a 
small one, as my younger brother [Brooks] is at College and I am away. 
You talk of " celebrating" my arrival next year. Ah, my child, hold 
thyself far from it! Let us be quiet and sober lest the Gods should 
again be wrathful! We will silently eat our chop (with sauce Soubise; 
my weakness when well made) and drink a very little really dry 
champagne (which, alas, does not exist in this hemisphere) and when 
we talk just an old hour afterwards, we will talk soberly, allowing our- 
selves to sink out of our weary minds, and drawing mild hope and con- 
solation from literature, art, society, if you will, but not from that 
society where our calmness is ruffled by obnoxious people. I go to 



176 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

England for a moral bath. I want to wash out the dirty creases which 
life is making in the corners of my soul's eyes. I want to forget myself 
if I can, and enjoy what is outside of me. Let us get rid, therefore, so 
far as may be, of the vanities of life and of its social trials, and become 
serene Epicureans for a month, at least. Find me a place in London 
where we can be contented with a little, but let that little be so good 
that it will reconcile us with the fatigue of living, and strengthen our 
faith in Providence! 

Don't show this at Pantyochin! The old ladies might not quite see 
that my influence is good in the main. 

What is your uncle's (Sir F. Doyle) address? I want to send him a 
copy of my pamphlet in acknowledgment of his lectures 1 last year. 
I would send one to Lady Salisbury if they weren't such bitter Amer- 
ica-phobists in that house. As my production would flatter their pride 
and encourage their contempt, I prefer to wash my dirty linen quietly 
at home. I would like to show you some of the attacks I have met in 
the press here. They are usually based on my great-grandfather, but 
occasionally on my extreme youth, and I expect to catch it hotter than 
ever in the course of the winter when the subject comes up in Congress. 
Before long I expect to be quite crushed, and then, please God, I will 
retaliate with a Dunciad. 

Last evening I went with General Badeau to call for the first time on 
the President and his wife. We were admitted to the room where 
General Grant and half a dozen of his intimates sat in a circle, the 
General smoking as usual. There was some round conversation, rather 
dull. At last Mrs. Grant strolled in. She squints like an isosceles 
triangle, but is not much more vulgar than some Duchesses. Her sense 
of dignity did not allow her to talk to me, but occasionally she con- 
descended to throw me a constrained remark. I chattered, however, 
with that blandness for which I am so justly distinguished, and I 
flatter myself it was I who showed them how they ought to behave. 
One feels such an irresistible desire, as you know, to tell this kind of 
individual to put themselves at their ease and talk just as though they 
were at home. I restrained it, however, and performed the part of 
guest, though you can imagine with what an effort. 

Won't you be glad to find this letter has an end! And nothing to talk 
about either! Well! addio! sleep well after it. 

1 Lectures before the University of Oxford, London, 1869. He had succeeded Matthew Arnold 
as professor of poetry in the University. 



A BUTTERFLY EXISTENCE 177 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

2017 G ST., WASHINGTON, 
13 January, 1870. 

Which is not a new address, but only a new number, and means that 
I live on G Street, in the iyth house beyond aoth Street. There's 
arithmetic for you! What a thing it is to live in a new country! 

I received your note from Farming Woods, and was duly frightened 
about Robert ! drat the boy ! I hope your next will announce his return 
home, or at least his departure from Rome. I shall be uneasy till I 
hear. 

There! my letter is at an end. I have no more to say; at least no- 
thing that pertains to England. Our season has begun here, and I am 
prancing and flirting every night more or less, and every morning I am 
lazily political. The life amuses me as you can imagine it would. It is 
in fact a brilliant sort of butterfly existence, which cannot last very 
long, but may pass for some years still. I am gradually tending more 
and more towards journalism, which gives me a little money to buy 
gloves with, and a certain power to make myself felt. The world is 
kind to me. Society accepts all sorts of impertinences from me, with- 
out showing its teeth. Married women are friendly. Girls are con- 
fiding, and feel just a little flattered by attentions. The only real 
trouble is that one is here eaten up in one's self-conceit, and wants 
that taking-down which is so necessary for one's good. If one only 
heard the abuse as well as the flattery, it might restore the balance, but 
one can only hope for that. Meanwhile, let us bask in the sun if it 
shines. I mean to get out of life all the pleasure I can, and as little 
pain as may be. 

You would have been amused to see me the other day acting as 
groomsman at a great wedding here. Eight bridesmaids were selected 
from the prettiest and most fashionable girls here, and we had a most 
distinguished show. Your humble servant is supposed to be attentive 
to one of these young women, just on the threshold of twenty, and in 
fact not without fine eyes and no figure. Perhaps in your vulgar 
mercenary eyes her chief attraction would be 200,003. In mine her 
only attraction is that I can flirt with the poor girl in safety, as I firmly 
believe she is in a deep consumption and will die of it. I like peculiar 
amusements of all sorts, and there is certainly a delicious thrill of 
horror, much in the manner of Alfred de Musset, in thus pushing one's 
amusements into the future world. Shudder! oh, my friend, why not! 
You may disbelieve it if you like, but I assure you it is true that every 



178 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

sentimental speech or touching quotation I make to her, derives its 
amusement from the belief that her eyes and ears will soon be inappre- 
ciative. Is not this delightfully morbid? I have marked it for a, point 
in my novel, which is to appear in 1880. Meanwhile my attentions are 
not limited to this, or any other, individual. I sometimes wonder how 
I ever cared for anyone. My heart is now as immoveable as a stone, 
and I sometimes doubt whether marriage is possible except as a mat- 
ter of convenience. 

The fact is, I think it would answer all our purposes if you would 
come over here next May and pass your summer with us instead of my 
going to England. You could bring me some clothes which I want 
damnably! Thiijk about it! You may marry all the fortunes here, so 
far as I can help you, and set up for a Duke. What do you say? 



To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

2017 G STREET, WASHINGTON, B.C., 
30 January, 1870. 

Your verses do honor to me and to yourself. I am highly honored 
by such a display of your poetic genius. If there were anyone here to 
understand them, I should spread your fame through society. As it is, 
I must confine them to myself, 

We have had your third Prince x here for a week. As I don't fancy 
Princes, I was not eager to have him come, nor sorry to have him go, 
nor have I been presented to him, nor do I care much about him except 
that his surroundings made me lose my temper a little, as I thought, 
at just this time, the less he was put above society, the better. The 
fact is, his visit has not been entirely lovely, and it is difficult to say 
whether your people or ours are least pleased. 

You see, here is the trouble. Your people considered him to be 
royalty, shut him up with the diplomatic corps and state officials, and 
even acted as though he were the President's superior. Your Minister * 
wanted the President to meet him at dinner, and actually persuaded 
him to go to the Prince's ball. The Prince assumed to write to the 
President only through Elphinstone, 3 his equerry. As regarded soci- 
ety, he acted just as he would have done in London, sending for his 
partners, and, what ground my soul most, allowing his suite to tell my 
special favorites that they were on no account to speak to the Prince 
unless they were spoken to. 

* Arthur William Patrick Albert, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (b. 1850). 

* Sir Edward Thornton (1817-1906). i Sir Howard Crawford Elphinstone (1809-1890) 



PRINCE ARTHUR IN WASHINGTON 179 

^ Our view of the matter was very different. The Cabinet, after con- 
sideration, decided that every civility should be paid to the Prince 
which would be paid by the Queen to the third son of our President, or 
of any other potentate not related by blood. Had this been strictly 
adhered to, the Prince would have been ignored, for you know how 
much notice the Queen takes of such people. Precedent however re- 
quired that the Prince should be asked to dinner, and he was asked. 
Every civility was shown him by all the Government officials, but the 
President very rightly and properly refused to treat him as an equal, 
and the consequence was that your people, who can't get into their 
heads the fact that our President ranks with the Queen and the 
Emperor, were furious, and I myself, who thought it bad taste in the 
Prince to come at all except as a private gentleman and subject of the 
Queen, was quite unable to keep my temper in discussing the subject 
with them. I went to the ball given to him by your Minister, and it 
was very pretty, but an exact imitation of a Court ball at Buckingham 
Palace, all the forms included. The Prince himself made a pleasant 
impression on every one, and is a decided favorite. He did a great deal 
to redeem the blunders of the people about him, but it would have been 
better if he had not come. 

All this is not whispered in public, and I write only because your 
people here are writing their accounts home, which are bitter enough 
against our manners. My opinion of their manners is of no consequence, 
but whenever the Queen sets an example of civility to us, our President 
will no doubt be happy to follow. She can begin by going to a ball at 
the Motleys'. I won't require her to go back and ask my father or me 
to dinner or to Windsor. She can start fresh, and if die Viceroy of 
Egypt visits England again, perhaps she will not rest satisfied with 
asking him to lunch at Windsor. 

If you hear any attacks made on this score, I hope you will repeat 
what I say; viz: that the snobbishness of the whole affair was disgusting. 

I have a long letter from Robert. My poor friend Hartman Kuhn 
has broken his neck hunting on the Campagna, which throws my sister 
at Florence into mourning. We are in our full season here, and I hard 
run between writing lampoons and waltzing. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

WASHINGTON, 20 February, 1870. 

Yours of the 2d has arrived and is grateful. I am busy as a flea on 
a dean baby, and open my eyes at your suggestion of travels, I shall 



i8o LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

come over in all probability just three months hence, and come back 
three months later. I ought not to go at all, but shall do it all the same. 
As for other travels; que nenni! 

And let me stop here to say what I shall otherwise forget: Imprimis: 
I know nought of Pruyn: Secundo: Canvas-backs had flown before 
your letter arrived. They were costly, too, this winter; about a guinea 
a pair; so don't order recklessly. I believe you can get them regularly 
in Liverpool and Southampton, but next year I will see if I can manage 
it from Baltimore. There is the capital of ducks ! but, after all, canvas- 
backs are not unlike other ducks and unless cooked by an experienced 
hand taste not unlike the animal of domestic horse-ponds. 

If you see John Hervey, tell him that I have seen his friend Coore 1 
and tried to make his stay agreeable. Dinners are rare with us, as we 
have no club and no men to ask. I never dine anyone except for polit- 
ical intrigues when there is something to be gained. But I tried to in- 
troduce him everywhere and to set him going. He was set going, and 
went south! He and his companion, a youth named Jackson, also of 
Eton and the Cam, remained here a week, and departed. You know 
Coore well enough, I suppose, to know all there is of him. Why 
these men travel, I don't know. The pleasure must be slight and the 
gain infinitesimal. They amused me, however. Their criticisms and 
remarks were full of humor which they were scarcely aware of. They 
were gentlemen, too, and made a pleasant impression, though sublim- 
ity of patronage could hardly be carried further except by you and 
me who do it intentionally and not with the same naivete as these 
young ones command. 

For the love of God, send me Pollington's book 2 when it appears! 
I bind him up. 

News! bother me if I know any! yes, but I do though. Lyulph 
Stanley is on his way to Yeddo or Cochin China, or to the devil I 
hope, and en route is boring my poor family at Boston, and will bore 
me here next week. I am ready to jump into, or over, the Potomac 
with dread of him. And I, busier than a dozen clerks and writing day 
and night! I shouldn't mind if people ever seemed grateful for civil- 
ities, or if they ever by any accident amused me; but all the bores on 
this miserable earth seem to travel, and in time one ceases even to 
enjoy having one's country and people patronised by bores. I prefer 
to patronise others, but to have Lyulph patronise me is a trifle too 

1 Alfred Thomas Coore. 

* In 1 870 appeared a translation of Fernandez y Gonzalez'? Margarita, made b7 John Horace 
Savilcy VIscowt Pojlington, 



LAMPOONING THE OTHER SIDE 181 

strong an emetic. This is bore No. 5 who has afflicted me in a month. 
Can't you for once send me a good fellow and redeem your country- 
men? You have sent me no one yet. At the same time I should feel 
much hurt if any friend of anyone's came here without bringing a letter 
to me, even if he were a bore, and for this reason I would not have you 
hint my remarks to anyone, least of all to John Hervey. 

Battle is a jplace I should like to visit. I have seen it, but no more, 
though familiar with the neighborhood where my sister and I used to 
ride a great deal in old days. Your list of guests, however, made me 
shiver. I am so used to incessant excitement here and the rough-and- 
tumble of bohemianism, that my soul sinks at the thought of respect- 
ability. Our season is now nearly over, and my goose has not yet made 
good her portent. Politics are soon to become sharp again. My side 
is undermost, but precious wicked and pretty strong. There is soon to 
be a very lively fight, and I dodge about with my pen in my hand, 
lampooning the other side. One of my newspaper attacks irritated a 
member of Congress so much, the other day, that he denounced it be- 
fore the House at great length. I did not declare the authorship. 

Addio! My regards to everyone. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

WASHINGTON, 7 March, 1870. 

In a sort of kind of a halfway, I thought there might be a letter from 
you this morning, as my last was dated the 2d February, but if there 
is one on the way, it is stuck in the snow which was falling all day 
yesterday. Our winter comes in the spring. As usual, I have nothing 
to say except that I am well and have gone through a pleasant season 
and am now going to church every day, that is to the church door as 
the young women come from afternoon service. You know me better 
than to expect more. I have been busy as a Roman flea in May, and 
have written a piece of intolerably impudent political abuse for the 
North American for April but it is finance and you needn't read it 
where I am to say that never since the days of Cleon and Aristophanes 
was a great nation managed by such incompetent men as our lead- 
ers in Congress during the rebellion bien entendu that I am Aris- 
tophanes. The editor has not acknowledged it yet, but begged for it 
piteously. By the way, did you ever receive my pamphlet? I sent you 
a second copy, but the devil is in the posts. At the same time I write 
about two articles a month in the Nation, and if I want to be very 
vituperative, I have a New York daily paper to trust. So I come on 



182 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

and the people here are beginning to acknowledge me as some one to 
be considered. In my review of the Session next July, I am going to 
make an example or two in terrorem and go to England to escape retali- 
ation. There! this is all there is about myself, and as for my surround- 
ings I can only say that now Lent has come, society is at an end, and I 
am left alone, or to the resource of evening visits which may or may 
not be pleasant. The winter has been very agreeable to me because no 
other men have been here who could at all interfere with me, and I 
have had it all to suit myself. As for the other people, many of them 
are decidedly agreeable and there has actually been no scandal nor 
quarrelling nor even much ill-nature. For all that amusement, I rely 
on England. I have read the first day's proceedings in the Mordaunt 
case, and was delighted with it. As I happen to be in a good humor 
today, I will say that I am glad to feel satisfied that the girl was really 
insane. But it's hard on Mordaunt to have I was going to use a 
word of Swift's and Defoe's himself as he has, since he has not 
proved that he's not cuckolded, and has made himself very ridiculous. 
And shouts of demoniac laughter must welcome Sir F. Johnstone 
through this world and the next. What an introduction to society! 
Who is the man? Do you know him? and in whose set is he? 

I was wrong about Coore and Jackson. They had not gone when I 
last wrote. My letter to you was just finished and still on my table, 
sealed and stamped, when they came in to take leave. So they are 
now gone for good and all, and I have no more to say about them, 
except that they were well-behaved and very-very-very English. 
Lyulph Stanley has not appeared and I hope by this time he is in China 
or any place he likes that is further away. The members of your Lega- 
tion tell me that there are some other strolling Britishers in town, but 
they disturb me not. 

You must remember poor Hartman Kuhn in Rome! He was a good 
fellow, though he had too much of the Philadelphian in him, and his 
wife was a very attractive little woman, I suppose you must have 
heard of his death at Rome by his horse falling back on him. It was a 
terrible affair, but I have not heard the details, and am too sorry for 
him to wish to hear anything so painful. My sister, however, in Flor- 
ence, has been much distressed about it. 

Since my last I have not had a line from any of you. Even Palgrave 
has not written, and I am waiting to ask him to introduce me absent 
to the editor of the Quarterly, if the Quarterly has an editor. Ecco 
perchf! if that is good Italian. I am about to write an article on a very 
curious and melodramatic gold speculation that took place in New 



AN ARTICLE FOR THE QUARTERLY REVIEW 183 

York last September. It involves a good deal of libellous language 
which I can't well publish here. I wrote to Reeve offering it to him. 
He, after three months' delay, has just replied that he wants nothing 
controversial about currency. If this is a pretence, or if he really 
thinks I am ass enough to open a currency discussion instead of telling 
a story which has no parallel, I am equally contented to be done with 
him, but I mean to write the article all the same, and I will offer it to 
the Quarterly if I can get an introduction to the editor. So I want 
Palgrave to introduce me. Voilb tout! He need take no further re- 
sponsibility, and if the Quarterly doesn't want it, I will on coming over 
find some editor who does, J*y tiens to make Reeve sorry to have lost 
the best thing his rotten old Review has had a chance to get into its 
July number. As I have been pulling wires behind the Congressional 
Committee of Investigation, and have been up to my neck in the 
whole thing, I know all that is known. 

Aweel! aweel!! I have no more to say at this moment, so I will lay 
this by, and see if anything comes from you tomorrow. 

Tuesday. Nothing at all. So I will close you up and put you into 
the letter box. I must now go to settle up my income tax, which 
amounts to one pound, to talk with the Special Commissioner of 
the Revenue [Wells] about politics, and to lunch with Jephtha's 
daughter (Chase, C. J.) whose remarks I told her the other day were 
"twaddle and cant," and I must reconcile. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

WASHINGTON, 28 Marchj 1870. 

A letter from you of March 2d! Bravo! I began to think you had 
retired to Wenlock permanently, or eloped with Mrs. Thingamy your 
housekeeper ibidem. Though why the deuce you should write or 
I either or any one surpasses my comprehension. Were it not 
better done as Robert does, to sport with Lady CunlifFe in the shade? 
If one had but a Lady C. to sport with! Well, go to! as soon as I get 
some money I am going to take my passage for the i8th May, which 
will bring me to Southampton on or about the 3oth of that same 
month, and if these blessed politics will offer me no corrupt hopes 
as hitherto I have enjoyed none I shall experience three months of 
civilisation again, and wash the dirty linen of my mind. As yet I have 
not made a single project for my movements after reaching London. 
I do not know whether I shall go further, or not. I do not know, nor do 



184 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

I care to know, nor do I mean to decide anything, for if I move on to 
Paris or the Rhine or to Switzerland, it will only be to see my sister, 
and for the shortest time, and it will not prevent my doing society in 
London, nor my immolating those happy pea-chicks under the abbey 
walls. Considering how I hate a sea-voyage and the forlorn misery I 
suffer on that cursed element, I mean to enjoy all I can in recompense, 
and my freedom from projects or plans. I will wander with you to 
every old house in Shropshire if you like, and swing on all the styles in 
the midland counties wherever there's a church with a tomb or good 
Gothic. We will rail in set terms at anyone we choose. Only I wish 
you would discover a new man somewhere to admit to our society. 
We need larger sympathies with the race, and I fear that Robert 
can't be trusted. 

Meanwhile the time flies away so fast that here is the Spring again, 
and my favorite flowers are all coming out, while the work which last 
winter was all done before now, is not even begun, and must somehow 
or other, be crowded into the next six weeks. I have wasted the winter 
writing for newspapers and dabbling in politics, and am only deeper 
and deeper in them as time goes on, but except for the experience 
there is little satisfaction in it, though it suits my black-guard tastes. 
Such a coil as there is here now! Confusion beyond idea! a universal 
free fight, with everyone abusing everyone else, and tripping each 
other up wherever they can. The President and his Cabinet and the 
Senators and the Congressmen are all squabbling together, and if the 
ill-temper goes on increasing as rapidly as it has done for three months 
past, we shall have an earth-quake again as we did four years ago. 
All this concerns me in no way. I am h with another set of men, 
strong in the press, but weak in power. We despise all the people in 
control, and all we can do is only to make a little more noise. So we are 
going into the elections next November, and next winter perhaps the 
weather will be more settled. At any rate, we are more likely to gain 
than to lose by the passage of time. Personally I am still at a loss to 
know what the devil I want, or can possibly get, that would be an 
object, in case my friends came into power. So far as I know, however, 
my hands are still clean. I want nothing and fight only for the amuse- 
ment of fighting. 

3 April* Lo! how time flies! one cannot put down one's pen without 
a week's slipping in between paragraphs. I can't help it. I've been 
bothered and cross. This eternal whirl of politics is a kind of dirty 
whirlpool; one is sucked into it and goes round and round, all the time 



DECLINING AN EDITORSHIP 185 

hoping to reach something, and never clean. We are now in the middle 
of a battle over revenue reform, free trade and what not; and I, as 
lieutenant of a government official who heads the movement, have 
been helping him to organise our forces, which is difficult because it 
involves the splitting of the majority and the practical formation of 
a new party on this issue. However, we seem to have succeeded. At 
least I had a dozen of the leaders at a meeting in my rooms the other 
night, and we effected a close alliance. The next week will prove 
whether we can control Congress. Meanwhile I am busy on my last 
literary efforts for the season, and have no end of things to think 
about. We hold a secret but weighty political caucus on the i8th 
to which our friends the small number of high panjandrums from 
all quarters, are to come. And I have a wedding on the 2ist at which 
I am again to officiate as second fiddle. No sign yet of my own ap- 
pearance as premier amant. The young maidens no doubt adore me, 
but I am obdurate. I wish you would do better and have some one nice 
to flirt with me at Wenlock. 

Not a line from anyone for an age. England has forgotten me and 
even Palgrave has stopped writing. As for Robert I never seriously 
expect the beggar to write a letter. It isn't in his lazy nature. But 
Ralph Palmer's spasmodic epistles have now ceased, and Mrs. Sturgis 
has not written for many months. Such is the frailty of human mem- 
ory that it can't survive eighteen months' absence. 

Auf wiedersehen! Ever. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

WASHINGTON, 29 April, 1870. 

Oh my beloved, I haven't written since the 4th because why ? I have 
been too busy to live. Yesterday I sent off to Palgrave a big manu- 
script for the Quarterly , which I hope may arrive safely, and be favor- 
ably received, as it is of interest to more persons than myself. To- 
morrow I must set to work on a new political article for the North 
American for which I have only a fortnight. I sail on the i8th. My 
passage is paid for, and my ticket on my table before my eyes. I have 
been up to the roots of my hair in politics and our winter has been 
highly successful, and our summer will, I hope, show the effects of it. 
On me personally its effects will be nothing, except so far as they give 
me wider range of audience. I have been offered the editorship of the 
North American Review, but have declined it, and may become its 
official editor for politics if we can make an arrangement. Enfin! we 



1 86 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

are all merrily boiling like lobsters in a pot, and it amuses after a 
fashion. I have had a political convention of half the greatest news- 
paper editors in the country at my rooms, where the world was staked 
out to each of us and the fulness thereof, and the foundations of Hell 
were shaken. All which has created great curiosity in man, to know 
what the deuce the mal-contents are brewing. This done, and my 
writing concluded, I shall be glad to get over to you and out of the 
dust and dirt of politics. By-the-bye! I have brought all the respect- 
able old fools of the country down on me by a mighty impudent article 
published in the April North American under my name though I was 
only half-author. 1 Well! it certainly was savage! 

I am coming over along with half Washington. Such an exodus to 
Europe was never known. Among others my colocataire Badeau goes 
over to be Consul General, and half your British Legation clears out 
in the course of the summer. Next winter will bring an entirely new 
tribe, and I am becoming one of the oldest inhabitants. 

Do you know my old tailor Skinner of Jermyn Street? If so I wish 
you would do me a favor. Go to him and tell him to cut out for me a 
morning suit, dark blue coat and waistcoat, and light, greyish trousers, 
to be ready for me to try on the moment I arrive. If I wait till then 
before ordering it, he will keep me a month. I shall want lots of clothes, 
so he had best look sharp. 

Did you find a horse? I think I shall have to take one for the season 
in order to feel respectable and ride with you. Get me an invitation to 
the St. James's Club for June. I will get one to the Travellers' through 
Hankey if I can. 

Do you think of anything else by way of preparation ? I am going to 
brush up my visiting list so as to leave cards everywhere at once. I 
want to meet everybody, talk with everybody, and know everybody. 
I propose to be as tender as an angel to all the young women. I pro- 
pose God have mercy on my soul to talk with all the rising young 
men. And I propose that you shall carry me about everywhere and do 
the same things, else how can we laugh at them together. 

The unhappy Robert, as I supposed, will be lost to us. It was his 
fate. I hope her Ladyship will have a pleasant confinement and that 
the new heir to Ravenswood will be all that we, his uncles or is it 
second cousins could wish. That generation is treading so hard on 
my heels that I have to run away from them, but at any rate I am al- 
ready a bald and bearded old man and shall not look so very much 
older at fifty. 

Chapter on Erie, signed Charles F. Adams, Jr. 



NEWSPAPER CONTROVERSY 187 

You will not be able to answer this letter, as I am to sail before an 
answer could reach me. I will therefore only add that I expect to reach 
Southampton about the 3oth May, and to be in London as soon as the 
railway will take me there. I don't know the exact length of passage 
made by these boats, but if I do not arrive by the 1st or 2d, it will be 
because I can't. 

My people are all well and meditating a removal to what they call 
their country quarters which are about as much country as Putney or 
Twickenham. My father is on the point of going west on a journey. 
My elder brother has been here on a visit to me. My younger brother 
is going to California, he says. My mother and sister stay at home, 
quiet and solitary. 

Give my regards to everyone and tell them I'm coming. They may 
send me invitations for anything, everything, beforehand. You can 
accept them all for me. Five hundred thousand invitations showered 
on me at my arrival! They needn't be bashful because it's II 

Farewell! I shall write once more a note the week before I start 
and expect to receive one more from you. 



WASHINGTON, n May, 1870. 

CARO CARLAZZONUCCIO, I write a line to say that I still expect to 
start this day week. You may expect to hear of my vessel about a 
week after you receive this. She will arrive two or three days after the 
Scotia which leaves New York on the same day. If you want to get at 
me at once, write a note to me at the post-office in Southampton. 
I will call as I land. As I come over largely to see you and yours, I will 
seek you in Stratford Place or elsewhere, and as for my subsequent 
movements they will be so mere a matter of chance that I won't even 
discuss them. 

I am struggling with a mound of manuscript and fearful parting 
visits. I expect to be driven to the very last moment, and to get 
aboard my steamer in a state of exhaustion. At the most critical in- 
stant of my work I have been dragged into a violent public contro- 
versy with a man whose scalp I took in the April number of the North 
American y and who is trying to take mine in return. We call each 
other fool and idiot in the papers, and carry on a very friendly private 
correspondence meanwhile. I have no news for you, and as I shall not 
go north to see my family before I sail, and as in fact I don't precisely 
know where my family is, or will be, a week hence, I can't send much 
news of them. Let us now prepare for our June campaign, and let us 
make it a smasher* 



V 
SUMMER IN EUROPE 

1870 
To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

HfcTEL D'AMERIQUE^ 
BAGNI DI LUCCA, 8 July, 1870. 

Had I been able to write anything satisfactory I should have written 
a week ago. As it was, I preferred to wait for your letter which arrived 
this morning. Many thanks for it. In return I will give you an ac- 
count of my adventures which have not been gay. 

On quitting you I travelled through to Paris where I had four hours 
for breakfast and bath, and went on to Mcon where I was delayed 
nine hours and went to bed. Crossed the Cenis Wednesday, and 
reached this place at four o'clock Thursday afternoon, without adven- 
ture or incident of any sort. 

I found the hotel turned into a sort of camp, and a dozen of my 
sister's friends regularly keeping guard. Italians, English and Ameri- 
cans, a motley but rather agreeable crew, surrounded her bedside, and 
acted in regular relays as nurses, night and day. I found that my sud- 
den summons was owing to the fact that lock-jaw had set in, and for 
a week my poor sister had been struggling in the very jaws of death, 
which were by no means locked against her. 

It is hardly worth while to describe to you the details of the eight 
days that have since passed. They have been in many ways the most 
trying and terrible days I ever had. The struggle has been awful. We 
have had a series of ups and downs which would test the courage of 
Hercules. We have swum in chloroform, morphine, opium, and every 
kind of most violent counteragent and poison, like nicotine and Cala- 
bar bean. At times we have abandoned all hope. One night my sister, 
reduced to the last extremity, gasped farewell to us all, gave all her 
dying orders, and for two hours we thought every gasp was to be the 
end. Her breath stopped, her pulse ceased beating, her struggles 
ended, a dozen people at her bedside went down on their knees, and 
my brother-in-law and I dropped our hands and drew a long breath of 
relief to think that the poor child's agony was over even at the cost of 
suffocation* But after nearly half a minute of absolute silence, the 
pulse started again, the rattling in the throat recommenced, and 



ILLNESS AND DEATH OF LOUISA ADAMS 189 

presently she waved her arm as though she were ordering death away, 
and to our utter astonishment commanded us to bring her some 
nourishment. It has been the same thing ever since. Such a struggle 
for life is almost worth seeing. She never loses courage nor head. She 
knows what is the matter, and her own danger, but in the middle of 
her most awful convulsions, so long as she can articulate at all, she 
gives her own orders and comes out with sallies of fun and humorous 
comments which set us all laughing in spite of our terror at the most 
awful crises. Of course her talking is only a growl between her teeth 
and even this often quite inarticulate, but we have learned to under- 
stand it pretty well, and habit has made even so horrible a disease as 
this, so familiar that we stroke and joke it. Indeed the situation, 
desperate as it is, has its amusing side. Our friends come out in strong 
colors under such a test as this. They show qualities which go far to 
redeem human nature. Such kindness I never had seen in mere friends 
of society, and I can overlook a deal of faults if they are backed up by 
such courage and patient devotion. As for me, I was at first a wretched 
coward, but now I am hardened to the impressions and face a convul- 
sion, with death behind it, as coolly as my sister herself. 

I can't tell you what will be the end. I haven't a notion how long it 
will last. I can see no essential difference between the situation now 
and a week since. As she is still alive and strong after fifteen days of 
incessant struggle and after swallowing more deadly poison than 
would have killed all of us about her, who are well, I hope she may pull 
through. But I ask no questions and make no plans. I am with her 
about fifteen hours a day, and seldom leave the house at all. I am 
writing this letter while I attend her, so its style is a trifle eccentric, 
but you must put up with it for the occasion. Enough for the present. 
My regards to every one. Give Mrs. Sturgis news of me if you can. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

BAGNI DI LUCCA, 
Wednesday, 13 July, 1870. 

It is all over. My poor sister died this morning. I will tell you about 
it some day or other, but now I am fairly out of condition to write 
details. The last fortnight has been fearfully trying and the last few 
days terribly so. I long to get back to you and be quiet again, some- 
where away from society and condolence. 

I shall start north again next week but I do not yet know the precise 
day. Nor can I yet tell how I shall come. I must stop a day or two in 



190 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Paris, and may not reach London much before the 1st August. But 
I will let you know my movements. 

If you could drop in and tell Mrs. Hankey what has happened, I 
should be greatly obliged. I don't want to have to tell the story more 
frequently than is necessary. 



To Charles Mtlnes Gaskell 

OUCHY NEAR LAUSANNE, 

Monday, 25 July, 1870. 

Your letter of the i6th followed me from place to place and caught 
me yesterday here. I left Florence last Monday night and came up to 
Stresa on the Lago Maggiore with my brother-in-law and an American 
family who were with us at Lucca. We passed two days at Stresa and 
then crossed the Simplon and arrived here Saturday afternoon. The 
weather has been hotter than it ever was in the earth's condition 
of primitive incandescence, but I have been so happy to get a few 
days in the wilderness where there was no society and nothing to 
think about, that I was very sorry to arrive here where I am deep 
among Americans whom I least care to see. I am waiting for my 
brother-in-law who has gone on to Geneva on business, and we shall 
go up to Paris tomorrow or the day after. A week hence I expect to 
go back to London. He will be with me and we shall probably go to 
some hotel. I shall have to stay about a week in London to finish my 
purchases and commissions. After that I shall have three weeks free 
to occupy as I choose. My brother-in-law goes back to America be- 
fore I do, and will not stay more than a week or ten days in London. 
If you are at Wenlock I will join you there some day after the eighth. 

This devilish war upsets all my calculations. My single hope is that 
France will get so far thrashed as to make her mind her own business 
in future, and that Germany will have the same fate. How both can be 
beaten at once, I don't know, but I hope it may turn out so. As yet I 
can see no other good likely to come out of it, and of course it puts an 
end everywhere to any chance of carrying out a regular course of 
politics. I am rather amused, however, to see how little Europe is 
really changed by what we call progress. Louis XIV himself never did 
anything more arbitrary, and certainly nothing in so dishonest a form. 
What a fine thing universal suffrage is! 

If Italians ever publish anything, I have not found it out, but I have 
read very little since I came, and have seen nothing of literary people. 
The Italian novel at best is an utterly hopeless and Godforsaken pro- 



IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND 191 

duct of intellectual impotence, and I firmly believe that the news- 
papers now contain all there is of literary life in Italy. The rest is mere 
imitation so far as I have seen anything. But I've had no means of 
pushing my knowledge much further than the backs of books. 

I suppose I shall find the political people still in London. I want to 
talk with a few of them and shall hunt them up. Everyone else may go 
if they like. As I can't go to routs I don't care who can. But I can go 
and talk politics and I mean to do it. 

As I suppose you to be out of town I won't send my regards to 
anyone. Indeed I shall probably be in town before you can answer this 
letter. Of course I shall have to go at once to your house to see about 
my traps, and you can write to me there. Or if you want anything in 
Paris and will write to me there in care of Messrs. Hottinguer & Cie, 
bankers, I will perform your commissions provided I get the letter by 
Saturday. 

A rivederci! I am now going to swim in the lake, an amusement I 
much affect. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

GROVE FARM, LEATHERHEAD, 
Thursday, 4 August, 1870. 

I received your note successfully, but can't yet fix my day for com- 
ing down. When does Warren come? I will call there and ask. There 
are so many last things that need attention in London and so many 
orders to be executed that I fear I shall have to come up again in about 
three weeks and start from here. I have seen scarcely anyone but 
Palgrave and as you can imagine I did not find him in very cheerful 
circumstances. My brother-in-law returns to Paris Saturday evening, 
which will leave me a little freer, as I am now obliged to keep him in 




time to look up friends. We came down here yesterday afternoon to 
pass a night quietly at the Sturgis's. Tomorrow evening I am going to 
dine with Palgrave, not a festive occasion but rather the contrary. 
I hope to see your sister for a moment. Sunday I may beg a dinner at 
the Motleys', who are also companions enjoying a state of mind any- 
thing but cheerful. So you can conceive without difficulty that I 
should be ready to quit London at the earliest opportunity. It is not 
gay.... 



192 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

Friday, 5 P.M. [August 12 or 19, 1870.] 

A hitch in my movements, and a change of base for strategic pur- 
poses. They had given me a bad stateroom for the 3oth, so I made a 
row, and am transferred to the Cuba which sails on the jd for New 
York. So I have four more days. Perhaps if you are good, I'll pass 
Thursday with you at Wenlock. I go to the Langham tonight to be 
with Wells. Tomorrow I go to Leatherhead and stay till I leave Lon- 
don. 

I've seen your father. He is quite alone and gives a rather poor 
account of himself. Mrs. Lindesay is at Norwood. I don't know with 
certainty, but I should say your father was a little uneasy about him- 
self. At any rate he expects a long affair. 

This by way of posting you as to our concerns, but I am in a hurry 
and must stop. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

STRATFORD PLACE, 
Tuesday, 30 August, 1870. 

DEAR REPTILE, As you have left my last note unnoticed and 
have declined to encourage me to pass one night at Wenlock, I shall 
punish you by coming to stay two. I shall arrive tomorrow evening 
at eight o'clock, and shall remain till such hour on Friday as I see fit. 
You will do well to be civil. So have my bed aired. You may shoot as 
much as you like. Only mind that I shall follow this note within 
twelve hours of its reaching you. I shall have things to say. 

Ever, my dear Batrachian, yours. 



VI 
HARVARD COLLEGE 

1870-1872 
To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

WASHINGTON, 29 September, 1870. 

I wish you had seen me sailing out of the harbor at Queenstown. 
It blew hard from the southwest, dead ahead, and I, who had been 
ashore all day, went incontinently to bed, and remained there much 
the better part of forty-eight hours, during which the water slopped 
over us as though we were a tin pan. The voyage on the whole, how- 
ever, was passable. I made Miss Nilsson's acquaintance, and found 
a number of friends on board. Mr. Mundella, M,P., was also with us. 
I do not know Mr. M., but once happening to go near the spot where 
he was lecturing an admiring audience, I heard him burst into an 
eloquent panegyric on John Bright's oratory; "The first orator in the 
world," said he; "Talk of your Demosthenes and your Euripides, 
they're nothing to him." I retired in silence. Who knows but that 
Mr. Mundella was right! Euripides might have been surprised at the 
company he was in, but I was not. 

I passed the custom-house safely, unshorn, and reached home with- 
out any accident. I found my family as well and as cheerful as I could 
have expected, only one of my aunts with whom I was very intimate 
here, had suddenly died in the interval. I found myself growing in 
consequence. My last article had not only been reprinted entire by 
several newspapers, but the party press had thought it necessary to 
answer it, and I cut out some of their notices to send over to you, but 
forgot to bring them with me. What is more, I am told that the demo- 
cratic national committee reprinted it in pamphlet form and mean to 
circulate two hundred and fifty thousand copies of it. If I get a copy 
I will send it to you as a curiosity. You see I have a tolerably large 
audience at least. 

But what is much more interesting is that on my return home I 
found the question of the professorship sprung upon me again in a 
very troublesome way. Not only the President of the College and the 
Dean made a very strong personal appeal to me, but my brothers were 
earnest about it and my father leaned the same way. I hesitated a 



194 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

week, and then I yielded. Now I am, I believe, assistant professor of 
history at Harvard College with a salary of 400 a year, and two hun- 
dred students, the oldest in the college, to whom I am to teach medi- 
aeval history, of which, as you are aware, I am utterly and grossly 
ignorant. Do you imagine I am appalled at this prospect? Not a bit 
of it! Impavidum jerient! I gave the college fair warning of my igno- 
rance, and the answer was that I knew just as much as anyone else in 
America knew on the subject, and I could teach better than anyone 
that could be had. So there I am. My duties begin in a fortnight and 
I am on here to break up my establishment and transfer my goods to 
Cambridge where I am fitting up rooms regardless of expense. For I 
should add that what with one thing and another my income is about 
doubled, and I have about 1200 a year. With the professorship I 
take the North American Review and become its avowed editor. So 
if you care to write thirty pages of abuse of people and houses in Eng- 
land, including Sir Roger, the Sketch-book, and country squires in 
general, send the manuscript to me and if you are abusive enough you 
shall have ao. 

At the same time Will Everett accepts a tutorship either in Greek 
or Latin, I forget which. I am glad he has at last gained his chance of 
success, and if he succeeds he will no doubt be made professor. I have 
not yet seen him, but am told he is pleased. He has taken a house in 
Cambridge and will live there. 

I think I have now written you news enough and you can reflect 
upon it at your leisure. My engagement is for five years, but I don't 
expect to remain so long, and my great wish is to get hold of the stu- 
dents' imaginations for my peculiar ideas. The worst of the matter is 
that I shall be tied tight to the college from the 1st December to the 
last of June, which will seriously interfere with my freedom of move- 
ment when you come over. This, however, must be managed as we 
best can. I get three months' long vacation in summer, but this is all, 
except a fortnight at Christmas. I have nine hours a week in the 
lecture room, and am absolutely free to teach what I please within 
the dates 800-1649. I am responsible only to the college Government, 
and I am brought in to strengthen the reforming party in the Univer- 
sity, so that I am sure of strong backing from above. You can fancy 
that my influence on the youthful mind is likely to be peculiar to say 
the least. And yet my predecessor was turned out because he was a 
Comtist!!! 

I came on here yesterday, and am very hot, very lonely, and very 
hard run* I passed an hour today with Secretary Fish, who was very 



ASSISTANT PROFESSOR AT HARVARD 195 

talkative, but there are few of my political friends left in power now, 
and these few will soon go out. This reconciles me to going away, 
though I hate Boston and am very fond of Washington. By-the-way, 
I see John Hervey's name in the papers as having arrived, and Tom 
Hughes is flying about. 

We have an awful drought. At Quincy everything is literally burned 
and nothing like it ever known. Since coming home I have been 
roasted. 



To Henry Lee Higginson 

HARVARD COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 
24 October, 1870. 

MY DEAR HENRY: Thanks for your very kind letter. It is pleas- 
ant to be remembered and to think that there is any one who sympa- 
thizes in one's destiny. The truth is, I have come back here not so 
much to teach as to learn. I am working harder than I ever worked 
as an undergraduate, and I hope in time to know something. If I 
succeed so! If not, then one only remains as poor a cuss as one was 
intended to be. I am writing this at a faculty meeting, and there is 
not a student here who would feel less at home in the company than 
I do. I want to grant all the petitions, and excuse all the students for 
everything. Am I not one of them myself? But no one asks my opin- 
ion and I am bored to death. 

Whenever, or if ever, you come out here, come to see me at No. I 
Wadsworth Hall, once Mrs. Humphrey's, and still longer ago the old 
President's house. There I renew my youth. Send my love to Jim and 
believe me ever yours. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

HARVARD COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 
Tuesday, 25 October, 1870. 

Here I am, fairly established, and frightfully hard at work. After 
a straggle such as you can imagine, I broke up my camp at Washing- 
ton and pitched it again here. I lose by the change. The winter cli- 
mate is damnable. The country is to my mind hideous. And the 
society is three miles away in Boston. In return I have only the 
satisfaction of hoping that I may be of use, and it is little more than 
a hope, as I don't believe in the system in which I am made a^part, 
and thoroughly dislike and despise the ruling theories of education in 



196 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

the university. So I have undertaken to carry on my department on 
my own bottom, without reference to the Faculty or anyone, and un- 
less I am interfered with, which is improbable unless I make great 
blunders, I shall quietly substitute my own notions for^those of the 
College, and teach in my own way. There will be some lively history 
taught, I can tell you. I hardly know how I am getting on with the 
students, but I think we shall be on good terms. I have about a 
hundred, all more or less advanced, as to age at least, though as a rule 
they are supernaturally lazy and ignorant. I pound at them in vain 
nine hours every week- If it weren't that I am always learning, I 
should soon grow fearfully tired of teaching. Add to this that I am 
much bothered in mind about the North American, and you will feel 
that I have not come back to sleep on so quiet a bed as I hoped. 

Will Everett is very grand. He has the Freshmen in Latin and has 
taken a house in which three of his youths are quartered besides four 
more who take their meals with him. I have not yet visited him and 
his Freshmen in his quarters, but I reserve that pleasure for a future 
day. Meanwhile I see him occasionally at the Faculty meetings. 

On some accounts I am not sorry to have left Washington as things 
have taken a political turn there which is by no means favorable to 
me All my friends have been or are on the point of being driven out 
of the government and I should have been left without any allies or 
sources of information. As it is, I only retire with the rest and leave 
our opponents to upset themselves, which they will do in time, I think, 
and when I go back there, it will be to study a new situation. 

My family muddle on in a stupid way out at Quincy, and I go over 
there every Saturday and pass Sunday with them. My sister drives 
about the country in a little basket wagon, and my father arranges his 
books in a new library he has just built. They are not gay, but luckily 
the autumn has been very warm and fine so that there has been no 
unnecessary discomfort, and in a fortnight they will come to town 
and see something of their friends. I hope to pick up a few new ac- 
quaintances whom I like, for my old friends don't amuse me much 
and as the novelty of my work wears off, I am likely to be bored unless 
some new excitement can be invented. 

^ What rubbish you talk about presents. As though I hadn't been 
living on you the better part of three months, and had no debts of 
acknowledgment. For God's sake don't carry out your idea of sending 
me anything, for I can find nothing here to reciprocate with, and I 
don't want to feel my debts increased or I shall never dare visit you 
again. But why doesn't Frank send the photographs? Please express 



To CARL SCHURZ 197 



my deep regret to the Warrens at being unable to accept their in- 
vitation, and say everything pretty on my account to anyone you 
meet, except those we detest. I expect a letter from you daily, and am 
anxious to know how your father comes on. Give my best regards to 
him. 

To Carl Schurz 

HARVARD COLLEGE, MASS. 
27 October, 1870. 

DEAR SIR, I came to you last spring on the part of the North 
American Review to ask a political article from your hand. You were 
then too busy, and I know how busy you still are. Yet, having as- 
sumed the charge of the Review, I venture again to write to you to 
renew my request. I do this, not because I am an editor, but because 
I would like to support your course, and make known to the eastern 
people the true nature of the contest you are engaged in. I want an 
article on the political condition of Missouri and the West, with an 
energetic account of the present campaign there. I want the public to 
know, if possible, how far you and your party represent principles 
which are of national interest; how far free-trade and reform are in- 
volved in the result; and what influences have been at work to 
counteract success. We in the east know little of what takes place in 
the west, and feeling so strong a sympathy as I do in your political 
career since you took your seat in the Senate, I would be glad to ex- 
tend the range of your influence so far as is in my power. 

Hoping that you may find time to carry out my wish without in- 
convenience, I remain very truly yours. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

HARVARD COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 
19 November, 1870. 

Besides a letter from Frank Doyle, with his photographs, I have 
lately received a letter from Robert, yours of October a8, and this 
morning one from Palgrave, so that I am now deep in debt. As it 
happens that I am fearfully hard worked, my chances for letter- 
writing are fewer than I could wish, but then you will no doubt ^be 
recompensed by your appreciation of my great importance, which 
lends so much more value to my remarks. My reputation for deep 
historical research is awful. I have, however, unearthed only one 
important fact on which I propose to dwell at great length to my 



198 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

classes, which is that your Norman ancestors were principally distin- 
guished as a class for one peculiar vice which modern prejudice has 

absurdly condemned as unnatural, and thus that Messrs. B , 

P and Lord A C are evidently descended from William 

the Conqueror and proudly justify their claim to be considered among 
your best and oldest families. Unfortunately I have to devote so much 
time to the mere work of my lectures that I cannot go so deeply into 
this interesting subject as I should. 

Between my history and my Review I have all I can manage. The 
retirement from Washington has by no means thrown me out of 
politics* On the contrary, as editor I am deeper in them than ever, and 
my party is growing so rapidly that I look forward to the day when 
we shall be in power again as not far distant. Two or three years 
ought to do it. Meanwhile I am smashing things here, and have 
declared war against the old system of teaching, in a manner which is 
not respectful to the University though my students like it. All this 
is very grand of course. Equally of course it is probably unmitigated 
rot. But who cares ? So long as I am amused, I mean to go on with it, 
and to be very busy is a sort of amusement. At any rate I have no 
time to think of disagreeable subjects, and if our climate were less of 
a nuisance I should feel fairly satisfied. 

I see that the last Westminster contains my article, 1 about which I 
had so much difficulty while with you. I sent it to the editor just as 
I was coming away, as a last experiment, and heard no more of it till 
I saw it in print. The editor has not written to me on the subject, and 
I have not written to him. 

Your English gossip interests me in my western banishment. I am 
sorry for the Motleys, especially as he has now received his coup de 
gr&ce in peremptory dismissal. For skill in insulting people commend 
me to our excellent President. I suspect he will get us into trouble 
with you before long, and if you go to war with Russia as you seem 
bent on doing, you will certainly have us on your backs. It is not very 
creditable to us to pursue a policy of this sort, but I have no doubt we 
shall do it, as we have made no secret of our intentions. In case of a 
war, I shall wait till it is over before I next visit England, for I don't 
mean to fight and I shall not be found in the ranks of the army that 
sacks Wenlock. I presume you will not cross the ocean to attack 
Quincy, but if you are the destined man to plunder my ancestral halls, 
I prefer your doing it to another. You'll find little to loot. Save the 
spoons. They will serve for Wenlock when I next come. 

* The New York. Odd Conspiracy, in the July number. 



BEING A PROFESSOR AND AN EDITOR 199 

I am sorry fpr^the Warrens, all the more as I wanted you to marry 
Margaret. As it is, I suppose I shall return some day to find a stranger 
presiding in the dining-hall, who will think it an infernal shame to 
have me on her hands for a month at a time when she wants her 
brother the Captain just home from New Zealand. Well! I shall take 
lodgings in Marylebone Lane and you will come to see me quietly 
after breakfast. 

My people seem to be tolerably well. They are now in Boston and 
I go in occasionally and dine with them. As yet I have seen no society. 
I am too busy and have to read every evening as my young men are 
disgustingly clever at upsetting me with questions. Luckily I have a 
little general knowledge which comes in. I gave them the other day 
a poetical account of Wenlock in relation to Gregory VII and Cluny. 
You see how everything can be made to answer a purpose. 

Next week I go on to New York to a political gathering of members 
of the press on my side; quite a demonstration, which will make a 
noise in the newspapers. I go to press the interests of my Review. 
Meanwhile my flock must wait for their historical fodder till I return. 

Frank's photographs are very pleasant little reminders of our 
summer. I shall stick them in a book with F. Doyle, Maj. Gen* 
fecit under them. Give my love to Robert. I shall write to him 
soon. Also to his wife. I suppose things look lively in politics now, 
and I hope your turn is coming. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

HARVARD COLLEGE, 19 December, 1870. 

It's an age since I wrote, but if you will credit the alarming fact, I 
am now driven to use the official time of the College to give to you. 
Here I sit, at the regular meeting of the College Faculty, while some 
thirty twaddlers are discussing questions of discipline around me, and 
I have to hear what they say, while I indulge you in the charms and 
fascinations of my style. This is what it is to be a Professor, not to say 
an editor. I have not had a clear hour of time for a month. I have 
read more heavy German books and passed more time in the printing- 
office; I have written more letters on business, and read more manu- 
scripts of authors; I have delivered more lectures about matters I 
knew nothing of, to men who cared nothing about them; and I have 
had my nose ground down more closely to my double grindstone, than 
ever a cruel Providence can have considered possible. My happy 
carelessness of life for the last ten years has departed, and I am a 



200 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

regular old carthorse of the heaviest sort. As for society, I have not 
seen the hem of a female garment since I came out here. Life has 
resolved itself into editing and professing. I always swore I never 
would descend to work, but it is done. Lo! the poor fallen one! 

The curious part of it all is that I don't dislike it so much as I ex- 
pected. I am so busy that I have not had the time to think whether 
I enjoyed myself or not, and now the Christmas holidays are nearly 
here, and I am so nearly half through the year, at least in labor, that 
it quite bewilders me to think how time goes. I wish you would try 
a few months of good hard work, when you have to count your 
minutes to keep abreast of the team, and then tell me how you like it. 
I believe it would do you good. But how these old buffers do bore me! 
They talk! talk! talk! Ugh!! I wish I could scalp 'em. 

Have I sent you my circular? No? I will!! It is grand, and in- 
volves the deepest interests of literature. I am sending it to all man- 
kind, and of course mankind rushes to see it. Apropos ! I have never 
sent you the reply which Senator Howe * of Wisconsin made to my 
"Session." He blackguards me and all my family to the remotest 
generation. He calls me a begonia! a plant, I am told. To be abused 
by a Senator is my highest ambition, and I am now quite happy. My 
only regret is that I cannot afford to hire a Senator to abuse me 
permanently. That, however, might pall in time, like plum-pudding 
or . 

At the end of this week, just as soon as I have got my January 
Review off my shoulders I shall go on to Washington for the holidays. 
This is the only recess I get for six months, and I want to make the 
most of it. What do I do after getting there? I go to my dentist's, 
oh, my friend! Yes! I pass a fortnight with my dentist. At any rate 
he will stop my talking for a time. 

Will Everett is here in the room. Shall I ask him whether he has 
any message to send you? I will 

He says he is going to write to you himself and send you some of his 
publications. 

By the way, I am told that his children's books are not at all bad. 
Perhaps your mind, after Siluria, will be ready to unbend to them. I 
see poor old Murchison a has gone up. He ought to, after such a work. 
Will is now making a speech Heaven bless him! Lord, how dull 
they all are! 

What a droll idea it is that you should be running about England, 

1 Timothy Otis Howe (1816-1883). Education^ 292. 
* Sir Roderick Impey Murchison (1792-1 871), geologist. 



THREATENED WITH A LIBEL SUIT 201 

visiting people, and I shut up in this Botany Bay, working like a 
scavenger. Lord bless me! Do those people really exist, or did I 
dream it all, after reading Horace Walpole and eating a heavy dinner? 
I doubt your existence at times, and am not altogether certain about 
my own. Give my tender love to Gretchen I mean Lady Margaret. 
What dress does she wear now? How are the Marguerites? 

By the bye! Do you know that I hope to appear soon at the bar of 
the Old Bailey, or whichever of your Courts has the jurisdiction? 
James McHenry wants to sue me for a libel. I have written over that 
this is precisely what would suit me, and that he may try it if he likes. 
You will, I doubt not, hear of it, if the Westminster Review is brought 
into Court. Perhaps it would bring me over to England again, as I 
mean to hurt him if he gives me a chance. 

I went to New York a month ago to a political meeting, and we laid 
vast and ambitious projects for the future. 

But the Meeting is breaking up, and I must break up too! Thank 
the Lord! The clack is passed for one week, and a week hence I shall 
be in Washington. 

24 December. I have been too busy to finish the above, and now I 
start for Washington in an hour, for my holidays. Nothing new from 
anyone. I am just done! Run to death by printers and students. But 
my work is finished and time is up. I am going to have some fun. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

HARVARD COLLEGE, 13 February, 1871. 

Your letter of the i8th arrived just after my last was despatched. 
I at once rushed to the club and read your article in the Saturday 
RtvieWy and was inspired with the wish of getting you to write some- 
thing for me. Why can't you write me a book-notice now and then? 
If you meet a promising book, why not write me a notice of it ? These 
notices are always read and a goocLone is a difficult thing to get. They 
are not signed, therefore, if you notice a book of English memoirs and 
rake up a heap of old family scandals, no one will know who did it. I 
want someone in England who can do this, for no one here is up to such 
work. We do not even get the English books unless they are reprinted. 
Now be a good fellow and write me at least one such notice a month. 
Travels, memoirs, novels, poems, anything, so long as something is to 
be said about it. Show a surprising familiarity with English aiFairs, 
and create a circulation for me there. A book-notice should be about 



2O2 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

a column, more or less, of the Saturday Review ; more if the book is 
worth it; less if it isn't. You can make a sensation by a good one. 

As for my own affairs, they now go on with a regularity which is 
beautiful to see. I see the days roll on with a fearful rapidity, and 
already today my first half-year of professing is over. I have worked 
like a dog and learned more than I ever expected to do. On the whole 
I am well pleased with the result though there is no special fame or 
honor about it. My youths are lazy but not bad fellows, and I seem to 
get along as well with them as anyone does. At any rate I have found 
them very civil and have never been obliged to light upon a student 
for misconduct, though I rather have been watching for a chance. 
Imagine me sitting in a chair, in a huge lecture room, discoursing 
day after day to classes of fifty men, and unfolding the true principles 
of mediaeval history. You would be proud to know as much as they 
do. I don't think the subject is taught in England at all, but by the 
time I have had my men for two years they will scare you out of your 
wits by their familiarity with English affairs. 

I have no news for you except that my mother has amused herself 
by falling down stairs and spraining her ankle. It is a pretty severe 
shock for a person of her age, and she is likely to be kept on her back 
for six weeks or more. But I hope she will get over it all right. There 
is always more or less danger of future stiffness in such cases, but I 
think she will get all straight again by the time summer comes. 

I March. This blessed letter has been waiting an interminable time 
for its quietus. I have been to New York in the interval, and besides 
a public dinner there, have been concocting our new attack on the 
men of Erie in the next number of my Review. They have now found 
out that I wrote the Westminster article, and New York will soon be 
too hot for me. Cyrus Field was after me, but I did not see him though 
he called before I was out of bed. Libel suits are looming ahead. There 
is going to be a very lively scrimmage in which some one will be hurt. 
We are in dead earnest on our side and our trains are laid far and near. 
Pray that we may not go under! 

Yours have arrived the two Reviews and the letter of the tenth. 
I think your last article the best thing you have done. It shows 
progress. The training is good, and I hope you will go on. Your batch 
of news-items is astounding. Let us hope that Miner Hervey will be 
happy with her Pussy! Also that Augusta will enjoy a Pussy of her 
own! But I am sorry for the Warrens. Their course shows that the 
affair must have been very outrageous, and I am not sure that any 



THE EXCITEMENT OF BEING OVERWORKED 203 

adult male or female is under any obligation to live with a 
father who behaves like his Lordship. That he is mad is no excuse 

among a nation of madmen. You should have gone in for . Her 

troubles will improve her. 

My mother is coming on, but cannot yet put her foot to the ground. 
My work lasts till July and begins again October first. While it con- 
tinues I cannot leave Cambridge except for a day now and then. 
Come over and join the University. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

HARVARD COLLEGE, 27 March, 1871. 

Nothing from you since I last wrote! Nor have I anything in 
particular to write about. By the time your next letter arrives, how- 
ever, I shall perhaps have this despatch ready to go, so I shall begin 
now and look to hear from you before I get very far, at my present 
rate of letter-writing. 

My labors are drawing to a dose for this year. I have brought my 
youths so far that I can now see the end. My heavy reading is pretty 
much finished. My April number of the N. A. R. will be out on the 3oth 
and my work on it is over. So I am ready to enjoy the Spring and to 
grumble that I have not enough to do. The fact is, I like being over- 
worked. There is a pleasing excitement in having to lecture tomorrow 
on a period of history which I have not even heard of till today. I 
like to read three or four volumes of an evening, and to leave as many 
more unread, which are absolutely essential to the least knowledge of 
the subject. How long the excitement will last, I can't say. Probably 
not more than another year, after which I shall be bored. 

In my reading I have only picked up one book which I can recom- 
mend to you, and I am only surprised that I did not tumble over it 
while I was mousing about in England, or that Palgrave did not call 
my attention to it when I was reading Fergusson and Ruskin. This 
book is a translation of Viollet le Due's r essay on military architecture 
in the middle ages. It will give you, if you have not read it, a new 
interest in architecture and will start you on your travels again with 
a new object of interest. The original, I believe, is in Viollet le Due's 
Dictionary of Architecture, and is or may be difficult to get at, but the 
translation, which is published by Parker, contains all the original 
illustrations. 

I wish I had a good historical collection of cathedrals in photograph. 

1 Eugene Emmanuel Viollet le Due (1817-1879). 



2O4 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

My trouble here is in getting this sort of illustration. You can imagine 
me giving lectures on mediaeval architecture, cribbed bodily out of 
Fergusson and Viollet le Due. Precious lucky it is that Palgrave isn't 
here to snub me for my intolerable impudence. If he could hear me 
massacre the principles of historical art, he would brandish my an- 
cestral tomahawk over my head and brain me where I sit. 

Nothing very lively has turned up since I last wrote. My mother is 
hobbling about again and will gradually recover her ankle, I suppose, 
though it will be long before it is quite strong again. Otherwise my fam- 
ily retains its Bostonian stupidity. I go into town nearly every day 
to dine with them, and come out again after dinner. As for society I 
am still a barbarian. I have not seen the inside of a house, nor have I 
even suggested attachment to any young woman. The conversation 
I hear at home is of the mildest description; nothing more serious than 
the flabbiest local gossip. Empires are smashed and it is quite true 
that impavidum ferient ruinae y we don't care a cuss. 

The next morning. Ho ! a letter from you. You walk into my door, 
or rather through it, arm in arm with Mrs. Sturgis, and naturally I 
lay myself out for no end of gossip. What do you say to the Harcourt- 
Ives marriage? z And what odds that we don't live to call Mrs. Ives- 
Vernon-Harcourt "Your Ladyship"? Or perhaps I should say, to 
hear her footmen address her in that manner? And what better 
purpose could the lamented Ives, the husband of three weeks, put his 
money to, than to help support your bloated aristocracy? For my own 
part, I like the match. To external view Harcourt, I must say, has 
more the appearance of a murderer and gallows-bird than I should like 
in a husband, but internally I am confident he is a cleanly sepulchre. 

The book has not yet arrived, but I await its coming with im- 
patience. Shall I write a notice of it for the New York Nation* Per- 
haps I will try. At any rate I shall read it with peculiar interest. As 
for Mr. Homer, I will be as civil to him as my professional or profes- 
sorial labors permit. Palgrave has not written to me for an age. I 
want some more bronzes and drawings. Mine have already postd me 
here as a protector of the fine arts. Please tell F. T. P, for the love 
of God not to forget me. My reputation rests on him. I have the 
lowest opinion of you for letting Miss Maggy escape you, but such is 
human frailty. As for the Baronet, I have just written to him. I 
hope he won't do himself up with the season. 

*Sir \VHIiam George Granville Venables Vernon Harcourt (1817-1904), married, December 
a, 1876, Elizabeth, widow of J. P, Ives and daughter of John Lothrop Motley. 



WILLIAM EVERETT 205 

How about your visit to us? I am so tied down, between professing 
and editing as to have no time really free, unless it is July and August, 
which are abominably hot. You ought to come over and pass a 
winter with us. Will Everett will be gracious to you. I think him a 
nuisance, but we jiave not yet been inside each other's threshold. 

The book has just arrived very fine. I see it is not published. So 
I suppose you object to publicity. Quelle luxe! 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

HARVARD COLLEGE, 18 April, 1871. 

Yours of the 3d arrived today. For once I step up promptly, which 
is due to the fact that today is Monday and that Monday evening is 
Faculty meeting, when I am obliged to attend some three hours to 
business discussions, and occupy my time in writing letters. This is 
the fearfullest bore I have to undergo, and I mitigate it as I best may. 

Yours is full of items, to which I have little enough by way of an- 
swer. I rather hope you will accept your education, because I think 
education a good thing for its own sake. To be sure I should lose your 
visit, but I am now so tied down that your visit would not be half the 
satisfaction I expected from it. Moreover I shall probably have to 
run over to Europe for a couple of months a year hence, in order to do 
some mediaeval work in France and Germany. You might perhaps 
take a run with me on the continent. I shall not be able to get to 
England before the end of the season, in any case, so that you can do 
no better, unless you remain quietly at Wenlock, which I confess is 
better than any travelling at midsummer. In this way, only your 
visit to us would be lost, or rather, postponed, and I don't think 
America will run away at present. It will wait till you are ready to 
come, and in my opinion improves by age. 

I would much like a notice of Labouchere's book, 1 which decidedly 
requires it. I don't know what can be said about it that would have 
any intrinsic value of its own, but if there is any concealed meaning or 
secret history to be brought out of its pages, I would like to show it up. 
Labouchere shows his peculiarities, I suppose, enough to lay him open 
to gentle roasting. I see the book about, but read nothing this side 
of 1400. By the bye, I wish I knew your friend Green better. He is a 
swell I believe on my line, and he might be useful to me now, for I 
suppose he knows all that is doing in his branch. As it is, I am all be- 

1 Diary of the Besieged Resident in Peris. Reprinted from the "Daily News" by Henry La- 
bouch&e. Hie notice appeared m the M^ ^r^ 



206 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

hindhand in the gossip of my trade. I would like, too, to know Stubbs, 
at Oxford, who seems to be a first-rate man and modest withal. One 
of my objects in going over next year is to talk with these gentlemen, 
and meanwhile I read them solemnly. Who does the Church-work for 
the Saturday* I suppose you know your confreres. 

You trouble me about poor Mrs. Sankey. But Wenlock is just 
antique enough for small-pox. I suppose the monks used to have it, 
and left it in a cup-board. Modern people ought to feel it as quite a 
favor to have a good old-fashioned disease in an old-fashioned way. 

Your aunt's book makes a curious impression on my mind. How she 
worried her poor head with Kant and Fichte and Schlegel, and how it 
only made her more melancholy. I never met with so curious an in- 
stance of a fine feminine nature turned into pursuits so utterly un- 
congenial. The more of her letters I read, the more regret I feel that a 
woman who had such qualities should have found no more congenial 
a life than the one she led. One can't read a page of her letters without 
seeing that she had not and never could have had any real sympathy 
with philosophy and equally little appreciation of philosophic method. 
The distinction between her nature and that of a philosopher, is radi- 
cal. The latter delights in studying phenomena, whether of his own 
mind or of matter, with absolute indifference to the results. His busi- 
ness is to reason about life, thought, the soul, and truth, as though he 
were reasoning about phosphates and square roots; and to a mind 
fairly weary of self, there is a marvellous relief and positive delight in 
getting down to the hard pan of science. He never stops to ask what 
the result of a theory or demonstration is to be on his own relations to 
God or to life. His pleasure is to work as though he were a small God 
and immortal and possibly omniscient. 

Now your aunt with all her love for speculation shrank from this 
sort of pure science by a feminine instinct which I^think was much to 
her credit. And her experience is another evidence to me, if I wanted 
another, that it is worse than useless for women to study philosophy. 
The result is to waste the best feminine material, and to make very 
poor philosophers. Your aunt's strong point continued to be sym- 
pathy, not science, just as much as though she had never read a Ger- 
man book, and her happiness would have consisted in a family and 
children, just as your mother's did. As it was, her mind only fed on 
itself and was neither happy nor altogether free from morbid self- 
reflections which always come from isolation in society, as I know to 
my cost. 

I hope you will find out for me something about May Sturgis's 



CARL SCHURZ'S PROPOSED ARTICLE 207 

lover. Robert ought to know him, if he is a Guardsman. The way you 
blasted Britishers are marrying Americans is awful, but I hope it isn't 
true that the youthful Campbell in New York is engaged to Mrs. 
Paran Stevens's daughter. In that case the Queen, Elizabeth Duchess 
etc. and Mrs. Paran would form an interesting group of mammas-in- 
law. 

To Carl Schurz 

HARVARD COLLEGE, 25 April, [1871.] 

MY DEAR SIR, I have received yours of the 21 st and perfectly 
understand your difficulty. On the whole, however, looking at the 
matter in as large a way as I can, I am inclined to think that your own 
objects will be as much advanced by the paper I suggested, as by any 
other form of activity, and I therefore do not hesitate to urge you to 
draw it up. In order to relieve you of labor as much as possible, how- 
ever, I will make a new proposition. If you will send me your rough 
draft, as elaborate as time will allow, or your notes and general di- 
rections, I will put the article into shape and return it to you in manu- 
script for correction and improvement. In this case I should have the 
manuscript or the notes at as early a day as possible. If this idea suits 
you, you will let me know when I may count on receiving the first in- 
stalment. Nothing would please me better than to write at your dic- 
tation at any time, but my own professional work is not a little exact- 
ing of time, and I want as much of yours as you can spare, to help me 
out. 

What between the Force Bill, the Legal Tender Case, San Domingo, 
and Tammany, I see no constitutional government any longer possi- 
ble. I hope you will show that I am mistaken, for the public is gravely 
in want of some such light. 

To Carl Schurz 

HARV: COLL: 16 May, 1871. 

MY DEAR SIR, Yours of the nth has duly arrived. I much re- 
gret that you cannot carry out the project of reviewing the Session, 
especially because your other efforts have little or no effect upon the 
class of readers who can only be reached by more permanent influences 
than the daily press, while through the daily press anything you say to 
a small and cultivated audience would at once be spread everywhere 
over the country. A speech, especially a hustings speech, is the crea- 
ture of a day. Once made, it is lost and forgotten in the files of a news- 



2o8 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

paper. The effect of it is weakened by the mere fact that it is a speech 
and that speeches are like newspaper leaders, ephemeral. The object 
I have at heart is to obtain from you a bit of political diagnosis that 
will last, and to which all our friends can appeal as applicable to the 
condition of the country now and at all times. Such a work is more 
difficult, but also much more permanent than most speeches. For the 
same reason I cannot help thinking it much more necessary, especially 
at a time when we have hardly a man in political life who has the 
knowledge and the ability to make a respectable generalisation. 

I am therefore very unwilling to abandon my purpose, and I still 
hope that you may find the necessary time. Would it be of any use if 
Loffered to wait till the ifth June before filling the space? 

As for the Treaty, I can understand that it is troublesome. It ap- 
pears to me to be less advantageous to us than the Johnson treaty, 
But I favored that and I favor this. Of all the crazy acts our friend 
Sumner ever did, and they are many, I think his speech on that occa- 
sion the maddest. How he is going to escape from it now, I am curious 
to see. If he resists the treaty and fails, he is done for. If he resists and 
succeeds, he will break himself down here, I think. If he accedes and 
votes for the treaty, Grant drags him in triumph at his chariot-wheels, 
as Sumner would say. I trust our friends will not be drawn too far by 
Sumner, though I foresee that the success of the English treaty will be 
a long step to the administration towards carrying San Domingo too. 

I am very truly yours. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

HARVARD COLLEGE, 22 May, '71. 

Here is summer come again, with the thermometer up above 80 and 
a new drought, yet I go grinding on in the dust and heat with as much 
regularity as ever, and have another month of it before me with no 
prospect of getting away till after the first of July. The worst of it is, 
however, that I don't know what to do after I am free, and look for- 
ward with anything but confidence to the prospect of enjoying myself 
during my vacation. I must certainly go away to some new pasture, 
but where it will be I can't say; probably un peu partout. Meanwhile 
I only wish I were on the water again, with Europe before me, and 
proof-sheets a long way behind. 

Have I written since receiving yours announcing your acceptance of 
the burdens of office? I think not! At any rate I am gkd you have so 
decided* It can hardly do you any harm, and I fancy die habit of 



PROFESSOR GURNEY'S HOUSE AN OASIS 209 

steady application is a good one to get, though to people of our habits 
of life, any habit that is useful is extremely difficult to get, and the 
source of infinite misery in getting. 

Pray give Mrs. Sankey my sympathy. I am very sorry for the poor 
woman, who began married happiness (supposing it to have been 
happiness) late in life, and is left alone early. I hope the girl will do 
well and console her. 

I finished your book with much interest and a sad sort of pleasure. 
I am growing old. To contemplate a finished life depresses me. I try 
to kick back the advancing years, and to make my falling hairs stick 
into my head. I shun church-yards and groan when my liver reminds 
me that I have a body. Had I never met your aunt I should have read 
her letters with a cooler judgment. 

I found but two misprints in the volume; one (p. 274) Charlotten- 
berg for brg; the other (p. 277) Rosenla/zi, for Rosenla#L If these 
are all, you may congratulate yourself. I who do little now except 
correct proofs, find that everything escapes me. I have long since de- 
spaired of approaching accuracy. 

Hurry up Labouchere! I want him as soon as possible and would 
send him to the printer now if I had him here. Thank the Lord, my 
summer work is now taking shape and I can see the end of it. But I 
have an awful job on hand for next year in the shape of a course of 
written lectures on mediaeval history; a post-graduate course, as it is 
called. The labor is tremendous and the effect nil. But I do it because 
it is almost a part of my work. Poor Will Everett has delivered a 
course this year, and is said to have threatened to do something de- 
cisive when he found that his best lecture had for an audience only 
two women. 

As for Will, I never see him. He threatens to write an article for me, 
but I shudder at the prospect of having to cut out all his fine writing. 
My own life is quiet as ever. My family has emigrated again to 
Quincy where they live merrily or at least soberly in their pig-stye, 
and I go over once or twice a week to see them. Here in Cambridge 
there is but one house at which I am intimate; that of Prof. Gurney, 1 
Dean of the Faculty, and my predecessor as editor of the North Ameri- 
can\ he married a clever Bostonian of about my own age, and his house 
is an oasis in this wilderness. Otherwise I never enter a threshold ex- 
cept my own, and nowadays, what with heat, and the annual exami- 
nations next month, and a book of essays I am printing, and my July 

1 Ephraim Whitman Guraey (1829-1886), professor of history in Harvard University. He 
married Ellen, daughter of Robert W. Hooper. 



2io LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Review, and my lectures, I don't much care to throw away time, 
though I can't resist long walks and spring-flowers. But the region 
about me is not Wenlock Edge. 

I see that Mr. David Dudley Field is after me in the Westminster for 
April. I have smashed that gentleman so awfully in the North Ameri- 
can, since he wrote his letter to the Westminster, that I pity the man 
and shall respond mildly. Indeed I should say nothing except that 
Chapman has written two letters about it. He is not accustomed to 
our way of carrying on controversies and I suppose he is impressed by 
Field. As for me I am so accustomed to being called a liar and a fool 
that I miss the excitement if a week or two passes in quiet. The fact is, 
we are getting ourselves into a tight place. One of these days I expect 
to find my head cracked by something harder than a newspaper 
leader. 

I want to notice Palgrave's new volume, but hardly know what to 
say about it* 1 I can't find anything very poetical in it; nothing, I 
think, so good as his hymns. What do English critics say? 

To Carl Schurz 

HARV: COLL: 24 May, 1871. 

My DEAR SIR, On reflection I am inclined to think that it would 
produce a better effect if you could give me the review for publication 
in October. Politically speaking, in view of the coming presidential 
question, you will speak then with more influence than now. Can you 
offer me a prospect of furnishing it by the middle of August? Your 
last letter seems to hold out such a hope, and I am so earnest in my 
wish to bring your influence to bear on our friends here that I can 
leave nothing untried in order to effect it. I am very truly yours. 

To Charles Mtlnes Gaskell 

CAMBRIDGE, 20 June, 1871. 

Your letter and manuscript arrived some time ago, but I have been 
so busy finishing up the year's work, that I have not had a minute to 
spare. I was glad to hear that you had got into harness, not that I 
think your enjoyment of the work will be intense, but that, such as it 
is, it will drive you to new fields and make you think of new subjects. 
If you are half as bored as I am by thinking of the old ones, you will 
find the change agreeable. 

* Lyrical Poems. 



AN EXPEDITION WITH CLARENCE KING 211 

I write now from among a dozen of my boys who are indulging in 
the excitement of an "Annual," an institution not unlike your Cam- 
bridge "Little go," except that ours come every year. The poor 
wretches have to pass a week in the examination rooms and I am 
sorry to say that I am the object of unlimited cursing, owing to the 
fact that I intentionally gave them papers so difficult that half the 
youths could do very little with them. I very nearly had a rebellion, 
but I think they will find out that no one is hurt who doesn't deserve 
it. Mine is an "elective" department, and I have been obliged to 
drive the lazy men out of it, which can only be done by putting gentle 
pressure on them, the "gentleness" consisting in telling them that I 
will take away their degrees if they ever put themselves in my clutches 
again. It would be fun to send you some of my examination papers. 
My rule in making them up is to ask questions which I can't myself 
answer. It astounds me to see how some of my students answer 
questions which would play the deuce with me. 

After this week I am, I hope, free again, and unless some unex- 
pected difficulty arises I shall at once start on an expedition which 
will lead me for the next six weeks into paths unknown to European 
blokes. One of my friends * who is engaged on a government survey in 
the West has asked me to go with his party on an expedition down the 
canon of the Green river, an upper branch of the Colorado. If you 
have a modern atlas you may find the district not far from Salt Lake 
and the Mormons, a hundred or two miles to the Southeast. Of 
course it is an absolute wilderness. We carry our camp with us and 

feologise, shoot, fish, or march, as occasion requires. I shall not be 
ack within reach of mankind before the ist September, and my next 
letter to you may perhaps be written from a country wilder than any- 
thing in Siberia. 

At the same time I shall not feel sure of getting away^until I am 
fairly a day's march from Fort Bridger. As luck will have it my sister 
has just been taken down with one of her terrible colds, and I may 
have to remain about here in order to travel with her, as she needs a 
change. Then, too, I have so many irons in the fire, so much printing 
going on, and correspondence to look to, that I never fed sure of my 
own time. My July Review, a very dull number, is just going through 
the press (you will appear in it in due course, not, I hope, to the in- 
crease of its dulness,) and my October number has got to be seen to. 
Meanwhile my lectures are all in arrears, and literally I have no time 
for reading or study. The last few weeks of the year are mere drudg- 

* Clarence King (1842-1901). 



212 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

ery. Luckily the weather has been cool and we have had rain, not be- 
fore it was needed. Within three months of the time when I wrote you 
that the thermometer was at 10 below zero, the same thermometer at 
my window stood at 93 in the shade* I call that a fair range. 

Now that my first year is fairly over I am racking my brains to de- 
cide whether I ought to consider it successful or not. As things go, and 
as professors run, I suppose I have done fairly, but from any absolute 
point of view I am still nowhere. Fortunately I came here with few 
illusions, and have had all the advantage I counted on. Whether Will 
Everett is equally self-satisfied I don't know. He has had more diffi- 
culties to meet, and two hundred very unruly boys to control. I am 
told that his eccentricities are growing on him; he is more than ever 
given to hysterics; but he has held his own better than I expected. As 
I have managed to get into the "inside ring," as Americans say, the 
small set of men who control the University, I have things my own 
way. Will is less lucky. He can't get things to suit him. 

So you are fairly in Norfolk Street. I hope you find it swell. I hear 
nothing of the London season. Are there any new beauties? Are any 
of our friends going into the Tuileries when rebuilt? And are any 
Britishers coming over here? I have seen none for an age. 

I like the notion of the Scinde rugs, but how to get them over I 
don't know. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

Camp of U.S. Survey, 4Oth Parallel, 

FORT BRIDGER, WYOMING TERRITORY, 

Sunday, 13 August, 1871. 

PECCAVI ! I ought to have written long ago, but I have been wander- 
ing and letters did not come easy. Just now I am in luxury for a few 
days. It is a glorious morning and I have the camp all to myself; 
main camp > where I have a mattress and camp-bedstead, luxuries un- 
known to me for a month, and a table to myself. I seize the moment 
as it flies and serve it up for your benefit. Your letter of June loth is 
before me. It came out here in my pocket. Since leaving home I have 
had no letters. 

I knocked off editing and professing on the 8th of July and started 
by rail for this place. Four days and nights of steady travelling carried 
me as far as the town of Cheyenne where it is customary to go through 
a railway process called dining, and here I happened to tumble over 
the leader of the very party I was on my way to join. We had a half 
hour's consultation at the end of which he went east to New York and 



Ax FORT BRIDGER, WYOMING 213 

I stopped in the middle of Laramie plain, four hundred miles short of 
my destination. You see there are twin parties under the same 
chief, one about four hundred miles from the other, and as the nearer 
one was just starting on an interesting trip, I decided to take a month 
with them before going on. So it was done, I went at once into camp 
and proceeded to spurn tents and sleep in my blankets under the sky, 
for the purpose of studying sunrises. I was given a big black mule, and 
got a little rifle which I hung at my saddle-bow. I put on a flannel 
shirt, leather breeches and big leggins, and having climbed to the top 
of the mule I proceeded to career across the country mostly at a slow 
walk, climb mountains where my hair stood on end, and shoot at 
rabbits and antelope with enthusiasm if not with success. The party 
was large, some twenty men or more, with wagons and a mule train, 
and during the month I was with them we did a good deal of country, 
marching several hundred miles and exploring many mountains and 
valleys. Certainly the life was hard and the living pretty poor, but we 
were at an elevation of from six to twelve thousand feet, the air was 
superb, and my appetite voracious. I was frequently twelve hours a 
day on the march, in very rough mountainous country, but I stood it 
well enough though once or twice a temperature of about 100 in the 
shade made me wish to find a little shade to get into. I did not kill any 
antelope nor see any elk or bear. The latter I should have passed by 
unnoticed. Nor was I cornered by rattle-snakes, though plenty of 
them were rambling about on their summer pleasure trips. Nor was I 
carried away with enthusiasm by the scenery, though some of it was 
very beautiful. It does not approach Switzerland. But I enjoyed the 
life and learned a deal about my own country, and forgot all the 
history I had studied for a year. 

But this country was too civilised. There were no end of farms and 
cattle in it. I became tired of seeing them, so at last I packed up my 
blankets, took rail at Cheyenne and came on to this place, in an awful 
wilderness of alkali desert covered with low sage-brushes, without a 
spire of grass or a stick of timber except in the river courses. Here 
everything is wild enough to suit me, and I have no nearer neighbors 
than the Mormons, about one hundred and fifty miles to the west- 
ward. I am resting here luxuriously a few days before joining the party 
in the field and exploring the Uintah mountains to the south. I fish 
for trout, which I sometimes though rarely catch, and I sleep in a big 
tent all to myself. The days are hot still, but the nights make an 
average. There was about an inch of ice in the water-pails this morn- 
ing. We are some seven thousand feet up, with snow mountains be- 



214 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

hind us, and, except the military post, hardly an inhabitant. From 
here I expect to go out on an excursion of a fortnight or three weeks 
during which I shall hear nothing of mankind unless I see a bear. 
There are no mails in those parts and no means of sending letters, so I 
take the last opportunity of giving you my news. Early in September, 
however, I must be at home again, and begin grinding for ten months 
more. 

I doubt whether you would be enthusiastic about this existence, and 
I confess that for a permanence I see drawbacks in it. But here is a 
wild Indian a Shoshone just riding up to the door of my tent and 
silently watching me as I write, who probably likes the life. You 
ought to see the long-haired cuss and his get-up which is dirty enough 
and far from poetical. There are quantities about here, but luckily a 
friendly tribe. Among the Sioux I should not feel quite comfortable. 
I wear moccasins in camp of Indian make and they are rather com- 
fortable though they spoil the shape of the feet. Out here the Indians 
are still a real thing and take scalps when they get a chance. The 
whites are afraid of them and hate them with a bitter hatred, but the 
government tries to maintain the peace and this post is for that pur- 
pose. On the whole I think I shall leave this country in possession of 
the noble savage without a pang. He may wander at will in the alkali 
for all me. 

I see by the newspapers that my father is to go to Europe again. I 
don't know when nor for how long. This will not delight him greatly 
as he is very rusty, but I am glad of it. Have him down to Wenlock 
and rub him up. The publishers sent me a check for twelve dollars or 
thereabouts for your notice of Labouchere, and I send you an order on 
Baring for it. Sturgis will pay it. Send me more. I suppose there are 
letters from you at Quincy, but I shall not get them till my return. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

HARVARD COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, MASS., 
2 October, '71. 

I am mortified and disgusted to find myself abominably behindhand 
with my letters. I carry three of yours unanswered in my pocket habit- 
ually, which ought to flatter you, for I sit down about once a day to 
answer them, and as I read them over first, I am generally interrupted 
before I reach the end, and begin again afresh the day after, so that I 
am in a fair way of knowing your writings by heart. It is good of you 
to remember a banished cuss like me, for I have nothing in the way of 



THE UINTAH MOUNTAINS 215 

news or gossip to write back except about myself. And as a topic I find 
myself a mistake. Colorado and Utah were, I confess, great, and in the 
character of Robin Hood or Alan A Dale I pleased myself better than 
usual. To stand on the top of a lofty mountain and survey proudly 
the surrounding country with a haughty smile at civilisation and a 
proud consciousness of my own savage freedom, was a gratifying ex- 
perience. My last trip, in the Uintah mountains was a stunner. I 
never felt so lively and so much in the humor for enjoyment, and how 
I did eat! The venison melted away at the very glare of my voracious 
eyes. But how it was good! I have eaten much in many places, and as 
you may recollect I enjoyed an occasional meal last year in London, 
but by my faith I never in London or Paris, nor yet in Florence or 
Rome eat such meat as came from that fat buck which our Californian 
trapper brought into camp in the Uintahs. When it was eaten up and 
we could get no more, then and not till then did I turn my face east- 
ward, but even then I cast many longing lingering looks behind. But 
the fact is, the season was waning and the morning frosts were be- 
coming uncommon sharp. To sponge in a brook before sunrise with 
the thermometer at thirty and a bracing breeze blowing, tries the 
epidermis. I wanted to go out again, but duty called me home, and 
after all I do like luxury as a steady business, so I came, and here have 
I been these three weeks, editing reviews, making visits, and generally 
busier than a young cat, though I can't run after my own tail. My 
duties have all been neglected and my correspondence all postponed 
till I could get out here and settle down to work. Lo! here I ami this 
very morning I came from my father's halls at Quincy and began my 
valued instruction, feeling much more at home in my Mediaeval chair 
than I did a year ago. The machine has therefore begun its daily re- 
volutions and for nine months to come I am to go on feeding the en- 
gines. On the whole I am not unwilling. The work is not so nasty as 
some, and will be easier this year than last. I am in a hopeful state of 
mind and look forward with satisfaction upon life in general and my 
own in especial. About six months of winter will probably take this 
species of gaiety out of me pretty thoroughly, but why bother about 
unborn devils! 

My book T is out, and you will receive a copy in due course. My own 
share in the volume is as you will see, less than half and nothing new. 
Of course the thing was not expected to make a noise, being a mere re- 
print, and although of course few works except possibly some few of 

1 Chapters of Erie and other Essays. Boston, 1871. It contained three papers by Charles 
Francis Adams, Jr. 



2i6 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Aristotle and Bacon contain anything to compare with the wisdom of 
this, still I am aware that it is vain to expect proper appreciation in 
this world and I have my doubts whether I shall fare much better in 
any other. You however will support me, I am sure, in my indifference 
to vulgar opinion. 

I don't know much about my papa's movements. No more does 
anyone else. He expects to arrive in November, I believe, but all de- 
pends on future orders. I pity him if he is to pass a whole winter in 
Geneva. My mother and sister stay at home. My brother Brooks 
goes as private secretary. If you come across them, extend to them 
the sunshine of your favor. How long they are to stay I know not, but 
if they stay over the summer, it would not surprise me if my whole 
family were over there, and wandered about wildly. My own purpose 
still holds of going over next June, but I have so many projects in my 
head and am so much bothered by their interference with each other 
that I daren't count on anything. Just now the great burden on my 
mind is the necessity of taking a house and setting up an establish- 
ment of my own. My present style of life is too barbarous to endure. 
So I am looking about for a proper place, and am dreaming of furni- 
ture and upholstery. Add to this about a dozen other engrossing sub- 
j ects of thought and you can conceive my state of mind. Will Everett, 
who usually has the most disturbed existence of any known mortal, is 
nothing to me. 

I look eagerly for your future contributions to my Review. Make 
them pointed. Nothing but what is particularly sharp will attract 
attention in a Quarterly. Stand on your head and spit at some one. 
Give my love to the Baronet and his lady, and remember me to every- 
one, and write again soon. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

HARVARD COLLEGE, 23 October, 1871. 

I had already, my dear boy, spotted your second article in the 
Saturday, which I scented from afar, as I should probably have re- 
cognized the first if I had not passed it over. In return I have ordered 
my own volume to be forwarded to you; also to Sir F. Doyle and 
others. I did not send one to your father, because I thought it would 
bore him to think himself obliged to acknowledge it, but I will do so if 
you think it would give him die least pleasure. 

We have had stray English (young) men about here; Darwins, 
Longleys, and others; the gentleman and beast mixed more or less in 



'CHAPTERS OF ERIE' 217 

their composition, as usual. But I have seen little of them. They al- 
ways hunt in couples and carry each other everywhere, a habit which 
is no doubt conducive to their own amusement, but hardly to the end 
of breaking the British shell and breathing American atmosphere. 
Moreover, one letter of introduction is not meant to carry two persons. 
I protest against any such abuse of mine. Don't allow yourself to be 
put upon by any fellow who brings a letter from me, and asks if he 
may bring his friend to Wenlock with him. 

I am deep in German again, working up no end of history and think- 
ing of naught besides. This is a working month, as is November too, 
but I suppose I shall start in society again in about six weeks. Mean- 
while my father and younger brother are preparing for their cheerful 
November voyage. I suppose they will be in London about the 1st of 
December. 

I am greatly exercised in my mind about next year. I mean to take 
a house and go to housekeeping, and I mean to go to Europe and do 
some travelling, and the Lord knows how I am to do both, to say no- 
thing of my confounded Review> which is always claiming attention at 
unexpected moments. I had meant, too, to write some lectures, but 
have pretty nearly given that up as impossible. Three separate 
courses are all I can manage. Now if you would give me some of your 
spare time, I could use it to advantage. Lord! wouldn't I like a month 
in Germany at this moment. By the way, don't forget the book- 
notices! 

This is only a note passim, which means in passing. Next time I 
will write you an essay. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskefi 

CAMBRIDGE, 13 November, 1871. 

Your brief and very private epistle of October a4th lies before me. 
The honor of a notice in the Saturday is greater than I could aspire to. 1 
In fact I have thrown the volume on the world with a greater degree of 
cold-bloodedness than ten years ago I could have believed possible. 
Probably I am becoming hardened to seeing my name in the papers 
and satisfied with the amount of noise I have made in the world. Al- 
though I have to go frequently to my publishers I have never con- 
descended to ask how the book sells. I am too swell for such trifles. 
As for the papers, they have, so far as I have seen them, been highly 
civil. But I should like to see an English notice. It would be a novel 

* A notice of Chapters of Erif, in Saturday Rnicw> December 30, 1871. 



218 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

sensation. To be sure, when a man is so thoroughly aware of his own 
merits as I trust we are and always shall be, public applause or criti- 
cism must be equally indifferent to us, but still there is a certain 
prickly sensation about it still, which is not without elements of 
amusement. 

My father and brother sail tomorrow. They will stay a week or two 
in London, and I give Brooks a note to you. He is a budding law- 
student, enthusiastic about your Courts and Judges. If you can put 
him in the way of seeing that Menagerie at Lincoln's Inn and West- 
minster, you will earn his eternal gratitude. I don't know whether he 
would like three guineas worth of the St. James's Club or not, but per- 
haps he might. They hang out at Maurigy's I believe. 

As for me I am still hard at work and settled down to the discontented 
season, with a rough winter ahead. News is as scarce with me as ever. 
An occasional dinner, or an evening passed with some hospitable and 
sociable friend is the extent of my dissipation. Fearful German books 
are my daily bread, and my hair is several shades thinner than it was. 

I close up in haste in order to catch the post. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

HARVARD COLLEGE, 14 December, 1871. 

It is an age since I have had a letter from you, and it is a good 
while since I have written. In fact I believe I have not sent you a line 
since my father sailed, a month ago. But then I have been worked 
like a dog, and have barely had time to get my face washed o'morn- 
ings. Just this time of year, and this time six months, are my toughest 
labors, and I have been awfully bothered of late, not by anything very 
distressing, but by the fact that my staff of contributors suddenly 
broke down and left me sprawling. Nothing but an unexpected boost 
from Frank Palgrave, and three weeks of extra work on my own ac- 
count, have put me on my legs again. 

After all, I have only the old story to tell. I have done nothing out- 
side of the old bounds. Since my father went away, I have had to pass 
rather more time than usual at home* And one of my aunts died a 
fortnight since, which has for the moment rather put a damper on any 
wild gaiety. We have had a Russian Grand Duke here, but I kept out 
of his way, and he did not force me to leave my retirement. If work is 
the essential to happiness, I ought to be as happy as the angels of 
light, for I work like a badger. 

Palgrave tells me that you have a Sicilian expedition before you, 



'SEPTIMIUS FELTON' 219 

like a new Alcibiades, if he's the one. I congratulate you. Give my 
love to the lemons and olives. I would that I were going, for the winter 
promises a lively amount of exercise to the mercury, and I expect soon 
to see several feet of snow under my windows. I am beginning to 
hunger and thirst after a green thing of some kind, though the worst of 
the year is only coming. 

By the way! Frank Lawley 1 has taken to puffing my Review vio- 
lently, if not altogether learnedly, in the Telegraph. Have you set him 
up to it, or does it come from his own brilliant imagination? His last 
describes the N. A. R. as having "sprung into existence;" a fact which 
sounds queerly in this benighted land, where the periodical has been 
hitherto considered as a species of mediaeval relic, handed down as a 
sacred trust from the times of our remotest ancestors. He selects, too, 
for especial praise, the two poorest articles in the number. Not that I 
object. It is a mere matter of taste, and so long as the trumpet is 
blown, it matters little what the tune is. I have had it reprinted in the 
papers here, as an excellent advertisement and spread as widely as 
possible. 

21 December. Thank the Lord, I can now breathe free again! The 
Christmas holidays have practically begun; my January number is 
practically through the press; and I start for New York on the ayth 
with the agreeable purpose of having my teeth set in order for the 
year. The thermometer is down below zero again, and ears are freely 
frozen. Nice weather for a pleasure trip. I sometimes wonder how 
this intensely dry cold, or cold dry, will suit you when you pass that 
winter here which is to be the event of your future plans. Better, I 
suspect, than the awful heat of the summer. 

Still no letter from you. I begin to wonder what has happened to 
you, especially as I hoped you would have sent me your notice of Lady 
Susan. A somewhat similar experiment is now on the stocks here, 
with a posthumous publication of Hawthorne's.* The first chapter 
has already appeared, and I think it evident enough why Hawthorne 
suppressed it. 

Palgrave has given me a charming little article 3 for my coming Re- 
view, just the kind of thing I most wanted. I don't know what the 
public will say to it, as the public is not deeply trained on Amourists 
and Lyrists, but I have for once enjoyed the labor of proof-reading. 

I see by our papers that my father has returned to London after 
his Geneva expedition. If you see him, give him my love, as I have not 

* Francis Charles Lawley (1825-1901). * The unfinished story Septimius Fclton. 

* Thomas Watson, die Poet, in the January Reoicv. 



220 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

yet found time to write. I had nothing to say, so it doesn't matter. 
As one of the overseers of this venerable institution, he may be in- 
terested to know that my part of it, which is all I know about, is all 
right. 

The world is still quiet here. Society languishes. I dine about a 
good deal among friends. And have dodged a meeting of politicians at 
Washington. I see myself sinking into provincial professordom with 
anguish, and struggle bitterly, but it is fate, and Dieu dispose I 

Glance at my notice of Freeman's Historical Essays in my next 
number, if you see it. I think I have caught him out very cleverly, 
but I would like to know what you say. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

HARVARD COLLEGE, 22 January, 1872. 

I believe I have not yet answered your letter of December 8. At 
Christmas I went away to New York for ten days, and the trip com- 
pletely demoralised me. I have lived from hand to mouth ever since, 
much disgusted with the daily duties of life, and despairing of getting 
back to any regular course of existence. Since my father's absence I 
am obliged to live almost entirely in Boston with my mother and 
sister, and to come out here every day to my work. Of course I am 
drawn a good deal into society and the consequence is that I never can 
find time to do anything. If this goes on, I might as well give up pre- 
tending to teach, for I shall disgrace myself to my scholars. 

Thanks for your laudable efforts in respect to my book. I see they 
have produced a flattering notice in the Saturday, and I suppose that 
the death of my friend Fisk 1 will be of a certain value to it. At the 
same time I never expect to see that remarkable volume appreciated 
at its true value which is of course enormous. How can it be appre- 
ciated in an age which is so degraded as ours? Posterity no doubt will 
print it uniform with Bacon and Montaigne. I only hope posterity 
will not oblige me to re-read it in a future world. 

Of course I shall be glad to print anything that John Warren will 
send me, and I hope you are going to come to my rescue too, though I 
have heard nothing of your promised notice of Edward Denison. 2 

Poor Lady William! she had what I call an unfair lot in life and I 
hope future generations will invent some method of making things 

1 James Fisk. 

Letter* and other Writings of the late Edward Denison, MJ>. for Newark. Edited by Sir 
Baldwyn Leigh too. North American Review, April, 1872. 



A SOCIETY OF OLD ACQUAINTANCES 221 

smoother for women. She must have suffered most from the idea of 
leaving her daughter alone in the world. Do you ever see John Hervey 
now? I am always expecting to hear that he is married. He is just the 
man for domesticity. 

If you are like me, you will find general society a trifle monotonous. 
On making my first appearance at a great ball here the other night, I 
was bewildered. Fourteen years ago or thereabouts, I left the same 
people doing the same things, and now I found it necessary to recall 
features through all the fat and wrinkled mask that fourteen years 
had stuck on them. It was worse than Hamlet's skull. Where be your 
jibes now? They gibbered, it is true, but I felt as though I had two 
legs in the grave and they had come to insult me. This is one reason 
why I adore new acquaintances. They don't insult me by associations. 

Not that I find society unpleasant here. The women especially are 
bright, pretty, and terribly well-bred. But one is too weU known in 
such a place as this. I am sure that every idiocy I ever committed as a 
boy, is better remembered here than I remember it myself. I shudder 
to think that we can't impose on each other. Elsewhere a thin veil is 
always spread between one's inner life and the outer world, but among 
one's school-friends one's very soul seems to shiver in nakedness. I 
wish to the Lord I were wasting life in Italy with my father. To be 
sure, however, the first quarter of the year is always my discontented 
season when life seems most nearly rubbish. 

Give my love to everyone and tell Robert that I hold him dear. As 
for Palgrave I do not know whether I owe him a letter or he me. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

CAMBRIDGE, 8 February, 1872. 

I had barely put your or rather my last to you in the post, when one 
arrived from you of the 7th January, and now I have your note of the 
ijth, with the Saturday adjoined. Your puff of my poor work is judi- 
cious and handsome, better than anything else I have seen on it. As for 
the Pall Molly its man has got the wrong book, and reviewed a little pub- 
lication of my brother's in 1 869.* I never saw a stupider performance. 
He has evolved tide and author out of his own imagination or mem- 
ory. However, it probably answers an equally good purpose as an ad- 
vertisement, and as for the book itself, it is now an old story and must 
float the best way it can. I have not yet received your notice of Deni- 
son, but expect it daily. 

1 A Chapter of Erie. By James [sic] F. Adams, Jr., in Poll Mall Gazette^ January 10, 



222 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

From a retired and dignified Professor I have come out again as a 
social butterfly and waste most of my time at balls where I no longer 
dance, and in calls where I have no business to be. I still have a con- 
temptible weakness for women's society and blush^ at the follies I 
commit. Only last Saturday I made a sensation by giving a luncheon 
in my rooms here, at which I had the principal beauty of the season 
and three other buds, with my sister to preside; a party of eleven, and 
awfully fashionable and larky. They came out in the middle of a fear- 
ful snowstorm, and I administered a mellifluous mixture known as 
champagne cocktails to the young women before sitting down to 
lunch. There was a matron to do respectability who had known 
twenty summers and was married a few months since. They made an 
uproarious noise and have destroyed forever my character for dignity 
in the College. I assure you, the young women in this land are lively 
to go, and the curious thing about it is that, so far as I know, these 
Boston girls are steady as you like. In this Arcadian society sexual 
passions seem to be abolished. Whether it is so or not, I can't say, but 
I suspect both men and women are cold, and love only with great re- 
finement. How they ever reconcile themselves to the brutalities of 
marriage, I don't know. 

Your people appear to be making no end of row about the Geneva 
Arbitration. I can't for the life of me understand what it's about, but 
I suppose we shall find out. Only I certainly can't compliment Mr. 
Gladstone on his diplomacy. A worse position than he puts himself 
into if he now breaks up the Commission, I can't conceive, but I sus- 
pect that he is driven into some folly or other by one of those utterly 
imaginary alarms which every now and then run away with us poor 
idiotic nations. I recommend him to have and to teach a little more 
quiet to the excitable Bull. The utter astonishment which has seized 
our people at the goings-on of the London press, is very ludicrous. 
They don't know what the deuce has got into England and are hesi- 
tating whether to laugh or swear. 

I suppose my father must be in England at about this time, and not 
very well pleased at the course things have taken. I confess to being a 
little nervous myself, for a break-up of the Commission would throw 
our foreign affairs into the control of a pretty dangerous influence. 
And I want to go to Europe this year and be a swell. 

I am about to dine with the President of the University to meet the 
Governor of the State! x Hey! Sounds grand, I guess! And to go to a 
very select ball afterwards! Quel bonheur ffoe prqfesstuH 

1 William B* Washbum, 



ENGAGEMENT TO MARION HOOPER 223 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

HARVARD COLLEGE, 26 March, 1872. 

Your Roman epistle of the 5th inst. has just reached me. As you 
are on your wanderings, I rather doubt whether my letter written in a 
great hurry some four weeks since, with announcement of my engage- 
ment, has yet reached you. As the event became public here about 
the tenth, and created quite a lively sensation in this rural community, 
I suppose some one will have posted you up about it before you reach 
England. 

Having now had a month to quiet down, I start on another letter to 
tell you all I did not tell you before. Imprimis and to begin with, the 
young woman calls herself Marian Hooper and belongs to a sort of 
clan, as all Bostonians do. Through her mother, who is not living, she 
is half Sturgis, and Russell Sturgis of the Barings is a fourth cousin or 
thereabouts. Socially the match is supposed to be unexceptionable. 
One of my congratulatory letters further describes my "fianc6e" to 
me as "a charming blue." She is certainly not handsome; nor would 
she be quite called plain, I think. She is twenty-eight years old. She 
knows her own mind uncommon well. She does not talk very Ameri- 
can. Her manners are quiet. She reads German also Latin 
also, I fear, a little Greek, but very little. She talks garrulously, but on 
the whole pretty sensibly. She is very open to instruction. We shall 
improve her. She dresses badly. She decidedly has humor and will 
appreciate our wit. She has enough money to be quite independent. 
She rules me as only American women rule men, and I cower before 
her. Lord I how she would lash me if she read the above description of 
her! 

We sail for Liverpool on the pth July, and are to be married a week 
or so before sailing. I expect to pass a fortnight or three weeks in 
England, before going to the continent. And we shall probably pass 
the season in London next year. I have work to do there and people to 
meet. We shall probably take a house, and a cook. Will you dine 
with us? cold roast mutton at seven. 

Further information may be deferred till we meet, which will, I 
suppose, be soon. Of course I shall go to Geneva, if my people are 
there, but just now, no one knows what is to happen. I expect to see 
as much of you as you can reconcile yourself to, and if life will only 
run smooth, I trust to enjoy it still. 

Of course all this new complication has thrown a deal more in the 
way of business onto me than I had before, and what with teaching, 



224 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

editing and marrying, I am a pretty well-occupied man. I have how- 
ever found time to write to Robert and Palgrave, so that as you are 
still perambulating the continent, you will hardly have the satisfaction 
of giving them the first information of this news. Meanwhile, to stop 
my intended's mouth, who was worrying me to know if I had ever 
met a very attractive Englishwoman, I have given her your aunt's 
letters to read, with which she expresses herself greatly delighted and 
has insisted on making half her friends read the volume. 

My father has taken passage for the a4th April and in case the 
Geneva business is not stopped, he and my mother and sister will be 
in England early in May. I shall be married very quietly, without any 
company outside our immediate families, about the 1st July in the 
country. 

I am sorry that Italy seems so dull as your letter suggests. But 
things change awfully fast, and one is always in danger of being the 
last at the party. I don't want you to marry though. One of us surely 
should remain single for the good of all. 

I must stop to make love. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

HARVARD COLLEGE, 27 April, 1872. 

Your letter from Venice is welcome as possible, though I was sorry 
that mine did not reach you so as to give you the earliest news. I 
gave yours to my young woman who was greatly pleased by it, and I 
hope you will soon find out that she is worthy of our society. I suppose 
I may now consider myself as comparatively settled and tolerably 
well able to decide whether I am likely to be contented with her or not. 
As yet I see no reason to doubt it. Life glides along very smoothly. If 
it weren't that I am such a sceptical bird, I should say that we two 
were a perfectly matched pair and that we were sure to paddle along 
through life with all the fine weather and sunshine there is in it, but 
perhaps when one is in the lover's stage, it is safest not to look at the 
future. Our plans still hold. We sail on the gth July and shall be 
married in June. You are charming with your suggestions of Wen- 
lock. What do you say to coming down from London on the aoth 
July and receiving us at Wenlock? As we shall be only a short time in 
England I am afraid that unless we meet you on our way to London, 
we may not get a good healthy chance at you. I suppose the Baronet 
and his wife couldn't be got to join the lark, though it would be fun to 
see them again there* I shall have been nearly a month married by 



CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS FOR PRESIDENT 225 

that time, so that there will be no occasion for blushes, and my young 
woman is not at all an infant nor afraid of society. 

Love, however, though an amusing pastime, and exciting withal, is 
by no means the only matter of concern to me. My family sailed three 
days ago for Liverpool and are by this time nearly a thousand miles 
away. It was quite time, for a new presidential canvass is beginning 
and all the elements of discontent with the present administration 
have agreed to meet at Cincinnati next week and strike hands. The 
gathering will be tremendous and my old political friends are deep in 
it. We do not know what will be done there, but as yet my father 
commands much the most powerful support for the nomination, and 
it is not improbable that all parties may combine on him. If so, there 
will be the most exasperating election that has taken place for years, 
and one of which it is impossible to guess the result. Of course I keep 
out of it with great care, and am glad to be off to Europe. But my 
father's absence is a perfect blessing and I groaned with pleasure when 
I saw him fairly on board the Russia. 

Curiously enough I have found myself comparatively little dis- 
turbed by the infernal row which is going on. That one's father should 
be President is well enough, but it is as much as his life is worth, and I 
look with great equanimity upon the event of the choice falling on 
some other man. Meanwhile the fight makes a useful counter-irri- 
tant to love. My fiancee, like most women, is desperately ambi- 
tious and wants to be daughter-in-law to a President more than I 
want to be a President's son. So we are altogether in a chaotic con- 
dition. 

I hope you did not take my remarks in my letter qua masculine 
want of sympathy quite in earnest, as you hint in your concluding 
paragraph. I do miss and regret your mother very much, but it was 
only relatively that I questioned masculine friendship. As for losing 
each other, I doubt it. My future wife is too fond of society to lose her 
husband's friends. 

I am looking for another letter from you. Perhaps I will send you a 
young artist to teach. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

BEVERLY FARMS, 30 May, [1872.! 

Yours of May I3th came quickly. I handed it over to my fiancee 
who now appropriates my correspondence, and who is quite as appre- 
ciative a reader as I am. As I am now staying with her in her father's 



226 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

cottage on the seashore about twenty miles north of Boston, you will 
understand the date of this epistle. 

What does old Holland mean? He wrote me an impertinent letter 
about the N. A. R. notice, 1 and he cackles like an antediluvian hen. I 
thought the notice a very complimentary one indeed to him, if not to 
his book, which is a very poor book, though I didn't say so. And now 
this octogenarian duffer flies into a passion and sputters like a child of 
five. He says he doesn't know who wrote it, but I believe he lies. 

I have received 5 on your account for your notice of Denison, the 
whilk I will pay to you on our meeting. I give up the N. A. R. on my 
marriage. Whether I shall resume it or not on my return, I don't 
know. 

As you saw my people in London, there is not much to tell you. My 
father narrowly escaped being the next President, but has come out of 
the fight very sound and strong, while his successful rival is likely to 
be not only disgraced but beaten. At least this is my present impres- 
sion. If the Gods insist on making Mr. Greeley our President, I give 
up. Otherwise all is dark as Erebus. What the matter is with the 
Treaty no one will tell. 

Meanwhile I am happy as ideal lovers should be, and my marriage 
is to come off four weeks from to-day, Thursday, June 29th. If things 
go right I shall land at Liverpool on July aoth. I highly approve of 
Viollet le Due, by the bye, since you ask me. I meant to get him any- 
way, and it would be in the best keeping to have a copy from you. We 
had both read your article on this subject and had a proper apprecia- 
tion of it. The idiosyncrasy of this neighborhood appears to be coffee- 
spoons. We shall have coffee-spoons enough to run the Grand Hotel. 
So don't let us have any spoons, please. We can do spooning enough 
without them. 

I shall see you so soon now that I will not discuss your Parliamen- 
tary affairs till I can do it in talk. Both you and Robert are on my 
mind. I hope to see you both leading the House at the same time. I 
have no such ambition about Congress, but perhaps I may catch it 
from you. 

Robert has written me a charming long letter, which, like the rest 
of my correspondence, was confiscated by my young woman and much 
pleased her. By the way, she desires me to say to you that she feds 
very warmly your kindness in asking us to Wenlock, and that all I 
said about her accomplishments is a He. This, I lament to confess, is 

1 Recollections of Past Ufa By Sir Henry Holland, Bart. The notice is in the North American 
Review, April, 1870. 



THE FUTURE WIFE 227 

the term she used. In fact it is rather droll to examine women's minds. 
They are a queer mixture of odds and ends, poorly mastered and 
utterly unconnected. But to a man they are perhaps all the more at- 
tractive on that account. My young female has a very active and 
quick mind and has run over many things, but she really knows noth- 
ing well, and laughs at the idea of being thought a blue. She commis- 
sions me to tell you that she would add a few lines to this letter, but 
unfortunately she is unable to spell. I think you will like her, not for 
beauty, for she is certainly not beautiful, and her features are much 
too prominent; but for intelligence and sympathy, which are what 
hold me. She is quite ready to like you indefinitely, and as she is fond 
of society and amusement, I do not fear her separating me from my 
friends. 

Bastal you will after all be quite able to judge for yourself. I am at 
present learning to photograph, for we mean to go up the Nile next 
winter and I want to carry a photographic apparatus with me. Mean- 
while if we come to Wenlock on our way up (and both of us will be 
most delighted to stop there) I want you to take us over to Maw's 
works to see what he is doing. Further, I shall get you to order me 
some clothes in London, as I want to be delayed there as short a time 
as possible. Finally I want to have you gravely consider whether we 
could find a little house in London at a reasonable rent, for the spring 
and summer of next year. If anything human could be discovered, 
within my means, I would like to go in for it. Robert writes that he 
means to be up also. I am not eager about society, but have work to 
do, and feel more at home in London than in any other great city. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

CAMBRIDGE, 2 June, 1870. 

Your letter of May i6th arrived safely a few days since and gave 
me the pleasant sensation of thinking that I may after all have done 
some good at College; if you ever try it, you will know how very 
doubtfiil a teacher feds of his own success, and how much a bit of 
encouragement does for him. Poor Simpson's 1 death, too, seemed 
utterly disheartening. What is the use of training up the best human 
material only to die at the start! 

* Michael Henry Simpson (H.U. 1871). He was one of the first scholars in his class, a young 
man of great ability, strong character both mentally and morally; much valued by Henry 
Adams whose coarse he had taken at Cambridge. He died of typhoid fever at Florence in the 
spring of 1872. H. C L. 



228 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

There is only one way to look at life, and that is the practical way... 
Keep clear of mere sentiment whenever you have to decide a practical 
question. Sentiment is very attractive and I like it as well as most 
people, but nothing in the way of action is worth much which is not 
practically sound. 

The question is whether the historico-literary line is practically 
worth following, not whether it will amuse or improve you. Can you 
make it pay? either in money, reputation, or any other solid value. 

Now if you will think for a moment of the most respectable and 
respected products of our town of Boston, I think you will see at once 
that this profession does pay. No one has done better and won more 
in any business or pursuit, than has been acquired by men like Pres- 
cott, Motley, Frank Parkman, Bancroft, and so on in historical 
writing; none of them men of extraordinary gifts, or who would have 
been likely to do very much in the world if they had chosen differently. 
What they did can be done by others. 

Further, there is a great opening here at this time. Boston is run- 
ning dry of literary authorities. Any one who has the ability can en- 
throne himself here as a species of literary lion with ease, for there is no 
rival to contest the throne. With it, comes social dignity, European 
reputation, and a foreign mission to close. 

To do it, requires patient study, long labor, and perseverance that 
knows no limit. The Germans have these qualities beyond all other 
races. Learn to appreciate and to use the German historical method, 
and your style can be elaborated at leisure. I should think you would 
do this here. 

I shall be in London, I hope, on'the ist August, to be heard of at 
Barings'. If we are there together, we will have a dinner and talk it 
over. Remember me to your wife. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

BEVERLY FARMS, 23* June, '72. 

One more letter before I am swung off. Here I am, within four days 
of my execution, gay as a lark and looking forward with the greatest 
pleasure to seeing you again. I suppose my people told you what man- 
ner of ceremony I am to have. For once I am to carry out the idea of 
my most cherished prejudices, and have a wedding which is absolutely 
private. It is to be performed here in my bride's house, at noon. The 
clergyman is a very jolly young fellow of our set, intimate with me and 
my fiancee, and ready to do all we wish in the way of cutting down the 



WEDDING PLANS 229 



service. Only brothers and sisters are to be present, eight in all, besides 
the papa, so that the whole party will be only ten or eleven. And I 
start off at once after the breakfast to go down to a little seaside place 
called Cotuit, where one of my future uncles has a country house 
which he has lent to us. Here we remain till we sail on the gth. Of 
course nothing could be quieter than all this, and unless we were both 
of us persons of a certain age and understood to be bent on doing 
things as we please, we should not have so easy a time of it. Luckily 
for us, no one dares interfere. Relatives submit like lambs to being 
left at home, and we are treated beautifully by every one. When you 
know my young woman, you will understand why the world thinks we 
must be allowed to do what we think best. From having had no 
mother to take responsibility off her shoulders, she has grown up to 
look after herself and has a certain vein of personality which ap- 
proaches eccentricity. This is very attractive to me, but then I am 
absurdly in love, and I won't guaranty your liking it. You must judge 
for yourself. You need not be afraid of her coming between me and 
my friends, for I believe she likes agreeable men as much as I do. 

The world, for all that I know, may think it peculiar that I should 
calmly come down here and live with my fiancee for a month before 
our marriage. But my father-in-law, 1 who was educated as a physician 
and only gave up his profession because he was rich enough not to care 
for the income, is a sensible man in such matters, and a good deal of a 
slave to his two daughters, the elder of whom, a few years ago, married 
a great ally of mine, Professor Gurney, Dean of the University and my 
predecessor as editor of the North American Review. Among us we 
have a good deal our own way, and the Doctor interferes as little in his 
children's affairs as I can conceive possible.... 

I have not yet decided what hotel to go to in London. I wish there 
were a good one on one of the Parks, but Piccadilly is very noisy and 
Brook St. not much better, and as for Dover Street and Grafton, they 
are hopelessly gloomy. 

You must write me a note to Liverpool to tell me whether you will be 
at Wenlock. I expect to arrive in Liverpool Friday night if we have a 
good passage; Saturday or even Sunday if the passage is bad. If we 
could get to Wenlock to pass Sunday with you, my wildest wish would 
be gratified. But this I hardly expect. You had better address your 
letter to the Adelphi (it is the Adelphi, is it not?) Hotel at Liverpool. 
If you can't be at Wenlock, I shall come up to London at once. 

We are to have a pleasant party on the Siberia. My confrere, James 

* Edward William Hooper. 



230 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Russell Lowell and his wi/e, and Professor Francis Parkman, our best 
American historian and a very agreeable man, are on board. We are all 
Professors and friends, and I hope we shall enjoy our voyage. I have 
taken two staterooms, on deck, with windows and every luxury that 
the effeminate Sybarite could desire. 

As Robert wants to know about our wedding, you can impart this 
letter to him with my blessing. I fear I shall not see him in England 
this time if he is down at Scarborough, but I entertain affection for 
him all the same. Of course you will tell the rest of your family all they 
want to know about me, and give my tender regards to Major General 
Field Marshal Frank Doyle. 



VII 
A EUROPEAN YEAR 

1872-1873 
To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

THOMAS'S HOTEL, August i, 1872. 

MY BELOVED C. G. M. G., I scribble you a line late at night for 
fear of not having another chance before marching. We have had a 
very busy and so far a successful week. Your father sent for us to dine 
with him on Monday which we did, and he gave us a very excellent 
dinner, with the Stopford Brookes, Palgraves and Mr. C. Wynne. 
The latter by the way called at once. I have tried and hope to return 
it before leaving, but if I am unable to do it, will you tell him that I 
shall return it at once next Spring when I hope to find him in town. 
Palgrave being solitary, dined with me the next day. Everyone else is 
out of town. Your father goes tomorrow. We start on Saturday. We 
went down to Greenwich yesterday to dine and go to the Sturgis's at 
Leatherhead tomorrow. Hankey writes to ask me to Tunbridge, but 
I can't go! These are all our festivities. Of course I have been too 
busy to run after anyone but shopkeepers. 

My wife didn't in the least know Lawrence's portrait of me, which 
pained your father much. The latter, by the way, looks very well and 
was particularly agreeable. We were on our way to call on him this 
afternoon when we met him in the street and took our leave. 

No news known to me. Frank Doyle came to see us, and this even- 
ing sends me a wedding present which really touched me, for I had not 
supposed he would dream of such an act. Robert writes a charming 
letter from his palace by the sea, but without news. My family write 
pleasantly from Geneva, but also no news. In short, I am in London 
in August. 

Purchases are all now made or in fair way, and I hope to be in Brus- 
sels on Sunday. Write to me to the Barings Bros. & Co., 8 Bishops- 
gate Street Within, for the present, or to Lombard Odier & Co., 
Geneva, if you don't write for a week or two. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

BERNE, 29 August, 1870. 

Many thanks for your letter which came to me the other day at 
Geneva where I was doing arbitration. After leaving England I went 



232 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

to Holland and came up the Rhine. At Bonn I received a letter an- 
nouncing that the arbitration would probably be all over before I ar- 
rived unless I were quick about it. So I postponed Berlin and came 
straight up the Rhine, reaching Geneva just in time to see all there was 
to look at. 

I suppose the results of the arbitration will be known to all mankind 
by the time this letter reaches you. So far as I can understand, the 
tribunal has condemned England to pay damages on three ships: the 
Alabama^ the Florida and the Shenandoah. The amount of the actual 
money damages is not yet fixed. I rather imagine it will not much 
exceed three millions sterling. As for the legal value of the decisions, 
I know very little, but I believe the Court was unanimous in almost all 
its votes, and went by a majority of four to one on the rest. 

You can tell better than I how the result is likely to be received in 
England. I think on the whole you get off cheaply, considering every- 
thing, and yet I am inclined to think that we have got nearly, though 
not quite, all we could lay any reasonable claim to. I am curious to 
see how my country people will feel about the result, and whether it 
will affect the Presidential election. 

England was not happy in some ways. I think Cockburn r turned out 
rather poorly as a diplomate. His temper is so bad and his character if 
possible so much worse than his temper, that he played throughout 
into our hands. He browbeat his colleagues on the bench as if they 
were counsel in his own court, and got awfully snubbed for it, besides 
prejudicing his cause. I don't believe that as an actual matter of fact 
the result would have been different if a better man had been sent in 
his place, but I've no doubt that he made it much easier for the three 
arbitrators who were to decide, to go against him. 

Sir Roundell 3 has had the gout badly and looks poorly. All the men, 
young and old, who have been here, have been tremendously worked 
and swear diabolically. Lady Laura 3 and her two daughters are the 
only ladies belonging to the British family here. She was very gracious 
and friendly with me and my wife, but the English had a nasty custom 
of all living and feeding together in a hotel, so that they can do no 
entertaining and appear horribly exclusive, which is another diplo- 
matic blunder. What social influence there has been in the matter, has 
been on our side and its effects were visible enough, I thought, though 

1 Sir Alexander James Edmund Cockburn (1802-1880), lord chief justice of England, who re- 
presented the British Government at Geneva under the treaty of Washington. 
a Sir Roondell Palmer, Earl of Selborne (1812-1895), of counsel for Great Britain. 
* Lady Laura Waldegrave, daughter of William, eighth Earl Waldegrave. 



LORD POLLINGTON IN SWITZERLAND 233 

of course not tangible. I doubt whether Cockburn has a single real 
friend here, British or foreign. Lord Tenterden 1 on the other hand is 
popular, and Lady Laura works hard. 

Lord Houghton made his appearance of course, looking much as 
usual, only rather thinner and paler. He dined with us and talked as 
fast as ever, but seemed to have little to say* I don't think I succeeded 
in picking anything out of him, except a very funny story that Living- 
stone was living in the holy bonds of concubinage with the Queen of 
Ujiji and did not want to have it known, which was the reason why 
nothing was heard from him. 

As I was coming from Basle a fortnight ago, who should enter the 
train and sit down by my side in mild unconsciousness, but his Lord- 
ship of Pollington! I did not at first recognise him, but on his drawing 
out a copy of the Times and a pair of scissors, and proceeding to cut 
out a leading article on his own election, I ventured to call him by his 
name and daim acquaintance. He was very gracious and rather 
madder than ever; so mad, in fact, as to put into my hands a bundle of 
newspaper extracts on his election, with which I beguiled an hour of 
time, and gained a very thorough conviction that he had made a 
terrible display of himself. He seemed rather pleased with himself and 
his career, and not a bit abashed about his blunders. Houghton told 
me that Childers 2 claimed to have been very forbearing in reading only 
one letter, for Polly had written him two more; and Poll himself re- 
marked to me that if they wanted it, he could produce a letter he had 
written at the same time in an opposite sense, to the conservative 
whip ! He seems to have only a very indistinct notion of what sanity is. 

I am now on my way to Berlin where I hope to arrive as soon as the 
Emperors are gone, for it is useless to try to get in there next week* 
After this visit is over, I turn resolutely towards Italy and open my 
winter campaign. We have bought nothing as yet, and I will add that 
we have seen nothing that we could have bought without ruin. The 
prices are colossal. Every bit of wood is 20. But I am not anxious to 
buy things this year as I can do nothing with them. My address is the 
Barings in London. My wife sends all sorts of pleasant remembrances 
and encloses a note to forward. 

1 Charles Stuart Aubrey Abbott, third Lord Tenterden (1834-1882), who had assisted in pre- 
paring the case of Great Britain, 
Hugh Culling Eaidley Childers (1827-1896). 



234 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

FLORENCE, 5 November, 1872. 

Except a short scrawl from you I have now heard nothing for an age. 
No one writes to me, and if it weren't that people occasionally write 
letters to my wife, I should think the world had cast me out. As I am 
now on the point of starting for the east, I am going to try whether I 
can send you a reminder of my existence first, especially as I am in 
despair of hearing from you without it. Robert owes me two letters, 
but I suppose he is excused from writing by the pressure of his Parlia- 
mentary duties. Give him my love. 

I have quite forgotten where I last wrote from. Geneva or Berlin? 
At all events I have pranced over half Europe and have passed more 
than a month in Italy. At Berlin I had the luck to find our minister, 
Mr. Bancroft, who is a connection of my wife's and was extremely 
civil. I met Mommsen and Curtius at dinner at his house, and did the 
historians very satisfactorily. I succeeded easily in carrying out my 
other schemes there, and getting a small library of books which I carry 
about with me like a travelling menagerie. But Berlin was so disagree- 
able that we hurried away as soon as we could, and after a few days 
passed at Lucerne, crossed the St. Gotthard to Lugano where we 
stayed a week and then moved over to Cadenabbia. Then the rains 
began, and we were jovially amused. For a month it rained pretty 
much all the time. You have seen the newspapers and know what the 
results have been* The lake rose till I expected to be floated up to the 
top of Mt. Blanc like a modern Noah, but I stuck to Cadenabbia vig- 
orously. What could one do? I wanted to go to Venice, but it seemed 
shameful to take Venice in such a season. We stayed a fortnight at 
Cadenabbia and then moved to Venice where we remained ten days, 
three of which were fine. Then we came on here, and the new moon 
seems to have brought better weather. It is clear and cold and Flor- 
ence is very pretty. 

In all my wanderings I have met scarcely anyone but a few Amer- 
icans. At Venice indeed we met rather an attractive young couple 
with whom we became quite intimate, and on parting exchanged 
names. The youth called himself Lord Kingston; an impecunious Irish 
Earl, I suppose. With that exception we have seen only bores of the 
travelling Anglo-Saxon type. Florence is still empty and the swells are 
at their Villegiatura, but of course one always finds stray acquaintances 
enough at a place like this. We are not violent sightseers and take 
things easily, so that I really can't say whether the place has anything 



THE NILE 235 



new in it, but as I have come to the conclusion that the effort of buy- 
ing anything is too great for our weak minds, I have given up even 
looking into shops* The only thing I have done in that way has been 
to visit Hahnel in Dresden and order some bronzes. 

We sail for Alexandria on the 15 th and I hope to be fairly afloat for 
the winter by the first December. What is to come afterwards I do not 
know, and am utterly in the dark as to the time of our return to Lon- 
don. There is trouble in our house-arrangements for Boston, as our 
original plan seems likely to break down, which may oblige us to go 
home early. Or we may be slower than I calculated, on our journey 
northwards, for it is hard to get clear of Italy and Paris. Altogether I 
prefer to shut my eyes and trust to chance which is pretty sure to drift 
us to London sooner or later. But I am obliged to confess that the 
London house seems very vague. 

My wife sends her fond regards. She is wrestling with clothes and 
thus far gets the worst of it. I am rejoiced to think that on the Nile 
one can go nearer the costume of our original parents. My love to all 
yours. Write soon. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

LUXOR, 2 January, 1873. 

I received your letter of November 3d just as I was leaving Cairo, 
and as I have been busily reading myself, I delayed answering till I 
knew what I had to say. So far as I can see, you are acting on such 
good advice and working in such good company that I can add very 
little to your means of getting ahead. Perhaps to a critical eye3 the 
field you have entered may seem rather wide. I doubt whether a man 
can profitably spread his reading over a very large range unless he has 
some definite object clearly fixed in his head. My wish is to lead you 
gradually up to your definite object, but what it must be will depend 
on the bent of your own tastes. I can only tell you the style of thing 
that seems to me best. 

The first step seems to me to be to familiarise one's mind with 
thoroughly good work, to master the scientific method, and to adopt 
the rigid principle of subordinating everything to perfect thoroughness 
of study. I have therefore advised your learning German, because I 
think the German method so sound. I am glad you are reading Sohrn. 1 
But Sohm's work is on too large a scale to imitate. I would like to have 
you take up some of the smaller works, which have broken the way for 

1 Rudolph Sohm (1841- > 



236 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

him. Read as most kin to your interests, von Maurer's Einleitung? 
Thudichum's Gau und Markverfassung* Brunner's Entstehung der 
Schwurgerichte.* Study these, not merely for their matter but as 
literary work. See how the men go at it, and then take an English 
work, Mayne if you like, or Freeman, and see how they reach their 
results. I do not mean to set up the Germans as exclusive models at 
all. But they have the great merit of a very high standard of know- 
ledge. An ignorant, or a superficial work could hardly come from any 
distinguished German student. I can't say the same for other coun- 
tries. Great as is Mr. Freeman's parade of knowledge, he has never 
written anything really solid, and Mr. or rather Sir Henry 
Mayne's book is precisely such a one as I like to give to students to 
admire and to criticise. I know of no writer who generalises more 
brilliantly. But everyone of his generalisations requires a lifetime of 
work to prove it. 

I propose no more to the fellows who are kind enough to think my 
teaching worth their listening to those of them I mean who take 
the thing in the spirit I offer it in than to teach them how to do their 
work. The College chose to make me Professor of History I don't 
know why, for I knew no more history than my neighbors. And it 
pitchforked me into mediaeval history, of which I knew nothing. But 
it makes little difference what one teaches; the great thing is to train 
scholars for work, and for that purpose there is no better field than 
mediaeval history to future historians. The mere wish to give a prac- 
tical turn to my men has almost necessarily led me to give a strong 
legal bent to the study. Starting from this point, I found that 
at the outset the Family was the centre of early law. To study the 
Family therefore in its different relations, was die natural course to 
follow. From this point we must follow down the different lines of 
development. The organisation of the Family, the law of inheritance, 
of testaments, of land tenure, of evidence and legal procedure, the 
relations of the Family to the community, in its different forms of 
village, county and state, as well as many other parallel lines of study 
lay open before me and I have only to indicate them to true students 
whether of law or of history, and let them go to work and develop 
them. Of course I don't pretend to have mastered these subjects 
myself. No one has yet done so. But men like you and Ames 4 can win 

1 Gcorg Ludwig von Maurer (1790-1 872), Einkitung zur Geschichte der Mark-, Hof-> Dorf-, 



a Friedrich Wolfgang Karl Thudichum (1831-1881). 

s Heinrich Brunner (1840-1915). 4 James Barr Ames (1846-1910). 



ADVICE TO H. C. LODGE FROM LUXOR 237 

a reputation by following up any one line of investigation, and the oc- 
cupation is as good as mathematics for the logical faculty, while it 
leads ultimately to all the nearer subjects of historical study. 

Of course our own law and institutions are what we aim at, and we 
only take German institutions so far as they throw light on English 
affairs. I think you would do well to keep this in mind and to take 
some special line of work so soon as you have become tolerably ac- 
quainted with the general bearings of things. Of course you will choose 
whatever you think best suits your tastes. It does not follow that 
preliminary legal reading is to make you a historian of law, any more 
than preliminary grammar reading would result in making you a 
historian of philology. It matters very little what line you take pro- 
vided you can catch the tail of an idea to develope with solid reasoning 
and thorough knowledge. America or Europe, our own century or 
prehistoric time, are all alike to the historian if he can only find out 
what men are and have been driving at, consciously or unconsciously. 
So much is this the case that I myself am now strongly impelled to 
write an Essay on Egyptian Law, for I have a sort of notion that I 
could draw out of that queer subject some rather surprising deduc- 
tions, perhaps I could fix a legal landmark in history, but I have too 
much on my hands and must let the Cheopses and the Ramses alone. 

The Nile is not a bad place for study, and I have run through a 
library of books here, I want to write to Ames, but until I have got 
some sort of order into my ideas I shall have nothing to say. But I 
would be very glad to have a line from him to know how he gets on 
and whether he has struck any new vein. There are many points I 
want to discuss with him but they will keep. Meanwhile pray con- 
tinue to write to me how things are going with you and at Cambridge. 
Send for a copy of Schmid's Gtsetze der Angel-Sachsen\ it may be useful 
to you next year, as I want to go hard to early English law. I have got 
to learn to read Anglo-Saxon, but that is too much to expect from you 
or anyone not obliged to do it. 

Pray give my best regards to your wife. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

CAIRO, 4 March, 1873. 

On going to my banker's yesterday morning for the first time since 
my return down the river, your telegram of February igth was put 
into my hand. The bankers had not been willing to forward it so that 
apparently I should never have known its existence unless I had hap- 



238 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

pened to go in person to the office* It astonished and perplexed me not 
a little, but I sent an answer off at once, and it was not until some hours 
afterwards that my wife, happening to take up a copy of the Pall Mall 
Budget, was instantly struck by the announcement of your father's 
death. 

I cannot say that I was surprised at this sudden blow, for, although 
your last letter gave no reason to expect it at once, I had long thought 
your father's health in a very poor condition and his mode of life very 
far from likely to strengthen it. But though not surprised, and indeed 
partly prepared for it by the telegram, I felt as much shocked as one 
must feel at the death of a person whom I not only respected so much 
as I did your father, but to whom I was under so many personal obli- 
gations. After some fifteen years of knocking about the world, in every 
city and nearly every wilderness between Salt Lake City and the 
Second Cataract of the Nile, I believe I must frankly confess that 
among all my experience with human nature, the uniform and ex- 
traordinary kindness shown me by your father and mother has been 
the rarest and the most amiable phenomenon, and that, too, in a 
world the kindness and cordiality of which is a matter of never-ending 
surprise to me. To go back to London now, is becoming a rather 
doubtful pleasure. I tremble to think what it may become in five years 
more at the same rate. But you and I are extraordinarily unlucky, for 
our friendship seems to revel in gravestones and terrors. Few persons, 
I fancy, whose intimacy was only ten years old, could look back over 
so much common association in death and trial. I shall miss your 
father greatly. His judgment, his wit, his large experience among 
men and knowledge of books, were just what were peculiarly valuable 
and agreeable to me, and I have so few friends of the kind that I can 
ill afford the loss. I am anxious too to hear from you the particulars of 
his last illness, for I fear it may have come rather severely on you, and 
even without it, you would have quite care enough thrown on you 
by the necessity of attending to the details of business consequent 
on his death. I suppose these alone will tie you down to England this 
Spring, otherwise I should hope that you might have run over to the 
continent for a time so that we could have seen you in Italy or in 
Paris. 

And now to reply to your very kind offer of your house. We could 
not accept it, tempting as it was, under any circumstances, for the 
plain and, as I think, final reason that nothing ought to justify anyone, 
especially married people, in quartering themselves on their friends. 
I would not do it with my own brothers or father. One cannot be too 



UP THE NILE 239 



delicate in such matters. The man who ventures to make an indefinite 
settlement on a friend, deserves to lose that friend, and in fact is run- 
ning very rapidly towards that result, at least when he brings wife and 
maid with him. This alone was enough to decide me at once so far as 
accepting your offer was concerned. Perhaps other reasons would 
have been equally decisive if there had been any possibility of hesitat- 
ing on this one. For our own movements are too uncertain and my 
objects too special to let me make a hotel of your house in the way you 
so kindly offer. All this, however, was quite apart from any connec- 
tion with your mourning, which, when I learned it, only confirmed my 
opinion. 

What we shall in fact end in doing, is still a mystery to me. I do 
not yet know when I shall get to Paris, and it is pretty certain that 
I shall not get off with less than a month there, for my wife's wardrobe 
is in the condition which you can imagine after some nine months of 
steady traveling. We quit Egypt on the tenth, at the same time, I 
suppose, with this letter, so that I shall be a thousand miles nearer you 
by the time you receive it. My address is to the Barings in London. 

As for news of our past movements, I will give you all I can. From 
Thebes we sailed up to Assouan where we arrived about the seventh 
or eighth of January, and then went up the cataract to Philae where 
we lay a week. Philae is the spot on earth where winter is a pleasure. 
But there was a confounded sanitary cordon established just above 
Philae to keep off the cholera, and we were not allowed to go further. 
So we lay at the island of Philae a week, and I photographed and 
wandered about the hills, and lazed, and found the place perfect. 
Just as we were about to turn, however, and come down the river, 
Lord Harrowby's r boats arrived, and such a pressure was put on the 
Khedive to let them pass, that the cordon was raised and we at once 
darted off into Nubia. If I ever come to the Nile again, I shall go as 
far as Thebes on a steamer or by rail, and pass the winter in Nubia. 
The climate and the scenery are far away the most perfect we have 
met, though you would find it rather warm, perhaps, seeing that the 
thermometer keeps pretty steadily in the seventies and eighties except 
when it occasionally rises into the nineties. We were a week going up 
to Aboo Simbel, which is forty miles below the second cataract. I 
enclose you my photograph of Aboo Simbel, not because it is the best 
I have taken, but because it is the grandest subject, and none of the 
professional photographs for sale here have at all caught its spirit. 
I should not say this if I thought the credit of selecting the point of 

1 Dudley Ryder, second Ear! of Harrowby (1798-1882). 



240 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

view belonged to me, but as this in fact belongs to a Mr. Ward, an 
American friend of ours with bankerial and artistic tastes, whose 
dahabieh has been our companion, I do not hesitate to say that my 
photograph is worth half a dozen of any I have yet met. The colossus 
is sixty odd feet high. As a sight, there is nothing I have seen in the 
world equal to this temple, and on coming to it, I sat down mildly and 
forgave my poor old Ramses all his architectural sins in Egypt. 

Then we turned our faces homewards. One sails up the Nile, but 
one floats down, and though floating is a rather ignominious process, 
it is quicker than sailing. My boat was a poor sailer, but tremendous 
on floating, and accordingly we had everything our own way. I agree 
that for one week, from Luxor to Sioot [Assiut], the weather was dia- 
bolic. The wind blew a tempest every day, making me quite seasick, 
and shutting us up in our cabins. My thermometer fell from 92 at 
noon on the I5th February, to 40 at sunrise on the igth, and though 
the change did us no harm, it was not pleasant to feel to one who hates 
being " braced," as I do. We reached Cairo again on the evening of 
March 2d, along with three or four other boats which had been more 
or less companions on the river, among others the excellent but amus- 
ing Monteiths, with their Holy Virgin on one mast and their St. 
Joseph on the other, their Father Scully with his brogue, and their 
homeopathic pills. So the next morning everybody came up to 
Shepheard's Hotel, and began a week of Cairo together. 

Egypt, therefore, is, so far as we are concerned, a thing of the 
past, and I can consider myself a judge in matters concerning it. It 
is a horribly expensive place. I think I should estimate my expenses, 
including purchases, at something like two hundred pounds a month, 
for the four months of our absence from Europe; a sum that Gifford 
Palgrave would laugh at, but then Gifford Palgrave knows the East, 
and probably is not so squeamish as women are. On the other hand, 
I never knew before what could be done in the way of luxury in travel- 
ing. And the journey alone is well worth the money. 

Since I began this letter I have received a package which went up 
to Luxor and followed me down again. It contained your two notes, 
which were the proper precursors of the telegram. It was immensely 
kind of you to think of me in all your cares, and I can't tell you how 
much I feel about it. If I don't accept your offer of unlimited hos- 
pitality, it isn't because I don't appreciate the kindness, but simply 
because I am sure you will get more thorough satisfaction out of us if 
you are not loaded down with the care of our caravan. We hope to 
tumble across the channel early in May, and we must sail for home 



NAPLES AND ROME 241 

about the aoth July, unless Heaven furnishes us a house in Boston 
without consulting us. So I count on two clear months in England, 
and a very lively campaign among the shops. 

Talking of shops, we have had great fun here among them. Shop- 
ping in Cairo is a pursuit by itself. But this is over, and we start to- 
morrow for Alexandria and Brindisi. 

8 March. 

NAPLES, 15 March. Here we are all right, after a pleasant voyage. 
His awkward Grace the Duke of Sutherland 1 was on board, very 
friendly, and showed me this morning a private telegram just received 
announcing Gladstone's resignation. I hope you will now get your 
chance. 



To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

HOTEL COSTANZI, ROME, 
28 March, 1873. 

Your letter of the 23d has just arrived and I can't help sitting down 
to answer it directly. I am sorry for more than one reason not to be in 
London. Perhaps we could brighten up your low hours a little if we 
were there. You must find your position solitary as well as melancholy 
and laborious. I am not at all surprised to hear that you are not well, 
and in that particular we can sympathise with you, if not in low spirits. 
The Italian air has let our systems down by the run, and both my wife 
and I are a great deal nearer a Roman fever than I like to confess. I 
have called in a doctor and shut off every amusement, so that we are 
now avowed invalids, confined to our rooms until further orders. And 
I hope that as I have lost no time, we may escape with the fright. Your 
neuralgia comes also, I suppose, from a low system. The main dif- 
ference is that our spirits are gay enough, as we have nothing except in- 
disposition to depress them. Meanwhile the weather is delightful but 
awfully relaxing, and I long to see the Alps. 

Your offer about Norfolk Street is so tempting that I sincerely trust 
the house is already let, so that I could not take it if I would. To do so 
would amount simply to taking five or six hundred pounds out of your 
pocket, in order that I might have a few weeks* lodging, which is 
hardly my idea of social propriety. Furthermore I can only hope to 
reach London by the ist May, and if we are going to break down here 
the Lord only knows what is before us. So I stick to my opinion about 

1 George Granville Leverson-Gower (1786-1861). 



242 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

the house and think very modest lodgings will have to serve our turn 
after all. But we fully appreciate the offer, and if my original plan had 
not broken down as to the duration of our English visit, I think I 
should go to your agent and make a quiet offer for the house behind 
your back. As it is, I think we shall be hardly up to keeping house for 
two months only. 

I am glad you have taken up your father's papers. They should be 
well worth arranging and publishing within the limits of a not too 
ponderous book which it would be a pleasure to write, especially as the 
author would necessarily be brought into contact with a good many 
prominent persons now living. But perhaps it is still too early to think 
of such a work. 

We have been busy with very different ideas. Naples, barring 
malaria > was very fascinating much more so to me than Rome. My 
wife and I had travelled about Europe last year and turned up our 
noses rather superciliously at the contents of the shops. But at Naples 
we came to grief, and were shipwrecked on Greek terra-cottas to begin 
with, after which we fell into no end of other temptations. I confess 
that the terra-cotta vases struck me as gems in their way, and quite 
equal to other Greek work. I will show you ours when we reach Lon- 
don and if your soul is not poisoned by envy, I shall be sorry for it. 
But we were foolish enough to let an exquisite little porcelain figure, 
Capo di Monte of Carlo Terzo, escape us, and some Abruzzi porcelain 
which was very nice. The rest of our plunder, such as it is, you will see. 
We are on the highroad to ruin. But then I find nothing in Rome 
worth getting, as we do not go deeply into Castellani's work. Indeed 
I went the other day to the studio of Fortuni, 1 the youthful Spaniard 
whose pictures are supposed to have created a new inspiration in 
Spanish art and to recall the glories of Murillo or Lord knows who. As 
usual I found that the pictures were not exactly my notion of good 
painting, but on the other hand Fortunes studio is famous even among 
Roman studios, since the young vaurien, for whose pictures on the 
easels Goupil offered 18,000 not long since, works when he will, but 
buys without limit. So his studio is crammed with artistic rubbish 
which I examined without finding much to envy and with no wish to 
exchange. Possibly, however, Deck may do for me in Paris. Him I 
dread. But nothing I have yet seen in shops seems to me so well worth 
buying as a good specimen of Greek terra-cotta. Wait till you see mine. 

The truth is that we had a charming week at Naples which was 
almost not quite worth a Naples fever. We burrowed in the 

1 Mariano Fortuny y Carbo (1839-1874). 



THE REAL COLOR OF LIFE 243 

depths of the place with a good healthy energy of enjoyment such as 
grows only under the sun of the East. We brought with us from Nubia 
a little of the real color of life, which fades soon enough in our watery 
and washy sitz-baths of countries, but is worth feeling while it lasts. 
I am sorry to have come to the end of it so soon, for Rome this after- 
noon looks as though I could get a deal of life out of it not like the 
gay, warm life of Cairo but still rich and full. But my legs are weak 
and between malaria and calomel very little except good spirits is left 
me to travel on. 

You ask about our plans. My present plan is to be in Paris between 
the 1 5th April and May ist and if that time is enough for my wife's 
requirements there, we shall at once scuttle over to London and begin 
on our work there; which work consists for me in trying to understand 
some early English history, and for my wife in furnishing her house. If 
you can get over to Paris, do come. We will ransack all the bric-a- 
brac shops and buy nothing unless we like it, and we will dine at all 
the restaurants and you shall order the dinner. If you dread milliners 
too much, come over about the Q-5th when we shall have solved most 
of the miUinerial problems, and try only a week of it. After which we 
can go back together. 

I don't know who is in Rome, and have made no calls, but people as 
usual are very civil and I suppose we should find ourselves in the 
ordinary sluiceway of dinners if we could go to them. But the Doctor 
forbids, and we dine today on chicken-broth and beef-steak on the 
fourth story of Costanzi's. The fare is mild and the company limited 
to a tte-a-tte, but you remember the dinner of herbs. This sounds 
perhaps a little spoony, but is only so in appearance. In reality, you 
know, there are no herbs. The doctor forbids them. So the comparison 
fails. 

Give my love to Robert. Poor boy! Fm sorry his parliamentary 
duties wear on him so heavily that he can't write me a line, but I can 
feel for him. Also my love to all yours. We hope to see them all soon. 
My wife says my spirits need cheering and you must come over to help 
her do it. 



To Charles MiZnes Gaskell 



DE LA PLACE DU PALAIS ROYAL, 
PARIS, 22 April, 1873, 

I have been here a week and very busy, hoping every day to be able 
to fix the time of our coming to London and write you accordingly. 



244 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

But as yet I can only say that I hope to get away within a fortnight. 
We shall probably go to Maurigy's for a few days until we can find 
apartments. 

Yours of the 8th and Robert's of the 12th arrived here in a happy 
condition. But you are both of you becoming so political that I ex- 
pect to be obliged to drop you. I am sorry. I am always sorry to cut 
a friend. But what can I do! To eat with one's knife, to be made a 
co-respondent, or to talk politics, are acts or misfortunes which society 
cannot overlook. I should only compromise myself without helping 
you, if I consented to appear indifferent on a matter which is properly 
considered to lie at the foundation of sociology. 

From Robert's concluding message, I infer that you won't be able 
to come over here, as we hoped, this week. Till now the labors of 
shopping have absorbed our souls, but I hope that as time passes we 
shall open our souls to other influences. I expect my brother Charles 
in a few days, on his way to Vienna as commissioner. 1 If you can get 
here for a few days next week, we will end our Paris campaign with a 
lark. That is, we will try to find some communard plunder, and we 
will hope to get a good dinner, a thing I have not yet seen. But as I 
shall be declared bankrupt the week after, I must make the most of my 
time. 

I shall see you so soon that it is sheer extravagance to write a long 
letter. So, if you don't come over here, I shall not write again till I 
send you a note to say that we have arrived. We are both well, and I 
hope you will take care of your own insides. You have had a severe 
strain and ought to be very careful. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

PARIS, 23 April, 1873. 

A couple of hours after sending my note of yesterday to the post, I 
received yours of Sunday announcing the failing condition of your 
uncle. I hope you will at least stay no longer in Yorkshire. The country 
and solitude is a poor place for you, and I hope at any rate to find you 
in London next week. I am sorry you cannot be here a little while with 
us. A week passed in bookshops, studios and porcelain fabrics would 
amuse you, I think. But we will try to employ your leisure in London, 
for we have much to buy there. My wife sends her wannest regards, 
and we both look forward to seeing you in ten days or so. I do not 
offer sympathy for your uncle's death, because in this case I think the 

1 To the international exposition of that year. 



PARIS 245 

living need more thought, and all this trouble and care might well try 
the strongest of us. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

PARIS, 8 May, 1873. 

Your note of the 5th has just arrived and has thrown us into a state 
of great perplexity. You remember the old play with the questionable 
title of "She would and she wouldn't." We were in that condition at 
the time we received your former letter. Now, however, "She would" 
has carried the day. In spite of all feelings of delicacy, pecuniary and 
otherwise, we are strongly disposed to accept your offer. Indeed it is 
so kind that we hardly know how to refuse it. At the same time, I feel 
as though it were a very questionable liberty we are taking, and my 
wife insists that as a first condition, you shall keep your own rooms 
and be our guest, coming and going as you please, with a plate always 
laid for you at our table. 

We hope to reach London Saturday evening. Send me a note to 
Maurigy's to say what steps are to be taken in case the house is still 
vacant. If it has been let in the interval, you need not worry yourself 
in the least. We shall only go on with our search for apartments as we 
meant to do on our arrival. 

I hardly know how to thank you enough for the kindness of your 
offer, and my wife insists that I do not say half what she wants me to 
say about it. If I don't, it is only because I don't know how. 

Your uncle is a wonderful old man. I would like to congratulate 
him on his recovery. 

And of course my wife adds her warmest regards. 

Everett has, we are told, really had a success in his new role. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

16 SUFFOLK STREET, PALL MALL, 
Sunday, n May, 1873. 

Here we are, but we seem to be about the only people who have not 
left town for Sunday. The Palgraves are rambling. So are the Cun- 
liffes. You are away. Even Mrs. Russell Sturgis is absent. I am tired 
of front doorsteps. 

I wrote to you at Wenlock, but I suppose you did not get my letter, 
that we were very strongly inclined to accept your offer about the house. 
On arriving here and looking about us a little, we still feel as though 



246 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

you were offering us something we could hardly refuse. At the same 
time I do not know where to look for servants, and we both rather 
tremble at the idea of facing a scratch household, with no one in it we 
could trust. We are waiting to talk with you about it and see what 
can be done. f 

The hotels are just crammed. We got temporary accommodations 
here, in default of Maurigy's. This afternoon we applied at Claridge's, 
Fenton's, Thomas's, the St. James's, Batt's, Fleming's, the Bruns- 
wick no rooms ! We were reduced at last to taking the second floor 
of No. 4 Albemarle Street, a dependance of the Albemarle Hotel. You 
will find us there. 

I am anxious to see you and to find you all right. My wife sends her 
best regards. Weren't we glad, though, to get out of Paris ! 

To Charles Mtlnes Gaskell 

NORFOLK STREET, Friday, [1873]. 
MY DEAR CARLO, 

How you must shiver at Wenlock! This wind goes down one's 
throat like a rat-tail file. 

How comforting it is to be comfortable again and how we do say so 
to ourselves fifty times a day! 

We are lands and although as yet we have no footman, we have a 
cook, and we have china and linen and have been prancing about town 
all the afternoon in a brougham, leaving cards mostly on Amer- 
icans, however, as Madame is proud and will call on no British female 
who doesn't intimate a wish to that effect. 

The Baronet, somewhat exhausted and overwhelmed by the offi- 
cial burdens attached to his eminent position, managed however to 
stop here "on his way to the 'Ouse" (the quotation is not from him) 
and was as agreeable as ever. Milady called, but was sent away by 
your majestic, whose intelligence is, as you say, on only a limited scale 
of developement. She left, however, a card for dinner on the yth. 
The 'Ouse, I presume, is in the way of short invitations. It is very 
kind in her Ladyship and I am sorry that three visits have now been 
exchanged without a meeting. 

Palgrave came in one morning and talked an hour, but not much to 
say. He too is very busy. Everybody is so busy that I want to be 
busy too, but can't, as I have too many things to do, and nobody to 
tell about it. 

Gunn being defunct, I sent for a woman from Douglas's to wash 



LONDON 247 

Madame's hair yesterday. In the evening Douglas sent up some 
trifles ordered, with the bill, as was proper, plus a note saying that he 
"would be 'appy to open an account if I would furnish a 'satisfactory 
reference/ " Cheeky, isn't it ? I paid his shop a short visit this morning, 
returned the articles, and intimated that as I could unhappily furnish 
no reference that I could expect to prove satisfactory, he need not 
trouble himself to send the woman again. 

You had better come back to town. In this weather life is not safe 
in the country, and this house is just perfect. We are putting away 
all your valuables for fear of breakage. If you want to break some, you 
must hurry. 

Madame says she is going to write to you, and meanwhile sends 
enthusiastic messages. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

28 NORFOLK STREET, PARK LANE, 
Monday, [1873]. 

I have been to Agnew and Foster, and seen the pictures and 
discussed the question. After the best examination I could give, I 
decided that if they were my pictures I should sell them without 
reserve. You can't hang them, and you don't want them in your 
attics. I am no judge of market-values, as you know, and have only 
one principle to go on, which is to make up my mind whether or no 
I want a given thing at all. If you think that you could do any- 
thing with the Bouchers or the Cignani or the Padovanino, if they 
came back onto your hands, I would put a reserve on them. But I 
assume that you can't; otherwise you would not have sent them up for 
sale. So I told Foster that he had better sell them without reserve 
unless he heard from you to the contrary. 

At the same time, Foster says that they will probably sell for very 
little. So if you prefer keeping the pictures to throwing them away, 
you had better write or telegraph to him tomorrow. He evidently 
thinks that it is mere chance whether anyone of them fetches five 
pounds or fifty. If he is right, a reserve of twenty or thirty pounds on 
each of the best pictures, would be likely to bring them in, and you can 
write or telegraph to that effect, tomorrow. 

I understand Palgrave to agree with me about it. But I will talk 
with him again. 

He and your sister dine with us today, with Woolner, Stopford 
Brooke, and J. R. Lowell, who is staying with us until made a Doctor 
at Oxford. 



248 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Our visit is now half over and I have only seen you a couple of hours* 
I've not seen very much more of Robert, but he, poor lad, is a poll- 
tician. His hay cold has begun. 

If you don't come soon, you will only catch us on the steamer at 
Liverpool. 



To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

28 NORFOLK STREET, PARK LANE, 
Saturday, [1873]. 

Your telegram has just arrived. I am glad to be sure of your safe 
arrival, and doubly glad because you would have found today very 
trying in London. It is sultry. 

Unless you feel distinctly better, I certainly would not risk coming 
up this week. Much as we want you, and much as we shall miss you 
if you do not come, I do not like the responsibility of bringing you 
here. At the same time, it does not matter in the least what you write 
on Monday. Your seat at table will be kept for you, and the house 
will be absolutely empty in any case, and you can occupy any room 
or all the rooms as you like, without notice of any kind. We shall make 
our arrangements as though you were coming, and shall expect you 
down to the last minute. 

We went to Lady Margaret's last night, and took Lowell there, at 
Lady Margaret's request. It was pleasant; small, and lively. Her 
Ladyship quite beaming. But what on earth makes the Alderson 
tribe so uncommon grouty! 

Goodbye! I am just starting for Greenwich with Woolner. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

28 NORFOLK STREET, PARK LANE, 
May 1 8th, [1873]. 

I'm afraid if I don't write to the "fairy godfather" that the palace 
will turn into a pumpkin and Mrs. Sows into a rat. So before the clock 
strikes twelve I shall sign my name to this. We are very happy tho* 
Sir R. Cunliffe, who is green with envy at our prosperity, vows that we 
have reached the summit and must descend steadily the hill of fortune. 
We enjoy being swells if only for ten weeks and find our pasture very 
green and sweet. Shall I break in a man servant for you? Heuy has 
been civil and done nicely, poor Mrs* Sows who is bright and smart 
remarks/' I think Mum he's a little vacant;" but he has worked faith- 



LIVING IN GASKELL'S HOUSE 249 

fully and we are most grateful for your kindness in leaving him here 
and shall hope for his safe arrival at Wenlock tomorrow. Many 
thanks for your kind Whitsuntide invitation. We accept with great 
pleasure and will consult with the Cunliffes as to time, etc., but do 
make us a visit first and see how nice it is everyone who comes to 
call says how pretty the drawing room is. The Lord Chancellor and 
Dean Stanley smoke in the drawing room and borrow your choicest 
books and dog's-ear them! You must do something about it. I cannot 
consent to take the new off that new brougham. I shall hire an old one. 
Living in Park Lane is quite enough gorgeousness but thank you all 
the same. Hoping to hear that you are better and to see you soon, 
Very cordially yours, 

M. ADAMS. 



To Charles Mllnes Gaskell 

28 NORFOLK STREET, PARK LANE, 
P73l- 

Don't worry about the rent, and above all don't attach my traps, 
though I confess the temptation would be great if you saw them. We 
are cramming your house with rugs, linen, glass, silver, porcelain, and 
bric-a-brac, and hope to be able to swear their value down to a trifle as 
all second-hand. 

I suppose you mean me to bring a servant to the Abbey. I shall not 
bring a maid. But will bring a cook if you want one. Mine is fond of 
beer, but cooks well, and I hope she will have the patience to keep 
partially sober for six weeks. 

Nothing new. We go out very little, hardly at all, but have a few 
lunches and dinners on hand. Nothing much. I have made a few calls, 
but not many. Everybody is very gracious, uncommonly so, but we 
are doing too much shopping to do many calls. 

I said rather a clever thing about you the other day. Somebody 
asked what you were doing and I replied I was afraid you were mil- 
doing. But it would have been better if you were only working up 
your Polit. Econ. 

Have you read Mrs. Grote's life of Mr. Grote? Awfully cheeky book 
to write, but quite the drollest thing going. Also Monographs? I 
lunched with the Houghtons yesterday, Monsignor Capel was the 
party baited for the occasion and appeared very well. I sat next pretty 
Lady Desart and found an old acquaintance in her. Lady Houghton 
at table, awfully frail. You will be amused to hear that Mrs. Bouverie- 



250 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Pusey has found us out and been, oh, but very civil. Pusey is a lively 
party, but not so bad after all. They want us to come to Pusey. 

I have done nothing about the brougham because I understood you 
to mean to come up before I took it to try it. We job one now from the 
next street and do very well. 

I have given your message to Mrs. Sow. As yet no one has called. 

Write to tell me if there is anything we can bring down. Why not 
commission me to bring the Shah? 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

28 NORFOLK STREET, PARK LANE, 
Sunday Evening, [May 29? 1873]. 

I have been to see Robert and her Ladyship and tried to combine 
our plans, rather a difficult matter, as we have accepted an invitation 
to Oxford together and a number of other engagements crowd us not a 
little. The scheme arranged is as follows: 

We are to be at Oxford on Monday, June third [eighth?], to be 
shown about by Mr. Charles Clifford. As I shall have to see some 
people there, I shall have to go down earlier, either Friday or Saturday, 
and devote a few days to exploring. We then come on to you, Monday 
evening or Tuesday morning, and remain till Saturday if you like. 

Does this please you? If not, notify us to that effect. I send this 
note down by your man, whom I part with regretfully, as I find the 
task of replacing even his limited capacity, a labor exceeding my 
modest powers. But I trust to make a temporary arrangement to- 
morrow. 

We go on swimmingly. I could wish that winter would be some- 
what less cordial in welcoming us, but thanks to you we are sheltered 
from its liveliest embraces. Palgrave has not yet dined here. When 
he comes, I will tell him to bring his pipe for your sake. 

There is no news, except Miss Tolemache's wedding* I have been 
running about all the week, making calls, and the usual roll of dinners 
is beginning. You should see Roberts wedding present a teapot 
but a love! Come up this week and look at us. As specimens we are 
entertaining and harmless. 

Forgive this dull letter; the truth is we have had some country- 
people to dinner and I am very sleepy. 

The cook is good. Try her I 1 

1 From Oxford, on a Sunday in June, he wrote to Gaskell: "We dine this evening with Jowett. 
Lunch with Montague Bernard. I have inspected the early English MSS. in the Bodleian, and 



A VISIT TO OXFORD 251 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

28 NORFOLK STREET, PARK LANE, 
Tuesday Evening, [June, 1873]. 

Here we are back in town, and uncommon glad to have such a 
"back" to come to. I think the house looks more attractive than ever, 
on returning to it* 

We have been very busy at Oxford and were received there uncom- 
mon well. I saw all the men I expected to see Stubbs, 1 Burrows/ 
etc. and a number I did not expect to see as Sir H. Mayne 3 and 
Laing of Corpus. 4 Jowett s dined us. Montague Bernard 6 lunched us. 
Laing tead us. Clifford did all three. Robarts 7 appeared for half an 
hour on his way, as usual, from one planet to another. In short we had 
a very successful visit, ending last night with a carouse at All Souls. 

This morning Robert started west and soon afterwards we struck 
eastward, sorry to part company, but more sorry for your anxiety and 
trouble. At the same time, as I don't know Seymour, even he will 
forgive my saying that I am glad it is his broken bones which prevent 
our party, since it might just as well have been yours. 

The vicar delivered the letters all right. Please thank him for his 
kindness. 

Somehow or other you must manage to be here on the ^yth, our 
wedding-day, when we shall have a family dinner. It is understood 
that you must pass at least a week here in the course of the month, 
and I hope it will be an indefinite stay when we once get you. 

My wife sends her kindest regards and wishes you to know that her 
new cook, as warranted by Lady Rich, is to come next Saturday, after 
which she expects you as soon as may be. 

By the way, I meant to tell you that we called on Mrs. Charles 
Roundell on her return, and dined with her at the Selbornes* before 
leaving town. I may be mistaken, but I thought her a trifle Roun- 

mean to attack Stubbs tomorrow. But as yet I find little to make me tremble for my own Uni- 
versity in the way of men. The English Universities run too much into money and social dis- 
tinctions. The spirit is better in ours," 

1 William Stubbs (1825-1901), regius professor of history at Oxford University. 

a Montague Burrows (1819-1905), Chichele professor of modern history. 

Henry James Sumner Maine (1822-1888). 

* Robert Laing, lecturer in law and modern history. 

* Benjamin Jowett (1817-1893), regius professor of Greek. 

* Montague Bernard (1820-1882), first holder of a chair of international kw and diplomacy at 
Oxford* 

7 Charles Henry Robarts, librarian* 



252 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

delled, statisticiannified, or infected with the ponderosity of manner 
which characterises her spouse. But she was nervous, perhaps. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

28 NORFOLK STREET, PARK LANE, 
Monday, [June, 1873], 

Glad to hear that your invalid is coming on right, and that you will 
come up to town shortly. 

Many thanks for your offer of grapes and pines for the ayth. Bring 
your man by all means, but I don't know what I should do with Hill. 
As for your brougham, I've not ventured to do anything about it till 
you came up. 

We will discuss the Thornes scheme when you come. Unless some- 
thing special turns up, I see no reason why we mayn't have our little 
lark there. 

We dined with Robert on Saturday; very pleasant dinner.' The 
Palgraves; Leo Seymour and his wife; Ralph Palmer; Maggy Warren. 
The latter very agreeable. Last night a family dinner with Lord 
Romilly. Tonight a dinner chez nous. Tomorrow night a dinner at 
the Bouverie-Puseys' ! Wednesday, at the W. E. Forsters'. But by the 
end of next week all our imaginable friends must have dined us, and 
then we can begin a few little dinners at home. 

My brother Charles is now with us for a couple of days. 

Send along your book. I want to see it. Just now I am rather out 
of the newspaper line, but we will rub up our friends. 

I understand the programme to be that you are to come up here in 
about ten days or a fortnight, and stay till the yth, when you suggest 
taking us with you for a run down to Thornes. I will keep my eye on 
our invitations so as to make things straight. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

LONDON, n June, 1873. 

Your letter, which I am surprised to find bears the remote date of 
Feby. 1 3th, has been an unconscionable time in my pocket, and if an 
excuse is necessary, I can only put it on the ground of incessant oc- 
cupation. It reached me somewhere in Italy, and has come with me to 
London, without ever finding a spare hour of repose. Even here, 
though we are keeping house and living as regularly as we expect to do 
in Boston, I find it hard to provide for correspondence. 



To LODGE ON THE STUDY OF HISTORY 253 

That you found yourself wallowing in a boundless ocean of history, 
I can very well imagine. One has a very helpless feeling the first time 
one plunges into a new existence, no matter what the medium is. Law 
is as bad as anything else; art should be worse, for art is lower as now 
practised, than any other profession, and I recollect well that I have 
found by turn the same sense of helplessness in entering on each new 
stage of life, both in Europe and at home. Patience is the salvation of 
men at all such emergencies. I have never found that fail to pull me 
triumphantly through. 

At the same time I do not deny that I thought, and still think you 
were trying to cover too wide a field of mere fact. For the present I 
was much less inclined to trouble myself about the amount you 
learned than about the method you were learning. I have, no doubt, 
more respect for knowledge, even where knowledge is useless and 
worthless, than for mere style, even where style is good; but unless one 
learns beforehand to be logically accurate and habitually thorough, 
mere knowledge is worth very little. At best it never can be more than 
relative ignorance, at least in the study of history. So I wanted you 
only to read a few specimen books, not large ones either, which would 
give you an idea of historical methods, and I wanted you to learn to 
use Latin and German with facility, and I suggested Anglo-Saxon, 
which I am studying myself and which is quite amusing. Nor do I see 
the necessity for your working very laboriously even at this. You 
will work hard enough one of these days if you ever get interested in 
the study; if not, what does it matter? The question for you is not by 
any means whether you can do a great deal, but whether that which 
you choose to do, be it much or little, shall be done perfectly, so as to 
give you credit worth your having, 

I am inclined to think that you will find you have reached a point a 
good deal in advance of most historians so called in spite of your 
discouragement, and that your time has not been ill-spent. At least I 
hope you could now take up the ordinary historical work of com- 
merce, such as passes for sound even among educated people, and feel 
at once that it is not what you call history; that it shows neither 
knowledge nor critical faculty. And I hope too that you are far enough 
ahead to be able to decipher an Anglo-Saxon or a Latin diploma, or to 
track a given idea through the labyrinths of law and literature. A 
year is well spent if it only gets your mind into a properly receptive 
condition to use the language of our newspapers. ^ 

But I suppose you are pestered by the question which bothers us all 
when we are at the beginning of a career, especially if, as is usually the 



254 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

case with Americans, we are a little inclined to thinking too much 
about ourselves. I mean the question of whether a given line of oc- 
cupation is going to pay, whether you are really ever going to make 
your scheme work. I am not going to enter into any argument in favor 
of the course you selected. I don't care to take such a responsibility as 
that of giving advice to anyone on a matter which involves the oc- 
cupation of a life-time. If you have seriously become so far discour- 
aged as to think of changing your line of work, and if you have found 
any other profession or occupation which satisfies you, I have nothing 
to say against it. But if, in spite of all discouragements you still think 
a literary life best suited for you, then I hope that we may begin work 
next term with rather a more definite aim and better defined instru- 
ments. 

I have this year been engaged in investigating and accumulating 
notes upon some points of early German law, out of which I expect in 
time to make a pamphlet or small book. If you like, I will put these 
notes in your hands next term, and we will proceed to work the sub- 
ject up together. As I am so much occupied by teaching, I stand much 
in need of such help. And I think you will find that the work will 
exercise your powers and claim no little interest. But it will also re- 
quire your best knowledge of German, French, Latin and Anglo- 
Saxon, and I hope you will have more facility than I have, at least in 
the Latin and Saxon. 

If you incline to keep on, then, your path is clear. Don't tell any one 
the proposal I make, for I am not yet ready to talk about a book. But 
polish up your languages and on the 1st October, if you are ready to 
begin, establish yourself in my rooms at Wadsworth. 

I shall return to America about August 1st. My wife sends her best 
regards to yours, as I do mine. 1 

* "John Bright dined -with me yesterday and I asked Robert to meet him. We had much gay 
talk. But John is much changed. LordHoughton'snoteisnottobedecyphered." ToGaskell, 
July 14, 1873. 



VIII 
BEVERLY FARMS AND BOSTON 

1873-1877 
To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

BEVERLY FARMS, 12 August, 1873, 

Here we are again, bobbing up on this side the ocean, like a couple 
of enthusiastic soap-bubbles, and telling interested groups of friends 
how we saw the anthropophagi and men whose heads did grow upon 
their shoulders. The first sense of relief at getting home is prodigious. 
To be quite sure that the ocean is behind us; to look out over it when 
one gets up in the morning, and to damn its eyes, with a sweet sense of 
security, at least for some years, against its insults, is one of the most 
rapturous pleasures my existence has ever known. Life seems all a 
garden of flowers mixed with cabbages when the ocean is behind 
one. For the eighth time, writhing in the miseries of sea-sickness, I 
have sworn by all the saints and all the devils, that nothing, no, 
nothing, shall ever induce me to go on the ocean again. We shall see. . - . 

I think we both suffered more from sea-sickness than we naturally 
should have done if our fellow travellers had been less obnoxious, but 
the set of bag-men, German Jews, vulgar Americans, and dull Eng- 
lishmen on board, was inconceivable to anyone who had not an ab- 
solute faith in the vileness of human nature. That one hundred and 
fifty such people could have come together on an ocean steamer is a 
fact which damns the human race. The usual types were all repre- 
sented. There was the invariable English Earl going out to kill buf- 
falo; his name was Dunraven and his Countess z was with him. He 
looked like a billiard-marker, but I did not exchange a syllable with 
him and I don't know what his virtues are, though I obtained a high 
opinion of them from the fact that it was said he introduced and 
managed the Opra Comique at London. Then there were two young 
English officers also going out to kill buffalo, and whiling away their 
time by flirting with the New York young woman who is always on 
board. Then there was the youth fresh from Christ Church, who also 
wants to kill a buffalo. Poor buffalo 1 Then there was Dr. Kingsley, 
the "Earl and the Doctor,** going out with the Dunravens* the only 

1 Sir Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin, fourth Earl of Dunraven (1841-1906), xnamed 
Florence Elizabeth Kcrr. 



256 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

agreeable man on board. Then there were one hundred or more com- 
mercial travellers, German Jews, Scotchmen, Englishmen, Americans, 
and what not. 

I hear no news here that will interest you, unless it is that Will 
Everett has been made Professor/ which will, I hope, please him and 
improve his temper. My own work will begin in about six weeks, and 
I am likely this year to have my hands full. But as I am now pretty 
solidly fixed in my seat, I don't feel very much worried about suc- 
cess.... 3 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

26 October, 1873. 
iii**.*.** 

My lectures began about the 1st October and I was obliged to pass 
at least three days in the week without seeing my modest establish- 
ment between nine in the morning and seven at night.... Of course, 
the greater part of my time has to be passed at Cambridge, where I 
have more to do than ever and am put to my trumps to hold my own 
against my hundred students, who think me too severe; a reputation I 
am glad to foster. I find twelve hours a week in the lecture room too 
severe for my taste, and therefore, I have one common ground with 
my students. Happily, I have not yet been obliged to take the 
North American on my shoulders again, so that at any rate I have one 
worry the less. And as my old students are some of them still hanging 
about and wanting occupation, I have managed to harness a few of 
them to the wheels in such a way as to relieve me of a good deal of the 
work. . . . 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

BOSTON, 8 December, 1873. 

I am sorry enough to find you beginning again with another list of 
deaths. Poor Sidney Doyle! And yet even her death is only far down 
in list of those I have heard since leaving England. I can't say that 
Lord Lyveden's affected me much, for I never clung passionately to that 
old gentleman. But I shall miss Strzelecki if I ever get back to London; 
and Tom Baring is a real loss, especially as I have no ties to the 
younger Barings. Then my genial and cordial friend Benzon is gone, 

1 He became assistant professor of Latin in 1873 and held the appointment for four years. 
* October oq, Adams moved into 91 Marlborough Street, Boston. 



BACK IN BOSTON 257 



and another house closed. Britishers are common as grass about our 
streets, but they are rarely valuable in a social point of view. Since 
Brodrick carried his cadaverosity and his nerves back to England, we 
have had one Rutson here, ex-private Secretary to Bruce in the Home 
Office. He brought us letters from Lady Rich and Julia Roundell, and 
has been going the rounds of Boston houses for the last three weeks. 
He has dined and breakfasted with us once or twice and proposes to 
go on to Washington and return later to our bosoms. Another Brit- 
isher named Rothary is threatening a visit presently. He is at Wash- 
ington, I believe, on government business. I met him once at Henry 
Reeve's at dinner. There is also a young Acland scampering about, 
but I know him not. I confess to liking to see the English furriner; he 
amuses us and brings us news from other parts of America which one 
never gets here except through them. Boston is very well up in all 
things European, but it is no place for American news. So if any 
Britishers apply to you, send them along. We are not likely to be 
bored but only amused by their prattle and pretty ways 

My principal amusement is to swear at the weather which has been 
diabolical; the last week in November the thermometer never once 
rose above thirty degrees, and at night fell to unknown abysses. 
Snow and clouds surround us, and the winds are colossal. Happily our 
house is very attractive, and we have had neither smokey chimneys 
nor frozen pipes in it yet. Three or four days in the week I go out to 
Cambridge, and the other days I work at home, busy enough always. 
The North American comes into my hands after the first January only, 
but I have been writing for the next number another little notice of 
Freeman, 1 calculated to improve his temper as I guess.. .. 

I am glad to hear of Palgrave's promotion and am meaning to write 
him a letter one of these days. But letter-writing comes hard to a man 
who has three courses of lectures to keep up, and a Review to run. 
My father is busy bringing out the first volumes of my grandfather's 
Diary; a book you must have at Thornes. 1 will send you the volumes 
as long as I live, but there will be a dozen or fifteen, and the Lord knows 
when they will all be out. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

WASHINGTON, 13 February, 1874. 

The happy students celebrate this period of the year by what they 
call their semi-annual examinations, and as my presence at these ex- 
1 VoL cxvni, 176. 



258 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

animations is not a necessity, I have a fortnight of vacation.... So 
here we are, and I find myself again with my foot upon my native 
asphalt, rejoicing in delivery for a time from the ways of Boston. It is 
no end of fun to come back here. And though our politics just now are 
very deep in the mud, and our politicians are a feeble kind of forcibles, 
still it is fun to see them wriggle and it gives one a lofty sense of one's 
own importance to be able to smile contemptuously on men in high 
place* But the more I see of official life here, the less I am inclined to 
wish to enter it. This was always my feeling, and it always grows 
stronger. To be a free lance, and to have the press to work in, is my 
ideal of perfect happiness, at least so far as perfect happiness is to be 
found in a career. So far as I can see, the life of an official is made 
wretched by its insecurity. These moral reflections are partially in- 
spired by the thought of your elections, the results of which have not 
yet reached us except in a rough way by telegraph. It would be rather 
fun to be a conservative just now and I am waiting with great curios- 
ity to hear what new cards have turned up. 

As for my old political associates, they are in a very bad way. No 
one seems to have any idea what is to happen here, but my own notion 
is that our next elections will throw a crowd of new men into office, 
and that no improvement in quality is to be immediately expected. I 
delight in the barbaric simplicity of our native legislators. They do 
really offer new types of study. They are far more amusing than your 
effete members. I always feel a certain vague sense of personal fear 
when in dose proximity to one of our south-western congressmen, as I 
do when I meet a Sioux warrior on the plains. Now your members 
never inspire this sensation. I fed it nowhere in Europe, and only 
among the Bedouins in Africa. Hence, how much more amusing our 
politicians are than yours. Q. E. D.... 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

91 MARLBOROUGH STREET, BOSTON, 
16 March, 1874. 

Since my last letter, which was written from Washington, I have 
been waiting for the North American for April to appear, so that I 
could send you a copy of your notice of the Princess. 1 I like it much, 
and hope you will do me more. But I've not put your signature to it 
because I want the credit of having written it myself.... Why will you 

1 A aotkeof Princess Marie Liechtensteia's Holland House. North American Review, cxvm, 
428. 



AMERICAN POLITICS 259 

not send me more? Somebody's memoirs are always appearing and 
social history is a delightful study. I think you might derive pleasure 
from reviewing Hayward's Essays, especially if you did it viciously.*.. 
Politics are a very unsatisfactory game. Yours are bad enough, but 
ours are worse. I am becoming a little alarmed about ours, for our 
people seem to be not alarmed at all. We are more absolutely insane 
and hopelessly mad than any other branch of mankind, except the 
Spaniards and perhaps the French. But I cling to the faith that pre- 
sent calm will last my time, and after that I care little for what 
happens. Philosophy is great and I am one of its prophets. Just now 
poor Sumner has died and pitched us into one of those nasty little 
fights which are the meanest part of politics. Among others stirred 
from their long repose by the commotion thus excited, is my father. 
A certain number of well-meaning people wish to choose him for 
Sumner's successor. He has no wish to oblige them, and there are not 
enough of them, I fancy, to make the scheme very possible, but mean- 
while three different parties are fighting for the place, and the wrath of 
the contestants fills the newspapers and invades our domestic hearth. 
As my side is commonly beaten in politics, I prefer not to take sides 
at all; but to laugh at the whole concern. But it is harder to laugh at 
the badness of our government which is desperate; not so much cor- 
rupt as incompetent, enough to make one a howling dervish for life. . . . 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS. 
Saturday. June, 1874. 

The printers have now some eighty pages of copy. I consider that 
from the time the manuscript leaves my hands, it is in yours. That 
was our division of labor. So I leave the printers to your tender 
mercies and you can do what you please with them if they are not 
prompt. 

I shall try to leave copy enough to last them in my absence. But if 
any new matter comes to you while I am away, you had better use 
your own discretion about sending it to the printers. If it comes from 
Simon, Pierce, or any other responsible man, have it put in type at 
once and send the proof to the author. If the writer is not first class, 
you might keep it for consultation. 

You will have to correct the proof of Art. I yourself. I would like to 
see the second proof. Art. II is Newcomb's and the proof will go to 
him. Of the critical notices > i and 2 must be corrected by you. No. 3 



260 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

(Marquardt) may be sent to Prof. Allen who is, I believe at Newbury- 
port, as you know. No. 4 (Wallace's Heel) may come to Mr. J. Eliot 
Cabot here at Beverly Farms. 1 

This is all that is yet in. I will notify you of the rest as I forward it 
to the printer. 

About the Year Books, I know that the great mass of cases are 
modern law. You must exercise your own critical acumen to find out 
what will throw light on Saxon law. You are now on a new field of 
investigation with your spurs to win, and must trust to your own 
powers. I have only glanced over the volumes enough to see that here 
and there are some very pretty hints. 

I can't tell yet how much we are short of copy, if at all. But good 
book-notices are desirable in any case. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

BEVERLY FARMS, 22 June, 1874. 

The labor of an instructor at our Universities is really very consider- 
able, for we are instructors and examiners at once and I am an editor 
and writer too.... I have got this week to take charge of the freshmen 
in their history. Then I am reading hard for a new course in American 
colonial history which I am to undertake next year, and in which I am 
to expose British tyranny and cruelty with a degree of patriotic fervor 
which, I flatter myself, has rarely been equalled. Altogether, I feel as 
though I had not full credit for the work done. Somehow or other, no 
credit is ever given for industry to any man who is not working for 
money. 

Yours of June 5th followed by your notice of Constable, 3 has at 
length found me in a week of reasonable leisure. The Constable must 
go over till October. The July number is already printed and will be 
out in a few days. I hope you will do Trevelyan's book for me. It will 
be rather fun to touch him up, and the advantage of knowing an 
author or editor personally is immense in such cases, as Ste. Beuve 
witnesses, to say nothing of the delicious pleasure of sticking pins into 
a human pincushion 

I have myself devoted ten pages in my July number to a notice of 
Prof. Stubbs's unconscionably dull Constitutional History* And I have 

1 The articles appear in the October Review, cxix. 

JrcktMJ Consume and his Utenay Correspondents, in the North American Review y October, 
1874. 
* The first vdkuat of the Constitutional History of England, by William Stubbs. 



Two CANONS OF PROSE COMPOSITION 261 

ventured to assert some opinions there which I fear that dignified 
Professor will frown upon. Luckily for me, a good, heavy-bottomed 
English University Don rarely condescends to notice criticism, and 
never American criticism. Even Mr. Freeman now ignores my poor 
comments. Luckily I am kept up by continental affiliations.... 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS. 

Thursday, 25 June, [1874.] 

I return the Spencer. It has disappointed me. If his other works are 
not better thought out, they must have very little sound method to 
recommend them. 

I cannot conceive how any rule of prose can be made that shall not 
require the subject to stand first. This is a general law, and is equiva- 
lent to saying that one ought to begin at the beginning. "Jack loves 
Joan" is right. "Joan loves Jack" is not the forcible way of saying 
that Jack loves Joan. "Diana is great" is the ordinary, correct and 
regular mode of stating the fact. "Great is Diana" requires an inter- 
jection mark after it. You may test this rule in practice to any extent. 
I am satisfied that the first canon of good narrative or argumentative 
prose requires the subject to precede the predicate. 

But as an equally important rule I should insist on the law of vari- 
ety. The two canons go together and ought to be studied together. 
The thought should not flow in monotonous forms. And why? The 
law of economy does not explain this. Poetic rhythm would seem to 
contradict it. I believe the reason to be that in poetry or prose, mono- 
tony ultimately wearies the nerves, just as lying in one position does. 

When we come to applying this second canon, the difficulties begin. 
And these difficulties are essentially the same in verse and prose. To 
vary your regular construction you may put the predicate first. But 
clearly this must be done with discretion. Hence we get Canon in: 
where accentuation is wanted, begin with the word or idea to be ac- 
cented, whether subject or predicate. 

7 only lived; I only drew 
The accursed air of dungeon dew." 

Would Byron have made this more forcible if he had put the predicate 
first? 

"The Senator walks off under the States-rights banner; let him go; 

/ remain." 



262 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

"Then Seymour arose/' says Macaulay. "Then arose Seymour" is 
feeble in comparison, as one reads it in the story. 

Or as an example in regard to the position of the adjective, which is 
part and parcel of the same question, take Shelley's famous touch in his 
Dream of the Unknown: 

"And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, 
Green cow-bind and the moonlight colored May, 
And mid roses, and ivy serpentine." 

There is a delicious flavor in those wild roses, and why ? Simply because 
the rhythm requires roses wild. It is the variety which pleases, not 
the mere relative position of the words. 

So my Canon in would absolutely disregard every rule except one's 
ear. Canon in requires that in narrative, where the rule is to construct 
sentences according to Canon I, accentuation is to be gained by putting 
the accentuated word or idea first. The ear alone can decide what that 
word or idea had best be. 

Another rule, however, which seems to me essential to good prose, is 
that the reader ought to be as little conscious of the style as may be. 
It should fit the matter so closely that one should never be quite able 
to say that the style is above the matter nor below it. But great 
effects are best produced by lowering the general tone. Follow Canon I 
as a rule, and it becomes easy to make a sensation with Canon in. 
The higher you pitch the key, the harder it is to sing up to it, and the 
effect no greater. 

This is not Spencer's way of putting it. He starts from the idea of 
variety. To me the simple idea precedent is uniformity. He thinks 
Ossian's is "the theoretically best arrangement/' I think the very 
absurdity refutes itself. Ossian's uniformity is worse than ordinary 
uniformity because it applies a wrong rule badly. In short Spencer's 
essay seems to me to be neither philosophical nor accurate. I am not 
encouraged to read his larger works. 

If you ever feel like it, and want a talk, bring your carpet-bag over 
here and pass the night. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS. 

Thursday [Sept. (?), 1874.] 

I suppose they mean one sheet I sent to my brother. I returned the 
rest at once. I shall go over to Cambridge tomorrow morning and will 
settle everything up-... 



MANORIAL PROCEDURE IN ENGLISH LAW 263 

I want you to keep your eye on one point for me, in your legal 
studies. Manors, at least in some cases, had gallows. I believe these 
gallows were appendant to the old right of the special mallus (Lex 
Gal.) to put to death on the spot the thief caught in the act. Whether 
the manorial jurisdiction was infang or outfang, I think the thief must 
be taken in the act, if he was hangable. So I understand the Prior's 
case, XXXI Edw. I, 500. And as a matter of historical law, the point 
is very pretty, connecting as it does the whole development of capital 
jurisdiction. 

I want you therefore to watch sharply to discover facts bearing on 
this point, and to work out the exact procedure both manorial and 
royal in cases of theft charged as committed in time past. The manorial 
procedure ought to be by oath or battle if at all. The royal would be 
ordinary felony. But I want to know whether a manorial lord ever got 
the right (which the old mallus had not) of executing a man on such a 
charge. Please collect references on the point. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, 
20 Sept., 1874. 

I am glad you caught Wheeler in a blunder. I detest the man 
cordially. He insists on writing like a counter-jumper. 

I believe all the matter is now provided and all the proofsheets ex- 
cept the last, corrected. I sent back No. 30 on Saturday. No. 31 
ought to be ready by Thursday. Diman's notice is admirable. Gray's 
very nicely written. He improves.... I have not been able to use 
yours, and reserve it for the future. We will hold a diet on its style 
for mutual improvement. On" the whole, the number will pass muster, 
especially the book-notices. 

I go to Newport on Friday to stay over Sunday > so keep an eye on 
that last sheet and get us out punctually. I told them to send you a 
duplicate proof of it anyway, so if I am away, jam it through, though 
I ought perhaps to correct the proof of Thevenin myself. Yet you are 
up in the subject. 

What's your idea? 



264 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS. 

Sunday, 26 Sept., 1874. 

I think your notes very satisfactory, especially in connection with 
XXII, Edw. I, 466. I took the ground in my notice of Stubbs, that 
manorial jurisdiction in England was always a mere continuation of 
hundred jurisdiction. In France the haute justice embraced felonies 
and the inquisitio. The constitutional character of English and French 
feudalism is nicely expressed in this contrast. So we must collect all 
the evidence, especially in the reign of Henry II, who as succeeding the 
lawless reign of Stephen must have found manorial power stronger 
than ever it was again unless under Henry III. I think I see the way to 
a good monograph by you on this point. 

Keep a sharp eye too for all other points of procedure, and especially 
for all forms of writs and actions. They serve to connect the ma- 
chinery of the state as well as to illustrate law. 

I hope the proofs are all in at last. If you are at Osgood's, pray send 
me down a copy of the new number. When do you move up? 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS. 
15 October, 1874. 

Your paylist arrived safely. I made a few small alterations in it, 
and sent it to Osgood. 

I shall have to do Parkman myself, 1 1 fear. As for Froude, I would 
write a note to Godkin of the Nation and ask him to do it. You might 
ask Harry, or (better, if he would) Willy James to do Bayard Taylor's 
Prophet* 

I forgot your question about the Biographie. I have never used 
Michaud, so can't express an opinion. The Biographie Universelle is 
invaluable to an editor. 

Channing's letters ought to be noticed. Do you think of anyone to 
do it? 

Please write to Prof. Perry of Amherst (?) * for a notice of Nord- 
hofPs new book on American Communistic Societies. I enclose a letter 
for your information. 

I have just received a letter from Prof. Whitney, an extract from 

* In die North American Review, January, l $7$* a / 

* Artfeur Latham Perry (1830-1905), of Williams College. The note is in the January number. 



NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW MATTERS 265 

which will please you, especially as you come in for a good share of the 
credit, at least qua book-notices: 

There have come notes to me from several distinguished English scholars 
(one from Darwin himself) expressing much satisfaction with the criticism 
of Muller in the July number. 1 The recent number is an excellent one and 
its book-notices seem to me rather beyond what one sees anywhere else; the 
whole tone of the Review is much improved upon what it was during your 
absence. 

Laughlin a of '73 proposes to join our Ph.D. class. 
I am not yet quite healed. But go up regularly to lectures. We come 
to town about the first week in Nov. 



To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS. 
31 Oct., 1874. 

You had better send Charlton Lewis's book to me. Cairnes goes to 
Prof. Dunbar. If Weir Mitchell refuses Clarke, don't write to Dalton 
or anyone else till further notice. Damn C. C. Everett. Tell him (very 
civilly) that the pressure for space &c., &c., we can't promise publics 
tion within any given time. You were quite right to ask Dr. Palfrey. 
I reckon Anderson may be the man. 

I am not registered and so can't vote. Some one has sent me my poll- 
tax bill, but it's not paid, and I'm not going to town to pay it. 

The Nation's notice is improved. I wish if you go to Osgood's, you 
would look up in the drawer the Christian Registers notices of the 
October and July number and send both to me. Tell Osgood I am 
concocting an advertisement. 

You had better write to J. M. Pierce to correct your previous letter 
on the Ph.D. course: instead of dropping your Div. 3, you wish to 
change it for a course of special study on the early English law as ex- 
hibited in Anglo-Saxon and Norman sources, with a view to ascertain- 
ing and fixing the share that Germanic law had in forming the Com- 
mon Law. 

1 Darwinism and Language. 

2 James Laurence Laughlin (1850- ), later professor of political economy in Harvard 
University. 



266 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

91 MARLBORO ST., 30 December, 1874. 

Private and Conf. 

We are negotiating for the Advertiser. Tomorrow morning I shall 
know whether we can have it. You must of course join us. How much 
money will you put in? Each share is $5000 and we must buy 18. I 
shall count on you for one. Please telegraph assent. 

To Carl Sckurz 

91 MARLBOROUGH ST. 
ia April, 1875* 

MY DEAR MR. SCHURZ, The danger was over by the time you 
wrote. Following out the programme, I had entirely withdrawn from 
all share in the movement, and did not stir till it became clear that 
something must be done immediately or the whole thing would fall 
through. Then Sam Bowles, my brother Charles, Cabot Lodge and I, 
concocted a letter and issued it on Thursday and Friday last (the 
8th and 9th) to such gentlemen as were on your lists. Lodge sent it, 
with the list, to you, and then handed over the whole correspondence 
to Arthur Sedgwick. He has got a New York committee now raised, 
and the matter is fairly under way. As you were of opinion that it was 
best not to give the demonstration the look of an eastern concern, we 
have not put New England men on the list. Of course we can have 
any number, but I presume the really important matter is who will 
come to the gathering, prepared to accept ulterior results and form if 
necessary an organisation, not who will sign the invitation, for every- 
one will do this. I don't myself care to see you smothered with a 
mere crowd that does not mean business. 

I suppose it will be well for you to send to the New York commit- 
tee a reply to the invitation to be ready for publication so soon as a 
suitable list of names has been made out. The day ought to be pub- 
lished as soon as possible. But as the whole management has now 
gone to New York, I leave it to New York wisdom to regulate the 
affair. 

I sincerely trust our friends will go to New York with definite no- 
tions of a policy to be pursued and practical measures to be carried 
into execution. You know already that I want organisation and con- 
sider the New York meeting only valuable as it leads to and facilitates 
organisation. Would it not be well to arrange beforehand for a small 



THE FUTURE OF THE REVIEW 267 

interior meeting, the day after the dinner, to discuss a policy? The 
word Convention need not be suggested, but the thing Co-operation 
must be made flesh. 



To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS. 
19 May, 1875. 

Please gratify Mr. Reed of Washington by "doing execution upon 
him with all convenient despatch." 

I shall take up your notice so soon as I can get a moment's time. 
My Cambridge work fills my hands. 

Who is the best military critic in the United States? I want an 
article from him on Sherman's Memoirs. But I must have a man of 
national reputation. 

I think of making you edit the October number altogether. By the 
way, will it be the last of our venerable periodical? My concluding 
interview with Hough ton disinclined me to act with him. He wants to 
give up paying contributors, at least on the present scale. I think we 
had better let it die at once and bury it with decency. 

You will I suppose attend the sale of the Webster library. When 
you get a catalogue I should be greatly obliged by your getting one for 
me. I hope there may be good things in it* 

The country is glorious* We are monarchs of all and our reign is 
undisputed by mosquitoes. The house is beginning, and such a house. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVEB.LT FARMS, 26 May, '75. 

I don't see that I have anything to say to Osgood* I don't care to go 
into the publishing business at all. Of that I am satisfied, and not 
likely to change my mind again. As for Norton, I sincerely wish he 
would take the Review. My terror is lest it should die on my hands or 
go to some Jew. If Osgood can shove it off on Norton, I advise him to 
do so, and will negotiate myself with Norton for the purpose. He is 
not my enemy, but if he were, I would like no better than to shove 
him into such a trap and jump out myself on his shoulders. Mean- 
while I intend to remain passive. 

I advise you to be marshal. It is a bore no doubt, but anything that 
brings you in contact with men and extends your acquaintance is 
worth doing. Anything which takes a man morally out of Beacon St., 



268 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Nahant, and Beverly Farms, Harvard College and the Boston press, 
must be in itself a good. 

I am so overrun with work myself that I envy you your leisure 
deeply. At this season my drudgeries double. I have not been able 
to look into my English law for a fortnight, and a dreary waste of 
examination books and Division Returns lies before me* But I wish 
you would keep yourself and me and all of us posted about our politi- 
cal movement. There is a mass of correspondence, including the rais- 
ing of money, all of which ought to be conducted and controlled en- 
tirely by you, and extended to all the branches of our corresponding 
committee. To do this with method, brains and success, would put 
you in a very commanding position if we succeed, and give you a wide 
range of acquaintance and influence in and out of this mouldy little 
community even if we fail. I suppose my brother Charles has notified 
you of the letter of Clarke of St. Louis. I think we shall set that spring 
working and it is very important we should. I care little whether we 
succeed or not in getting into power, but I care a great deal to prevent 
myself from becoming what of all things I despise, a Boston prig (the 
intellectual prig is the most odious of all), and so I yearn, at every 
instant, to get out of Massachusetts and come in contact with the 
wider life I always have found so much more to my taste. 

Frank Palfrey has written to offer to do Sherman's Memoirs.' 1 I 
can't refuse. 

I hardly know anything about the July number. My contributors 
are all behaving like the devil and would exasperate me if I weren't 
hardened to it. But I suppose the number will bring itself out. If you 
can hear of any good articles, you had better secure them. Even for 
the October number, if you are to be responsible for it, you should be- 
gin by June 1st, especially as I fear I shall leave nothing for you; and 
Gam* Bradford wants to print an article on the City Charter. 

P.S. We shall be glad to see you here whenever you feel like a jaunt. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, 10 June, [1875.] 

Your last two notes are on hand. I only saw the President yesterday 
and he told me that the courses were so far advanced and the electives 
for next year have been for the most part handed in, so that he feared 
It would be impossible to interpolate a new course this year* I ac- 

* A paper on the Memoirs of General Sherman is in die tforti American Review, October, 
It was written by Palfrey. 



ADVICE TO LODGE ON WRITING 269 

quiesced, and he seemed much disposed to press It as a decided affair 
for next year, to be announced, that is, in April next, for the year 
1 8767, which I declined to do, on the ground that you might prefer 
other occupations. But if you care to go to work on it, with my Syl- 
labus for your outline, and prepare yourself this year, I think we can 
manage it easily next year if you like. 

I am now groaning under examination books and marks. Thanks 
for your kind offers. I fear I must bear that burden alone. 

Mrs. Wister is to appear in July. I have read her and rather like her. 
She has real go^ and is readable if sometimes unequal. 

Chauncey Wright will be No. 5- 1 The book-notices are not yet all 
in, but I think all but twenty pages or so are now in the printers* 
hands. 

Did I tell you that Gam. Bradford wants to write an article for 
October on the new charter, and I told him that we would let him 
know if we had space? 

I don't quite agree with you about the Webster library. I have bid 
for about a dozen books, and shall be sorry not to get them. I was 
surprised that you didn't try for TrumbulTs Connecticut. I hesitated 
but left it. The books are in good condition too, I went in to look at 
them. Left my orders with Lunt. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, 
15 June, 1875, 

Your notice of Chatterton 2 has no book-title prefixed. I return it 
for the purpose. You had better send it to the printers direct. 

I recommend you to try going over your manuscript always and 
strike out every superfluous word. You will find it pays also to try to 
condense your sentences and recast them for the purpose. 

I have roughly scratched your MS. as you will see, as an experiment 
in condensation. I have also modified and lowered your praises of the 
poet. But do you think it quite fair to say that a generation which 
had Gray and Collins for models, and produced Burns, was wholly 
dust and ashes? 

x On Isaac Todhcuiter's Conflict of Studies. 

* Printed in the North American Review, July, 1875. 



270 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS. 
Monday, [June (?), 1875.] 

I expected you to-day and was horrified by your not coming, as it 
reminded me that I had not answered your notes. I had to go up Fri- 
day, and Saturday all day, and in the bother of work, forgot to reply 
to you. Indeed I expected you anyway, and perhaps I dismissed 
reply as unnecessary. Anyway I let it slip my mind, and am specially 
sorry as I wanted to see you today rather than later as I go to Cam- 
bridge tomorrow for the last time, I hope, and could have arranged 
to meet you there. The fact is, I hardly know what has become of the 
carpet. It was so full of moths that no one would let it stay in his 
room, and it was cast into outer darkness. If you receive this note in 
time and can be at Cambridge tomorrow, you shall take seisin of all 
there is. 

I will resume the "dust and ashes" argument hereafter. I am sorry 
you think so poorly of Gray, whom I rank very high indeed. But if 
you insist on having only the naturals classed as poets, why not count 
in Cowper? I feel a little awkward about literary judgment. Every- 
one now snubs the last century and I see that Stephen considers Scott 
to be poor stuff. I confess I do think Pope a poet, and Gray, too, and 
Cowper, and Goldsmith. But this may be youthful prejudice, or rather 
prejudice contracted in youth. 

I modified your expressions about Chatterton, not so much because 
they were too laudatory; that was your affair; but rather because it 
seemed to me that if his verses were trite, affected, impossible and 
absurd (I forget your exact words) it was well to modify the praise; 
and if the praise were correct, the blame ought to be modified, or the 
balance ought to be more exactly drawn. It was easiest to modify the 
praise, so I suggested that course. 

We were thinking of making our descent on you and your wife one 
day next week. WU1 that do? 

Forgive my not answering your note. I am much mortified at the 
bad manners, but I really assumed that you would come of course and 
only wanted an answer in case I was not to be at home. 



SUGGESTIONS AND CRITICISM FOR LODGE 271 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS. 
24 July, 1875. 

You must first get an act of Congress authorizing the publication 
and appropriating monies thereto; then you must bring influence 
enough to bear on the State Department to get yourself appointed 
editor. I am at a loss to know how to effect either of these objects. 
At all events some years of active lobbying would seem to be necessary 
as a preliminary, and with this administration and a centennial presi- 
dential election at hand, I should feel rather hopeless of effecting any- 
thing. But if you go to Washington you had better see Mr. Fish about 
it. 

I am no great hand at poetical criticism, but if you will send me 
Queen Mary I will see what I can do with it. At least I can write as 
good a notice as the Nation's.* 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS. 
Friday, 6 Aug. 1875. 

My eyes are still sufficiently troublesome to make me avoid much 
use of them, so that I have not yet looked up the charters you ask 
about. I will do so as soon as may be. I have just read the notice of 
Digby and forward it to the printers today. 3 It is very good and the 
only criticism I will make is that your sentences are formed too much 
alike, so that your style needs variety. 

I enclose you a letter from some fellow unknown. Please settle him. 

With our best regards to your wife and guests, if these are still with 
you. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

BEVERLY FARMS, 4 October, 1875. 

... It would bore you to extinction to follow me through my daily 
struggle to find out how boys who have no minds can be made to 
understand that they had better be contented without the education 
of a Newton, and how boys who have minds can be made to under- 
stand that all knowledge has not yet been exhausted by Newton and 

1 Printed in North American RevUm, October, 1875. 

*His^offoLaBofRfalProj^,\wKcn^Edvr^ Digby, in North American Reritw> 
October, 1875. ' 



272 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

such. This effort to get rid of rubbish and to utilise good material is 
one of my labors. I am preaching a crusade against Culture with a 
big C. I hope to excite the hatred of my entire community, every soul 
of whom adores that big C. I mean to irritate every one about me to 
frenzy by ridiculing all the idols of the University and declaring a 
university education to be a swindle. I have hopes of being turned 
out of my place in consequence, in which case I shall become a re- 
former and my fortune is made. But this would not amuse you greatly, 
though I always hold up the English University as the one colossal 
instance of the mischievous consequences of Culture with a big C. 
Nor would my editorial duties fail to bore you. I have shoved off the 
greater part of them upon a junior editor, and confine myself now to 
direction 

Our politics are getting lively. As yet we independent liberals 
hold the balance of power and gain strength. But before this letter 
reaches you, we may be smashed to flinders. We called Schurz back 
from Germany to fight the Democrats in Ohio. If he succeeds in 
beating them there, my friends will pretty surely control the next 
presidential election. Tilden may be our man, or some other. If we 
are beaten in Ohio, everything will be chaotic, and no man can foresee 
what will turn up. A new division of parties and a new assortment of 
party leaders will become inevitable 

Oct. 15. The election mentioned in the last paragraph has come 
off, and after an awful strain on the nerves we feel at last sure of having 
effected our object. The Democrats are beaten by about five thousand 
majority in a total vote of about five hundred thousand* Narrow 
enough, but every man in that five thousand is one of us. You will 
hear more of this next year. We will play for high stakes and have 
nothing to lose. . . . 



To Charles Milnes Gaskdl 

91 MARYBOROUGH STREET, BOSTON. 
9 February, 1876. 

* 

Your uncle's death will, I suppose, make you more than ever free of 
ties. You are getting to the age, however, when perfect freedom be- 
comes the most objectionable form of slavery. I do not know what it 
is that makes man so base an animal, but true it is that his own good 
requires him to be bridled and saddled, moderately worked, and his 
mind carefolly filled with details, if he is to be contented. He is not 



BRISTOW FOR PRESIDENT 273 

made for unlimited freedom. His mind when it has no daily chopped 
food set before it, begins to eat itself and to refuse to eat at all The 
moral of which is that you must provide some regular occupation if 
you want to escape hypochondria 

Politics too are miserably out of joint. Our organization has been 
secretly effected and is ready to act, but is in doubt what it ought to 
dp, and although we have unquestionably the power to say that any 
given man shall not be President, we are not able to say that any given 
man shall be President. Our first scheme was to force my father on 
the parties. This is now abandoned, and we have descended to the 
more modest plan of pushing one of the regular candidates, or splitting 
the parties by taking one of their leaders. I am no longer confident of 
doing good and am looking with anxiety to the future. But things are 
getting beyond my capacity to influence or even to measure. The 
worst sign is the general lethargy about everything. The newspapers 
will probably give you information enough before long, for you to 
follow our course intelligibly. Only remember that we mean to support 
the present Secretary of the Treasury, Bristow, for the Presidency, 
provided he will give us any sort of assurance that he will, if necessary, 
accept an independent nomination from us. * . . 

I have read two chapters of Daniel Deronda y but it makes me miser- 
able to see that wicked woman, George Eliot, scratch and claw her 
poor heroines with a cruelty as fiendish as Mrs. What's-her-name 
tortured her apprentices with. . . . 

To Carl Schurz 

BOSTON, 14 Feby, 1876. 

MY DEAR MR. SCHURZ, Now that we are again thrown back upon 
the wide question of general policy, I suppose there is no impropriety 
in my venturing to express an opinion again, in regard to our wisest 
course. My poor brother Charles, to whom I generally leave the duty 
of declaring our joint opinion, has been very ill and still is too weak 
and sensitive even to be consulted on the subject. What I have to 
say, will therefore count for one only. 

It is dear that your original scheme must be abandoned. I am not 
sorry for it* I do not like coups de main. I have no taste for political 
or any other kind of betting, and for us to attempt forcing one of 
ourselves on a party convention, necessarily entails the jockeying of 
some-body. It would be the experience of '72 in a new shape, and 
successful or not it would do no permanent good but rather per- 



274 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

manent harm. The caucus system is the rottenest, most odious and 
most vulnerable part of our body politic. It is the caucus system we 
want to attack. By making use of it, we lose our own footing. 

To attack the caucus system is therefore the end and aim of all my 
political desires. To that object and to that object only do I care to 
contribute. Apart from that object, I believe all your political schemes 
to be mere make-shifts." You wanted to elect my father President. I 
would prefer to sacrifice him as the candidate of a hopeless minority if 
I could gain a point in that way against party organisations. Nay, if 
he were elected, my only ground for giving him support, apart from 
personal considerations, would be my conviction that he would pro- 
ceed systematically to purify party machinery by depriving it of the 
means of corruption. 

The present question with me is, then, how to go to work. You 
have satisfied yourself and me that we are not strong nor united 
enough to attack in face* The public is not ready to support us. You 
have therefore, I hope, abandoned that scheme. 

The next alternative was to attack in flank. If we could not set 
up our own man, to support the man who comes nearest to our stand- 
ard. This is Mr. Bristow. 1 He has a strong popular following. He 
deserves our support. He would make a good President and would 
probably in time work round to our opinions. We are therefore safe 
in supporting him. 

Unluckily Mr. Bristow does not now share in our views. He is a 
firm believer in party loyalty. He will not accept an independent 
nomination before the party convention meets. He will refuse to run 
against the party candidate in any case. He would look with un- 
utterable disgust upon any proposition to force a candidate on a party 
organisation whose candidacy meant to himself the rebellion against 
that same party organisation. Our support of Mr. Bristow must 
therefore be avowedly on grounds of policy, not of principle. 

Further, nothing is more certain than that Mr. Bristow cannot be 
nominated. We must not let our hands be tied by any delusion as to 
his strength in the convention. 

Here then are the propositions: 

I. We must support Mr. Bristow. 

a. We cannot nominate him as an independent candidate. 

3. We cannot let our hands be tied by the support we give him. > 

The essential part of any policy must be to hold our friends to- 
gether. Whatever support is given to Mr. Bristow or to anyone 

x Benjamin Hrfm Bristow (1832-1896). 



TO SCHURZ ON THE CINCINNATI CONVENTION 275 

else, it is all important that we should act ultimately as a unit, and 
that the certainty of this ultimate action should be the cardinal point 
of our tactics. 

It is now necessary to decide upon these tactics, and after the pre- 
ceding review of the ground, I will tell you what seems to me the only 
clear way out of our difficulties. 

To effect the essential object of holding our organisation together, 
it will be necessary to make a demonstration. That demonstration 
cannot now include a nomination for the Presidency because: 1st, It 
is our best policy to ally ourselves with Bristow, and his friends, 
and, Mr. Bristow will not accept our nomination. 3d, If we nominate 
him without consulting him, and he is beaten (as is probable) in Con- 
vention, he will refuse to run as our candidate, and we shall be left 
hopeless. 

The question then rises as to the nature of this demonstration. 

My recommendation is that you and half a dozen other gentlemen 
should write a circular letter addressed to about two hundred of the 
most weighty and reliable of our friends, inviting them to meet you, 
say at Cleveland, or Pittsburg, one week after the Republican Con- 
vention meets, there to decide whether we will support the Republican 
candidate or nominate a candidate of our own. I enclose my notion 
of the draft of the letter. 

This letter or address will of course be published. I should suppose 
it would have all the effect that any demonstration could have, both 
to unite our friends and to alarm the Convention at Cincinnati. By 
keeping in your own hands the nominations to our own meeting, you 
will be able to exclude the most dangerous elements. This is, no doubt, 
carrying the junto system far. But I have no real fear of juntoes. 
They are too objectionable in themselves ever to become dangerous 
like the caucus. And I know no other way of fighting the caucus than 
with the junto. Together they may not work so badly. 

Down to the time of the Convention, let us, within the range of 
this declaration, work earnestly for Bristow. By establishing dose 
relations with Bristow's friends, we shall probably cany a portion of 
them with us. If the Convention makes a very bad nomination we 
may carry nearly all. And Mr. Bristow's friends include all the virtue 
left in the Republican party. 

If the Convention nominates Mr. Bristow, well and good! Our 
meeting will merely confirm their action. If not, the serious responsi- 
bility will fall upon us of placing a candidate before the people. Our 
meeting must consist of men who will not shirk that responsibility, 



276 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

and there can be but one ground to rest our action upon; namely, 
resistance to caucus dictation. We cannot vote the Democratic ticket, 
for that would involve us in the support of a party organisation which 
it is a hopeless task to reform. But we can found a new party, and are 
content to bring the Democrats into power as the only means of re- 
organising parties. As I said before, I am willing to sacrifice my father 
for such an object, if necessary. He used Van Buren for a similar 
purpose in '48. But I would rather choose some one else if we could 
find any one. Our action however must depend to some degree on 
public feeling. 

I suppose you are more than any one else alive to the fact that a 
blunder now would make us helpless for the whole campaign. We 
must in the nature of things act cautiously for the simple reason that 
there is no sufficient popular feeling yet to support us in acting 
boldly. I see no chance of good to result from our making a pre- 
mature nomination. The public is fairly determined to wait for the 
action of the parties. But if we can make the public at large feel in 
advance that they are certain of having an alternative in case the 
party conventions are unsatisfactory, we shall sap the foundations of 
party discipline beforehand without exposing ourselves to any possible 
attack. 

I hope these tactics will coincide with your views. Otherwise I 
shall wait with great anxiety the decision you shall make. But in any 
case believe me very sincerely yours. 

[Draff of circular letter^ 

9 March, 1876. 

SIR> The present condition of political affairs is such as to create 
grave concern in the minds of all reflecting men. 

The great party conventions are soon to meet. As yet there is no 
indication that the choice of these conventions will fall upon persons 
in whom independent voters can place confidence. All the indications 
of the time point to the possibility that, in the conflict between per- 
sonal interests, the interests of the nation may be overlooked, and 
either a combination of corrupt influences may control the result, or, 
as has so often happened, the difficulty of harmonising personal claims 
may lead to the nomination of candidates whom you cannot support 
with self-respect. 

^ Against such a possibility it is our duty to take every precau- 
tion. 



WASHINGTON INTRIGUE 277 

The Republican Convention will meet on the of June. We 

have the honor, therefore, respectfully to invite your attendance at a 
conference of gentlemen independent of party ties, to meet at the city 

of on the day of June, to decide whether we can support 

the nominations made by the Republican Convention, and if not, to 
place before the people candidates of our own selection. We have the 
honor, etc., etc. 



To Henry Cabot Lodge 

91 MARYBOROUGH ST. 
15 Feby., 1876. 

Yours of yesterday has just arrived. You had better engage the 
article from Boynton. 1 But you must explain to him our resources 
and have the question of pay fairly understood. Further you had 
better stipulate with him that the language shall be moderate. You 
can add that the editor (he does not know me) in chief reserves to 
himself in all cases, and rigidly exercises, the right to strike out or 
modify expressions which he deems too strong. You will find it con- 
venient to make me the partner to be consulted in such cases as in the 
novel which I can't now recollect. Put all that is disagreeable on my 
shoulders. 

You are now plunged up to the ears in Washington intrigue. Go in 
for Bristow with all your energy. But remember that the chances are 
a thousand to one against the nomination of any man who has made 
so many enemies as he. And bear in mind that it must be the object 
of Bristow's friends to get our support, but that they will never con- 
sent to pledge him to us. If you doubt this, try to urge such a pledge. 
They will evade you and must do so, because Bristow is a Kentucky 
Republican and has all the old traditions of party fealty. His friends 
would no doubt like to have us go into convention to support him, but 
they can get no promise from him of support to us if we are beaten in 
convention. If you want practice as a diplomate, try your hands on 
satisfying yourself whether or not they think their chief will support, 
or at least not oppose, the party nomination. If they encourage you 
to think he will bolt the nomination, they are either deceiving them- 
selves or deceiving you, or else I am much misinformed. The game 
is not unlike that with Elaine last winter, except that Bristow is a 
more honorable man, and will not intentionally deceive us. Keep 

1 Henry Van Ness Boynton (1835-1905), whose article on the "Whiskey Ring" appeared in 
the North American Review, October, 1876. ^ 



278 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

your eyes about you and do your best to secure them ultimately for 
us instead of securing us ultimately to them. 

There is nothing new here. Give my regards to your wife and be- 
lieve me. 

P.S. Please get for me a copy of Bristow's Annual Report. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

91 MARLBOROUGH ST. 
17 February, 1876. 

Yours of the 1 5th arrived this morning. I think there can be no 
doubt that Mr. Bristow would make a great mistake by resigning. 
Most men who have resigned have made mistakes. Always excepting 
our great hero Jefferson, and if he had been an honester man, he too 
would have fought out his victory in the Cabinet. 

But nevertheless I expect the resignation of Mr. Bristow. I expect 
it because he and his friends are Kentuckians, and will act on motive 
of personal dignity. He will do as Clay did to Tyler, and with, I sup- 
pose, the same result. 

Nevertheless, without imagining that you can exercise much con- 
trol over the movements of Mr. Bristow and his friends, I hope you 
will identify yourself as much as possible with his interests, and 
accept his lead, for the time at least. We shall soon learn whether he 
has the faculty to lead us, or whether he too is to fall into powerless- 
ness with his loss of office. 

Our object is clear enough. We want to break down party organisa- 
tions which are the source of all our worst corruption. Does Mr, 
Bristow recognise this necessity? If not, can he be brought to do so? 

You ask whether he ought to write a letter or not. It seems to me 
immaterial. What we want to know is whether he will bolt the nomi- 
nation of Washburne or Hayes. 1 Will he fight? Will he make one of 
us? Will he lead? We cannot consent to go blindfold. We can't 
follow a leader who is going to quit us if a convention tells him to do 
so* We can't exhaust our strength in fighting for Bristow and then 
have Bristow vote for Washburne. 

You think he is ready to join us. If so his policy seems to me 
obvious. He should give us the most vigorous lead he can. If he 
means to break things, he should break all he can. He should issue 
an indictment against the party that will show the people what we 

1 Elihu Benjamin Washburne and Rutherford BircHard Hayes. 



A PROPOSED PARTY ORGAN 279 

mean. If he is under the delusion that all this horrible corruption can 
be dealt with by any moderate language or with any blunt weapons, 
he is useless as a leader. We must have a man who cares nothing for 
party or he will betray us. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

91 MARYBOROUGH ST. 
Sunday, 20 Feby., 1876. 

Your letters are extremely interesting and become from day to day 
more essential to me here. I have, however, spoken of them to no one 
except my father, whom, for obvious reasons, it is now important to 
carry along with us. But the time of action is now at hand and I may 
have to take your place here in our organisation till you return. So 
continue to write every day if you can. In case you want to telegraph, 
you will have to use some caution in mentioning names. Schurz and 
Bristow had better figure as Smith and Brown. I have done nothing 
about the Post* but am willing to put $5000 into it if Bristow is our 
candidate. What did you do about it before leaving? And how much 
money do you feel disposed to put into it? 

I presume that the verdict in Babcock's case, whichever way it goes, 
will at once let loose the elements. There are one or two points of 
immediate importance in regard to this. Much depends on the man 
selected by the President to succeed Bristow. If a good man is ap- 
pointed, we may still be embarrassed. Our friends had better keep 
quiet till that appointment is made or they may go off at half-cock. I 
don't mean that we are to abandon Bristow, but that we are to give 
his enemies full swing. My life on it, they will hang themselves. 

The second point is that we should know at the very earliest possible 
moment what is decided in regard to Bristow's nomination by us. We 
want to move quickly now. The purchase of the Post, so far as I am 
concerned, is conditional on Bristow's candidacy. The organisation 
of our party here should be effected by the establishment of the organ; 
the two steps go together. I hope therefore you will try to get Bristow 
and Schurz into positive cooperation as soon after the former quits 
office as possible. Let us know what is decided as soon as may be. 
Bristow's name will be essential to our raising money. Our control of 
the organ is essential to our management of the canvass. 

I shall send for Brooks today and impart to him the contents of 
your epistles. 

* N.Y. Evening Post, I think. H. C. L. 



280 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Just now it seems as though the Gods were kinder to us than we 
deserve, and were going to rescue us from our dilemma. I need not 
say with what extreme anxiety I look forward to the coming week. 

You will be pleased to hear that Poole's article makes 35 pages, and 
Morgan's 43. 1 Your arithmetic seems a little weak. I am going over 
your Essay and to say that I have launched more imprecations at your 
head than would sink an archangel, is a mild statement. If you don't 
get a printing machine, I'll take away your degree. I don't understand 
more than quarter of your article but hope it's all right. At any rate, 
I know no better. But surely the king's income from his own land was 
rent rather than tax. My own MS, is all in type and yours goes to the 
printer this week. 

I went to your house yesterday and stole some book. Wells has not 
arrived. 

With my best regards to your wife, the Admiral and his family, I 
am. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

91 MARLBOROUGH ST. 
23 Feby., 1876. 

Your letters of the aist and aand arrived today and are very 
agreeable. We have little to do now but to prepare ourselves for the 
struggle and to follow the wishes of Mr. Bristow's friends. 

There is, however, one remark of Solicitor Wilson, twice repeated 
in your letters, to which I think I am bound to take exception. He 
said that in case Mr. Bristow should be defeated in convention, he 
would then be in our hands for the second place on a ticket of Adams 
and Bristow, if we chose. To this I cannot assent. There is in it a 
suggestion of bargaining, which appears to me inadmissible. I must 
protest against Schurz entering into any such trade. It is destructive 
of honorable dealing. If Schurz and our friends consider Mr. Bristow 
to be the proper candidate to support for the Presidency before the 
convention, they are bound to hold the same opinion after the con- 
vention. We can have but one candidate. I am myself ready to use 
all my little energies to bring about the election of Mr. Bristow, but 
only on the understanding that the candidacy of Mr. Bristow is a 
thing entirely apart, and unaffected by the result of the convention. 
I do not doubt that Schurz will take the same view, but at any rate 
I for one protest against any half-measures or trades, and wish you 

x William Frederick Poole's article on "Dr. Cutler and the Ordinance of 1787'* and Lewis H. 
Morgan's on "Montezoma's Dinner" appeared in the North American Rtoiew, April, 1876. 



THE BRISTOW MOVEMENT 281 

would distinctly repudiate it to Mr. Wilson as entering in any way 
into the motives of our action. Our support of Mr. Bristow must rest 
on higher grounds. 

Meanwhile I have been diligently employed all day in the matter of 
the Post. Whether anything will come of it or not, I cannot yet say. 
But we shall do our utmost, and I have various schemes in my head 
to effect it. You will know soon. 

I have finished reading your article x which is indeed profound. If 
it were mine, I think I should give it more concentration by omitting 
some portions and connecting the rest so as to be more intelligible to 
the profane. But this is not my affair and I shall send it to the printer 
praying that he may be great enough to decypher it. 

Redfield's article ends, I think, on page 356.* Wells's has not come. 
I shall write for it. 3 

Please don't forget to send or bring me Mr. Bristow's Report. Also 
please send me Schurz's address which I do not know. Also please ask 
Boynton, or Wilson, or both, if they know Horace White's present 
address, and send it to me if they have it. 

I envy you at Washington, not the politics but the climate. We are 
here all barking like puppies. 

I didn't steal Review books. I stole your books. 

With best regards to your wife, believe me. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

91 MAJUBOROUGH ST. 
27 February, 1876, 

Yours of the a4th arrived last evening, as well as your telegram. I 
can't come to New York to meet you. My lectures begin on Tuesday, 
and I am sorry that you are coming away from Washington, for I 
was on the point of asking you to do something else for us. But one 
never gets all that life has to offer. 

You will present my profoundest compliments to your wife for what 
I am convinced is the very just appreciation she has of my wisdom. If 
she would however lend me just a little of her own, so as to let me see 
my way clear out of the present dilemma, I should be even more satis- 
fied than I am of the perfect superiority of my intellect* 

There is but one idea to which I ding as my ark of salvation: that 

* "Land Law of the Anglo-Saxons." a Isaac F. Redfidd on "Chief Justice Chase." 

i David Ames Wells, on "The Reform of Local Taxation," both in && North American Rnum 
for April, 1876. 



282' LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

is, the objective point of attack; the caucus system. The problem to 
me is, how most to wound that. 

My political education has taught me in this connection only one 
corollary. Even that is negative. This is, that an attack on the caucus 
system, if it miscarries > strengthens that system. Schurz proved this 
terribly in 1872 when he was made the slave of the monster he was 
fighting. 

Now then! 

1. We want to crush the caucus. 

2. If we go into it, or fail in our attack, the caucus will crush us. 

3. ??????????? 

Schurz fills up this third term of the proposition by writing to me on 
the 24th: 

"We shall be utterly powerless if we put off our demonstration until 
after the convention, unless that convention ... renominates Grant. 
My present intention is to issue invitations to a free conference" in 
April " to be governed in its action by the circumstances of the times." 

Schurz knows better than I, and if he decides to do this, I acquiesce 
(provisionally) in his better judgment. 

At the same time, I would suggest some reasons against its wisdom : 

I. Such a conference, not to injure ourselves, must be very weighty 
in character and influence. Can we now get such an one? 

a. It must be united in policy. Any sign of disagreement would 
weaken us. Are we united in policy? 

3. A decision not to act at once, would be an acknowledgment of 
weakness. Pro tanto, it would hurt us. 

4. A nomination would be desperate. We all know it. Why do a 
desperate act before being compelled? 

&A separation in disagreement would be nearly if not quite fatal, 
y own diagnosis is a different one. I start from the assumption 
that we are too weak to do more than profit by our enemy's blunders. 
Is this an unfair assumption? Even Schurz concedes that the move- 
ment started on the other theory was a failure. He only urges that 
there is still one unknown element, the people. But we have no right 
to count on an unknown element. 

My next step is that if the enemy make no blunders, we are power- 
less and should do nothing. What is the use of exhibiting our feeble- 
ness? 

My next conclusion is that we should offer every inducement to the 
enemy to make blunders. Clear the field for diem. One such is to 



BLUNDERS IN POLITICS 283 

avoid alarming them into caution. If they (the Republicans) nominate 
Elaine, we are nowhere. Don't deceive yourself by the idea that a 
presidential nominee can be broken down by charges. 

Finally, if all we can hope for is to profit by the enemy's blunders, is 
it not in the highest degree wise to use such caution as is practicable 
in order that the enemy may not be able to profit by any blunders of 
ours? And no one can deny that any public action at all on our part, 
exposes us to the risk of blundering. 

There is one condition and one only on which I can give my adhesion 
to the proposed conference. This is that Mr. Bristow and his friends 
should advise and consent to it; that Mr. Bristow's acceptance of its 
nomination should be secured in advance; and that the meeting should 
nominate Bristow without discussion, by acclamation, and go home. 

In short, I adhere to my previous letter to Schurz. And if you can 
influence him in any way, I am sure you will impress upon him to the 
utmost this policy of cooperation with Bristow's friends. If the time 
shall come, as it soon must, when they shall despair of a regular nomi- 
nation and shall accede to an independent one, we can call a conven- 
tion for that purpose at ten days* notice. 

One thing more. Lose no opportunity of putting your foot on any 
revival of the Adams scheme. We are well rid of it. Keep it out of 
sight. We can do better by other tactics. 

When you see Schurz, please ask particularly after his wife on my 
behalf (as well as your own). I said nothing about her in my letter to 
Mm, nor about his father, and you will have to make up for my omis- 
sion. 

Please also make some enquiry about Nordhoff. Is he again in 
Washington on the Herald? What is his address? If White refuses and 
our negotiation continues for the Post, we may settle on Nordhoff if he 
will come. I know no one else so good. 

I am meditating an excursion to California for my wife's cough. If 
so you will have to take one of my courses. 

My best regards to your wife. 

To Carl Schurz 

6 March, 1876. 

MY DEAR MR. SCHURZ, Should you feel disposed to consider the 
offer of the position of managing editor of one of our chief daily papers 
here, with a fixed salary of say $5,000 a year, and a percentage on the 
profits over and above a certain sum? 



284 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

We are meditating the purchase of such a paper, but our action is 
entirely conditional on finding an editor. Of course this is very private, 
I have no authority to make any offer, but I must have some manager 
to offer to the investors in the stock, and I think with your name I 
should have little difficulty. 

Time is very short and I must decide by Thursday next whether the 
scheme is to be abandoned or not. Of course I have had to make in- 
quiries in several directions, for I have no confidence in securing you. 
Yet the prospect for you here, in such a position, would be far from 
indifferent. 



To Henry Cabot Lodge 

April, 1876. 

Certainly! Come whenever you like. I shall be at home this even- 
ing, and tomorrow too unless I have to go to Quincy. Come as usual. 
My wife will be here if I am not. 

You will find no little of the nervousness and wretchedness of the 
last week, worked off into criticisms of your essay. Don't be alarmed 
at it. 



To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS. 
15 May, 1876. 

I have read your MS/ and think it will do you credit* Of course I 
have made many alterations, not in the sense, but in the words. I 
have cut out all the "we's" I could get at, and tried to make it less 
objectionably patronising toward Morse. . . . Probably much further 
labor may be profitably expended on it in proof. 

You do not of course expect me to acquiesce entirely in your view of 
A* H. I can hardly explain the reasons of my own kind of aversion to 
him. That it is inherited is no explanation, for I inherit feelings of 
a very different sort towards Jefferson, Pickering, Jackson, and the 
legion of other life-long enemies whom my contentious precursors 
made. I dislike Hamilton because I always feel the adventurer in 
him. The very cause of your admiration is the cause of my distrust; he 
was equally ready to support a system he utterly disbelieved in as one 
that he liked From the first to die last words he wrote, I read always 
the same Napoleonic kind of adventuredom, nor do I know any more 

Oa "Alexander Hamilton/* printed in Nvrik American Review, July, 1876. 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON'S MORAL STANDARDS 285 

curious and startling illustration of this than the conclusion of that 
strange paper explaining his motives for accepting Burr's challenge. 
I abhor, says he, the practice of duelling, but "the ability to be in 
future useful in those crises of our public affairs which seem likely to 
happen, would probably be inseparable from a conformity with preju- 
dice in this particular." What should you or I say if our great-grand- 
fathers had left us those words as a deathbed legacy? I think we 
should not have so high a moral standard as I thank those gentlemen 
for leaving us. And I confess I think those words alone justify all John 
Adams's distrust of Hamilton. Future political crises all through 
Hamilton's life were always in his mind about to make him com- 
mander-in-chief, and his first and last written words show the same 
innate theory of life* 
But you will not be able to assent to this. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, Sunday, 4 June^ 1876. 

...... 

Your Marblehead friend has sent his notice of Landor.* As far as I 
have read, it strikes me as clerical. But I hand it over to you. 

Elaine's nomination would now be a stroke of luck for us. But we 
have lost our chance. Had this exposure been delayed a fortnight un- 
til after the nomination was made, we should have had a clean sweep. 
As it is we may still be pestered with Washburne or Hayes. I suppose 
that all the old calculations are now worthless, and I wait the result of 
the Convention with a sort of perfunctory interest such as I feel at 
seeing the mosquitoes, now here. They are a nuisance, like the Con- 
vention; blood-suckers like its members; buzzing, stinging, lean 
and hungry insects which can't be exterminated. We must endure 
them, but by the prophet Bristow we will roast them if we can. 
Our bonfire, I presume, is ready. 

The Tribune is a good deal upset. I suspect Reid is at his wit's end 
for a candidate and a policy. We can now afford to throw him over. 

* An unsigned review of Forster's Works and Ltff of Writer $&*& Lsndor is in the Nortk 
American Rmtw, January, 1877. 



286 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 



To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS. 
Wednesday, 7 June, '76. 

I send your last sheet of proof. You will find no want of criticism in 
it. I think, however, that the article, besides irritating all your friends 
and exasperating all Morse's, will do you no harm. Your abuse of 
Jefferson is a trifle crude and wants delicacy of touch, but it is always 
safe to abuse Jefferson and much easier than to defend him. The tone, 
apart from a rather youthful tendency (which I am myself apt to in- 
dulge) to sweeping and extreme statements, is candid, and the criti- 
cism just. The weak point is still style. But it is rather above than 
below the N+ A. R. average even there. 

You see I don't mean absolutely to turn your head by flattery. 

I hope to have five or six pages of Ticknor ready by Monday or 
Tuesday. 

Would not W. James write us at short notice something on Howells* 
story, for the gap if there is one? You might try him. 

I am going to write to F. T, Palgrave for a notice of Macaulay. If 
he won't, I will do it myself. 

Gryzanowski will write two articles, both good subjects, the first for 
October. 1 

Your order of men agrees very nearly with mine, but I shall proba- 
bly raise the scale. The books have arrived. Much obliged. 

Our bill for corrections on our book* is now about $500; as much as 
the composition itself. It will make the volume cost $1500. I have 
already paid $750. 

Poor Elaine squeals louder than all the other pigs. Schenck, Colfax, 
Belknap, were all nothing to him. Beecher alone can match him. I 
think Elaine's speech of Monday matches for impudence and far 
exceeds in insolence anything that Beecher ever did. We air a great 
people. But disgust has now filled my mind for the whole subject, and 
I am slowly contemplating the figures of Hayes and Washburne. 
What a mess it all is! And how glaid I am that I have not got to go 
to Gudnnati. Bullock is sensible. 

* E. Gryzanowdd, ** Wagners TTieories of Music," appeared in the North American Review, 
January, 1877, 

* ^agio-Saxon Low. 



BOSTON'S BUSINESS IN LIFE 287 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS. 
Wednesday, 12 June, [1876,] 

The library notifies me that the third volume of the Krit-Ueber has 
not been returned. Do you recollect what became of it? 

We miss your visits. I see no one now to keep me posted. 

The July N. A. R. is very good. I read your article over again and 
thought it read very well indeed. I fancy it will give you reputation. 

I think my three pictures very successful. 

When you make up the list of payments, please insert for Thevenin x 
(they have his address) a draft for 150 francs. Let a check for $20 for 
the notice of Ticknor, 2 be made out and sent to me. 

The October number will be very political. Besides Boynton's 
article (would not Wilson have written it now?), Hazen * is to send one 
of twenty pages on the Belknap business; and finally my brother 
Charles and I mean to concoct a political article together/ 

I suppose Lowell will not do Transcendentalism. I shall ask Mrs. 
P. to do it.s 

With our best regards to Mrs. Lodge. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

BEVERLY FARMS, 14 June, 1876. 

I was rejoiced to see your hand again the other day, and to hear a 
little of your news. Our correspondence, for the first time has flagged 
of late, and indeed it is a wonder to me that it does not expire, for I 
have literally nothing to write that can possibly be of more than a 
very vague interest to you. If the world in London grows old and 
wanes towards its dotage, die world here stands still. Boston is a curi- 
ous place. Its business in life is to breed and to educate. The parent 
lives for his children; the child, when educated himself, becomes a 
parent, or becomes an educator, or is both. But no further result is 
ever reached. Just as at twenty the parent reproduces himself in a 

1 Marcel Thevenin, whose review of Heinrich Gottfried Gengler's Germanised Reehtfdenk- 
malen was printed in the North American Rtviem, July, 1876. - 
a In the July number. 

* William Babcock Hazen (1830-1887), who had brought charges of fraud against post- 
traders which involved Belknap. 

* "The 'Independents' in the Canvass." 

* An unsigned review of Octavius Brooks Frothmgham's Transcendentalism in New England 
appeared in the October number. 



288 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

child, so the teacher reproduces himself in his scholar. But neither as 
child nor as scholar does the new generation do more than devote 
itself to become in its turn parent and teacher. Nothing ever comes of 
it all. There is no society worth the name, no wit, no^ intellectual 
energy or competition, no clash of minds or of schools, no interests, no 
masculine self-assertion or ambition. Everything is respectable, and 
nothing amusing. There are no outlaws. There are not only no con- 
victions but no strong wants. Dr. Holmes, who does the wit for the 
city of three hundred thousand people, is allowed to talk as he will 
wild atheism commonly and no one objects. I am allowed to sit in 
my chair at Harvard College and rail at everything which the College 
respects, and no one cares. Apparently the view of life fairly adopted 
here is that the business of each generation shall be to generate and 
educate a succeeding generation. English women would open their 
eyes to see the elaboration of our nurseries. Englishmen^ would be 
utterly bewildered at the slavery of the parents to their children. As 
an educator and not as a parent, I am exasperated by the practical 
working of the system at college, where the teacher assumes that 
teaching is his end in life, and that he has no time to work for original 
results. But when a society has reached this poin^ it acquires a self- 
complacency which is wildly exasperating. My fingers itch to punc- 
ture it; to do something which will sting it into impropriety. 

The year's work draws to its end. My lectures are over and my 
classes dispersed. My book will be out, I hope, in about a month.... 
The book is fearfully learned. You cannot read it, and I advise you 
not to open it. But I shall send you a copy. It will cost me about four 
hundred pounds, very little of which I expect to get back except in my 
three students, whose work fills three-fourths of the volume. Their 
success is mine, and I make the investment for them, expecting to 
draw my profit from their success. My own position will only bring 
your friend Freeman about my ears. I have contradicted every Eng- 
lish author, high and low 

I recollect that my last letters have dealt largely with politics. We 
organized our party, and as usual have been beaten. After our utmost 
efforts we have only succeeded in barring the road to our opponents 
and forcing them to nominate as candidate for the Presidency one 
Hayes of Ohio, a third rate nonentity, whose only recommendation is 
that he is obnoxious to no one. I hope to enjoy the satisfaction of 
voting against him. The only good result of all the past eighteen 
months of work has been the savage hunting-down of powerful 
scoundrdb and the display of the awful corruption of our system in 



THE HAYES NOMINATION 289 

root and branch. But our people as yet seem quite callous. If any 
storm of popular disgust is impending, no sign of it as yet darkens the 
air. We shall keep at it, and good will come in time. I hope only 
mildly, but croaking is little better than confessing to be a bore.... 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

Monday, 19 June, [1876.] 

Of course we arcjoues by the Hayes nomination. Our organs, per- 
haps wisely, are trying to capture him, I see, and make him one of us. 
Organised resistance is impossible and you will have a quiet summer* 

It is barely possible that the man may turn out right. I shall wait 
to get the most exact information I can as to his character. If there is 
any solid reason to suppose him a capable man, likely to understand 
and perform his duties, we should do wrong not to support him. 
As at present advised, however, I shall vote for the Democrat. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

zi June, 1876. 

Pray Heaven I get some of the $60. But I know the College too weLL 

I passed half an hour today at the printing office trying to make the 
number come out straight. At last I gave it up in despair. I told them 
to ask Osgood to give us half a sheet more. If he refused, then to make 
it come out right anyhow. 

I am glad to hear about the books. I had almost given them up. 
The check shall be sent when they arrive. 

Brooks is superb/ I shall read that oration. 

My mind is made up to shut my mouth on politics. I can't see what 
we ought to do and I fear doing mischief. But try and preserve the 
organisation. 

E. W. H. a is quite right about the College. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS. 
24 June, 1876. 

I presume you saw on the MS. that the printers were ordered to send 
that proof and MS* to me. I am preparing a letter to them notcmL 

1 Brooks Adams delivered an oration on July 4th. 

Edward William Hooper (1839-1901), treasurer of Harvard University* 1876-1898, 



290 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Meanwhile please bear in mind that the author of that notice made it 
a condition that no one, not even you, should know the authorship. 
Therefore please send me the MS. and never hint that you know any- 
thing. 

I am sorry to bother the printers, and still more sorry that you 
should have had the trouble to write an extra page. Unluckily I have 
already prepared a notice of Thevenin's to fill the gap (which the 
printers notified me of when I was at the office), and as we must pay 
for it anyway, I prefer to utilise it. 

Moreover I wish the printers to understand that my orders are to be 
taken notice of and obeyed. I shall therefore stop everything, and 
oblige them to send me the Ticknor as well as the Thevenin in proof, 
with a sharp intimation to them to be more exact next time. 

I don't greatly care for Millet's x comments on the Centennial. He 
is a protg6 of Charles's, and his experience is not extensive. I would 
rather get some one whose name carries more weight. 

I have taken your corrections of the plates from Young 3 and brought 
them down here, but have not yet had time to look at them. There is 
no hurry. Laughlin can hardly go on for another week. 

Politics have ceased to interest me. I am satisfied that the machine 
can't be smashed this time. As I feared, we have ourselves saved it by 
a foolish attempt to run it, which we never shall succeed in. The 
Caucus and the machine will outlive me, and that being the case, I 
prefer to leave this greatest of American problems to shrewder heads 
than mine. When the day comes on which it will be considered as 
disgraceful to be seen in a caucus as to be seen in a gambling house or 
brothel, then my interest will wake up again and legitimate politics 
will get a new birth. 

With best regards to your wife. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS. 
Sunday, 25 June, 1876. 

I have been spending a day over your Essay 3 trying to make the 
corrections fit. As they stand, you would have to break up all the 
plates and change all the paging. On pages 93^94 you have scratched 
out 426 letters or letter spaces, and inserted 612, or about three lines 

* Francis Davis Millet (1846-1912). 

Ernest Young, then instructor in History and Roman Law (1852-1888). 
Thcrcfercncts are to Lodge's Essays in Ango-Saxtm Lam. 



LODGE'S ESSAY ON ANGLO-SAXON LAW 291 

more than there is room for. If the printers can find room, well and 
good, but as^you insert another extra line on page 96, I fear their 
arithmetic might be stumped. 

I found that in order to do the job intelligently I must understand 
the text, and much to my humiliation that my mind was as much 
puzzled by it as by Emerson. I had to sit down and write out for my- 
self what you seemed to mean. I accordingly inclose to you my para- 
phrase of about a page. If this is what you mean, I think with a little 
condensation you can squeeze yourself into the space. If not, I would 
like to have my intelligence rubbed up by a more exact statement. 

This assumes that 44 lines of 60 letters each, are to be recast. The 
difficulty on p. 96 can, I think, get itself more easily arranged. I should 
suggest: 

" Duke Alfred in his will prays the kind to give his son the folc-land, 
in opposition to the boc-land which he devised as of right." Or some 
such shorter phrase. 

Forgive my stupidity. I can not understand things that to other 
men are plain as a poker, and above all I cannot understand law. 

P.S. I can't get my books from Leonard's. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS. 

Saturday 27/6. '76. 

Ah-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h!!! 

I think I see your confusion! You blushed and your limbs shook. 
Well! I am glad, for I hunted through all my own papers for it yester- 
day morning in Boston, and had begun to feel shaken in my own 
methodicality. I regret to say that the list is useless as it is. We must 
have the exact titles and editions. Moreover, we want none but works 
actually cited or referred to. 1 Are all these in that category? 

By all means get the index ready. Young and I are at work on ours. 

Young comes down here Wednesday to pass the night. If you could 
come either for Wednesday night or Thursday morning, and bring a 
copy of your Essay, we might settle everything. Your Essay is already 
in Torrey's 3 hands. 

I feel little anxiety about Conkling. It would be too much luck for 

* Probably the "Tides of Works Cited," prefixed to Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law. 
Henry Warren Torrey (1814-1893), McLean professor of ancient and modern history in 
Harvard Unhnersity. 



292 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

us. But I do fear Blaine, because the Convention will see that we can- 
not deal with him so easily. He will divide us. I feel no real hope about 
Bristow. But things look to me as though the Democrats might yet 
help us through. 

P.S. I spoke to Charles Eliot about Schurz's LL.D. He expressed 
some doubts owing to there being two on the stocks. But a little pres- 
sure will do something perhaps. Set Brimmer or Harry Lee or my 
father on him. And see that Frank Parkman and Ned Hooper are 
posted* 1 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, 
30 June, 1876. 

Your note of yesterday has just arrived and was very pleasing to my 
feelings. You will one day feel the advantage of my not having spoiled 
you by flattery* Take care that you do not feel the evil of adopting a 
different course towards me. 

Nothing since I came to Cambridge has given me so much and so 
unalloyed satisfaction as the completion of our baking this batch of 
doctors of philosophy. 3 I am pleased with my scholars and proud of 
them. They have shown qualities which I believe to be of the first 
order. It is true that the highest quality of the mind imagination 
is utterly wanting in our American character and of course in the best 
of our students; but so it is now-a-days everywhere else, and the fault 
is probably in the age. Setting this aside, I believe that my scholars 
will compare favorably with any others, English, German, French or 
Italian. I look with more hope on the future of the world as I see how 
good our material is. 

I am gratified at your warm praise of Young's appearance at com- 
mencement. His paper read well, better than I had expected; so well 
that I had no suggestions to offer, which seemed to disappoint him a 
little. There is a natural neatness about his work which stamps it as 
quite peculiar. Even in College his mind was almost singular in its 
clearness. Simpson had a similar mental quality, but I do not know 
that I have ever met it elsewhere. Young owes nothing to me but 
opportunity. 

x The degree of LLJX was conferred by the University in June on Alexander Hamilton 
Bice, Carl Schnrz, and William Dwight Whitney. 

Young, Laiigiilia and I received the degree of PhJX for our Thesis on Anglo-Saxon Law 
embodied 5n th* book. H.C.L. 



TILDEN'S NOMINATION 293 

For once I have been in a state of absolute satisfaction for a whole 
day. I am not only as pleased as Punch about my Ph.D.'s, but highly 
delighted to have carried our point about Schurz, and to crown aU 
comes Tilden. Before the result, I thought I should be perplexed 
between Tilden and Hayes, but to my great amusement I found that 
my mind decided the matter without any need of calling on the wilL 
I have no ill-will to Hayes. If he is elected I shall support him loyally. 
But I can no more resist the pleasure of voting for Tilden than I could 
turn my back on a friend, I too fought with Erie! And shall I now 
reject the leader who then led me to triumph ! Schurz may do what he 
wfll. I advise him to do nothing. As for me, I have no hesitation. 

I would have liked to see G. B. r He is an entertaining man, and is 
the great authority on American history, at least for facts. I am glad 
he praised your Hamilton, and I wish the latter were out, but they 
have not yet sent me the last sheet in proof. This morning I get sheet 
14 (pp. 209-224) marked as gone to press. The A[nglo] S[axonJ Essays 
are still stationary, but Laughlin and his wife pass Sunday with us, 
and I hope to set things going again. Brooks is coming down, also, to- 
day or tomorrow, I hope, to discuss oration with me. 

The books arrived, a very useful and interesting lot. I send the 
check to Leonard at once. Thanks for your trouble. The binding of 
Niles's Register is a choice sample of American art fifty years ago. I 
have read Marbury vs. Madison with care, and talked with Wendell 
Holmes on the theory of the constitution. 

Give our love to Will Big. 2 He must come and see us again before he 
goes back. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS. 
Sunday, 16 July, 1*76. 

I would answer your friend civilly; say that you will be happy to 
print his productions from time to time; that we are however rather 
crowded and cannot promise publication; and that you hope he is 
quite well; and his wife! 

I am glad Brooks wrote to you and I would like to see has letter. 

I am giving your A.-S, Essay a final revise, and will have the cor- 
rections ready for you to see when you next come down. Perhaps it 
would be better for you and Mr. James to come down next week 

* George Bancroft. See Mass. EGst. Socy., Proceeding, LX, 305. 

* Dr. William Sturgis Bigdow. 



294 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

rather than this; that is, after next Sunday. If you come sooner, you 
may find us occupied; and anyway I shall rather want to see you about 
a week hence. 



To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS 
31 July, 1876. 

I have your two notes, and accept your amendment in substituting 
lazy for loose. I didn't mean to say you couldn't think closely. If I 
thought that, I shouldn't blackguard you so steadily for not doing it. 
But for men like you and me, Buffon's aphorism is the only safe guide: 
Le gnie y cest une longue patience! Keep at it, and never think any- 
thing finished while you have time to improve it* 

I am very glad my father wrote to you, the more so as I never heard 
of his volunteering such a compliment to anyone before. He never 
wrote to me nor even spoke to me in his life about any production of 
mine* He grows younger with years. His letter will counterbalance 
mine* 

We howled with delight over the Sunday Herald? s puff r of you. 
Some men, you know, achieve greatness, and some have it thrust upon 
them. Haskell must have his little joke, but some jokes become 
earnest in time. We shall come up some day, if not into office, at least 
into authority. 

Bristow's "equanimity" is the result, I suppose, of his conviction 
that the Republican party is too corrupt for reform, at least in Hayes's 
hands. My own conviction is that whichever course we take, we 
shall wish we had taken the other. I see that Sam Bowles repre- 
sents the Adams family as " solid " for Tilden. Isn't he premature? 
I had supposed that Tilden's letter was an important element in the 
case. 

I do not see the defect in my statement about Puritan intolerance. 
The Puritans rose between 1600 and 1630 when the Massachusetts 
colony came over. I never have understood or been able to explain to 
my own satisfaction the causes which produced them. I have never 
seen a satisfactory explanation of them. If you study carefully the 
court history of James 1st, you will, I think, find no reason for assert- 
ing that the court opinions were bigoted very far from it. That 
Charles 1st and Laud were bigots has nothing to do with the matter. 
They were resisting a Puritan movement already full-grown. 

1 A Httk paragraph suggesting me (as a joke) for Senator from Massachusetts. H. C. L, 



REVIEWING VON HOLST 295 

I advise you to read Gardiner's books. 1 They are not written like 
Macaulay's but they are fairer. And even Macaulay modified his ad- 
miration for the Puritans in later life. I admire them as much as ever, 
but I shall not deny that they were intolerant even according to the 
age in which they lived. 

You say not a word of your wife. Please give her our best regards* 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS. 
2 August, 1876. 

Your second Roger Williams has come. 3 It is much improved. 

I shall get Read's article on Monday and send it to the printers if 
nothing else turns up within a week. We can't wait any longer. Our 
political manifesto must go in last. We shall want to have all the in- 
formation possible on the course of the canvass. I think we shall have 
to cut down to four articles this time, for Boynton will need space. 
Then we shall have Read, Hazen, Boynton and ourselves. 



To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS. 
August 5, 1876. 

We are very glad to get yours of yesterday. 

I too have just finished von Hoist, and will make you a proposition. 
If you will write one notice of it, I will write another, and then we will 
take what is best out of each and roll them into one. I do not propose 
this merely for the sake of the notice, but because I think it will give 
us both a spur of emulation, so that we shall do the most perfect work 
we can. I am by no means unsusceptible to such incitements, and to 
you they are the best possible tutors. Perhaps we could make an 
article for October in place of Reed's. 3 

Whitney wrote to me that his MS. had accidentally been held back 
and would come on soon. 

What say you to Tilden's letter ? I am curious to see the Republican 
and soft-money comments. It is obviously directed to Democrats and 
to the soft-shell wing. I wonder what comfort they will draw from it. 

1 Samuel Rawson Gardiner (1829-1902). 

A note on Henry Martyn Der tor's As to Roger JP&iams and Ms Bcntskmentfrom ike M&ua- 
ehusetts Plantation in the Reww for October, 1876. 
3 The joint review, signed, appeared in the October Review. 



296 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

I am clearly of opinion that Tilden offers us the best chance of cur- 
rency reform. Per contra, Hayes would save us the shock of ^another 
cleaning out of all the existing officials, for Tilden avows his deter- 
mination to do this. Tilden's election would seem to promise best for 
revenue reform and free-trade. Per contra, Hayes offers the best guaranty 
for good-behavior in the South. Tilden offers however one inducement 
which to me seems very great. He will give the Democratic party 
again some principles and some brains, and so force the Republicans to 
a higher level. On the whole I still incline towards Tilden^ without 
giving up the right to see better light hereafter. My real object is of 
course to increase the independent power, and to that object all others 
are in my mind subordinate. Whether the election of Tilden or Hayes 
will do most towards this, is a point which depends on many accidents 
and is incapable of solution. Others therefore may rush into the fray. 
I shall read history.... 



To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS. 

23 August, 1876. 

I enclose you the review of v. Hoist into which I have tried to work 
all the material. I like it, and think the criticism is sharp enough in 
places to suit even Brooks. The last two pages are my centennial ora- 
tion. If you are satisfied with it, send it to the printers as Article II. 

Trescot's article arrived and has gone to the printers as Article one/ 
It will do to complete the political unity of the number and for a 
Southerner is in pretty good tone. 

If Boynton's article suits, we shall be well provided. But I hear 
nothing from Hazen. We may have difficulty in filling the gap. 

Haskell is a low intriguer. Tell him from me that there is only one 
matter of political interest. The Herald should formally announce 
that no independent votes will be cast for either Abbot or Frost, but 
that it is determined to throw away their votes on Martin Brimmer. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS 

25 August, 1876. 

Boynton's article is good and well written for a newspaper man. I 
long to add a page on the political moral, but perhaps it is better for 

1 Wffliwn Henry Twscot, "The Southern Question." 



INDEPENDENTS BECOMING PARTISANS 297 

you to ask him to do so. Will you write to him to say that I have read 
the paper with delight; that the proofs will be sent to him just as soon 
as we can get it into type; and that meanwhile I would be glad, as 
aiming at the ^general purpose of our whole number, if he would add 
another page in order to accent in the strongest possible language the 
political moral of the whiskey ring, which I conceive to be that in the 
struggle for reform the country must expect to have both party organ- 
isations against it, and can never be more than temporarily successful 
until it has struck at the root of party organisations themselves and 
cut off all their sources of political corruption. This is in order to make 
this article tally with the tone of the number. 

Truly we are working a good work. Let us stay blandly on the 
fence. Perhaps the Democrats will go the Republicans one better, and 
offer us Evarts. I am ready now to believe that our howling is useful, 
and, since it works so well, I think we had better go on talking Tilden. 
I am unwilling to check latent virtue. 

Isn't Gen. Banks good on my father? The General is certainly a 
wonderful creature. 



To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS 

31 August, 1876. 

The political field is amusing though somewhat saddening to the 
believer in human perfectibility. I imagine that the elections in our 
original volkmotes were better illustrations of self-government, so that 
we have not got far as yet. I am interested in seeing how very few of 
our so-called independents have been able to keep their heads dear 
and to resist the torrent of partisanship. And I have been still more 
interested to see how with every day the strength of the party organ- 
isations has asserted itself more and more, until on each side the old 
issues and the old forces stand without pretence of reform and idiot- 
ically pound at each other and at every one who does not get out of 
their way. This has some good results. The best of these to me will be 
the prevention of my father's candidacy by the Democrats, to which 
I am most earnestly and emphatically opposed, not because Kelly 
endorses or Banks opposes (I care as litde for one as the other), but 
because it is a thoroughly false position for him to stand in. The 
Democratic caucuses last night, I hope, have finished this scheme. 

The question who to vote for is one which every man will settle 
for himself. I care very litde one way or the other. There are good 



298 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

grounds for voting either way. And whichever side we vote on, we 
must have either Ben Butler or Ben Allen as a companion. I do not 
propose to get into this mlee at all, and if you prefer to halloo for 
Hayes, and Gen. Bartlett for Tilden, why! go ahead! and proceed to 
crack your heads reciprocally. Only leave mine alone. The tendency 
to blackguard the Adamses generally is, however^ irresistible to the 
average American politician and as we shall catch it equally whether 
we vote for Hayes or Tilden or not at all, we can afford to grin at it. 

I did read "Republican Sectionalism" with approval. HaskelTs 
course is still admirable. The only thing in the campaign that really 
delights me is Butler's candidacy which I hope may be successful. If 
he and Banks and Frost and so on, go to Washington as representa- 
tives of the Republican party, while H. L. Pierce and Seelye 1 drop out, 
Massachusetts republicanism will be truly virtuous. 

Mrs. Lodge's criticism on the terms used in characterizing French 
and English works on America, is very just, and a caveat shall be in- 
serted. I am still buried in avalanches of State Papers and such gay 
reading, which leave me little confidence in a future life. No life could 
be long enough for such work. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS 
4 Sept. 1876. 

Our last galley of the Essays is now about to be made up into pages, 
and there remains only the index. If you have any further corrections 
to make, send them in at once. 

Thanks for your extract from Tim. Pickering. It is, as you say, very 
characteristic. What a queer result we should reach if we were always 
to be preduded from accepting the conclusions of a majority! 

I have read all Timothy's diplomatic papers lately. What a man to 
deal with tete-montes Frenchmen! Washington certainly felt the ab- 
surd incongruity of this, and Adams still more so. The surly contempt, 
varied by ingenuity of insult, with which he treated the insanely 
sensitive Frenchman of that day, is entertaining to see. But I am 
wholly of my great-grandfather's opinion as to his fitness for his post. 
There would hardly have been a worse selection for it. At a time when 
by Jay's treaty we were really doing France a scurvy trick and aban- 
doning ground which she had a right to expect us to maintain, such a 
man was the very person to add insult to injury. The X.Y.Z. papers 
1 JnKra Hawiey Seelye (1824-1895), at the time a member of Congress from Massachusetts. 



SCHURZ RETURNS TO THE PARTY TRACES 299 

are curiously interesting, and Gerry appears in them to much greater 
advantage than I supposed. Talleyrand's humiliation before him is 
very striking and dramatic. 

Console yourself about politics. You are indeed the one who has the 
best right to complain, for you had the most trouble in forming that 
rope of sand, the Independent party. I cannot help laughing to think 
how, after all our labor and after we had by main force created a party 
for Schurz to lead, he himself, without a word or a single effort to keep 
his party together, kicked us over in his haste to jump back to the 
Republicans. If he had taken the least pains to hold his friends to- 
gether, I feel sure we would have spoken with effect. I, for one, would 
have been glad to join in any combined action, whichever way the 
majority decided. And in that case, Schurz's voice would not now be 
isolated and shrill. Well! We knew what he was! I am not angry with 
him, but of course his leadership is at an end. The leader who treats 
his followers in that way, is a mere will-o'-the-wisp. I hope he will get 
his Cabinet office, and I hope he will forget that we ever worked to 
make him our leader, independent of party. He can hereafter buy 
power only by devotion to party, and further connection with us 
would not help us and would be fatal to him. 

Don't be disheartened by the excesses of party spirit. It was our 
interest to have Elaine nominated. It is our interest to have Butler 
and Banks and all the other scalawags elected. I earnestly wish it. 
Only so can we expect a strong reaction in our favor two years hence. 

To Charles Mtlnes Gaskell 

BEVERLY FARMS, 8 Sept, 1876. 
* 

The worst of home is that one is condemned to listen to all the old 
hand-organ tunes. The worst of these is the Presidential election. My 
party, which I labored so devotedly to organise, as I have written you 
from time to time, got so far as to hold a meeting at New York and is- 
sue an address. That was the last of it. The two parties made their 
offers for us, and we dissolved like a summer cloud. I^am left smiling 
at the ruins. Our principal leader has returned to his party traces. 
My father has been set up by one party that hates him, as a candidate 
for the very insignificant post of Governor of Massachusetts, and he 
will be knocked over by the other party which hates him equally. 
Both parties are impossibly corrupt and the public thoroughly indif- 
ferent. 



300 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Of course I must have my little say, and I have devoted the whole 
October number of the North American to a review of the field. The 
result is sickening. But I consider my October number a historical 
monument, and am going to avail myself of a trifling disagreement 
with the publishers to throw off that load also and get rid of my 
editorial duties, leaving my monument behind me. 1 

My volume of Anglo-Saxon Law will be out next week. This has 
been a really satisfactory piece of work. I shall be curious to learn 
whether your universities think they can do better. If so, they have 
hitherto hidden their powers very carefully. 

I am just beginning my grind at the university wheel, and for my 
sins I am becoming popular in my old age. My classes are very large, 
one of them is near seventy in number. As I detest large classes, I am 
much disgusted at this, and have become foul and abusive in my 
language to them, hoping to drive them away. But I think it more 
likely I shall be driven away myself. If the new Secretary of State 
is a friend of mine, I shall try the experiment of passing a winter 
in Washington, searching archives. I regard my university work as 
essentially done. All the influence I can exercise has been exercised. 
The end of it is mere railing at the idiocies of a university education. . . . 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

NEW YORK, 14 April, 1877. 
** . 

I am again in New York, devoting all my energies to the arrange- 
ment of a great mass of papers 2 which have accidentally come under 
my hands, and which may give me some years' work and exercise a 
good deal of influence on my future movements. . . . The future is very 
vague to me. My political friends, or one wing of them, have come into 
power, but under circumstances which prevent me from giving them 
more than a silent and temporary sympathy. This is an illustration of 
the way politics work; always unsatisfactorily. Meanwhile I hob-nob 
with the leaders of both parties, and am very contented under my 
cloak of historian. I am satisfied that literature offers higher prizes 
than politics, and I am willing to look on at my friends who differ from 

1 Tie October issue contained a notice by the publishers to the effect that the editors having 
retited from die management of the Review "on account of a difference of opinion with the 
proprietors as to the political character of this number, the proprietors, rather than cause an in- 
dd&Ite delay in publication, have allowed the number to retain the form which had been given 
to it, without, however, committing the Renew to the opinions expressed therein." 

Papers of Albert GaUatin. 



THE ADVANTAGES OF SILENCE 301 

me on that point of theory. Naturally we are not unhappy about your 
European me!6e. . . . 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, 
12 June, 1877. 

Thanks for your translation and invitation. Mrs. Adams has re- 
sponded to the latter and I will only add that I am sorry we can't 
come, for I should enjoy a chat. Yet I am just now rather overworked 
and until I can get things in running order I shall have hardly time to 
go off except for necessity. Gallatin is unwieldy. 

As for the Latin, how was I to know what it meant? A much better 
translation would be: "What a shame it would be to regret an Essex 
Junto head." 

I don't know but what my late marginal notes are becoming of- 
fensively personal. If so, rub 'em out. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

BEVERLY FARMS, 22 June, 1877. 
** 

I really wanted to "do" your uncle's book, which has amused and 
even instructed me and induced me to buy a complete set of Words- 
worth, Prelude, Excursion and all, for the first time* But my connec- 
tion with the press is now at an end. I have no papers to write in. I 
told him so, but please say something kind to him as from me when 
you meet him. The truth is, he has humor, and that is worth pretty 
much everything else in the world; but dull people can't quite pardon 
it.... 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

29 June, 1877. 

My notice is gone to Godkin to be published next week. 1 It is 
ingeniously calculated to make everyone, yourself included, furious 
with indignation. But I think it will excite interest in the book and 
sell the edition. 

My wife tells me you think of going to the Social Science Congress. 
I hope you will. To know and be known widely is one of the elements 
of success. Look wise and say nothing. The highest results flow from 
silence. 

1 Review of Lodge's Zjfir end Letters ofGeorye Caht, in The Nation, July 5, 1877. 



IX 
WASHINGTON 

1877-1879 
To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

1501 H STREET, WASHINGTON, 
25 November, 1877. 



We have made a great leap in the world; cut loose at once from all 
that has occupied us since our return from Europe, and caught new 
ties and occupations here. The fact is I gravitate to a capital by a 
primary law of nature. This is the only place in America where society 
amuses me, or where life offers variety. Here, too, I can fancy that we 
are of use in the world, for we distinctly occupy niches which ought to 
be filled. We have taken a large house in which we seem lost. Our 
water-colors and drawings go with us wherever we go, and here are 
our great evidence of individuality, and our title to authority. As I am 
intimate with many of the people in power and out of power, I am 
readily allowed or aided to do all the historical work I please; and as I 
am avowedly out of politics, there will,itis to be hoped, be no animosities 
to meet. Literary and non-partisan people are rare here, and highly 
appreciated. And yet society in its way is fairly complete, almost as 
choice, if not as large, as in London or Rome. 

One of these days this will be a very great city if nothing happens to 
it. Even now it is a beautiful one, and its situation is superb. As I 
belong to the class of people who have great faith in this country and 
who believe that in another century it will be saying in its turn the last 
word of civilisation, I enjoy the expectation of the coming day, and 
try to imagine that I am myself, with my fellow gelehrte here, the first 
faint rays of that great light which is to dazzle and set the world on 
fire hereafter. Our duties are perhaps only those of twinkling, and 
many people here, like little Alice, wonder what we're at. But twinkle 
for twinkle, I prefer our kind to that of the small politician.... 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

1501 H STREET 
WASHINGTON, a Dec'r, 1877. 

My volume is now in print, all but the index, and I will send you a 
set of the proofs in a few days. 1 It should be out before Christmas. 

1 New England Federalism. 



SCHURZ AS SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 303 

You will find that I have used a large proportion of the letters you 
have printed, but I have tried to do it in such a way as should adver- 
tise you. The two volumes ought to sell each other. 

We are muchly amusing ourselves here. I find a mass of new 
Gallatin matter in the Jefferson papers and am burrowing in rich soil. 
The winter's work is under my eyes. Of course Boston is much pre- 
ferable to this place, but we manage to get on. 

Of politics I keep quite clear, but hear a good deal of it. Schurz is 
accouche^ at last, of his report, and is gay again. He dined here with 
Hewitt, 1 Nordhoff 3 and William Story last week, and the charming 
Agatha dines here tonight. We met him again on Friday evening at 
the White House, and he insisted on our going home with him to smoke 
a cigar, which we did, my wife and I. The Evarts's are very cordial and 
civil, and the State Department magnificently hospitable. 

Politics are a good deal mixed. Republicanism seems gone up. I 
take little account of it anyway. The condition of the Democrats is 
more important, and the question when their leaders will take hold 
again is one of great interest. As for the administration, it is Andrew 
Johnson over again, with more respectability and a better balance of 
parties. 

Schurz says he has a letter from you which he means now to answer* 
Lumber and Indians are his sole mental food just at present. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

ijoi H STREET, 
3Jany,i8 7 8. 

I have just read your notice of N.E. Federalism and congratulate 
you on the judicial elevation you are attaining. The notice is really 
excellent and leaves nothing to be desired. 

Our best regards to you and yours. Nothing new here* 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

1501 H STREET, WASHINGTON, 
Sunday, 6 Jan., 1878. 

Yours of the 4th arrived yesterday. I had already written to you 
about the notice and I suppose you received my note on Friday. ^ I will 
only add that as I kept myself out of the book, so far as possible, I 
think it just as well that I should keep out of the notices. I have even 

* Abram Stevens Hewitt (1822-1903). a Charles Nordhoff (1830-1901). 



304 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

had the binding altered so as to take my name off the back where it 
was put, contrary to my express order, in imitation, I suppose, of your 
volume. As there is nothing of mine in it but the preface and the in- 
dex, it is ridiculous to put my name on the back like an author's-^ 

I do not see newspapers, and except the highly intelligent notices 
you enclosed to me, I have met with nothing except a paragraph in 
the Washington Union evidently founded on your Nation article and 
pointing a moral for the South. Our books are not for newspapers. 
We only go for students. I gave Lamar a copy, however, and doubt- 
less you and I will some day be heartily cursed by the New England 
Congressman. 

Gallatin goes bravely on. I have just finished the whiskey rebellion. 

As for the silver bill, NordhofFs letters will tell you all we know. 
Here we think it will pass in its worst form, and that the President will 
veto it on the ground that it makes no reserve for the national debt or 
the import duties. Then will follow an attempt to pass it over the veto. 
As yet we cannot judge the result. If this fails and the bill is then 
amended to provide for the bonds and imports in gold, Lamar and 
others think the President will sign it; Schurz has not spoken to me 
lately about it, but did believe the President would veto* It will 
probably pass over his veto. 

The consequences belong to the region of mixed influences. I doubt 
whether they can be very immediate or violent. But doubtless our 
capitalists will protect themselves. They are warned and are wiser 
than these children of light. 

You can easily hedge by putting up a margin of any required sum on 
gold, which is better than buying exchange. If gold falls, it is simply 
a charge to insurance. Otherwise you are all right. 

I have doubted whether to write to Ned Hooper on the subject, but 
decided not. He must judge for himself. 

The Bulletin came and I was glad to see it. The College is worth 
working for in spite of its ponderosity. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

WASHINGTON, i Feby., 1878. 

I know of no evidence in regard to Jefferson's attitude towards the 
Chase impeachment except the vote in Senate. By examining that, 
and ascertaining which way his confidential friends voted, you can 
form some conclusion as to his own attitude* Of course it would be 
absurd to suppose that he interfered in the matter otherwise than by 



SCIENTIFIC HISTORY 305 

holding himself aloof. He was too good a party leader to oppose di- 
rectly a party measure. 

I made an attempt on Nordhoff with a view of sassing Gail/ but 
apparently the Herald does not care to mix in the fray. As that 
episode is now over, I think it too late to ring in. She hurts herself and 
Elaine more than we can hurt them, and, as a criticism of you, her 
papers are only absurd. She has missed all the true points. Your 
danger is a very simple one, and no one can hurt you but yourself. It 
is that of adopting the view of one side of a question. No man whose 
mind will not work on its own independent pivot, can escape being 
drawn into the whirlpool of party prejudices. Unless you can find 
some basis of faith in general principles, some theory of the progress 
of civilization which is outside and above all temporary questions of 
policy, you must infallibly think and act under the control of the man 
or men whose thought, in the times you deal with, coincides most 
nearly with your prejudices. This is the fault with almost every Eng- 
lish historian. Very few of them have had scientific minds, and still 
fewer have honestly tried to keep themselves clear of personal feeling. 

Your syllabus seems dear and comprehensive. If you can only 
manage with your large diversion, to make your men work for them- 
selves, you are all right. 

I am getting on tolerably well and have finished a first draft of my 
biography of Gallatin down to 1801. Meanwhile my scribe works 
away on the Jefferson papers. 

Alice Hooper is expected here on the gth to pass two days with us 
on her way south. After that, we shall look for you. 

Politics have taken a queer turn. Parties are broken up for the 
time, and the administration is enjoying unexpected repose. As usual 
the pessimists talk of the end of the world. I confess to being more 
interested in the practical working out of the situation. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

WASHINGTON, 28 April, 1878, 

The winter's work is over and we are soon to start home again. It 
has quite answered my expectations and I return with much new 
material and a large part of Gallatin completed. Another year will 
I hope see this job accomplished. 

I have been so busy since you left us that I have been unwilling to 

* Gdl Hamilton (Mary Abigail Dodge), whose letters hoetik to Gvil Service Reform were 
appearing in the New York Tribune. 



306 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

spare rime for correspondence. But we have now fixed the gth for 
leaving Washington. As we expect first to go down to Virginia and 
then to Western Pennsylvania I hardly know when we shall reach 
home. 

There is little to tell you that is new here. Congress is on its 
appropriation bills and will hardly get the time to play games any 
more- It has the tariff to deal with. The administration gains ground. 
This is not saying much, for it certainly had little ground to lose, but 
I see no reason to regret it. The fact is that the public interests are 
better off under the present arrangement than they are likely to be 
under any that promised to succeed it. Mr. Hayes, if he can worry 
through die rest of this session, has nothing to fear and everything to 
hope. We shall do well not to bother him, but to mind our own busi- 
ness, and make money if we can. 

I hear from the newspapers that you are entered for another year's 
run at the College. I do not believe you can do better; but keep hard 
at work. Otherwise you will feel as though it didn't pay. In true 
light, nothing pays; but nothing certainly pays better than your kind 
of work if well done. Laughlin too comes into the College I see, and 
rejoice at. Young has never written to me. How does he get on? 
Give him my regards if you see him. 

We are delighted with our cousin Bell's engagement, but we don't 
know much about Mr. Balfour. Can you enlighten us? The British 
Legation can do little towards it. 

Give our kindest regards to your wife. I keep your Law Magazine 
to return at Beverly. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

BEVERLY FARMS, 30 May, 1878. 
** 

Of ourselves I can, thank Heaven, give you only pleasant news. 
We have had a very cheerful winter at Washington. I have worked 
hard and with good effect. My wife has helped me and has had a 
house always amusing and interesting. We have had all the society 
we wished and have found everyone friendly and ready to amuse us 
and to be amused. Our little dinners of six and eight were as pleasant 
as any I ever was at, even in London. And Washington has one ad- 
vantage over other capitals, that a single house counts for more than 
half a dozen elsewhere; there are so few of them. Among my set of 
friends this winter has been our old Roman acquaintance Schlozer, 



PLANS FOR A STAY IN EUROPE 307 

who is great fun, eccentric as an Englishman and riotous as a wild 
Highlander. We lament together over our Roman hostess and her 
boudins Richelieu. But you should just try Schlozer's Gansebrust if 
you want to experience sudden death. Not many of your compatriots 
have been in Washington, besides Lord Dufferin r who was a success 
and developed uncommon social tact. The young Britishers who are 
on the make, as they call their search for rich wives, do not come to 
Washington. . . . 



To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, 

7 August, 1878. 

I should tell Wilson 3 squarely that more harm than good will be 
done by stirring now. Even Bristow would be injured by trotting him 
out so early. We are all sick of elections and glad to repose under Mr. 
Hayes's respectable nullity. 

I myself am a Grant man. But I don't say so publicly. The only 
thing I care about is the Democratic nomination. But I have care- 
fully arranged to be abroad that summer. Presidential elections make 
me sick. 



To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

BEVERLY FARMS, 21 August, 1878. 
* 

I expect that we shall ourselves be coming out again about a year 
hence, with a view to passing a winter in Spain and Paris, and a spring 
in London, where we shall probably take a house for die season. I 
much fear, however, that my diplomacy will get me ashore> for the 
whole object of my journey is to study the diplomatic correspondence 
of the three governments, in regard to America, during the time of 
Napoleon, from 1800 to 1812. Unless I can get this object, I shall 
throw away rny trouble, and so I am straining every nerve to open in 
advance the doors of three Foreign Offices. I shall come with an official 
letter of introduction from this Department of State, and shall ask Sir 
Edward Thornton to give me another. But if you ever see the Salis- 
burys, you might facilitate my movements by sounding for me there. 

1 Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple Blackwood, first Marquis of Dufierin and Ava (i8a6- 
1902). 
* James Harrison Wilson (1837-1925). 



308 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

I am afraid that Salisbury has such a suspicious temperament that he 
will hardly grant such a favor, and I would rather have applied to 
Derby; but since the great and glorious success which Disraeli has 
won over Turkey or was it Russia? I suppose that Ministry is 
likely to hold on. Your government is, I believe, very close about its 
papers and has not thrown them open to anyone later than the close of 
last century. 

If you come across, too, any little box of a house in May Fair which 
seems suitable for us, please keep your eye on it. I expect to arrive in 
Liverpool in September or October, and to go on at once to Paris and 
Madrid, so that I shall hardly get back to London before April. My 
hope is to pass Christmas in Granada, and making love to Senoritas 
in Seville and Cadiz. Perhaps we can make a party and bottle a little 
Andalusian sunshine for our old age. How would your wife like to try 
the quality of a December moon in the Alhambra ? I am now forty and 
the grave is yawning for me, but I would do my best to smile as I sat 
on its edge, and to talk as though I were still as young as when you and 
I first met. Every now and then, in my bourgeois ease and uniformity, 
my soul rebels against it all, and I want to be on my wanderings again, 
in the Rocky Mountains, on the Nile, the Lord knows where. But I 
humbly confess that it is vanity and foolishness. I really prefer com- 
fort and repose. I should not now be meditating the passage of that 
miserable ocean, if it were not for my literary necessities. I am 
ashamed to seem restless. It is ludicrous to play Ulysses. There is not 
in this wide continent of respectable mediocrity a greasier citizen, or 
one more contented in his oily ooze, than myself. . . . 

Of your politics I try to keep some little run, and you can imagine 
that Tancred has considerable amused me. The truth is, your gov- 
ernment has cut a very droll figure, but on the whole has got out of the 
scrape very happily. I am not disposed to quarrel with anyone who 
preserves the peace. It is the only thing in politics worth preserving. 
And I never was much of a Gladstonian. He showed us what he was 
worth during our civil war, and I never got over the impression he 
then made on me. Are you going to visit Cyprus ? I suppose there will 
be a dozen Brightens on it before ten years are out. You should buy 
an Abbey there and get returned to Parliament by it.. .. 



THE PRIMITIVE SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 309 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

WASHINGTON, 28 November, 1878. 
*.. 

We broke up our summer establishment a month ago and came here 
into winter quarters, where we find ourselves on the whole more con- 
tented than anywhere else in this miserable little planet. I suppose 
we are of less significance here than elsewhere. You see in London I 
can't drop in of an evening to the palace to chat with the Queen, nor 
will Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone dine with me whenever I send for 
them. Here society is primitive as the golden age. We run in at all 
hours to see everybody. I have a desk in our Foreign Office for my ex- 
clusive study, and unlimited access to all papers. We make informal 
calls on the President, the Cabinet and the Diplomates. Ten days ago 
I went uninvited to Yoshida's, the Japanese Minister's, and played 
whist with him and his Japanese wife till midnight, after which I beat 
him at Go-Bang and he showed me how to play Go; after which we 
closed with oysters and champagne and such a headache the next day. 
That same day I had called in state on the Chinese Ministers, and was 
put on a throne and made to drink green tea with the leaves in it. We 
are bent now on having them to dinner in their national dress, and 
Secretary Evarts has promised to meet them. Perhaps if I ever go to 
China, they will return my dinner and impose more green tea-leaves 
on me. Yoshida, who has since departed for Japan, has already sent 
me a little blue-and-white Japanese teapot to console me for his 
absence.... 

Such a quaint little society, you never saw or imagined. We do not 
even talk scandal. There is no scandal to talk about. Everybody is 
virtuous and the highest dissipation is to play whist at guinea points. 
I don't even indulge in this. We are all of the Darby and Joan type, 
and attached to our wives. It is the fashion. We are innocently 
amused by utterly absurd trifles. We are not ennuyfe or biases. We 
are good-natured. I assure you, it is like a dream of the golden age. ... 

Meanwhile my ponderous work is more than half done, and there re- 
main only a few more folio volumes to get through the press. After 
hurling the whole batch at the head of an unconscious public, I shall 
fly the country next year. As no one will ever read the work, I fed but 
slight anxiety about its success. 

It is a curious fact that while you in England seem to be wallowing 
about in all sorts of troubles, we in America were never so quiet. As 
nine-tenths of our people, or thereabouts, have passed through bank- 



310 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

ruptcy in the last five years, we are quite free of debt, and as the op- 
eration has been pretty general, every one is about as well off as be- 
fore. I think on the whole we are fairly prosperous. If your people will 
wait patiently another year or two, we shall be buying your goods as 
fast as is good for you or for us 

We have a little dinner tonight, as is not unusual, for we have to 
entertain all our eminent Boston constituents when they come on. 
Would you know our company? Behold them! Mr. Sidney Bartlett, 
aged seventy-nine, head of the Boston Bar, rich, eminent, and con- 
sidered witty. His son, Frank Bartlett, a contemporary of my own, 
Mr. Senator Lucius Quintius Currius Lamar of Mississippi, the most 
genial and sympathetic of all Senators and universally respected and 
admired once a rebel envoy to Russia. Gen. Dick Taylor of Louisi- 
ana, brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis, himself one of the best of the 
rebel Major Generals, a great friend of the Prince of Wales, a first-rate 
raconteur and whist-player, a son of a former President of the United 
States. Ecco! Six, you observe. We regret that Lady Catherine and 
you are not here to make eight. We would teach you to eat terrapin. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

WASHINGTON, 29 Jany., 1879. 

I have kept your last letter a week since my return from Niagara, 
waiting until I could get something to say. I have not much now, but 
such as I have, I send you. 

Taylor 1 professes to be deeply mortified at having broken his word. 
He will not explain why he did so. He says there were circumstances 
which compelled him to do it. My belief is that he read the paper to 
some one of his Congressional friends who begged it of him and that it 
will appear in substance as a Report or Speech. This kind of duress is 
common enough here, and I imagine that Taylor is peculiarly subject 
to it from his southern clientele in Congress. But it may be that Burn- 
side or some other of his army friends who support the bill in the 
Senate, made a point of friendship of it. I read die paper as he wrote 
it, and liked it, barring a little Virginianism. 

He says that he means, in order to make such atonement as he can, 
to send you the very best article he can write, for a future number. 

Last night Cox dined here, with Godkin and Clarence King. We 
had much Indian talk. Cox at first was disposed to refuse outright to 
undertake any work. He can touch nothing until after March 4th for 

x GeneralRkhardTaylor. I was editing the/Hfw-MotoJM/lfci^TO^ 



WASHINGTON A MONKEY-SHOW 311 

all his time is occupied by cyphers. I finally persuaded him to take the 
matter into consideration, and you can write to him about it, say next 
week; but you will have to allow him all the time he wants even if he 
consents to write at all, which I doubt. 1 

Newcomb is hard at work on his job. 3 I have thought of no one else. 
I get no time to do anything myself, and shall get none before Con- 
gress expires- As for King, he is also dependent on Congress. You 
want an article on the whole cypher business and should get some 
young man to do it, who has a reputation to make. If any such is to be 
found here, I will let you know. 

Pray remember me to your wife. Our Niagara journey was very 
successful and I enjoyed it immensely. I know of nothing very new 
here. At this season Washington is a monkey-show and I would rather 
be out of it; but like other monkey-shows it is amusing. 

Thanks for the two pamphlets. They are very well done. But why 
omit the "bulwark of our holy religion," the only thing Strong ever 
did, which is still remembered. 



To Henry Cabot Lodge 

WASHINGTON, i Feby, 1879, 

I would encourage Hayes. 3 He certainly knows China and there is no 
reason why he should not write a good article. What does he mean by 
talking about the new editor of the International being identical with 
me? Are you and Morse and I a new Trinity? Please explain to him, 
when you write, that I am not even an Apostle. 

You shall see the sheets of Gallatin when I come back in May, which 
will be in good time. I have nothing to do with the distribution of 
copies, though I shall recommend Mr. Gallatin to send a few to the 
press. 

1 "The Indian Question," in International Rniew> n, 617. 
a "The Silver Conference and the Silver Question," in It., 309, 
3 Augustus Allen Hayes, Jr. "The Relations between the United States and China n appeared 
in A, 355- 



X 

EUROPE 

1879-1880 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

LONDON, 2 August, 1879. 

Even with the lost tribes of literature, London waxes dull and op- 
pressive. My work is finished, at least for the present. A few days 
more will set me free. We shall probably hide ourselves for a week or 
two before starting upon our peninsula campaign, and try to recover 
our nerves after nine months of dinners. Just now I rather look to a 
week or ten days by the sea-side or among the lakes, and then a plunge 
into strange wilds. 

My work has been very satisfactory in every way, and I have left 
three months labor for a copyist. Meanwhile I understand that the 
Saturday has been launching thunderbolts at my head for literary 
sins. 1 I have not seen the reproof, but if there be one subject on which 
the Saturday has always been more idiotic than another, it is America 
and everything American, so that I can conceive that it may be 
amusing.... 

Of London there is little to say. Dinners seem fairly at an end. 
Parliament will be up soon. No one now seems to expect a dissolution; 
the talk about it has vanished. Nevertheless, I would not advise you 
to relax your attention to your future constituency, for if Lord Bea- 
consfield is calculating on remaining more than another year in active 
life, he ought to dissolve now. Only his own approaching dissolution 
will warrant him in meeting this Parliament again. All which does not 
prevent his own cabinet from avowing that they expect to go on an- 
other session. 

I have met no one of special interest and except for a few calls and 
stray dinners have rested in the repose of the Rolls Office. John Green 
bids fair to become my most intimate guardian and teacher, but poor 
Green* is so awfully fragile that I always fancy I shall never see him 
again. Henry James haunts the street gloomily.... 

1 A review of the Gafiatin, in the Saturday Review, July 06, 1879. 

* John Richard Green (1837-1 883), author of History of the English People. 



A SUMMER IN ENGLAND 313 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

DIEPPE, 31 August, 1879. 

Your letter of the I2th and the accompanying oration came to hand 
last week, and I read the latter at once with much satisfaction. You 
have got through this ordeal very happily, and I am sure with an in- 
crease of consideration. Indeed you are now sure of your career, an 
honorable and probably an eminent one, if you are merely patient and 
persevering. 

I am, as you know, a little of a communard myself, and I hope your 
threats of social penalties may not be meant for me, but in any case, 
I doubt a little whether that kind of diagnosis is always the most 
successful. 

You are quite right in regard to Gallatin. Pruning would improve 
it. I think fifty pages might come out, to great advantage, and per- 
haps a hundred could be spared. My only excuse is the great difficulty 
of judging these things in manuscript. You know how hard it is to 
decide that any particular letter or episode is not possibly important to 
somebody* 

That you and Brooks should like the book is a great pleasure to me, 
for I suppose you two are my chief audience; at least I know of no one 
outside of our little set who cares for such things. Tell Morse to pitch 
in. I do not remember having inspired any part of your review of 
Hamilton, but that is a trifle. If we are to interest the public, it must 
be by making a noise. After all, I fancy if I reviewed the book myself, 
I should hit it harder than Morse will. I know very little, however, 
about the notices it has had, or how hard it has been lit, or indeed any- 
thing on the subject, for I have been out of the way of such things, and 
too busy to think of the book's fate, especially as I know well what fate 
is reserved for heavy biographies. 

My attack on the English archives has been successful and I am 
now just beginning an attempt to break into the French papers, with 
Spain in perspective for November. Our summer in England has been 
pleasant, although I still confess to thinking America a better place 
than any on this side, and although we would both pay handsomely to 
come home for the winter. I don't know that we have made any very 
fascinating acquaintances. John Green is the brightest and pleasant- 
est of the men in London, to my mind, but I do not find society bril- 
liant there, and it was particularly out of spirits this season on account 
of the utter ruin of the gentry. 

We were much shocked to hear of your brother-in-law's death, your 



314 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

letter being our first knowledge of it. I have some little experience in 
blows of the kind, and know what a strain it is. Please give our very 
warmest remembrances to your wife. 

Everything with us at home seems to be going on with such unctu- 
ous and generous prosperity that I see no excuse for taking any stock 
in anxious speculations. If you would send us a little sunshine, you 
would earn our deepest gratitude. Meanwhile keep hard at work, and 
believe me ever truly yours. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

PARIS, 6 October, 1879. 

Andrew Lang, who is in the same house with me here, brought me 
the September International yesterday with your article on Gallatin. 
I read it with much pleasure. It seems to me the best by far of the re- 
views I have seen. All sin more or less by adding nothing to the know- 
ledge of the subject; all are taken too much out of the book; they all 
are deficient on illustration, comparison, in short criticism in the 
true sense; all are obnoxious to the complaint they mostly bring 
against Gallatin, that of being dull, and with no excuse, for there is 
ample material for a very spicy review. Yours is however much the 
best, and perhaps as good as you could make it if you are held to what 
I think the bad habit of following the book. 

As for our estimates of Gallatin, I do not see that they materially 
differ. To my mind the moral of his life lies a little deeper than party 
politics and I have tried here and there rather to suggest than to as- 
sert it. The inevitable isolation and disillusionment of a really strong 
mind one that combines force with elevation is to me the ro- 
mance and tragedy of statesmanship. The politician who goes to his 
grave without suspecting his own limitations, is not a picturesque 
figure; he is only an animal. That old beggar who was an Emperor 
somewhere, and on his death-bed asked his weeping friends: "Have I 
not acted my part well?"; that man was picturesque. Gallatin was 
greater, because he could and did refuse power when he found out 
what vanity it was, and yet became neither a cynic nor a transcenden- 
tal philosopher. 

One point only of your criticisms which is common to Morse's also, 
I want to mention. Johnny even goes so far as to accuse me of " gloss- 
ing over" a " disingenuous report" of Gallatin's by using the word "in- 
advertence." You call the report "grossly deceptive." Of course I 
care very Ktde about Galktin's ingenuousness and he must let his 



PARIS AND MADRID 315 

character take care of itself. I only want to call your attention to the 
fact that my explanation, so far as the "inadvertence" is concerned, is 
not my invention; the word is Gallatin's; the explanation is his; it is 
official, contained in a report to Congress immediately afterwards; 
and it struck me as so obviously true that I did not think of guarding 
against such a mare's nest, and left the subject without even a note of 
reference. 

I am still dangling about the boulevards, but start for Spain next 
week. I hope your winter will be pleasant. My wife wishes me to 
send her friendliest regards to Mrs. Lodge and to you, to which please 
add mine. Try and write me how politics are going. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

MADRID, 24 October, 1879. 

I had meant to write from Paris to tell you our news, but as there 
seemed to be little to tell, I thought that on the whole a letter from 
Spain would be more lively, and a more delicate attention on my part 
to your refined tastes. We have been a week on the territory of this 
proud race of Caballeros, and I entirely agree with those who think 
that a meaner territory may be sought widely and not found. As for 
Madrid, it is without exception the ugliest and most unredeemable 
capital I ever saw. If it has one redeeming external feature, I have not 
seen it. The hotels are bad; the streets vulgar, and the people simply 
faded Jews. As for the journey, it was most uncomfortable. We slept 
one night at San Sebastian, which is nothing, and another at Burgos, 
whose celebrated cathedral does not in my opinion hold comparison 
with twenty I have seen elsewhere. In short, if I were to draw a just 
conclusion from my impression, I should say that I think Spain a hole, 
and that I only want to get out of it. This is the logical result of niy 
statement of facts, and I am mortified to find how little even my re- 
markable wisdom has of logic, for I must own that, in spite of every- 
thing, Spain does amuse me. Every day, with perfect regularity, a sky 
so blue that one can scoop it out with a spoon; a sun so glorious that 
the shadows are palpably black; a dry, crisp air that tightens all one's 
muscles and makes life easy; and a good natured, dirty people who are 
always apologetic if one does not insult them. As for the gallery here, 
I can't deny that it knocks all my expectations flat. Never did I 
dream of such Titians. Meanwhile we have nothing on earth to do, 
and are violently busy. We know about ten words of Spanish, and 
converse fluently all day. In short, this is a country of non-sequiturs. 



316 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Everything Is upside down and wrong-end first; but I think it suits an 
American palate, for the climate is American and as no one pretends 
to being anything, our American amour-propre has a vacation. . . . 

Every morning I take a Spanish lesson, which reminds me of our old 
days in Rome. This and the gallery, and society, and bric-a-brac, so 
far represent all I have done, for, in spite of aU my diplomacy, I have 
not yet got the papers I came for. The Foreign Secretary swears I 
shall have them just as soon as he can find out where they are. The 
fun is that they belong to his department and to this century. Cosas 
de Espagna! ApparenSy I have got to go to Simancas, a hole such as 
only Spain contains. . . . 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

GIBRALTAR, 21 November, 1879. 

Perhaps a letter from you is waiting our arrival at Seville. If so I 
will answer it in advance, for I have just now a little leisure, and my 
science is not extensive enough to tell me when I shall have any more. 
My last letter to you was from Madrid, written when Spain was new 
to me, and when I was still wondering what to expect. Nearly a 
month has passed, and I feel as though I were a pure Spaniard or 
perhaps a Jew, for of late I have been a bit more Jewish than any- 
thing else. Chequered is the ocean of life, my dear friend, and I think 
the part of that ocean in which Spain lies is decidedly more chequered 
than most. When I wrote to you I was exulting in my first experience 
of Spanish sun. Hardly three days passed when the skies clouded over, 
rain began, and for the next ten days we had what the Madrilenos 
were pleased to call their rainy season. At best Madrid is a hole, but 
in rainy weather it is a place fit only to drown rats in. At the same 
time the Duke of Tetuan, who is the Foreign Secretary, let me know 
that there were very few papers to be found, of the class I wanted to 
see, and the few that existed were too delicate to be shown. Finally, 
poor Mrs. Lowell, 1 my Minister's wife, seemed to be rapidly sinking, 
and I was very unwilling to go off and leave Lowell in the utter soH- 
tude which weighed on him almost as much as the illness itself. For a 
whole week we groaned and suffered. Our only bright spot was Lady 
Bonham who enlivened us now and then. At length we became de- 
sperate, and as Mrs. Lowell was rather better than otherwise, we 
bolted on Monday, the 3d, and, seizing the first express train, we fled 
southward. Andalusia received us with open arms. The sun came out, 

1 Frances Dunkp. 



A TRIP IN SPAIN 317 

Cordova was fascinating.^ The great mosque was glorious. The little 
houses, and especially their hammered iron gates, were adorable. We 
reached Granada Tuesday evening and stayed there a week with more 
amusement than I ever supposed my effete existence was now capable 
of feeling. Everyone has his own standards of taste, and many travel- 
lers are bored by Granada. So they are by Rome, Venice and the Nile. 
To my mind Granada ranks with the jirst-dass places, and for beauty 
stands only second to Naples. While there I made acquaintance with 
one of the best of the Granadans, Don Leopoldo Equilaz, the local 
antiquarian, a charming fellow, who took us about, told us stories and 
showed us curiosities, had us at his house, and led us into temptation, 
for he inflamed our minds with a wild fancy for following up the Gran- 
ada fugitives to their final refuge at Tetuan. You would have been de- 
lighted if you had seen us at an evening tea in Don Leopoldo's renais- 
sance palace, talking fluid Spanish with the Senora, two padres of the 
holy inquisition, and two pure Moors of the race of Boabdil; it was 
life of the fifteenth century with full local color. Among them they 
persuaded us to visit Tetuan, and so we came down to Gibraltar, 
crossed to Ceuta, and rode nine hours on donkeys last Sunday to 
Tetuan, returning on Wednesday, and reaching here yesterday, 
whence we start on Sunday for Cadiz, The Tetuan journey was hard. 
Ceuta was awful. The dirt of these eastern cities, like Tetuan, is in- 
describable. The Hebrew is pervasive and irrepressible. Nevertheless 
I enjoyed the trip, or parts of it, immensely; the scenery was charm- 
ing; Tetuan is more eastern than the east, and filthily picturesque be- 
yond anything I ever saw. We brought back a mule-load of rugs and 
embroideries, and had glorious June weather. But whether my name 
is now Abd-el-adem, or Ben-shadams, or Don Enrique Adkmo, I 
couldn't take oath, for I have been utterly bewildered to know what 
has become of my identity, and the Spaniards have been so kind to us 
that I feel as though I owed them a name.... 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

H&TEL DU JARDIW, RUE DE RIVOLI, 

PARIS, oo Dec., 1879. 
*** 

As for Paris, I hardly know what it is. Except for a short walk after 
dark, I see nothing of it except manuscripts and books. It is very un- 
comfortable and cold. The streets are blocked with snow, which has a 
way of arranging itself in humps, so that cabs can only go at a walk. 



318 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

and rapid movement is out of the question. The fog is always thick, 
though of course not quite so dense as at times in London. I go to my 
archives at ten and work till four, with an intermission for breakfast. 
After that I work at home till bed-time. As yet I have seen no one, 
and Paris seems far more solitary than Granada or Tetuan. My only 
wish is to finish with it, and cross the channel. 

Cabinet crises pursue us. We left one at Madrid, where the public 
calmly wait the approaching exit of the little King and Queen. We 
find one here, and it bothers me in dealing with the Foreign Office. 
By the time we get to England I suppose we shall find Lord Beacons- 
field gone up; and indeed I should think Afghanistan and India would 
swamp any ministry 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

PARIS, 20 Dec'r, 1879. 

Yours of Oct. 1 9th, that of Oct. doth, and the accompanying docu- 
ment, followed me to Spain and found me, I think, at Granada. In 
the rough-and-tumble traveling I have done since then, I have left 
your letters unanswered. 

Your notice of Gallatin is very well done. I think I have before now 
suggested that you should give your style a little more variety and 
freedom. The sentences to my ear sound rather too much like each 
other, and occasionally a mere change of punctuation would relieve 
the eye, while the ear will often follow the eye and deceive itself; in 
other cases it is easy to turn a sentence round and begin at the end. 
The most difficult thing to me is to vary the length of my sentences so 
as to relieve the attention. In the struggle to do this, I have some- 
times found myself doing very clumsy things. 

I was very glad to see that you were going to the General Court. As 
I have always said, you have nothing to do but to go ahead. A few 
years in the Legislature are a kind of necessity to any man who wants 
influence. You are near the State House. I suppose our Legislature is 
not unlike others. Social influence counts for whatever one chooses to 
make it. If you can make friends of the most influential members, in- 
cluding the Speaker, if you can occasionally bring one home to a 
family dinner, or to a talk in your library; if you can, in short, make 
yourself important or agreeable to the leaders, you will next year be in 
a position to claim a good committee and be a leader yourself. I be- 
lieve seniority alone gives effective influence over assemblies so you 
can afford to move slowly. 



Six WEEKS OF HIBERNATION IN PARIS 319 

As for politics, we seem to be in a backwater period. At one time I 
favored connecting ourselves directly with Sherman, but I doubt it 
now. Sherman, like Evarts, will hand us over to Grant, On the other 
side the outlook is rather better, but not much. The Democrats at 
least are badly frightened and may make a respectable nomination, 
but as a party, one should keep clear of them. They are more danger- 
ous to their friends than to their enemies. If you have made up your 
mind what to do, I should like to know what it is, for although I shall 
hardly be at home much before election day, I am anxious to know 
what is to happen. 

We^are excessively sorry to hear bad news about poor Mrs. Park- 
man. 1 There is no one whom I should miss so much at Beverly; in fact 
I hardly know what we shall do without her. I can only hope that you 
will have found some one to take her place, for I know you will miss 
her as much as we. 

I am still hard at work. Manuscripts are clumsy things to read, and 
there are few slower occupations than taking notes. Probably I shall 
finish the State Papers here by the middle of January, and go back to 
London. I leave the results for conversation when we meet. Between 
now and next July I have got a mountain of papers and books to di- 
gest, and shall not have an hour to lose. In fact I shall need all the 
time I can steal out of the autumn. 

We have done some pretty severe traveling since I wrote last, and 
enjoyed it. I got to feel quite at home in Spain and was sorry to come 
away, for I long since got over any fancy for Paris. My wife has been 
very well, and sends her warm regards to yours and to you. So do I. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

22, QUEEN ANNE'S GATE, S.W. 
22 February, 1880. 

Your interesting letter of Jany loth reached me on arriving here, 
after six weeks of dull and dismal hibernation in Paris. At the best of 
times Paris is to me a fraud and a snare; I dislike it, protest against it, 
despise its stage, condemn its literature, and have only a temperate re- 
spect for its cooking; but in December and January Paris is frankly 
impossible. It has all the discomforts of London without its mildness; 
all the harshness of New York without its gaiety. Yet I got my papers, 
which proved to be most interesting. I did a heap of reading which 
was indispensable and almost as interesting as the papers. I never 

1 Catherine Scolky BigeW, daughter of Dr. Jacob Bigelow. 



320 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

have had a better-employed six weeks, and have seldom been gladder 
to finish them. I rejoiced as much to leave Paris, where I got all I 
wanted and was perfectly well established, as I regretted to leave 
dirty, hideous, wretched old Spain, where I was refused everything, 
and swore at every step. Such is the perversity of human nature. We 
have now been a month in London, where we took a house next door 
to Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and Marlborough House, 
and about equidistant from all three, which I take to be the ideal situa- 
tion for an American as it is for a Britisher. It is true that there is 
about as much chance of my frequenting one as the other of these 
royal abodes. I am too busy. Just now all my days are passed at the 
British Museum looking over papers newspapers, I mean with 
nothing in them. Pure loss of rime, but inevitable. This will take me 
a month, working from 1 1 till 4 every day. Then I must return to the 
Record Office and complete my work there, which will take another 
month. By that time I hope to get my papers from France and Spain 
where Lowell is busying himself for me. I must then go to work with 
my own pen, an article I have not touched since finishing Gallatin. I 
want to complete the whole foreign work here, so as to be sure there 
are no gaps to be filled hereafter. This I hope to accomplish by Aug. 
1st. Then I must go to Paris again; make a visit or two in England; 
sail on or about Sept. 15; reach Boston about Oct. 1st; stay a few days 
to see my family; rush on to Washington to take a house; pass six 
weeks between Washington, New York and Boston, trying to furnish 
the house; and get fairly settled to work again about Dec'r 1st* 

Such are our plans, which, as you see, are pretty precise. Thus far 
I have carried out, step by step, the program I made before leaving 
Washington. If my luck will last to carry me back again, I shall be 
glad, for, much as I enjoy travelling, and pleasant as London always 
is, I infinitely prefer home, and I assure you I positively hunger for 
my Washington life. 

So much for myself and our doings. Of you and yours I was glad to 
get so good an account. Unless you wreck yourself on the rock of the 
next Presidential election I see no reason why you should not go ahead 
indefinitely. As for the election, in your place I should have been 
rather inclined to carry my friends straight to Sherman and to offer 
him energetic support on the single condition that he would promise 
not to sell us out to Grant, but to retire, if retire he must, in favor of 
some other man, or no one. Failing Sherman > I am at a loss to see 
what can be done, but between ourselves I should think about man- 
oeuvring for a renomination of Hayes* What we want is to preserve 



THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK FOR 1880 321 

the present status. Obviously we have not strength to improve it. 
Therefore Hayes. But you are on the ground and I am not. Bad 
as the prospect is from the Republican point of view, it seems to me 
much worse on the Democratic side. I can see no candidate worth 
their putting up, and, as I hear nothing of what is doing, I feel as 
though anything which would result in an undisputed Republican 
success would be satisfactory to me. 

Schurz seems to have got into trouble with his Indian commissioner. 
This must be a blow to Mm, but as he has ceased to be anything to us, 
and so long as he is in the cabinet never can return to his old impor- 
tance, I don't know that his mischance affects our interests. What in- 
terests me far more is to know what our New York independents are 
doing. They ought to have the names and addresses of ten thousand 
New York Republicans who will vote against Grant at any cost. With 
such a list behind them, they ought to dictate both the party nomina- 
tions. Who is leading diem? I see they have issued an address. 

We are still mourning for Mrs. Parkman who has carried with her 
the largest part of our Beverly society. We could have better spared 
what is left. I only hope you will invent some one to take her place 
before we return. 

I hear very little from anyone. Brooks occasionally writes me a 
line. Grodkin forced himself up to writing once. But except my mo- 
ther I have no regular correspondent, and she is not political. I think 
the world writes fewer letters now than ever, perhaps because there is 
less to write about. Certainly London has not the material for a letter. 
It is Sunday afternoon. Harry James is standing on the hearthrug, 
with his hands under his coat-tails talking with my wife exactly as 
though we were in Marlborough Street. I am going out in five minutes 
to make some calls on perfectly interesting people. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

22, QUEEN ANHE'S GATE, S.W. 
13 May, i88cx 

Yours of March aist has been lying a month in my drawer and, 
grateful as I am for all the news you are the only person to send me, I 
have so little to say in reply that a letter is hardly writeable. The 
Boston Sunday Herald and the New York Herald keep me tolerably 
well posted about home affairs, and Harry Sturgis tells me much more. 
You will be amused to hear that your friend Portal is soon to be mar- 
ried to a Miss Glyn, a girl rather in the style of Mrs. Harry Sturgis at 



322 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

eighteen. I have seen so little of the Portals that I hardly know how 
the match is liked, but on the face of it I should suppose that it was 
meant for wear rather than for show. The English are very sensible 
about these things. Portal is to live in the country and will make an 
excellent country gentleman, shaming us poor cockneys by his de- 
votion to fox-hounds and cold roast beef. 

The American colony is rather large here just now, and decidedly 
respectable. Besides the Sturgises, Morgans, Walter Burns, Har- 
courts, Playfairs, Smalleys, and Mistress Alice Mason with her callow 
brood, there is a swarm of swells whom I don't know and who bask in 
the smiles of royalty. We are very quiet ourselves, go out little, and as 
the fashionable people come to town our little tallow-dip disappears 
in the glare. There is nothing very much worth seeing. No new books 
have come out to create even a ripple, so far as I know. There is not 
even a new man of any prominence. Yet society lumbers ahead and 
one manages to get a good deal of amusement out of it without getting 
any excitement to speak of. We were more startled by George Eliot's 
marriage to John Cross than by the elections themselves. As Cross 
is semi-American by his business connection, she is half-way to emi- 
gration. I suppose her American admirers will howl over the fall of 
their idol, but I can't say I care much for the idol business, and I am 
dear that if she found her isolation intolerable, she was quite right to 
marry Cross if she could get him. It is not quite so easy to explain 
why Cross should have been willing to marry her, for most men of 
thirty or forty prefer youth, beauty, children and such things, to in- 
tellect in gray hairs. Some people say it was a pure marriage of con- 
venience on both sides, but I know that the Cross family have a sort 
of superstitious adoration of her. 

My odds and ends are gradually getting into shape. I have finished 
with the Record Office, completed my search through the newspapers, 
collected the greater part of my pamphlets, and sounded all the wells 
of private collections I could find. In Paris and Madrid copyists are 
at work for me and ought soon to send their copy. I foresee a good 
history if I have health and leisure the next five years, and if nothing 
happens to my collections of material. My belief is that I can make 
something permanent of it, but, as time passes, I get into a habit of 
working only for the work's sake and disliking the idea of completing 
and publishing. One should have some stronger motive than now ex- 
ists for authorship. I don't think I care much even to be read, and any 
writer in this frame of mind must be dull reading. On the other hand 
I enjoy immensely the investigation, and making little memoranda of 



THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION OF 1880 323 

passages here and there. Aridity grows on me. I always felt myself 
like Casaubon in Middlemarch, and now I see the tendency steadily 
creeping over me. 

This makes me all the gladder to see you plunged into active life. I 
envy you your experience at Chicago, though I cannot for my life see 
how you can manage to worry through it without getting squeezed. I 
still stick to Sherman. Edmunds is totally unfit to be President and I 
should prefer Elaine. Massachusetts ought to throw her whole weight 
energetically for Sherman in convention; it is the only way to be digni- 
fied and consistent. If Sherman is withdrawn, then let the State give 
its vote to the most respectable candidate on the list, but I confess I 
think it ought in that case, as a mere matter of respect to a most 
successful administration, to throw one complimentary vote for Hayes. 

Many thanks for your Pinkney minutes which I shall be glad to 
have. He and Monroe made an awful blunder in signing that treaty; 
they were fairly scared to death. Now that I see the English side, they 
appear utterly ridiculous, and poor dear old Jefferson too, but our 
beloved Federalists most of all. Ye Gods, what a rum lot they were I. . . 

Lowell is expected here on the iyth. I fear his wife is still very 
poorly, but he has not written me the details. He takes a house near 
Sarah Darwin's in Southampton, and I suppose will come up at in- 
tervals. Harry James is expected from Italy at about the same time. 
He gave us his newspaper criticisms to read, but as I've not read his 
books I couldn't judge of their justice. These little fits of temper soon 
blow over, however, and if he is good-natured about it he will get 
straight again soon. 

I am much touched by your loyalty to your venerable Professor, and 
I feel like two Casaubons, rather than one, at the idea of standing in 
the attitude of a gray-haired Nestor surrounded by you and Young 
and poor Laughlin. By the way, did you see how elaborately Stubbs 
refers to us in his new edition ? John Green is one of my intimate 
friends here, but how he objurgates you fellows for your German style. 
He says my Essay is bad enough, but you others are dean mad. We 
chaff each other thereupon. 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

22, QUEEN AHNE'S GATE, S.W. 
LONDON, 9 JULY, 1880. 

Your letter of June ipth was very welcome. Of course I had read 
die newspapers carefully and followed every step in the Conventions* 



324 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

cavortings, but I was very glad to get a nearer view. Now that the 
Democrats have trotted out their horse too, we can judge better of the 
quality of yours. 

Garfield seems to me a very strong candidate; whether Sherman 
would have been stronger I don't know, but certainly Garfield will 
draw out a very strong party vote. 

Hancock seems to me not a first-rate choice. Bayard or Randall or 
Hewitt or even McClellan would to my fancy have done better. I in- 
fer that all the New York Democrats and the old Tilden men thought 
so too. If Dick Taylor had lived, he would have stopped the unutter- 
able nonsense of putting a pure, unadulterated, West Point, corps- 
commander at the head of the Democratic party. It was due to want 
of proper organisation in the South, I suppose. 

Of course my path is with you. I can see no single object to gain 
from bringing Hancock in. As my judgment is always wrong, I sup- 
pose his election will follow and prove fortunate, but till then I shall 
vote for Garfield. 

Whether Garfield can carry New York and Indiana is, however, the 
real question, and it is to New York that all your money and work 
must go. I hope our friends will do their utmost, not because I care 
particularly which man is elected, but because it is most important 
that the election this time should be beyond a doubt. 

For you the nomination is of course a most lucky matter. You have 
as usual nothing to do but to go ahead. As for the "opening" that my 
[brother] Brooks sees for you, I am glad he sees it, but I doubt whether 
it is worth your while to strike for openings. You know my way of 
thinking. I got it from my father, and so I suppose it is merely a piece 
of hereditary imbecility which I ought to distrust; but at any rate I 
hold that to be happy in life is possible, so far as depends on oneself, 
only by being always busily occupied upon objects that seem worth 
doing. It is the occupation, not the objects, which makes happiness. 
So I say, go ahead! Make yourself as useful and as busy as you can. 
If a seat in Congress comes in your way, take it! Don't come abroad! 
Have always on your hands more than you can do! But as for "open- 
ings," they lead as a rule to Hell. Blaine and Ben Butler are the ideal 
of men who go for openings. 

This, however, is only written to argue the other side. Probably if 
Brooks took my view, I should feel obliged to take his. 

So much for politics and philosophical statesmanship. Meanwhile 
since my last letter the world has run on until I am now within a 
few weeks of dosing my London house and starting to see whether 



STUDYING ENGLISH POLITICS OF 1801-15 3 2 5 

we can pick up a little strength in Scotland before going on board the 
"Gallia," My work is done, at least so far as it ever will be done. I 
have made a careful study of English politics from 1801 to 1815, and 
have got my authorities in order. My Spanish papers have mostly 
arrived. The French documents are, I hope, coming, although I am 
still nervous about them. My material is enormous, and I now fear 
that the task of compression will be painful. Burr alone is good for a 
volume. Canning and Perceval are figures that can't be put in a nut- 
shell, and Napoleon is vast. I have got to contemplate six volumes for 
the sixteen years as inevitable. If it proves a dull story, I will con- 
dense, but it's wildly interesting, at least to me which is not quite 
the same thing as interesting the public. 

We are very weary of our London season, which has now lasted six 
months, but luckily the weather is cool and wet. I suppose we shall 
stay in Scotland till near September, and reach New York in the 
"Gallia" on October 5th or thereabouts, whence we must go directly 
to Washington to furnish our new house. We have taken Corcoran's 
White House, next his own, on President's Square, and I fear there is a 
great deal to be done to it before we can get in. When things are set 
going there, we shall come to Boston for a while. I rather hope to be 
there for the election, to vote. Then back to Washington for the 
winter, and I look forward placidly to recurring winters and summers 
in Washington and Beverly, until a cheery tomb shall provide us with 
a permanent abode for all seasons. 

Of news on this side I have little or none except that America is all 
here and makes it impossible to believe in a hereafter. Unless we can 
annex another planet, travelling is a lost art, and home an unknown 
joy. Mrs. Sturgis is beginning to wonder whether Julian will not be 
"unsettled" by America, but I don't quite see how you can unsettle 
anything that never had equilibrium. Julian was always a dancing 
satyr. Of books there are none on this side* As for society, it is as 
dingy and solemn as even In the last six months I believe we have 
averaged a dinner every other day, and you can imagine that, as my 
wife says, we are pretty well dinnered out. Except John Green and 
Lecky, 1 however, I have met no one who adds greatly to my score. Of 
fashion and the peerage I know less than ever. Lowell and Mrs. 
Ronalds monopolise the royal family. Pretty near all England is emi- 
grating to America, and, in my uniformly untrustworthy opinion, this 
old shebang will come to grief. Europe has got to do some more heavy 
revoluting in the next twenty years, and America has a long start. 

1 William Edward Hartpok Lecky (183^-19053). 



326 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Anyway, however, we philosophers in this ocean of life have to keep 
our eyes fixed on the horizon-line or a star, if we don't mean to be sea- 
sick. My hobby now is to live until I see custom-houses abolished. 
Damn *em ! Think of my condition of mind with that custom-house 
before me until October. That is my platform for our party of the 
Zukunft. 

Give our unanimous love to your wife. Also to the babbies. Julian 
Sturgis delighted me by writing to his mother an account of Nahant 
and its beauties!! Your eldest will one day tell you the same perhaps. 
My brother Charles says he finds middle-age commonplace, but he 
won't when those twins teach him a thing or two. 



XI 
WASHINGTON 

1880-1886 
To Henry Cabot Lodge 

WASHINGTON, 30 October, 1880. 

Your kind letter was handed to me by my wife in the middle of my 
struggles with the complications of many kinds at Boston, when I had 
not a moment to spare for writing. Now that I have got again a 
breathing-spell, my first thought is to acknowledge it, and to say how 
sorry I am not to have been able to get at you. When I was not run- 
ning about Boston, I had to be at Quincy, and all the while I ought to 
have been here. This must be my excuse for not having made use of 
your various kind invitations. 

Of course I shall feel much flattered by your proposed dedication 
and I only wish my name counted for more in the public estimation. 
As it is, you must give it the credit it wants. 

We have now been for three months driving about the world, with- 
out a minute's repose. It will be at least another month before I shall 
be able to settle again to my work and to have a roof of my own. 
When shall you come on here? I suppose your brother-in-law * will ex- 
pect you to stay with him, but my house, when I get into it, will be 
at your orders. Meanwhile I am at the genial Wormley's watching 
carpenters, plumbers, painters, paperers, and gas-fitters. 

Of politics I can tell you not a thing. Although content to see a Re- 
publican triumph, I am not eager to take a hand in it, and I have too 
much to condone in the acts of that party and its nominee to make me 
care to proclaim the condonation. My brother Charles has done it for 
me, and I would rather that he should do it than I. This reconciles me 
to losing my vote. The pleasure of endorsing De Golyer and the 
Louisiana Returning Board would not be increased by the effort to de- 
cide between the merits of Leopold Morse 3 and R. B. Hayes. If my 
vote were to be decisive, I should throw it, but even then I should 
prefer to do it in silence and secrecy. 

Nothing can equal the blunder of the Democrats. In throwing over 
Tilden, it is dear that they threw over all the brains they had, I can 

1 Charles Henry Davis (1845-1921). 

* Leopold Morse (1831-1892}, member from Massachusetts. 



328 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

see no single reason for voting with them, although I can see ample 
cause for not voting with the Republicans. Meanwhile your course is 
clear enough and I hope it will be smooth. As for me, I am best off as 
an outsider. 

Things will begin to get lively here in about a month. We are 
heartily glad to get back, and rather enjoy house-furnishing. I hope 
you will approve our taste. You know the house. We have taken it 
for six years and hope not to be disturbed then. You will have time to 
become well acquainted with it. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

WASHINGTON, i January, 1881. 


Marvelous quiet and prosperity reign here. I am the only living 
American who has this year spent more than his income. We hear 
vague echoes of European troubles, of Ireland and France and Turkey, 
but we don't know anything about them. My only surprise is that 
you don't all emigrate to get rid of the Irish. I have read George 
Trevelyan's book, which is charming. If it only told something about 
Fox, it would be hardly open to criticism. I have read Endymion^ 
with stares and gasps. There is but one excuse for it; the author must 
be in a terrible want of money ; his tenants have paid him nothing, and 
Mr. Gladstone has docked his pension. If he has not, he should. 
Endymion is a disgrace to the government, the House of Lords, the 
Commons, and the Jews. . . . 



To Henry Cabot Lodge 

1607 H STREET 
SUNDAY. 21 May, 1881. 

The book r is an excellent one. I should like to find fault with it, but 
really do not know how. It seems to be thoroughly good and satis- 
factory in all respects so that I almost wish it had a few faults to pick 
upon. If fault is to be found, I am inclined, in going over the same 
ground a little later, to put it on the extreme monotony of the subject, 
and I have pretty much made up my mind not to attempt giving in- 
terest to the society of America in itself, but to try for it by way of 
contrast with the artificial society of Europe, as one might contrast a 
stripped prize-fighter with a life-guardsman in helmet and breast- 

1 Short History of the EngKsk Colonies in America* H. C. L. 



To THE LIBRARIAN OF HARVARD COLLEGE 329 

plate, jack-boots and a big black horse. The contrast may be made 
dramatic, but not the thing. This is to be, however, the acid test of 
my own composition, and I am afraid that I shall not succeed so well 
as you. Luckily I am not in a hurry to fail. You have already created 
for yourself more interests than I ever had, and can afford to use some 
of them up. I nurse my one lamb. 

I had thought of waiting till I saw you, rather than of writing, but 
as I doubted when we should meet, I thought best to write. We leave 
here on Tuesday and reach Boston on Friday or thereabout. I hope to 
be settled at Beverly the following week. Perhaps one of these days I 
will ride over to Nahant for a chat, if you can give my horse and me a 
lodging for the night. Of course there is much to talk about, especially 
in the political doings of the last three months. Our fight is now 
pretty well won. Grantism, which drove us to rebellion, is dead. Not 
a vestige of it is left. One after another every finger of that octopus 
has been lopped off. The government is now running on a new track, 
not much better to be sure, but free from organised corruption. There 
will be rotten places here, as there were with Hayes more and 
worse, I fear but, as with him, on the whole we may rest and be 
thankful* 



To Justin Winsor 

BEVERLY FARMS, 27 September, 1881. 

I return today the box of newspapers for a new load. It is astonishing 
how very little information is to be found in them, I want to learn all I 
can about the social and economical condition of the country in 1800. 
Can you send me a few books on the subject in the return box with the 
newspaper volumes? I want the Memoirs of Lindley Murray by him- 
self. New York. 1827. John Fitch's Biography by Westcott, Phil. 
1867. Colden's Life of Fulton, 1817. There is, I believe, a History or 
Memoir about the Middlesex Canal which I want to see; and I want to 
find out how much banking capital there was in the U.S. in 1800, and 
how it was managed. I want a strictly accurate account of the state of 
education and of the practise of medicine. I want a good sermon of that 
date, if such a thing existed, for I cannot find one which seems to me 
even tolerable, from a literary or logical point of view. If you in your 
historical work have come across any facts or authorities which would 
aid me, I should like to beg them of you, especially if they tend to 
correct me. Thus far my impression is that America in 1800 was not 
far from the condition of England under Alfred the Great; that the 



330 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

conservative spirit was intensely strong in the respectable classes, and 
that there was not only indifference but actual aggressive repression 
towards innovation; the mental attitude of good society looks to me 
surprisingly mediaeval. I should wish to correct this impression. Did 
Harvard or Yale show anything to the contrary before 1800? I can see 
that Philadelphia was reasonably liberal and active-minded; was any 
other part of the country equally so? Was there a steam-engine in 
the United States?... 



To Henry Cabot Lodge 

1607 H STREET, 

29 October, 1881. 

Down to the last moment of our stay in Beverly we still hoped to get 
over to see you and Mrs. Lodge. I had projected a drive to Nahant on 
our last Sunday. It is my greatest disappointment of the summer that 
we broke down in this scheme. The fact is, I have worked very steadily 
and have felt for the first time a sort of nervous fear of losing time. My 
conscience reproves me for neglecting not only my friends but my 
family; yet life is slipping away so fast that I grudge every day which 
does not show progress in my work. I have but one off-spring, and am 
nearly forty-four while it is nothing but an embryo. After fifty I mean 
to devote myself to frivolity and friends. 

We arrived here the night before last and are again established in 
winter quarters although the weather is warm and the trees green. 
Naturally I know as yet nothing of anything. All my cabinet repre- 
sentatives have run off. A new crowd is in the house opposite. No one 
is much more learned than I am, and no one seems to care much more 
than I do. Whoever comes in, it is not likely that they will be friends 
of mine. Luckily it will be hard for Arthur to begin worse than Gar- 
field did, although he can but try. 

I have a sort of an idea that Davis told me he was going to China for 
a year or two. If so, and his house is no longer open to you, I hope you 
will light here in case you fly so far this winter. We shall be glad to see 
you again. Perhaps in time the odor of political unorthodoxy will be- 
come less strong on our garments, and your constituents will pardon 
the contamination. It is not likely that I can be of any use to you, but 
I can always go on with lectures in history. 



POLITICS AND MORALITY 331 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

1607 H STREET, 
Tuesday, 15 Novr, 1881. 

News travels slow between Lynn and Washington. The Evening 
Post said you had been beaten/ but I have not yet heard particulars, 
and I write merely to inquire about it. 

This is one of the draw-backs to politics as a pursuit. I suppose 
every man who has looked on at the game has been struck by the re- 
markable way in which politics deteriorate the moral tone of everyone 
who mixes in them. The deterioration is far more marked than in any 
other occupation I know except the turf, stock-jobbing, and gambling. 
I imagine the reason in each case to be the same. It is the curse of poli- 
tics that what one man gains, another man loses. On such conditions 
you can create not even an average morality. Politicians as a class 
must be as mean as card-sharpers, turf-men, or Wall Street curbstone 
operators. There is no respectable industry in existence which will not 
average a higher morality. 

Whether you have slipped up on this mud-bank, or only have been 
upset by accident, I do not know, but in any case the moment is one 
for you to stop and think about it. I have never known a young man 
go into politics who was not the worse for it. I could give a list as long 
as the Athenaeum Catalogue, from my two brothers, John and Brooks, 
down to Willy Astor, a Ham Fish, 3 and Robert Ray Hamilton. They 
all try to be honest, and then are tripped up by the dishonest; or they 
try to be dishonest (i.e., practical politicians) and degrade their own 
natures. In the first case they become disappointed and bitter; in the 
other they lose self-respect. My conclusion is that no man should be 
in politics unless he would honestly rather not be there. Public service 
should be a corv/e^ a disagreeable necessity. The satisfaction should 
consist in getting out of it. 

So much for your mishap, which I hope will still at last strengthen 
you even politically. I wish I could send you pleasanter news from 
here, but it is much worse than your affair. Our friend MacVeagh, 4 
after an heroic and desperate as well as prolonged struggle to drag 
President Arthur into the assertion of reform principles, has utterly 
and hopelessly failed. The new administration will be the centre for 
every dement of corruption, south and north* The outlook is very 
discouraging. 

* For the State Senate. H. C. L. Wiffiam Waldorf Astor (1848-1919). 

* Hamflton Ksb (1849-1853). * Wayne MacVeagfr (1833-1917). 



332 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 



To Henry Cabot Lodge 

1607 H STREET, 
21 Novr, 1 88 1. 

Thanks for your letter which is curious and interesting to me beyond 
most, as an illustration of political methods. Your enemies treated 
you exactly as I supposed. The case was only a little more gross than 
usual. Don't imagine that I suspected you of being the dishonest 
party; if you had been so, the result might have been different. Mean- 
while you can count to a certain extent on a reaction in your favor. 
All I pray for is that, should you find the struggle at last not worth the 
object, you may fall back on other occupations without regret. In 
your place I could not. I hope you can. 

Life is passing too fast for me to bother much about anything, and 
as the course of politics can hardly affect me or my occupations other- 
wise than socially, I do not greatly care what turns up. Probably this 
is a better time than any other for a political chaos. A few months will 
show. I think you might find a little visit here useful presently. If so, 
you will always have this house at your disposal. Come and see how 
things are. You certainly will not find many reformers; all that swarm 
have vanished like smoke, and even I have ceased to lisp the word; 
but you will find a swarm of a different kind which will interest you 
just as much, perhaps more. Meanwhile I am so glad to get rid of 
Elaine, that I am content to put up with almost anything, and, like 
all the rest of the world, am throwing up my cap for Mr. Arthur whose 
social charms we now understand to be most extraordinary, although 
only last spring we were assured by the same people that he was a 
vulgar and a dull animal. To be in the fashion is the first law of nature. 
My mouth is shut on reform politics for at least two years to come; I 
have not the physical strength to cry like St. John in the wilderness. 

I am afraid that Brooks is poorly, and have written advising him to 
come on here. Please back up my advice, if you have a chance. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

WASHINGTON, 29 January, 1882. 

I did not see the XIX Century article and was in hopes to get it 
from you, for here I am so absorbed in my own pursuits that I see 
nothing else. Palgrave did not send me his volume of historico-poetic 
verses, and therefore I have not seen it. I have not seen Green's new 
volume, but Woolner sent us "Pygmalion." As I write for five hours 



CUTTING MR, ELAINE 333 

every day, and ride two, and do society for the remainder, the op- 
portunity for literature is not a vast one. 

Henry James has been in Washington for a month, very homesick 
for London and for all the soft embraces of the old world. He returns 
to your hemisphere in May next- I frankly own that I broke down on 
The Portrait of a Lady, but some of my friends, of whose judgment I 
think highly, admire it warmly, and find it deeply interesting. I hope 
you may be of their opinion. 

I have not read the Life of Cobden or that of Lyell, and it strikes me 
with a little wonder to think that I should have known both of these 
men well. It is only not thefugaces annos, but thefugaces contintntes 
that bewilder me with a sense of leading several lives. Just at present, 
however, life seems as real and enjoyable as ever. Indeed, if I felt a 
perfect confidence that my history would be what I would like to make 
it, this part of life from forty to fifty would be all I want. There 
is a summer-like repose about it; a self-contained, irresponsible, devil- 
may-care indifference to the future as it looks to younger eyes; a 
feeling that one's bed is made, and one can rest on it till it becomes 
necessary to go to bed for ever; in short, an tditio princeps quality to 
it, with a first class French binding, which only a Duke, or a very rich 
Earl of ancient foundation, could feel at twenty-five. 

You know my life here, for I have described it to you many times. 
Poor Henry James thinks it revolting in respect to the politics and the 
intrigues that surround it. To me its only objection is its over-excite- 
ment. Socially speaking, we are very near most of the powerful people, 
either as enemies or as friends. Among others our pet enmity is Mr. 
Elaine, whose conduct towards your government has perhaps not en- 
deared him to you. His overthrow has been a matter of deep concern 
to us, both politically and personally, for we have always refused him 
even social recognition on account of his previous scandals, and I 
assure you that to stand alone in a small society like this, and to cut 
the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, without doing it offensively 
or with ill-breeding, requires not only some courage but some skill. 
We have gone through this ordeal for many months until at length 
there has come relief, and I trust that Mr. Btaine is blown up for ever, 
although it is costing us the worst scandal we ever had in our foreign 
politics. Today there are plenty of people who would like very well 
to have made as strong a protest. At the same time I am curiously 
without political friends, and know not a single man in public life who 
agrees with me. All my friends have been swept away in the changes 
of the past year, and I am more despondent about this new administra- 



334 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

tion than about any other of late years. It is wretchedly feeble and 
characterless. We shall however, I think, make no more outrageous 
foreign indecencies.... 

The other day we went out to dine, and to my horror I came face to 
face with your ursine and ursa-maximine countryman, Edward A. 
Freeman. I say "to my horror" because I had reviewed very sharply 
two of his books when I edited the North American^ and he knew it. 
He made himself as offensive as usual at the dinner. At the end he at- 
tacked me as I knew he would, and told me he had replied to my 
charges, as I would see in the Preface to the first volume of his third 
edition of the Norman Conquest. I feel not the slightest curiosity to 
see the reply, and should not know what to think of it, but if you wish 
to see the disjecta membra of your old friend scattered among the other 
bones in this "Zummerzetshire" bear cave, you can some day glance 
at the Preface in question and shed a tear over my untimely fate..., 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

1607 H STREET, 
31 January, 1882. 

We shall duly expect you next Monday. I should have written about 
your coming, but have been in great doubt whether we could take 
Mrs. Lodge in, owing to the uncertainty of other visitors, including 
Brooks. As you come alone, although of course you will not be so 
welcome, you will more easily find a corner to sleep in. I have not yet 
heard whether Brooks is to stop here, or how long. I believe otherwise 
you will find us alone* 

History moves on apace. I am getting to Chase's impeachment 
and the close of my first four years, the easiest quarter of my time. 
Heaven only knows whether the result is readable. As yet I have not 
even put it together so as to be read, but I keep hammering ahead, 
day by day, without looking backwards. 

I presume you know more about politics than I do, so I leave that 
subject untouched. It is not a very clean one just now. 

My wife sends her love to yours. We dine at seven, so be sure to 
take the Limited, if not an earlier train. MacVeagh was here last 
Sunday, so he is likely to be at home the next. 



THE FIVE OF HEARTS 335 

To John Hay 

[WASHINGTON,] Sunday, 30 April, '82. 

Your letter from N.Y. was a good deed in a naughty world. We had 
hoped for a line without expecting it. On the whole, if you will only 
behave yourself, live in the open air and seek a tolerable climate, I see 
no reason why you may not live to pronounce a parting address over 
the graves of all the other hearts, 1 and my only regret is that I cannot 
engage you in advance to oust the clergyman at my own funeral. 
Prayer I won't have, but I want a little speech or two, as: "Fellows, 
this departed heart first discovered the true meaning of sac and soc; 
he liked sack and claret; he invented Jefferson, Gallatin and Burr; he 
laughed at King's puns and Hay's jokes; also at Emily Beale's; a and 
any man who could do all that, deserves all he will get when he gets 
there.'* 

Your suggestions as to the dear Hamilton shall be followed. To me 
the man is noxious, not because of the family quarrel, for he was 
punished sufficiently on that account, but because he combined all the 
elements of a Scotch prig in a nasty form. For that reason I prefer 
not to touch him if I can help it, and shall follow your advice by cutting 
out all I can cut, in regard to him, and emasculating the rest 

I have a funny dinner today which I wish you could help me with. 
Hal Richardson, the architect, O. C. Marsh, Edmund Hudson, of the 
Boston Herald, old George Bancroft, my brother Brooks- What do you 
suppose they can talk about? 

To Charles Mitnes Gaskell 

1607 H STREET, 30 April, 1882. 


History advances slowly but fairly well* I write and ride and dine 
and chatter all I can with all who care to waste their eternal souls in 
that frivolity. Nothing surprises me more, as time goes on, than to 
find how little the world seems to object to me, or indeed to interfere 
in any way with my concerns. I have actually taken to the mad effort 
of trying to conciliate society* so far as this can be done without 

1 A name adopted by the two families. Note paper with the fire of hearts stamped in the 
tipper left-hand corner was used, indicating that there were five in the combination. Nothing in 
these letters indicate the identity of the fifth member, but it is generally thought to be Clarence 
King. 

* Daughter of General Edward Fitzgerald Beale and later Mrs. John Roll McLean. 



336 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

trouble, and on the whole I can't see but that society is willing enough 
to be conciliated, provided there is nothing to pay for it. Indeed I sus- 
pect I might perhaps have an office, if I did not show that I wanted 
it. At least I might be told that I could be minister to Cochin China 
or the Feejee Islands, provided I did not take the place. Possibly you 
may understand from your own experience that the world is ready 
enough to give one whatever one does not want and would not take. 
The only thing I want is that they should read my books, but against 
this there is a rooted opposition which amounts to conspiracy. 

2 May. Yours of lath April comes just as I am closing this. Thanks 
for your bunch of gossip, which is of more value to me here than to you 
there, as it gives me in conversation a certain air of knowledge, super- 
ficial and offensive, but convenient. I wish I could send you a return, 
but our world here, though amusing to us, is unknown even to New 
York and Philadelphia. To do it justice, it is a moral little world 
enough, and has no Lonsdales or wickedness, except occasional job- 
bery and political intrigue of a rather common type. I cannot say 
that I am an admirer of our new President, who is to my fancy a low 
character, but he tries to conciliate what is supposed to be good society, 
and somewhat to my horror, I find myself bidden to the White House, 
although I have been six months across the way without as yet having 
so much as left the tribute of a card there. . . . 



To John Hay 

WASHINGTON, June 8, 1882. 

DEAR PIKE COUNTY HEART, I am glad the secret is at last com- 
ing out. I was always confident that you wrote that book, 1 or at any 
rate that you knew who did. The fair Harriet 2 and I shared this dear 
illusion, and it is quite impossible for you to escape the authorship ex- 
cept by going to England and saying it was Sandy Bliss. 3 I have 
reason to think that our aunt Tappan has numerous acquaintances in 

1 Democracy. 

" In the spring of 1879 Henry Adams sent me the manuscript of that work [Democracy], with 
a view to its publication and with the most strenuous injunctions regarding secrecy of its author- 
ship. . . . Adams' reasons for keeping the authorship secret were not so much that he feared know- 
ledge of it might visit unpopularity on him; for he cared as little for that as any man I ever knew; 
but because some of his characters were carefully drawn from prominent hving persons who 
were his friends, and some of these he touched humorously and ironically." Henry Holt in 
Democracy (ed. 1925). The principal characters represented were Mrs. Bigelow Lawrence and 
her aster, Miss Fanny Chapman, Miss Emily Beale, James Lowndes, and James G. Elaine. 

* Harriet Elaine, daughter of James G. Elaine and later Mrs, 

* Alexander Bliss, step-son of George Bancroft. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF * DEMOCRACY' 337 

England, for I receive no end of messages and letters from there ask- 
ing whether my wife wrote this work of the Devil. Hitherto I have 
replied with indignation that my wife never wrote for publication in 
her life and could not write if she tried; but now I will send this news- 
paper paragraph which will serve my object better. I will write to 
King to have your name put on the title-page of an English edition, 
with Jim Bludso and little Breeches in a neat appendix. Well, well! 
I am really glad you have acknowledged it. Did you and Sandy and 
Harriet write it together, or did you do the politics, Harriet the libels, 
and Sandy the tenderness?... 

Dios guarde y etc. Perhaps Loubat x means to challenge you for 
writing Democracy. Don't you think it would serve you right? 

To John Hay 

BEVERLY FARMS, 25 June, 1882. 
* 

Thanks for your sympathetic interest in my ideal scamp. He was 
never a safe scoundrel to deal with, and may well run away and cheat 
the world again; but I tote about a hundred-weight of manuscript far 
more valuable than his, and he must bide his time. In truth I rather 
grudge the public my immortal writings. I neither want notoriety nor 
neglect, and one of the two must be imagined by every author to be 
his reward. My ideal of authorship would be to have a famous double 
with another name, to wear what honors I could win. How I should 
enjoy upsetting him at last by publishing a low and shameless essay 
with woodcuts in his name!... 



To John Hay 

BEVERLY FAJLMS, 3 Sept'r, 1882. 

I was greatly pleased the other day to receive an English copy of 
Democracy by mail, addressed in your hand, for I said at once to my 
wife: "This means that the dear Hay has at last acknowledged the 
book, and sends us a copy of his English edition." At the same time I 
was puzzled at hearing that George William Curtis had told John Field 
that the authorship was no longer a secret, that it was now acknow- 
ledged, and that your friend Miss Mary Loring was the criminal. Said 
I to myself, "Is it then possible that Hay and Miss Loring wrote this 
disgusting book together; and all those criticisms of and by die 

1 Joseph Florimond Loubat. 



338 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

sweet Harriet were a mere blind to throw dust in the eyes of the 
world?" Je niyperds! I give it up, and all the more because this last 
week I received your letter from Tillypronie which again resorts to the 
stale device of casting your joint work upon me. That my English 
friends, like Mrs. Humphry Ward, should do this sort of thing is 
natural, for, knowing no other American, they are bound to pitch on 
the only one they ever saw, but that you should do so is shocking. I 
will bear half the expense if you will write and print a story as "By 
the author," etc., but in any case I give you the fullest authority and 
a power of attorney on my behalf to repudiate for me and for my wife 
all share or parcel in the authorship of that work, which we regard with 
loathing, as must be the case with every truly honest citizen. Only 
yesterday my wife learned that even your good and pure Senator 
George H. Pendleton resented it. When things have got to this 
point, there is no longer room to hesitate. Every virtuous citizen 
must join in trampling on these revolting libels. For your sake I 
regret it, but you must confess that you and Miss Loring and Harriet 
have drawn it on your own heads.... 

If you meet Henry James, you will find him a real addition to your 
pleasure in London, and if you can possibly come upon John Green, 
the Short Historian, and the pleasantest of Englishmen, unhappily 
prostrated by consumption, don't fail to see what you can of him. 

To turn to our own news, I have only to say that summer is happily 
passed. I am bored to death by correcting the proofs of a very dull 
book about John Randolph, the fault of which is in the enforced 
obligation to take that lunatic monkey au serieux. I want to print 
some of his letters and those of his friends, and, in order to do so, was 
obliged to treat him as though he were respectable. For that matter, 
however, I am under much die same difficulty with regard to T. Jef- 
ferson, who, between ourselves, is a character of comedy. John Adams 
is a droll figure, and good for Sheridan's school; but T. J. is a case for 
Beaumarchais; he needs the lightest of touches, and my hand is as 
heavy as his own sprightliness. . . . 

Our summer guests have all broken down. Aristarchi, Miss Lucy 
Frelinghuysen and all the rest have failed us. I know nothing of 
politics. I care nothing for Conkling, Cameron or Cornell. 1 We are 
immersed in the ignorance which characterises Beacon Street and 
Harvard College. . . . 

If England agrees with you, as it does with many, I expect to see 
you a lion in English society, a runner in at Marlborough House, and 

1 Akmzo B. Cornell (1830-1904). 



THE SCALE OF LIVING 339 

your portrait by Burne Jones in the Grosvenor Gallery, with Demo- 
cracy under your arm. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

BEVERLY FARMS, 24 September, 1882. 
** 

Your Nineteenth Century article arrived safely. There are some 
difficulties in the path of all pessimistic reasoning which makes its 
conclusions doubtfal, and for some centuries yet may seem to confute 
its truth. Man is still going fast upward. For example, beef has 
within two years risen here in price, notwithstanding the immense 
supply, until we can hardly afford to eat it. The reason is that the 
-people have learned to prefer fresh meat to salt, and will no longer 
bring up families on salt pork. The scale of the millions rises steadily 
with their means, and I have caused an article to be written by the 
census people to show how steadily their means have risen and are 
rising. I will send you the article. 

With such forces at work, even English farming has a great future. 
Wheat is a bad crop, but roots, hay and stock will certainly pay. All 
you have to do is to raise wages, and subdivide capital. Your work- 
ingmen, as a class, are still too poor 



To Henry Cabot Lodge 

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS., 

Wednesday, 4 Oct., 1882. 

MY DEAR LODGE, Believe me, I am very sorry. Yours truly. 1 

To John Hay 

BEVERLY FARMS, 8 Oct., 1882. 

MY DEAR HAY-OH, Your name naturally prolongs itself into a 
sigh as I think what fun I should have had if I had been with you in 
England. Why could not you and King have come over in 1880 when 
we were living there? Then we would have scaled Heaven and gpne 
down into Hell, but now, look-ye, I am a mud-turtle, and for four 
months I have burrowed here in the ground without sight of sun or 
stars. Thank the eternal furies, a fortnight from today we shall be 
again wallowing in human depravity, at New York, and for the next 

* Peaol notation Defeat for nompnationl for Congress. H. C L. 



340 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

eight months I think we shall have the better of you. Florence and 
Nice are frankly bete beside Washington. 

Long letters from Sir John and Sir Robert, the brace of baronets, 
singing your praises, and I am really pleased to think that you like 
them. Robert Cunliffe is one of my few swans; I am very fond of 
him, and have always found him a gentleman to the core, which is 
muchissimo dear. The universe hitherto has existed in order to pro- 
duce a dozen people to amuse the five of hearts. Among us, we know 
all mankind. We or our friends have canvassed creation, and there are 
but a dozen or two companions in it; men and women, I mean, 
whom you like to have about you, and whose society is an active 
pleasure. To me, Robert Cunliffe is one of these, not on account of his 
wit or knowledge, but because he is what a gentleman ought to be. ... 

If you follow your scheme, and write a story "by the author," etc., 
I hope you will take the new motif under your eyes. Describe the 
sufferings of the anonymous author on hearing his book discussed in a 
foreign country, and how it gradually led him to murder and self- 
destruction. Although my brain is much disturbed by the whirl of 
authors known to have written your book, and the vision of you and 
King and James listening to revelations on the subject is almost too 
much for me, still I cannot but feel that, had I such a load on my 
conscience, the listening to British clack would drive me insane. How 
you have stood it, I tremble to think. Much as I disapprove the spirit 
of your book (resp. Miss Loring's, King's or De Forest's) I can see that 
in English reflection it must become more terrible to its creator than 
to any one else. I can imagine you cowering and crushed under the 
ignominious popularity you have tumbled into. The situation is 
tragi-comic in an exceptional degree, and quite new to literature. You 
can make some atonement for your offence, by explaining the terrors 
of your atonement. This new crucifixion is unique in history, and 
should have a great success. After all, to write for people who can't 
read, as the Frenchman said, may be a severe trial, but the least you 
can do is to teach them their letters. 

I see that the political libel for which you (or De Forest) are popu- 
larly supposed to be responsible is to be brought out here in a cheap 
edition. This, I confess, strikes me as doubtful taste, considering all 
the circumstances, but perhaps you know best. I am sure you will 
have been greatly pleased by Folger's nomination in New York, which, 
to the superficial observer, might seem to lend some color to libels like 
Democracy y etc., but which in truth is evidence that we are improving. 
I am told that the whole Union Club has kicked over the traces and 



THE BIRTH OF A BOOK 341 

this time there will be fun. You will deplore Republican defeat, but 
you will be glad to see Willy Walter's T success and especially his ener- 
getic support of the tariff. Like him, I stand up for the tariff as long as 
that duty on copper is kept up, but if Congress shall be rash enough to 
touch that key-stone of the system and of our liberties, I go in for free 
trade pure and simple. On this copper or iron as the case may be 
let Willy Walter, and you and I, take a bold stand. 

Gilman 2 of Johns Hopkins gives me a very hopeful account of your 
new University at Cleveland. I hope to see you Professor of Theology 
and Ethics, President and Corporation, all at once, some day, and 
perhaps, when copper is free, you will take me in too, and give me 
something to do. I don't know any history, but I know a little of 
everything else worth knowing, and can teach just as well without 
any knowledge at all. 

My John Randolph is just coming into the world. Do you know, a 
book to me always seems a part of myself, a kind of intellectual brat 
or segment, and I never bring one into the world without a sense of 
shame. They are naked, helpless and beggarly, yet the poor wretches 
must live forever and curse their father for their silent tomb. This 
particular brat is the first I ever detested. He is the only one I never 
wish to see again; but I know he will live to dance, in the obituaries, 
over my cold grave. Don't read him, should you by chance meet him. 
Kick him gently, and let him go. 

Houghton declines to print Aaron Burr because Aaron wasn't a 
"statesman." Not bad that for a damned bookseller 1 He should live 
a while at Washington and know our real statesmen. I am gkd to 
get out of Houghton 's hands, for I want to try Harper or Appleton. 
Which recommendest thou? I incline towards Harper...* 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

1607 H STREET. 

31 October, 1880. 

Many thanks for your kind note. I shall have your luck in one way. 
The Virginians are red-hot at my introductory chapter. Your South 
Carolinians are cool in comparison. Luckily for me, the book is but a 
feeler for my history and I want the mud it stirs. 

I wish I could read American history "at one sitting" as you do, 
but I broke down hopelessly in the middle of Sumner's Jackson^ and 

1 William Walter Phelps (1839-1894), member of Congress from New Jersey. 
a Darnel Coit Oilman (1831-1908). 



342 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

much as I want to read your Hamilton, the subject repels me more 
than my regard for you attracts. To say that I detest my own books 
is a mild expression, and I should be very sorry to feel so towards my 
friends* writing. I cannot read Bancroft's two volumes, though the 
Appendices are very entertaining. Sometimes I seriously think my 
disgust for history will grow on me till it overpowers my perseverance. 
I say this to explain why I am so cold about other people's books when 
they are so kind about mine. If they only knew how much more I dis- 
like my own than I do other people's, they would make allowances. 

It's hardly worth while to save the party in Massachusetts, so far 
as Congressmen are concerned. The debacle in New York and Penn- 
sylvania is overwhelming. In Pennsylvania they hope to save Con- 
gressmen, but in New York all goes. Grant himself (don't quote it) 
concedes 80,000 majority. I now look for new combinations, but the 
Lord knows what. 

To John Hay 

WASHINGTON, 26 Novr., 1882. 
* 

We have been here a month, quite alone, without society, in a cold 
uncomfortable autumn. I do not know why I should be perfectly 
happy under such circumstances, but I am. My heart bounds as I tear 
myself from family, friends, the familiar streets and boyhood associa- 
tions of the best of all cities, and I rush to clasp in my arms this cor- 
rupt and corrupting tombstone of our liberties. Don't tell my secret! 

We have been here a month I repeat myself and radote> but in 
Europe all do so and have seen no one. I have no gossip to tell you, 
for I am not now intimate with the powerful. In your ancient throne 
sits Johnny Davis, 1 but I see him not, nor yet his wife. Miss Lucy is 
my friend, for she reads my books my poor little black-eyed Susan 
J. Randolph and she reads your books too, for the night before last 
when we were all dining at the Lewenhaupts' 2 the Sackville Wests; 
Roustan; 3 Dalla Valle 4 the Eyetalian Charged; Willamov s and his 
new sister Mme. Catalano, whose Italian dragoon-husband ran away 
and left her with three children and cent livres de rente for poor Willa- 
mov to take care of, which he is doing; De Bildt 6 and a sous-lieutenant 

1 John Davis married a daughter of Theodore Frelinghuysen. 

* Coont Carl Lewenhaupt, minister from Sweden and Norway. 

Theodore Roustan, minister from France. 4 Marquis A. Dalla Valle. 

* Gr^gotre de Willamov, secretary of the Russian legation. 

* C de Bildt, secretary of the legation of Sweden and Norway. 



THE REPUBLICAN OUTLOOK IN 1882 343 

de hussars named Feejam, which is some relation to Boojum, being 
legitimist French for the Comte de Fitz James, as I am told, and much 
addicted to games of chance; and besides these great people, Miss 
Beale, Miss Lucy Frelinghuysen and ourselves amid this gay scene, 
I say, Miss Lucy remarked in a sweetly meditative manner that she 
wondered you had not been credited with that much discussed story 
called Democracy, and I hastened to assure her that the newspapers 
had done you that honor, nor had you, I believe, thought it necessary, 
any more than my wife, to deny it. As, at the same moment, my wife, 
unheard by me, was denying it at the other end of the room under the 
Argus eyes of Lewenhaupt and West, I hope we did all we could to 
maintain your reputation. By the bye, we are told that the work is 
being translated into French. For the love of fun, send me a copy. It 
must be droller than a Palais Royal vaudeville on the English. You 
seem to think I am going to make myself ridiculous by denying its 
authorship, but, oh, my poet of the people, I have printed volume 
after volume which no one would read, and if now the public choose 
to advertise me by reading as mine Shakespeare, Milton, Junius, Don 
Quixote and the Arabian Nights, shall I say them nay? Not so, by 
Hercules! I will let them give me Little Breeches, Castilian Days and 
the Report of the 4Oth parallel rather than lose a single possible ad- 
vertisement for Anglo-Saxon Law and New England Federalism..*. 

Of Mr. Arthur I can tell you nothing. The Republican party being 
now a burst bladder, I am going back to it to give it respectability, 
since I can give it nothing else. The worst of it is that it contains 
not a single man fit to run for the Presidency. The stalwarts are 
nominating Edmunds, which shows sense and desperation, but if 
Blaine and his rivalries reappear, the party will just disappear. I 
see the whole tragedy in Garfield's blunder about resuscitating Blaine. 
... Nevertheless, if he and Conkling and the wretched crew about 
Arthur will disappear, and if a decent man can be nominated, I be- 
lieve we can elect him against an indecent Democrat. My own ex- 
pectation is that the Democrats too will go to pieces in trying to 
nominate, but if they succeed and do not disgust the country, I see 
no way of beating them except such as are worse than their success. 
All my particular friends have come out of the election with great 
success thus far, and some of them are sure to be on top of the heap 
anyhow, which consoles me; but after all, it is the unexpected we must 
now expect...* 



344 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

1607 H STREET. 26 Dec , 1882. 

Many thanks for your kind letter, and still kinder notice. Of the 
justice of your estimate of the Randolph, I have of course nothing to 
say. I hope the book deserves your compliments, and though it does 
not please me, I shall be glad if it pleases anyone else. As for the 
Sumner, 1 although I agree that it is not a readable book, that its style 
is that of a twelve-year-old school boy, and its matter three fourths out 
of place, still there is a good deal in it which was new to me and will 
affect future historians more than it does the average reader. In this 
sense it is a serious contribution to history, and makes a positive addi- 
tion to our knowledge, which is more than can be said of most books. I 
could not finish it, as a reader, but some day I shall as a student. 

I did not put your Hamilton on the same level as the Jackson be- 
cause I had not even begun it, having postponed the pleasure till I 
should come to the subject in preparing Burr for the press. As I have 
not yet decided what to do with Burr, I do not know when I shall 
take up Hamilton. My hands are so full that I put things off. 

Lounsberry's Cooper* strikes me as excellent. He falls into one 
curious error as an artist, which is so common to Cooper himself that 
I wonder his biographer was not on his guard. He airs his own 
opinions a little too much. His abuse of England is less effective than 
if it were in better temper, and his lectures on copyright, &c., are un- 
necessary. If we could only be impersonal, our books would be better 
than they are, but I am too much of a sinner myself to blame him. 
On the whole the English still do better work than we. Morison's 
Macaulay is an instance. 3 

So far as I can see, you are about the only man who is to be con- 
gratulated on the result of the Massachusetts election. You have lost 
nothing, and saved your chances for 1884. As for the Democrats, their 
troubles are still before them. They think they now have a sure thing 
of it. I doubt it. They have nothing to stand on, and party principles 
do not exist. Under such circumstances no party is safe for a week 
ahead. 

Give our best love to your wife. I saw Sam Warren lately. He is to 
be married on the 25th. I hope the transplanted flower will flourish. 4 

There is no news here, nor any new people. 

1 William Graham Sumner's Andrew Jackson, in American Statesmen. 

* Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury's James Fenimore Cooper, in American Men of Letters. 

1 James Cotter Morison, whose Macaulay appeared in 1882 in the English Men of Letters. 

* He married a daughter of Thomas Francis Bayard, of Delaware* 



AARON BURR 345 



To John Hay 

N,] 7 January, 1883. 



Of politics I know nothing. The average Congressman, like your 
dear friend Perry, 1 is now chiefly occupied in swearing at professional 
reformers and voting for their bills. After the excoriating booting 
these gentle Congressmen got at the last election, I do not blame them 
for looking upon us poor reformers with only moderate regard, but I 
confess to having been immensely pleased to tumble over Kasson * the 
other evening in a very bad temper. "Well, the House has passed 
your Boston bill," said he savagely. He added that Bostonians were 
"grasping/* and other compliments. I could not conceive what he 
meant till the next morning when I read the House proceedings on the 
Civil Service Bill, and just howled with delight at Kasson *s temper. 
The gentle Hale, 3 1 fancy, is equally pleased to please us. You and 
your friend Perry and all the half-breeds, stalwarts and jelly-fish 
should set up a party founded on the glorious principle of contempt 
for reformers. They are all green with disgust because, having kicked 
out all the reformers that ever were in office or in Congress, they can 
no longer find a victim to punish. I believe that I have no longer a 
political friend in Washington, and so far as I know, am not likely to 
have one, which saves anxiety now that my work is so well done by 
those who loathe me. But you should see Don Cameron's smile! He 
loves us like a father. . . . 

Of literature I know but little. Aaron Burr is not to be printed at 
present. He is to wait a few years. I hate publishing, and do not want 
reputation. There are not more than a score of people in America 
whose praise I want, and the number will grow with "time. So Aaron 
will stay in his drawer and appear only as the outrider for my first two 
volumes of history, about a year before they appear, which may give 
Aaron three or four more years of privacy. I understand that there 
are some new novels, but I never read novels nor write them. I 
understand from my sister-in-law, Ellen Gurney, that Hon. J. G. 
Blaine at a dinner party in New York said that Mrs. H. A. " acknow- 
ledges " to have written Democracy. You know how I have always ad- 
mired Mr. Blaine's powers of invention ! The Republican in a list of 
reputed authors puts J. G. B.'s name first, with Gail as collaborateur. 

* Perry Bdraont (1851- ), of New York* 

* John Adam Kasson (1822-1910). 

* Eugene Hale (1836-1918). 



346 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

You of course figure in it, and "Miss Hatty Loring," and "Mrs- 
Adam" (of the British Legation). 

To John Hay 

[WASHINGTON,] 8 January, 1883. 


Thanks for your sympathy about the attacks on my Bread Winners. ^ 
I admit that every now and then, in life, my critics have succeeded in 
making me feel very sea-sick for a day or two. I am a sensitive cuss 
and a coward. When I get a real whipping, I feel kind of low about it. 
I never fight except with the intent to kill; and you can't kill a critic. 
My consolation has been to take no notice of them; this annoys them 
much more than any other retaliation; for the life of a critic is too 
short to recover from neglect. Reply is like scratching their match for 
them. I have been one, and I know, 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

1607 H STREET, ai January, 1883. 

Your letter announcing Frank Doyle's death grieved me sadly. 
Death gets to be such a daily matter as one advances in the world, that 
now I hardly know who of my friends are dead and who are living. 
They are all equally alive to me at this distance, for I remember 
^verything as it was, and a few changes in such a trifle as life make no 
'impression on the mind 

In the middle of confused politicians and idiotic society, I go on 
grinding out history with more or less steadiness. I hope to get out 
two volumes in 1885, and I mean them to be readable. By the by, can 
you find out for me who is a man named Morison, who has written a 
very clever sketch of Macaulay ? So good a piece of criticism ought to 
come from some one who is known, but I know not Morison and 
therefore fear myself unknown. 

Five daily hours of work, a little society, a friend or two sometimes 
to dinner, and more rarely a dinner out, but never an evening, make 
my quiet life in the days of snow and ice when riding is cut off. The 
world is too busy at this season to think of anything but its owi 
affairs, and we are quieter now, when others are busy, than when 
society is asleep. We hear of Europe only through newspapers, and 
see no reason in them for wanting to go there. . , . 

* John Hay's novel of the name appeared anonymously in the Century Magttzint, in 1883. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 347 

To John Hay 

WASHUTGTDX, 23 January, 1883. 

* 

Would that you were now here. Things are getting mixed. The pot 
boils. If you have a candidate for the Presidency, set him up! I've 
none, but your friend Miss Beale has got my promise for Logan L of 
Peoria. 

Please tell me of something to read. At this season my wife and I 
stay at home every evening, and our literature is low* Trollope has 
amused me for two evenings. I am clear that you should write auto- 
biography. I mean to do mine. After seeing how coolly and neatly a 
man like Trollope can destroy the last vestige of heroism in his own 
life, I object to allowing mine to be murdered by any one except my- 
self. Every church mouse will write autobiography in another genera- 
tion in order to prove that it never believed in religion. 

To John Hay 

WASHINGTON, 28 January, 1883. 

Whatever you do in this unreasonable world, my dear son of Ohio, 
never lose your temper! Why should you fly into such frightful 
paroxysms of rage, and use such horrid language, just because I forgot 

* J O * Of O * J^ O 

what had been done with my own arithmetic! If it had been yours, I 
grant you but my own! I will never abandon my right to treat my 
own with neglect.... 

I gather that McDonald a will be the man. Unless I deceive myself, 
I shall have again to lean towards the Republicans. Your friend 
Payne * is too much for me, and his election just now turns the scale 
the other way. 

Yet I am payned to add that I cannot see how the Republicans are 
to do any better. The machine will be irresistible If it is allowed to run 
much longer without check. The blackies will send up solid delega- 
tions for Arthur, and New York will be fixed. 

Poor King! I suppose he must have got naturalised as a British 
subject, and married an Irish peeress. 

* John Alexander Logan (1806-1886). 

3 Joseph Ewing McDonald (1819-1891), of Indiana, 

* Henry B. Payne (1810-1896), of Ohio, 



348 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

To John Hay 

WASHINGTON, 4 March, 1883. 

Two letters of yours are in my drawer. As my wife wrote lately, I 
postponed doing so; not because I was without material for a letter 
far from it; but that you might have your little amusements at in- 
tervals. Your letters are very well except in saying nothing of your 
health. This is an anxious subject with us, because the winter has hit 
right and left at everyone, and we would gladly know that you at least 
have escaped. Be not mad at my calling King mad, for mad he cer- 
tainly is. In the particular case of the Shaw affair, his madness con- 
sisted as I understood it, in its usual form of not writing a word for 
months. Alex. Agassiz inquired of me where he was, as he had not for 
months communicated with his business associates. Basta! I hope he 
is all right. He is sure to be forgiven. Your copy of Democratic arrived 
yesterday through the custom house with ten cents duty. It is curious 
and wonderful. So is your report about the Prince of Wales. Now that 
Arthur Sedgwick/ we are told, acknowledges the book, I can say what 
I did not care to say to you so long as you were the author, that the 
book is one of the least sufficient, for its subject, I ever read. Since it 
came out we have had half a dozen dramas here that might reasonably 
convulse the world. Thackeray and Balzac never invented anything 
so lurid as Garfield, Guiteau and Blaine, but even they are surpassed 
by Brady and Dorsey, and Arthur is a creature for whose skin the 
romancist ought to go with a carving-knife. . . . Society is a conspiracy 
for self-protection against just such attacks as these Star Route people 
are now making. I find no fault with them . . . Power is omnipotent in 
Washington society. I do not go to the White House because I see and 
hear things I don't like, but I am quite alone, and in a few years more I 
shall either have to go there or go to prison. At the rate we travel, it is 
time to bend the knee to Beelzebub or any other President. 

Therefore I repeat that your novel, if it was yours, is a failure be- 
cause it undertook to describe the workings of power in this city, and 
spoiled a great tragic subject such as ^Eschylus might have made 
what it should be, but what it never in our time will be. The tragic 
element, if accepted as real, is bigger here than ever on this earth be- 
fore. I hate to see it mangled & la Daudet in a tame-cat way. Men 
don't know tragedy when they see it. What a play of passion we have 
seen here within two years this day!... 

As for politics, this last session is just foul; nothing was ever so 

1 Arthur George Scdgwick (1844-1915). 



RECOMMENDING ARISTARCHI AS A JOURNALIST 349 

rotten. I look out now for earthquakes, and a lively shaking up next 
year. The worst Democratic administration would not be quite so re- 
volting as this.... 

To Charles Milne* Gaskell 

1607 H STREET, 25 March, 1883. 
*... .* 

News seems rather scarce, for I notice that our friends and visitors 
have very little to talk about. I am always at work, and make a sort of 
progress which is neither steady nor fast, but it amuses me and is 
worth quite as much as the work I see of other people. There is no use 
in fashing oneself about success. I see very little success going about 
the world that seems to me successful, and live too near politics not to 
keep out of it. I expect every day to hear that George Trevelyan has 
been murdered, and really wish you would give the Irish independence 
or else clean out the whole island. 

So far as I can see, we are all right here. The country is at last filled 
out; railways all round and through it, and everyone satisfied. I con- 
fess to thinking it the only country now worth working for, or pleasant 
to work in; for until Europe has settled her various disputes, there is no 
sense of getting on in it; but our ways of life are hateful to the well- 
regulated, for we do not really care a button what becomes of the hu- 
man race, if it is not to do something new.... 

To Carl Schurz 

WASHINGTON, 30 March, 1883. 

You have seen that Aristarchi is recalled. 

I have reason to think that he does not want to go home. His am- 
bition is to utilise his experience and abilities on the press. He would 
like to take such a position as that of Blowitz on the London Times, 
and of course there is no man either in America or in Europe better 
fitted for such work. 

The place he would like would no doubt be on a great morning paper 
like the Herald or Times, and in addition a correspondence for the 
London Times and the IndSpendance Beige, but he is not in a condition 
to pick and choose. I think at this moment a good offer from any re- 
spectable source that would make him feel safe for a year or two, would 
secure him. 

As a correspondent, with the right to support his letters editorially, 
he would be a power here and everywhere. Of course his field is our 



350 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

foreign relations but there he is easily first. The State Department 
would cower at your feet. You would have a monopoly, for no other 
paper has a correspondent who knows more of foreign affairs than 
John Davis tells them. Aristarchi alone can keep the run of our 
Mexican and South American affairs; he would do something to cor- 
rect the overpowering Germanism and Englishism of you and Godkin, 
and would represent French and Spanish ideas with accuracy which is 
more than any one else can do. 

I should not suggest this idea if I were not persuaded that it would 
strengthen the paper. Try him with a $3000 offer for a year, and see 
what he says. Ever truly yours. 

To John Hay 

WASHINGTON, 8 April, 1883. 
. 

I never met Lord Acton, 1 a personage of whom I have read much, 
as in an English novel, somewhat tinged with NeoJPlatonism after the 
style of Mr. Thingamy Singleton Sinsomething whose long 
dulness I waded through last year. Tell my Lord to come over here 
and live for the future, not for the middle-ages. As for Henry Bright, 
he is literary petit-maitre to his toes, and America would assassinate 
him. I liked him, but he would die untimely here... 

As for us, you will feel the vexation we all feel after long absence, 
at finding nothing changed. There is bad manners in such stolid in- 
difference to presence and absence, but what can we do? Shall I burn 
the house to welcome you, or cook the new puppy? 

To John Hay 

WASHINGTON, 20 April, 1883. 

^ Once more before you return to these primitive forests I write a 
line, not so much to wish you a pleasant voyage or to ask you to bring 
me a collection of elephants in your trunks as wearing apparel for me 
through the custom-house, as to tell you that I have been using your 
name in a manner which you will no doubt enjoy as much as I do. 

Several times within the last fortnight I have been told a story that 
you and King (sometimes one, sometimes both,) had heard the manu- 
script of Democracy read in a house in Washington, had been asked to 
write a chapter, and so on with variations (such as that King had 

1 Sir John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (1834-1902). 



PROPOSING A FREE TRADE PARTY 351 

written the account of Worth's clothes in that veracious work), and 
finally, what was more important, that you both said the house in 
question was mine. 

In each case this story seems to have come from Tom Appleton. I 
have in all cases, emphatically, and in your names, denounced it as 
one of Tom Appleton's lies, and offered to stake my existence on the 
fact that neither you nor King had ever said anything of the sort. I 
had no hesitation in doing so, because I knew that the part of the 
story which concerned me was untrue, and as that was the point of it, 
I was safe in denying for you the whole. 

To Carl Schurx 

Sunday, 20 May 1883. 

I write this line to warn you that Aristarchi goes from here next 
Wednesday on his way to Europe. He means to see you, and I sus- 
pect he will call at the office. He will no doubt talk with you of his 
plans, and perhaps ask you for letters to Germany, though I think he 
has got these in other quarters. What is more to the point, I believe he 
would like an invitation to write as a special correspondent from 
Europe. As I have already written you all I have to say on the matter, 
I leave you to make up your own mind whether to utilise him or not. 

You seem to be wabbling as painfully as the rest of us on the subject 
of the next election. Of course the Evening Post must above all things 
be conservative, but I know no reason why you or I should be so, and 
as I think conservatism in these days a sign of weak intelligence or 
advancing years, I prefer radicalism. Therefore I want to know what 
the Free Trade organisation means to do if the Democratic party goes 
back on it, as it has done in Kentucky. If it falls in your way to get 
into the councils of the north-western free-traders, I wish you would 
find out whether we have the means of punishing the Democrats for 
this kind of conduct. For my own part I would gladly help to organise 
a free trade party, and if we had the strength to contest a single 
State, make an independent nomination for the Presidency. Ever 
truly yours. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskdl 

1607 H STEEET, 10 June, 1883. 
* 

Your letters are a necrology. I feel as though I had also passed over 
to the next world, and you were notifying me of the latest departures* 



352 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

If I can judge from life here, it matters very little who goes on or who 
stays; no one is of consequence enough to raise a ripple, least of all in 
Washington, where we are always jostling the people who govern the 
odd millions of our country, and yet we do not care enough about them 
to make their acquaintance. In a year or two, this batch will be gone 
and another come. No one cares. . . . 

Your account of Harcourt and Swinburne is most interesting. Har- 
court suave must be more strange than Swinburne quiet. I admire 
Swinburne's poetic faculty immensely. No other of my contempora- 
ries has approached him I mean among men of my age or under 
but I long since made up my mind not to seek the acquaintance of 
poets; it spoils their poetry. I knew Swinburne twenty years ago and 
have needed twenty years to get over it. ... 

To Henry Cabot Lodge 

1607 H STREET, 10 June, 1883. 

I have read the Daniel Webster* As I never have yet read the 
Hamilton I cannot compare the two books, and as I am not a lawyer, 
I cannot pretend to judge of your treatment of Webster in that 
character, but I think the book excellent so far as I can judge. You 
have convinced me that my grandfather's early estimate of Webster's 
character was not as harsh as I thought, and you have done it with 
tact and literary skill. Your Webster should have been an actor like 
Kemble or Cooke. He would have been sublime. To me there is a 
visible effort in your elaborate excuses and apologies for him, but I 
doubt whether readers in general will feel it. I think, too, that you 
might have condensed a little here and there; but I am a little toque 
about condensation, and am thought crude and hard in consequence. 
On the whole I have no doubt that this book, which is one of the most 
difficult to do, is in many ways the best of the series. I have noticed 
no errors of fact, but, as I am not very familiar with the period, I will 
not pretend to be an authority about it. With all my care, my own 
books swarm with errors, and so, I suppose, do others. 

I have but one prime test for a popular book. Is it interesting? 
I did not think von Hoist * or Sumner readable, still less Oilman.* I did 
not expect Webster to be so, for all Whigs were bores. On reading it, I 
found myself mistaken; it reads well. 

* Hermann Eduard von Hoist's John C. Calhoun y in American Statesmen. 
3 Oilman's James Monroe^ in American Statesmen. 



THE AUTHORSHIP OF 'BREAD-WINNERS' 353 

To John Hay 

BEVERLY FARMS, 10 August, 1883. 


I am glad to hear that you are publishing another novel. I was so 
frank in telling you my unfavorable opinion of Democracy > that I will 
try to read the new one in hopes that I may be able to speak well of it. 
Is it not a little risky for your anonymity to lay the scene at Cleveland 
after laying the scene of Democracy at Washington? Two such straws 
must be fatal. 

I have an idea of visiting Cleveland in October. I want to go down 
to Blennerhassett's island. . . . 

To John Hay 

BEVERLY FARMS, 29 August, 1883. 

Positively I blush! I am not used to such language I am used to 
cuffs, not compliments, and my poor style has been hardened into 
unnatural rigidity by the blows of criticism. You will make it soft and 
gushing if you are gentle with it. Never do it again.... 

The first number of the "Bread-winners" I swore was yours. Cer- 
tain tricks of expression and handling left me hardly a doubt. The 
second shook my faith I hardly know why. Perhaps because the 
undertone of humor is less marked. I shall continue to watch it. Of 
Mrs. Dahlgren z I have had enough in newspaper extracts. I toil and 
moil, painftilly and wearily, forward and back, over my little den of 
history, and am too dry-beat to read novels. I would I were on a mule 
in the Rockies with you and King, but at forty-five every hour is 
golden and will not return. I painfully coin it into printers* ink, and 
shall have a big volume of seven hundred pages to show you next 
winter. As it gets into type I cower before it in hope and fear, for it is 
all I shall make of this droll toy called life.... 

To John Hay 

BEVERLY FARMS, 24 September, 1883. 

While waiting anxiously to hear of your welfare in those wild regions 
which you inhabit, I write a line of interest in the present literary 
problem of our day. 

I am glad you did not write the " Bread-winners." It is a real joy to 

1 Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren (Mrs. John Adolph Dahlgren). 



354 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

me to feel that there are two men west of the Alleghanies who are ca- 
pable of doing first rate literary work, and who join humor with style- 
Should I ever come to Cleveland, I hope you will introduce me to the 
author. Meanwhile I would like to read his other books, for, of course, 
all of us, who try to write, know only too well that such skill is only ac- 
quired by long and painful effort. As a work of art, I should not hesi- 
tate to put the "Bread-winners" so far as the story has gone, quite 
at the head of our Howells'-and- James' epoch for certain technical 
qualities, such as skill in construction, vivacity in narration, and 
breadth of motif. It has also one curious and surprising quality, least 
to be expected from an unknown western writer. Howells cannot deal 
with gentlemen or ladies; he always slips up. James knows almost 
nothing of women but the mere outside; he never had a wife. This new 
writer not only knows women, but knows ladies; the rarest of literary 
gifts. I suppose he has an eastern wife ? Under ordinary circumstances, 
there might be a doubt as to the sex of the author, but here none is 
possible, for he also knows men and even gentlemen. His sense of 
humor, too, is so markedly masculine as to take away all doubt on the 
matter. 

If I had a criticism to make it would be that he is a little hard on re- 
formers; he shows prejudice against his own characters. George Eliot 
used to do this. For my part, I always thought that if I tried to write 
a novel, I would make it overflow with kindness and see nothing but 
virtues in the human race. 

If the author wrote 'Democracy as is said, he has made a great 
stride in every way, especially in humor, which is rather conspicuously 
wanting in that over-ambitious and hard-featured book. . . . 

To John Hay 

WASHINGTON, 31 October, 1883. 
* 

I devoted an hour on the train to the November instalment of the 
Cleveland novel, which seemed to me to sustain itself, but which I 
read with the fear of Mrs. Mather on my mind. I am really distressed 
that she should think my previous remarks on the subject so wanting 
in perception. In consequence of what she said, I have revised my 
opinion. I am prepared to make concessions. Please tell her that, if 
she will concede my points, I will concede hers. 

My point is that every^book ought to be judged by its strength, not 
by its weakness. I make it a rule to disregard small blemishes which a 



How TO JUDGE A BOOK 355 

little proof-reading would cut out in five minutes, when the composi- 
tion, style and general handling are excellent. 

To illustrate. If I remember right, Mrs. Mather objected that the 
hero, in youth, travelled in Europe, or did something else, with his 
grand-father. I admit that this is a false note, but see how slight it is. 
If I were the author, I should correct it. I should boldly say, grand- 
mother. This slight alteration removes the fault. Every American 
would object that it is untrue to nature to have a grand-father, but I 
never heard anyone object to a grand-mother. 

Again! Mrs. Mather criticised, I think, a pearl stud. I agree with 
her. Yet see again how trifling a change corrects the slip ! I will insert 
in the proof, before it appears in book-form, "mother of" before 
"pearl." Mrs. Mather will agree that "mother of pearl" is quite 
harmless. 

There is more difficulty in regard to the butler. True, a simple 
western man ought not to have a butler, but a female help; yet, as he 
is a widower, this would be highly improper. I am at a loss to meet this 
difficulty. I fear that even "Buttons" would be undemocratic. Per- 
haps an old nurse to open the door would answer, and the hero might 
do his own stretching. 

Mrs. Mather also objects that too much accent is laid on the hero's 
bravery. I agree again. He twice knocks the pistol out of some one's 
hand. The repetition jars; it is never safe to repeat a ficelle of any kind. 
I will strike out the passage in the proof. How would it do to insert 
that he turned a double-back-somerset over somebody's head? 

There are no doubt other points of objection which I should accept 
at once. I make it a rule to strike out ruthlessly in my writings what- 
ever my wife criticises, on the theory that she is the average reader, 
and that her decisions are, in fact if not in reason, absolute. What I 
mean to point out to Mrs. Mather, in my own defence, is that trifles, 
which require only a stroke of the pen to correct them, and which are 
mere matters of proof-reading, ought not to blind us to the larger 
literary merits of books which do not depend on trifles for their 
strength. Shakespeare frequently shocks me! In fact, I can see clearly 
that Shakespeare was a snob. Thackeray's snobbishness was often re- 
volting. Nevertheless, I venture to say, openly and confidently, that 
in my opinion both Shakespeare and Thackeray wrote as well as Harry 
James or Mrs. Dahlgren. I venture to think that Desdemona was/*// 
by a genius of considerable purity, though to my own mind her conduct 
was such as I can never approve. Shakespeare evidently did not feel 
my objections. 



356 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

The kiss in the green-house is thepons asinorum of the book. This is 
pure masculine work, and I cannot strike it out even to please Mrs. 
Mather. I must stand or fall by this kiss. Let us hope that women, 
like the heroine, will end by forgiving it. ... 

To John Hay 

WASHINGTON, November 23, 1883. 

Your bit of logic after the historico-genealogico-pohtico-Wendell- 
Phillipico school is good, but I liked still better that of the New York 
correspondent of the Evening Star not long since, who informed us that 
Miss Maud Howe x had certainly written "The Newport Aquarelle," 
and therefore was no doubt the author of another anonymous story now 
appearing in the "Century." 

To Carl Schurz 

WASHINGTON, 12 Deer., '83. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, I was extremely sorry to see the announcement 
yesterday of your withdrawal from the Evening Post. I had heard 
nothing whatever, from anyone whom I supposed to be well-informed, 
that led me to expect or to understand any difficulty; and, if it had not 
been for persistent rumors since my return here, I should have been 
taken quite by surprise. You will easily believe that I regret ex- 
tremely the separation. In such cases one does not stop to ask the 
cause of the trouble. 2 I neither know nor care what it was; but I have 
perfect confidence that it was nothing which would affect my regard 
for you, I am quite content to leave it there. 

Should you come on here this winter, you will find your old quarters 
ready for you up-stairs. Perhaps a little visit here would amuse you. 
We expect Agatha at her usual time. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

1607 H STREET, 3 February, 1884. 


Yesterday I received a bound copy of the first volume of my History. 
I have had six copies privately printed as a first edition for my own use. 

x Daughter of Julia Ward Howe. 

Mr. Schurz differed in opinion with his colleagues of the Post, Edwin L. Godkin and Horace 
White, on the manner of dealing with the telegraphers' strike. 



THE TEN BEST WRITERS 357 

When I am ready, I shall reprint and publish two volumes at once. Per- 
haps I may reach this point in the year *86. I admit to thinking the 
book readable, but to you it would be sadly dull reading. You see I am 
writing for a continent of a hundred million people fifty years hence; 
and I can't stop to think what England will read 

Your politics look queerly distorted from this distance, and I have 
given up the effort to follow them, knowing that we shall all be told 
quickly enough if anything of consequence happens. Our own politics, 
for the first time in a hundred years, are almost absolutely indifferent 
to the people. In a few months we must elect a new President, and no 
human being can so much as guess who is to wear the crown. No one 
seems much to want it. For my own part, though I try to be well in- 
formed, and am more or less intimate with some of the leaders, I have 
not the remotest idea whom I would like to see in the Presidency; and 
none of my old associates have any clear wishes except to keep certain 
men out. The truth is, our affairs were never in so good a condition; 
public opinion was never healthier; and barring a few doubtful jobs, 
no government was ever so economically and sensibly conducted. We 
have got to the point where our protective duties must be lowered, and 
in another ten years we shall push Europe hard in manufactures. 
There is a tremendous amount of activity in every direction; and an- 
other generation will see the result. I consider ours to have already 
done its work, and on the whole it is the biggest on record. 

I was rather shocked to see a sort of popular vote taken by some 
literary authority in England on the ten best writers, and to find that 
all the candidates except Swinburne were old. Why does not a new 
batch turn up ? Can Lord Hough ton have carried off the art of finding 
new men? When I was at Frystone in *6i, I met there Stirling Max- 
well, Laurence Oliphant and Algernon Swinburne. Maxwell's posthu- 
mous work; and Oliphant's Altiora Peto> which I can't read; and Swin- 
burne's last poem, seem to represent still about the best English work 
in their lines.... 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

WASHINGTON, 18 May, 1884. 



My immediate interest is in a house which I am about to build. 
John Hay and I have bought a swell piece of land which looks across 
a little square, 1 something like Portman Square, to the White House, 
where our Presidents live. Hay is the capitalist and takes the corner, 

1 Lafayette, late President's, Square. 



358 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

while I have forty-four feet of front facing southward. We have ar- 
ranged our plans; our architect has finished them; they will go imme- 
diately to the contractors for estimates; and I hope in about a month to 
know that work has begun. ... 

My second interest is politics. We have a Presidential election com- 
ing on, and I am in opposition, fairly and squarely, on the free-trade is- 
sue. We shall probably be beaten, but it makes little difference to me. 
Revenue reform is bound to come, unless something wild turns up. 
In our present state of affairs, anything may happen. Parties are going 
to pieces, and new issues are rising. The world is getting restless. 
Generally such a state of things ends in blood-letting or revolution. 
We have seen so much of both in our time that we can afford to let our 
juniors try their hands at it. 

You have noticed that we have had another general liquidation, 
which the newspapers call a financial crisis. So far as I can see, it re- 
sults chiefly from want of honesty and want of judgment. The country 
is richer than ever, but the public distrusts its financiers. A crowd of 
men have been caught in thieving and swindling; and the knaves have 
hurt the fools, besides doing a good deal of harm to some good people. 
No one can say how long the depression will last, but meanwhile we 
shall probably work harder and better for cleaning out the decay. 
Economy is going to be a practical science.... 

Socially I have little to say. With a steady stream of society, I have 
crowds of acquaintances and what we call friends, but no intimates, 
nor have I discovered any new Birds of Paradise. You are about my 
only correspondent. I have no one among the thousands of Europe- 
seekers this year for whom I should care to take oath that he or she 
would amuse you. No new literary light has turned its rays towards 
me, nor any wit or humorist. . . . 

To John Hay 

WASHINGTON, 27 May, 1884. 
** ..... 

Politics are meaner than ever. Arthur has lowered both parties 
to his moral standard. Carlyle r and Morrison 2 are a joint failure. 
Neither party shows a ray of capacity. I am told that Elaine has a 
sure thing at Chicago; and, if he fails, Arthur must succeed. One or the 
other is inevitable. Tilden will get the other nomination, I mean to 

1 John Griffin Carlisle (1835-1910), Speaker of the House of Representatives. 
a William Rails Morrison (1825-1909), member from Illinois. 



THE ELAINE-CLEVELAND CAMPAIGN 359 

vote for Ben Butler. Of the lot, I prefer him; at least he has the quali- 
ties of his defects. I know what I shall get. 

Dry-rot is the present situation. I look for a big political crash like 
the Wall Street one, which will squeeze both parties till the rottenness 
bursts out. My friend MacVeagh has alone told God's own truth, and 
of course is howled at; the Evening Post is just imbecile; the only wise 
man is Willy Wally, 1 and wisdom has cost him $250,000 for the re- 
former Eno, besides whatever the Blaine campaign thus far has come 
to. W. W. P. is to be our next Secretary of State; and you dear 
heart shall be Secretary of the Navy, vice Bill Chandler, and take us 
on picnics to Quantico. 

Ijneant to go to Chicago, but the prospect was too black. I hoped to 
vote the Democratic ticket, but even this refuge is vanishing. You had 
better come home, and go in for office, to help us out of political bank- 
ruptcy; for our side of the five of hearts is in a bad way. 

To John Hay 

BEVERLY FARMS, 3 July, 1884. 



Of politics I hear not a word. Down hereabouts people look vague, 
and ask who are to be candidates, and when the election takes place. 
The bolters privately talk of twenty thousand votes; publicly of twice 
that number; but my own estimate is about ten thousand, which would 
turn the State Democratic, except that the Butler and Blaine men will 
certainly trade votes. On the whole, Mr. Blaine may, I think, count on 
Massachusetts as probably his, and if his managers here are shrewd 
enough to sell out the Republican State and Congressional tickets, 
they can hardly fail to win. Without a trade, I should say the chances 
were the other way. 

I speak not as a bolter, for I am not one, but as a Democrat, who 
wants to defeat Butler, and can't do it. As the prospect now stands, 
Massachusetts will vote both for Butler and Blaine. Taxes will rise, I 
guess. 

To John Hay 

BEVERLY FARMS, 3 August, [1884.] 



I know no more than Robinson [Crusoe] what is doing in the world, 
and care but little. Politics at this stage of an election are duller to 

* William Walter PKelps. 



360 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

me than at any other time. The mid-summer waiting for the average 
idiot to make up his mind, is like the stopping in mid-ocean to repack 
the steam-chest; it makes me sick- As a good Democrat, I hope that if 
you are going to elect Mr. Elaine you will do it quickly and thoroughly; 
for I am tired of my independent friends, who are too good to vote for 
Elaine, and never, no, never, would vote with the wicked Democrats. 
The amount I hear of this torn-foolery is calculated to make a tor- 
toise-shell cat turn green. One would suppose that this country had 
never till now elected any president except G. Washington. Dear, 
dear, dear! How their grandfathers did squeal about T. Jefferson!... 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

BEVERLY FARMS, ai September, 1884. 
* 

We are here plunged in politics funnier than words can express. Very 
great issues are involved- Especially everyone knows that a step 
towards free trade is inevitable if the Democrats come in. For the first 
time in twenty-eight years, a Democratic administration is almost in- 
evitable. The public is angry and abusive. Every one takes part. We 
are all doing our best, and swearing at each other like demons. But the 
amusing thing is that no one talks about real interests. By common 
consent they agree to let these alone. We are afraid to discuss them. 
Instead of this, the press is engaged in a most amusing dispute whether 
Mr. Cleveland had an illegitimate child, and did or did not live with 
more than one mistress; whether Mr. Blaine got paid in railway bonds 
for services as Speaker; and whether Mrs. Blaine had a baby three 
months after her marriage. Nothing funnier than some of these sub- 
jects has been treated in my time. I have laughed myself red with 
amusement over the letters, affidavits, leading articles and speeches 
which are flying through the air. Society is torn to pieces. Parties are 
wrecked from top to bottom. A great political revolution seems im- 
pending. Yet, when I am not angry, I can do nothing but laugh. 

I am a free-trade Democrat and support Mr. Cleveland. I believe 
he will come in, and in that case my friends will have to reduce our 
protective duties. The result of this course, if we persevere in it, will 
be serious to the world- but about ten years more will be needed to 
effect it.... 

Financially we grub along and talk poor, but as no one here need 
spend money unless he likes, the loss of thousands of millions has little 
outward effect. No improvement need be expected until things have 



HOUSE-BUILDING IN WASHINGTON 361 

got settled to a new economic bottom. Most of us are really better off 
when the great properties shrink. I am sorry for your Wabash, but 
conservative people here avoid Mr, Jay Gould and expect him to take 
their money if he can get it. John Hay plays with that edge-tool, but I 
don't.... 

To John Hay 

WASHINGTON, 26 October, 1884. 

I owe you infinite amusement. Ten times a day I drop my work and 
rush out to see the men lay bricks or stone in your house. Mine is still 
where it was when you were here; but yours is getting on. The dining 
room wall is up to the next floor; the parlor and whole front is up to the 
sills of the parlor windows. At this rate, your next floor will soon go in. 
The brick-work is beautiful. I am now devoured by interest in your 
door-arch which must soon be begun. 

Richardson put back into my contract every extravagance I had 
struck out, and then made me sign it. After this piece of work he went 
off to seek other victims. He is an ogre. He devours men crude, and 
shows the effects of inevitable indigestion in his size. If Anderson would 
only give me that five thousand dollars, I would be unhappy. By the 
way, I was much amused by my brother John who was here last Wed- 
nesday, and who has just built a house in Boston. We took him over 
Anderson's house, and his disgust for his own became alarming. He 
swore horribly that Anderson's house was the cheapest thing he had 
ever heard of, and far handsomer than that of Fred Ames which cost a 
million or two. 

Judge Gray has bought the opposite corner to Paine's lot; my old 
family house; 1601 I Street.... 

To John Hay 

WASHINGTON, 16 November, 1884. 
.. 

The town is mighty lively. What with one thing and another, I find 
it like an old English country-gentleman's park without the humane 
notice of man-traps and spring-guns. Everyone wants something, and 
everyone else wants to prevent anyone from having anything. How to 
keep one's toes from being trodden on is the sole preoccupation of a 
wise man's mind. 



362 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

1607 H STREET, 8 February, 1885. 


We are on the verge of a change of administration, and though the 
country takes easily enough to it, we are by no means free from anxi- 
eties of the milder sort. After a year of very great depression and busi- 
ness trouble, we hardly know whether things are to be worse or better. 
The chances seem to be about even, but we are not beyond the possi- 
bility of a panic and a squeeze of credit that might send things to the 
dogs. What with your nervous situation between Egypt and Ireland, 
and what with the state of industry all over the world, and what with 
our silver coinage and change of administration, I wish we may get 
through the year without some ugly crash. 

The change of administration affects me very little. My history will 
go on, I hope, as quietly under Mr. Cleveland as under Mr. Arthur; 
and as a rule, one's opponents are more obliging than one's friends. 
Several of my most intimate allies here are likely to be high in power 
and favor, but the higher they are, the harder they are worked, and the 
less I see of them. The Foreign Department is the only one with which 
I have to be intimate, and I am waiting with curiosity to see who is to 
take charge of it. With Bayard, Pendleton or Lamar, I shall be well 
satisfied, and these are now most talked about. President Cleveland is 
a very honest, hard-working man, with plenty of courage and com- 
mon-sense, but he has little experience and is sure to make mistakes. 
The party behind him is ragged, timid and stupid. 

Fortunately government with us is a secondary matter and follows 
strictly the current of public opinion. On the whole, though never well 
directed, we get on successfully, and are as contented as possible. . . . 

I suppose die Khartoum and Congo affairs prove that Africa is the 
great European question of the future. On the whole it is worth some 
trouble, and England will find it worth her while to take it in hand. 
We Anglo-Saxon-Americans always make a wild howl about our con- 
quests, wars and excitements, but we always make them pay. England 
is sure to profit by whatever is done in Africa.,.. 



NEW YORK IN WASHINGTON 363 

To John Hay 

WASHINGTON, 7 [March, 1885.] 

** 

I pass my time in avoiding the new officials; so you can expect no 
news from me. New York has come here to swallow us with the most 
fatuous expression I ever imagined on its face. Five thousand Grover 
Clevelands swarm the streets. The Ohio face has vanished, and only 
John McLean holds up his head. 

To John Hay 

WASHINGTON, 20 April, 1885. 
***** 

I saw Richardson in Boston and lectured him with my usual severity. 
So far as I could see, I met with my usual success. He seemed much 
delighted by an equally severe letter from you, and showed me ravish- 
ing designs for your fireplaces which economy itself could not resist. 
Indeed I have given up resistance either on your behalf or my own. 
You don't back me up, and I don't support myself loyally. I shall get 
out of it by telling lies to Nick Anderson. When I saw the houses 
building in Boston, ours seemed like cottages, and I became ashamed of 
them. As cottages they are thoroughly satisfactory, but as houses they 
make no kind of show except in an out of the way place like this. 

Poor Dr. Hooper x died a week ago of heart-disease, and we buried 
him on Thursday. My wife was with him for the last month. 

To John Hay 

BEVERLY FARMS, 19 September, 1885. 

I thought you had forgotten me, so long is it since my last letter was 
written; but if you have set up an island > I admit the excuse. Please 
appoint me governor. I will be as wise as my predecessor and model, 
Sancho, and will do you credit. You will need it if you mean to start a 
principality. Even Don Quijote, Sr., did not build houses or buy 
islands. 

My hands have been so full this summer that I have had no time to 
look about me, and our little trip to Saratoga in search of history had a 
tragical ending since it cost us your visit. The man-mountain Rich- 
ardson (I suppose you include him among your purchased mountains) 

1 Robert William Hooper died April 13, 1885, aged seventy-five years. 



364 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

told us of your sudden appearance and disappearance after our re- 
turn. 

Richardson told me too some tedious tale about our houses being 
done. I know nothing to the contrary except its impossibility be- 
sides which it is on its face a Richelaisian jest. Big as he is, he turned 
pale and trembled when he told me he was going on to see what he had 
done; and should take the next train to the west if ! You can imag- 
ine, if the thought of seeing my house-front makes his brazen front 
blanch, what my delicate sensibilities are suffering. What will you give 
me for my night-mare as it stands?... 

To John Hay 

WASHINGTON, 4 November, 1885. 


Your house is calm as the Pyramids, but your hall ceiling is up, and 
very handsome. Evans is still at work on the columns. My hall fire- 
place is finished. I feel sure it is yours, and that Klaber gave it to me 
to quiet me, and is making another for you; but I can't prove it. 
Klaber's man is constructing an awful onyx tomb-stone in my library. 

Evarts came here this morning to ask about my house. As he has 
lost the election, I gave him a democratic answer. You can imagine 
how confidently I could promise to vacate my only shelter with winter 
coming on.... 

To George Bancroft 

WASHINGTON, n Feb., 1886. 

I have read the Plea, r and am exceedingly grateful to you for saying, 
with dignity and weight such as no one else can command, what 
history requires should be said. 

Although we are quite aware that the path of "sovereignty" 
which our grandfathers called tyranny cannot be longer blocked 
or impeded, we are bound to record, as the government moves, the 
distance it has gone, and the shorter stage that remains before it. 

Our Peau de Chagrin once called Liberty has shrunk uncom- 
monly fast; but the future will doubtless find compensation. Ever 
truly yours. 

x Plea for the Constitution of the United States, wounded in the House of its Guardians on the 
legal tender decision of the Supreme Court. 



XII 
JAPAN 

1886 
To John Hay 

SAN FRANCISCO, n June, 1886. 

My ship is in the bay, all ready at the quay, but before I wend my 
way, good-bye to thee John Hay; or words to that effect, for I have not 
my usual facility at verse today. San Francisco looks dusty, wintry 
and seedy, as I look over it at 8.30 P.M., from the fourth story of the 
Palace Hotel. Sea-sickness lies before, and the alkali desert behind this 
town. I have no choice between the two; but I find the town an un- 
happy medium. 

Our journey was a glorious success. As I got into my train at Boston 
on Thursday the 3rd, to start for New York, my brother Charles came 
down to tell me that his directors* car had unexpectedly arrived at 
Boston that morning, and would return to Omaha the next day. So I 
went to New York rejoicing; passed a delightful day with King, St. 
Gaudens, etc., and at six P.M. dragged poor La Farge, in a dishevelled 
and desperate, but still determined mind, on board the Albany ex- 
press. Never listen to the man who says that corporations have no 
souls I At Albany I tumbled into the U. P. car at eleven o'clock at 
night, and from that moment till we reached here yesterday, we had 
nothing to think about except to amuse ourselves. The U. P. fed, 
clothed and carried us, as affectionately as though we had money to 
lend; and landed us at last, not at Omaha, but in the court of this pal- 
ace, just like two little Aladdins from school. 

La Farge's delight with the landscape was the pleasantest thing on 
the journey. While I read Buddhism and slept, he tried to sketch from 
the moving car. His results were a sort of purple conglomerate, but 
the process amused him. On the Humboldt river our thermometer 
stood at 98 inside the car; but I am the creature of habit, and you will 
not be surprised that, even under these circumstances, I had Mme. 
Modjeska and her husband x to twelve-o'clock breakfast. C y est plus 
fort que moi! Clearly I am a breakfasting animal. 

Adventures we discard, for we are old and no longer vain; but La 
Farge makes a delicate humor glimmer about our path. Among other 

1 Helen Modjeska (1844-1909), married Charles Bozenta ChlapowskL 



366 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

people whom he left in New York, likely to tear their hair on hearing 
of his departure, was the agent of Cassell, for he is illustrating Shel- 
ley's Sky Lark. To this unhappy man. La Farge telegraphed from 
Poughkeepsie: "The purple evening melts around my flight." I know 
not how meek the spirit of that man may be, but the evening of most 
men, under such conditions, would have been purple with oaths. At 
Omaha a young reporter got the better of us; for when in reply to his 
inquiry as to our purpose in visiting Japan, La Farge beamed through 
his spectacles the answer that we were in search of Nirvana, the youth 
looked up like a meteor, and rejoined: "It's out of season!" z 

We were yesterday afternoon to see our steamer. So far as we could 
learn, we were the only passengers. We were given the two best 
staterooms, with the promise of as many more as we might ask for. If 
you and King were with us, we would capture the ship, turn pirate, 
and run off to a cocoa-nut island. As it is, we shall be sea-sick without 
crime. If La Farge sees anything he wants, I will buy it for you, as it 
will probably be good. If not, I will spend it for myself, and send you 
whatever you don't want. . . . 

To John Hay 

YOKOHAMA, 9 July, 1886. 

We have been here a week. Between the wish that you were here 
with us, and the conviction that you would probably by this time be 
broken up if you had come, I am distraught. Amusing it certainly is 
beyond an idea but comfortable or easy it is not by any means; and 
I can honestly say that one works for what one gets. 

We have devoted the week to Tokio, and you can judge what sort of 
a place it is from the fact that there is neither hotel nor house in it 
where we can be so nearly comfortable as we are in a third-rate hotel 
at Yokohama, twenty miles away. Here we have rooms directly on the 
bay, with air as fresh as the Japs make it; and here we return every 
evening to sleep. Sturgis Bigelow acts as our courier and master 
of ceremonies, but La Farge has mastered Mandarin Chinese, and 

* The letters that John La Farge wrote during this journey were published in 1897 as An 
Artists Letters from Japan. The volume is dedicated to Henry Adams and reads in part: "If 
anything worth repeating has been said by me in these letters, it has probably come from you, or 
has been suggested by being with you perhaps even in the way of contradiction. And you 
may be amused by the lighter talk of the artist that merely describes appearances, or covers 
them with a tissue of dreams. And you alone will know how much has been withheld that might 
have been indiscreetly said. 

"If only we had found Nirvana but he was right who warned us that we were late in this 
season of the world." 



ARCHITECTURE AND LAUGHTER IN JAPAN 367 

hopes soon to be a fluent talker of Daimio Japanese. As for me, I 
admire. 

Fenollosa and Bigelow are stern with us. Fenollosa is a tyrant who 
says we shall not like any work done under the Tokugawa Shoguns. 
As these gentlemen lived two hundred and fifty years or thereabouts, 
to 1860, and as there is nothing at Tokio except their work, La Farge 
and I are at a loss to understand why we came; but it seems we are to 
be taken to Nikko shortly and permitted to admire some temples 
there. On secret search in Murray, I ascertain that the temples at 
Nikko are the work of Tokugawa Shoguns. I have not yet dared to 
ask about this apparent inconsistency for fear of rousing a fresh ana- 
thema. 

The temples and Tokugawas are, I admit, a trifle baroque. For 
sticking a decisive bit of infamous taste into the middle of a seriously 
planned, and minutely elaborated mass of refined magnificence, I have 
seen no people except perhaps our own to compare with the 
Japs. We have the future before us to prove our capacity, but they 
now stand far ahead. Some of the temples are worse than others, but I 
am inclined to let Fenollosa have his way with them, if he will only let 
me be amused by the humor. Positively everything in Japan laughs. 
The jinrickshaw men laugh while running at full speed five miles with 
a sun that visibly sizzles their drenched clothes. The women all laugh, 
but they are obviously wooden dolls, badly made, and can only cackle, 
clatter in pattens over asphalt pavements in railway stations, and hop 
or slide in heelless straw sandals across floors. I have not yet seen 
a woman with any better mechanism than that of a five-dollar wax 
doll; but the amount of oil used in fixing and oiling and arranging 
their hair is worth the money alone. They can all laugh, so far. The 
shop-keepers laugh to excess when you say that their goods are forger- 
ies and worthless. I believe the Mikado laughs when his ministers 
have a cabinet council. The gilt dragon-heads on the temples are in a 
broad grin. Everything laughs, until I expect to see even the severe 
bronze doors of the tombs, the finest serious work I know, open them- 
selves with the same eternal and meaningless laughter, as though death 
were the pleasantest jest of all. 

In one respect Japan has caused me a sensation of deep relief. In 
America I had troubled myself much because my sense of smell was 
gone. I thought I never should again be conscious that the rose or the 
new-mown hay had odor. How it may be about the rose or the hay I 
know not; but since my arrival here I perceive that I am not wholly 
without a nose. La Farge agrees with me that Japan possesses one per- 



368 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

vasive, universal, substantive smell an oily, sickish, slightly fetid 
odor which underlies all things, and though infinitely varied, is al- 
ways the same. The smell has a corresponding taste. The bread, the 
fruit, the tea, the women, and the water, the air and the gods, all smell 
or taste alike. This is monotonous but reassuring. I have reasoned 
much and tried many experiments to ascertain the cause of this phe- 
nomenon, but it seems to be a condition of existence, and the accom- 
paniment of Japanese civilisation. Without the smell, Japan would 
fall into dissolution. 

I am trying to spend your money. It is hard work, but I will do it, or 
succumb* Kaki-monos are not to be got. Porcelain worth buying is 
rare. Lacquer is the best and cheapest article. Bronzes are good and 
cheap. I want to bring back a dozen big bronze vases to put on the 
grass before our houses in summer, for palms or big plants, so as to give 
our houses the look of a cross between curio shops and florists. Tokio 
contains hardly anything worth getting except bronzes. A man at 
Osaka has sent up some two hundred and fifty dollars worth of lac- 
quers, sword-hilts, inlaid work, and such stuff. As he has the best shop 
in Japan we took the whole lot, and have sent for more. Inros are from 
ten to fifteen dollars. I shall get a dozen for presents. Good cloisonne, 
either Chinese or Japanese, is most rare. Fine old porcelain is rare and 
dear. Embroideries are absolutely introuvable. Even books seem 
scarce. Japan has been cleaned out. My big bronze vases will cost 
from fifty to two hundred dollars apiece, but these will be good 

I have not presented my Japanese letters of introduction, as I found 
it would imply a course of entertainments which I would rather avoid. 
Tokio is an impossible sort of place for seeing anyone. It is a bunch of 
towns, and the Europeans live all over it, so that one goes five miles or 
so to make a call or to see one's dearest friend for five minutes. The 
thermometer today is anywhere between 90 and 200 in the streets, 
and calling on formal ministers of state under such conditions is not 
amusing. . . . 

I shafi go to Osaka and Kioto in September, unless the country is 
absolutely closed by cholera. Indeed I should do many other things if 
I were not anxious to spare La Farge the risk of illness. He continues 
to be the most agreeable of companions, always cheerful, equable, 
sweet-tempered, and quite insensible to ideas of time, space, money 
or railway trains. To see him flying through the streets of Tokio on a 
jinrickshaw is a most genial vision. Jrle peers out through his specta- 
cles as though he felt the absurdity as well as the necessity of looking 
at the show as though it were real, but he enjoys it enormously, espe- 



JAPAN A FAIRY-BOOK COUNTRY 369 

cially the smell, which quite fascinates him. He keeps me in perpetual 
good humor I am lost in wonder how he ever does work; but he can 
be energetic, and his charm is that whether energetic or lazy he has the 
neatest humor, the nicest observation, and the evenest temper you can 
imagine. When he loses the trains, I rather enjoy it. After all, who 
cares? 

Of startling or wonderful experience we have had none. The only 
moral of Japan is that the children's story-books were good history. 
This is a child's country. Men, women and children are taken out of 
the fairy books. The whole show is of the nursery. Nothing is serious; 
nothing is taken seriously. All is toy; sometimes, as with the women, 
badly made and repulsive; sometimes laughable, as with the houses, 
gardens and children; but always taken from what La Farge declares to 
have been the papboats of his babyhood. I have wandered, so to ex- 
press it, in all the soup-plates of forty-eight years* experience, during 
the last week, and have found them as natural as Alice found the 
Mock Turtle. Life is a dream, and in Japan one dreams of the nursery. 

To John Hay 

NIKKO, 24 July, 1886. 

Do you happen to know where Nikko is? If not, I cannot tell you. 
All I know is that it is in a valley among some green mountains in the 
insides of Japan; that it is pretty; that the hour is 8 A.M., of a sweet 
morning; that I am lying, in a Jap kimono on the upper verandah of 
the smallest doll house your children ever saw; that La Farge is below, 
in the bath-room, painting our toy garden, with its waterfall and mini- 
ature mountains; and that at nine o'clock we are to step down to the 
Fenollosas to breakfast. 

Since Monday, July 12, we have been here, and here we are likely to 
stay. The shortest possible experience of Japanese travel in its most 
favorable form satisfied me that pleasure lay not there. We had but 
six or eight hours between Tokio and this place. Four hours were by 
rail, rather pleasant though hot. I enjoyed looking out at the ridicu- 
lous landscape, though it was mostly a rice field, where numerous Japs 
with immense round hats, and little else, paddled about, up to their 
knees and elbows in black dirt which I compliment in calling mud. 
Here and there were groves about temples, or bamboo thickets about 
cabins. As night came on, bonfires smoked, to keep away mosquitoes, 
and, by the shade of Yeyas, they were not built without reason; for, 
although I saw no other four-footed animal, except three pack-horses 



370 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

and three dogs, in fifty miles, the skeets restored a liberal average for 
beasts of prey. We reached at 9 P.M. a town called Utso-nomiya. Sol 
was credibly informed, at least, and I believe it; for I know that we 
got into a wagon, and were driven two miles, at a full run, through a 
street thronged with infant children and paper lanterns. I know not 
how many we immolated; I soon wearied of counting; but I do know 
that our driver shouted, at intervals of flogging his brutes; that a devil 
at his side blew a penny trumpet; that another devil ran ahead and 
yelled; and that at last we were dropped not at a door, but, as usual, at 
a counter, and were told to take off our shoes. We were then led across 
a miniature court, past several open privies (which smelt), and an open 
bath-house where naked men and women were splashing, up a ladder 
staircase, to three rooms which were open to each other, and to the air 
and moon. We were pleased. La Farge and I gamboled in the spright- 
liness of our youth and spirits. The rooms were clean and adorned 
with kakimonos and bronzes. We lay on the floor and watched our 
neighbors below, while Bigelow concocted food out of a can of Mulliga- 
tawny soup and boiled rice. After eating this compound and smoking 
a cigar I would have wished to sleep a little, and in truth our beds and 
mosquito nets were built. At midnight I wooed slumber; but first the 
amidos or sliding shutters of the whole house below had to be slammed, 
for twenty minutes; then all the slammers had to take a last bath, with 
usual splashing and unutterable noises with their mouth and throat, 
which Bigelow assured us to be only their way of brushing their teeth. 
I have never known at what hour these noises ceased, but they ended 
at last, and we all fell asleep. 

Presently I was waked by a curious noise in the court. It was a man, 
moving about, and stopping every few steps to rap two bits of wood 
together clack-clack like castanets. He interested me for twenty 
minutes. I understand he was the watchman on pattens, and that he 
thus notifies thieves to be on their guard. During this part of the 
entertainment I became aware that all was not well with myself; in 
short that I had an attack of cholera of the worst sort; a pain internal, 
passing into desperate nausea; then into drenching perspiration, and 
lastly into a violent diarrhoea. With these afflictions I struggled for an 
hour or two, and at last crept back to bed, weak as the moonlight which 
illuminated my sufferings, and hoping only for an hour of forge tfulness; 
when, long before daylight, the amidos began to slam again, the bath 
began to splash, the bathers choked and coughed, and chaos came. 

Towards nine o'clock we consulted. Then it seemed that La Farge 
was suffering ju$t as I did. Both of us were in a miserable state of 



NiKKO 371 

weakness, trusting only that the end of our mortal career might arrive 
soon to bring repose. I was reduced to laughing at La Farge's com- 
ments to a point where exhaustion became humorous- Bigelow brewed 
for us some of my Chinese tea, for Japanese tea was nauseous. We 
managed to dress; and at half past eleven we were stuffed into a cart 
and rattled off over roads that we remember. That wagon understood 
jouncing. We hung on to any handy rail, and, when we could, we fell 
in the wagon rather than in the rice-fields. Ten miles of these gaieties 
brought us into a road between rows of huge cryptomerias, which seem 
to be a kind of giant pine; and when our horses struck this region, the 
ways being heavy with mud and mending, they refused [to go at all. 
For ten mUes they balked every hundred yards, and if an ascent inter- 
vened, they balked there besides. Changing horses made the matter 
worse; the fresher the horse, the more vigorously he balked; while our 
two drivers beat them over the head and withers with a heavy club. 
On experiment I found that I could stand when not laughing 
and I thought walking less fatiguing than sitting to see the brutes 
beaten. I crawled up the hills, and perspired freely with a temperature 
of 90, but in course of the day I had four cups of tea, and walked 
about as many miles. At six o'clock we reached Nikko; I climbed up a 
long stone stair to our small house; and went energetically to bed. 

We have never found out what upset us, nor has Bigelow found out 
what poisoned his arm and laid him up for a week at the same time. 
All we know is that our drive to Nikko did us no harm, and in a few 
days we were all right again, with a fancy for staying quiet and not 
immediately indulging in the luxuries of Japanese hotels. Our small 
palace of two rooms, with paper windows and two hospitable shaven 
priests who say only Ohio^ satisfy our yearnings. I have had cholera 
enough for the present. I admit that Mrs. Fenollosa's table had a 
share in our Sybaritism. The fact that, if we travel, we have nowhere 
to go where there is anything to see, except to Kioto and the south, is 
also an element. Kioto and Osaka are hotter than the future life; they 
are overrun with cholera; so is Yokohama where we had it common, 
and it has now extended to Tokio. No one seems ever to travel in the 
north and west, or to go to Kui-sui 1 even for Satsuma ware. Nikko is 
the prettiest part of Japan; here are the great temples of Yeyas (lye- 
yasu) and lye-mitsu, the first and third Shoguns; here, if it were not 
for show waterfalls, I can be content, and La Farge can sketch. 

In truth the place is worth coming to see. Japan is not the last word 
of humanity, and Japanese art has a well-developed genius for annoy- 

z Kiyosumir 



372 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

ing my prejudices; but Nikko is, after all, one of the sights of the 
world. I am not sure where it stands in order of rank, but after the 
pyramids, Rome, Mme. Tussaud's wax-works, and 800 i6th Street, I 
am sure Nikko deserves a place. Without forgetting the fact that the 
temples are here and there rather cheap grotesque, the general result 
of temple and tomb, architecture, ornament, landscape and foliage, is 
very effective indeed. When you reflect that the old Shoguns spent 
twelve or fourteen millions of dollars on this remote mountain valley, 
you can understand that Louis Quatorze and Versailles are not much 
of a show compared with Nikko. 

Photographers give no idea of the scale. They show here a gate and 
there a temple, but they cannot show twenty acres of ground, all in- 
geniously used to make a single composition. They give no idea of a 
mountain-flank, with its evergreens a hundred feet high, modelled into 
a royal, posthumous residence and deified abode. I admit to thinking 
it a bigger work than I should have thought possible for Japs. It is a 
sort of Egypt in lacquer and greenth.... 

27 July. Yesterday arrived from Osaka a large lot of kakimonos, 
sent up by the great curio-dealer, Yamanaka. I gleaned about two 
dozen out of the lot. They are cheap enough, but I fear that Fenollosa, 
who is in Tokio, will say they are Tokugawa rot, and will bully me 
into letting them go. He is now trying to prevent my having a collec- 
tion of Hokusai's books. He is a kind of St. Dominic, and holds him- 
self responsible for the dissemination of useless knowledge by others. 
My historical indifference to everything but facts, and my delight at 
studying what is hopefully debased and degraded, shock his moral 
sense. I wish you were here to help us trample on him. He has joined 
a Buddhist sect; I was myself a Buddhist when I left America, but he 
has converted me to Calvinism with leanings towards the Methodists. 

To Elizabeth Cameron 

NIKKO, 13 August, 1886. 

Thanks for your kind little note which gave me real pleasure in my 
Japanese retreat. In return I can only tell you that Japan is a long 
way from America, but that it is not far enough to prevent my think- 
ing too much about home matters. I have heard but once from there, 
since I sailed, and luckily all my news was pleasant. In six weeks more 
I shall be starting for home.... 

La Farge and I have found shelter in the mountains from the heat 
and hotels of Japan* We have a little box of a Japanese house, where 



LIFE IN JAPAN 373 



we look out on a Japanese temple-garden, and on Japanese mountains, 
all like the pictures that one sees on plates. We are princely in our 
style. The dealers in curios send us, from far and wide, whatever they 
can find that we like, and our rooms are full of such rubbish. La Farge 
sketches. I waste time as I can, sometimes walking, or going over the 
hills on rats of pack-horses; sometimes photographing in the temple 
grounds; sometimes sitting cross-legged, and looking at bales of stuffs 
or lacquers; sometimes at tea-houses, watching the sun when it kindly 
sets behind the big mountain Nan-tai-zan, and leaves us in a less per- 
spiring condition than we are by day. The scenery is very pretty; not 
unlike that of the Virginia Springs; and the temperature much the 
same though very moist. Of interesting people I see nothing. I doubt 
whether there are any such. The Japanese women seem to me im- 
possible. After careful inquiry I can hear of no specimen of your sex, 
in any class of society, whom I ought to look upon as other than a cu- 
rio. They are all badly made, awkward in movement, and suggestive of 
monkeys. The children are rather pretty and quite amusing, but the 
mammas are the reverse; and one is well able to judge at least the 
types of popular beauty, seeing that there is little clothing to hide it, 
and that little is apt to be forgotten. 

This branch of my historical inquiries has not proved rich; but, 
though the people are not a success in regard to personal attractions, 
they are very amusing indeed, and have given us infinite varieties of 
laughter ever since we saw our first fishing-boat. I do not advise you 
to allow yourself three months* leisure in order to get used to various 
pervasive smells, and to forget all your previous education in the mat- 
ter of food, houses, drains, and vehicles. If you can live on boiled rice 
or stewed eels, or bad, oily, fresh tea; or in houses without partitions 
or walls except of paper; or in cities absolutely undrained, and with 
only surface wells for drinking water; or if you can sit on your heels all 
through five hours at the theatre, and can touch the floor with your 
forehead when I call upon you; and say Hei and Ha at stated inter- 
vals, you will do very well in Japan. I do all these things with less 
success than is to be desired, for I cannot sit on my heels at all, and I 
suffer to the extent of anguish even in sitting cross-legged; Japanese 
food makes me sea-sick, and the smell of Tokio seems to get into food, 
drink, and dreams; but I have not yet had my three months* educa- 
tion, and have even evaded it by flying to the mountains and by get- 
ting myself fed and protected after the American manner. After ten 
days of modified Japanese experiments I was content with what I had 
learned. Nothing but necessity would induce me to try another Jap- 



374 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

anese article of food or to pass another night in a Japanese mn, for the 
first experiment proved nearly fatal; and although I did not fear 
death, I shrank from dying of Japanese soup in a Japanese inn, with 
Japanese women to look at as my last association with earth. This 
weakness on my part shows the sad effects of too long life. One ought 
to enjoy poisonous mushrooms fried in bad oil, and to delight in look- 
ing at wooden women without any figures, waddling on wooden 
pattens. 

Our faculty for laughing has been greatly increased, but we try in 
vain to acquire the courteous language of the country. No European 
can learn to track out the intricate holes and burrows in which Jap- 
anese courtesy hides itself. I wish I could master, in order to teach 
you, the ceremony of the Ocha-no-yu, or honorable five-o'clock tea. I 
declined to buy a book which contained paintings showing fifty ar- 
rangements of the charcoal to boil the kettle on this occasion; and as 
many more of the ways in which a single flower might be set in a por- 
celain stand. My friend Bigelow bought the pictures and is professor 
of the art. Simpler tasks satisfy me. Seeing the woman who has charge 
of our horses eating hard green plums, I requested Bigelow to tell her 
with my compliments that she would suffer from stomach-ache. Her 
reply, profoundly serious, was to the effect that my remark had truth; 
her stomach did respectfully ache. I learned much from this attitude 
of respect which even the digestive apparatus of a Japanese peasant 
woman assumes towards a stranger. 

I have bought curios enough to fill a house, but nothing that I like, 
or want for myself. The stuffs are cheap and beautiful, but I have 
found no really fine embroidery. The lacquer is relatively cheap, but 
I do not care for it. I can find no good porcelain or bronze, and very 
few wall-pictures. Metal work is easy to get, and very choice, but what 
can one do with sword-guards and knife handles? I am puzzled to 
know what to bring home to please myself. If I knew what would 
please you, I would load the steamer with it. ... 

To John Hay 

NlKKO, 2t2 AugUSt, 1886. 

I have still to report that purchases for you are going on, but more 
and more slowly, for I believe we have burst up all the pawn-brokers* 
shop% in Japan. Even the cholera has shaken out the little that is 
worth getting. Bigelow and Fenollosa cling like misers to their mis- 
erable hoards. Not a kakimono is to be found, though plenty are 



AN EXPEDITION INTO THE MOUNTAINS 375 

brought. Every day new bales of rubbish come up from Tokio or else- 
where; mounds of books; tons of bad bronze; holocausts of lacquer; I 
buy literally everything that is merely possible; and yet I have got not 
a hundred dollars' worth of things I want for myself. You shall have 
some good small bits of lacquer, and any quantity of duds to encumber 
your tables and mantles, but nothing creditable to our joint genius. 
As for myself, I have only one Yokomono or kakimono broader 
than it is long and one small bronze, that I care to keep as the fruit 
of my summer's perspiration. 

For Japan is the place to perspire. No one knows an ideal dogday 
who has not tried Japan in August. From noon to five o'clock I wilt. 
As for travelling, I would see the rice-fields dry first. I have often 
wondered what King would have done, had he come with us. I've no 
doubt he would have seen wonderful sights, but I should have paid his 
return passage on a corpse. For days together I make no attempt at 
an effort, while poor La Farge sketches madly and aimlessly. 

By the bye, a curious coincidence happened. Bigelow announced 
one morning that King and Hay were coming from Tokio with loads 
of curios for us. La Farge and I stared and inquired. Then it ap- 
peared that Bigelow and Fenollosa employ two men Kin, pronounced 
King, and Hei, pronounced Hay to hunt curios for them, and had 
sent them word to bring up whatever they could find. I thought this 
one of the happiest accidents I ever heard, and I only wish that 
Messrs. King and Hay had brought better things, as their American 
namesakes expected. They meant well, but they lacked means. 
Nevertheless they brought a few nice bits, to sustain the credit of 
their names. 

Fairly bored by sweltering in this moistness, I stirred up Mrs. 
Fenollosa to a little expedition last Tuesday. Fenollosa is unwell; La 
Farge is hard at work; but Mrs. Fenollosa, Bigelow and I, started to 
visit Yumoto, the Saratoga, or White Sulphur, of Japan. Yumoto lies 
just fourteen miles above us among the mountains, and with one of 
my saddle horses I could easily go there and return on the same day; 
but such a journey in Japan is serious. Only pedestrians, coolies, or 
Englishmen work hard. Mrs. Fenollosa summoned five pack-horses. 
All Japanese horses known to me are rats, and resemble their pictures, 
which I had supposed to be bad drawing; but these pack-horses are 
rats led by a man, or more often by a woman, at a very slow walk. 
Mrs. Fenollosa mounted one; Bigelow another; I ascended a third; a 
servant and baggage followed on a fourth; the fifth carried Tjeds, 
blankets, linen, silver, eatables, and drinks. At half past eight the 



376 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

caravan started > and at half past ten it arrived at the foot of Chiu- 
zen-ji pass, where one climbs a more or less perpendicular mountain 
side for an hour. I preferred my own legs to the rat's, and walked up. 
So we arrived at Lake Chiu-zen-ji, a pretty sheet of water about seven 
miles long, at the foot of the sacred mountain Nan-tai-zan. On the 
shore of this lake is a temple, where pilgrims begin the ascent of the 
mountain, sacred to Sho-do Sho-nin, who devoted fifteen years of his 
valuable existence, in the eighth century, to the astounding feat of 
climbing it. As it is very accessible, and only eight thousand feet 
above the sea, Sho-do Sho-nin is a very popular and greatly admired 
saint, and some five thousand pilgrims come every August to follow 
his sainted steps. Next the temple are some inns, but not a farm or a 
human dwelling exists on the lake or among the mountains; for if the 
Japanese like one thing more than another it is filthy rice-fields, and if 
they care less for one thing than another, it is mountains. All this 
lovely country, from here to the sea of Japan, is practically a dense 
wilderness of monkeys, as naked as itself; but the monkeys never 
seem out of place as a variety, though I have not met them in society, 
and speak only from association. We stopped at an inn, and while 
lunch was making ready, Bigelow and I went out in a kind of frigate 
for a swim in the lake. After lunch, sending our beasts ahead, we 
sailed to the next starting-point, just the length of a cigar. Another 
two miles of rise brought us to a moor for all the world like Estes Park 
and the Rocky Mountains. Crossing this, we climbed another ascent, 
and came out on an exquisite little green lake with woody mountains 
reflected on its waters. Nothing could be prettier than the path along 
this shore, but it was not half so amusing to me as our entrance into 
the village of Yumoto, with its dozen inns and no villagers; for, by the 
roadside, at the very entrance, I saw at last the true Japan of my 
dreams, and broke out into carols of joy. In a wooden hut, open to all 
the winds, and public as the road, men, women and children, naked as 
the mother that bore them, were sitting, standing, soaking and drying 
themselves, as their ancestors had done a thousand years ago. 

I had begun to fear that Japan was spoiled by Europe. At Tokio 
even the coolies wear something resembling a garment, and the sexes 
are obliged ^to bathe apart. As I came into the country I noticed first 
that the children were naked; that the men wore only a breech-clout; 
and that the women were apt to be stripped to the waist; but I had be- 
gun to disbelieve that this disregard of appearances went further. I was 
wrong. No sooner had we dismounted than we hurried off to visit the 
baths; and Mrs. Fenollosa will bear me witness that for ten minutes 



A JAPANESE BATH-HOUSE 377 

we stood at the entrance of the largest bath-house, and looked on at a 
dozen people of all ages, sexes and varieties of ugliness, who paid not 
the smallest regard to our presence. I should except one pretty girl of 
sixteen, with quite a round figure and white skin. I did notice that for 
the most part, while drying herself, she stood with her back to us. 

When this exceptionally pleasing virgin walked away, I took no 
further interest in the proceedings, though I still regard them as primi- 
tive. Of the habits and manners of the Japanese in regard to the sexes, 
I see little, for I cannot conquer a feeling that Japs are monkeys, and 
the women very badly made monkeys; but from others I hear much on 
the subject, and what I hear is very far from appetising. In such an 
atmosphere one talks freely. I was a bit aghast when one young wo- 
man called my attention to a temple as a remains of phallic worship; 
but what can one do? Phallic worship is as universal here as that of 
trees, stones and the sun. I come across shrines of phallic symbols In 
my walks, as though I were an ancient Greek. One cannot quite ignore 
the foundations of society. 

23 August. My poor boy, how very strong you do draw your vintage 
for my melancholy little Esther. Your letter of July 1 8 has just reached 
me, and I hardly knew what I was reading about. Perhaps I made a 
mistake even to tell King about it; but having told him, I could not 
leave you out. Now, let it die! To admit the public to it would be al- 
most unendurable to me. I will not pretend that the book is not pre- 
cious to me, but its value has nothing to do with the public who could 
never understand that such a book might be written in one's heart's 
blood. Do not even imagine that I scorn the public, as you say. 
Twenty years ago, I would have been glad to please it. Today, and 
for more than a year past, I have been and am living with not a 
thought but from minute to minute; and the public is as far away 
from me as the celebrated Kung-fu-tse, who once said something on 
the subject which I forget, but which had probably a meaning to him, 
as my observation has to me. Yet I do feel pleased that the book has 
found one friend. 

25 August. I can't say, "let's return to our sheep,** for there are no 
sheep in Japan, and I have eaten nothing but bad beef since landing. 
As for returning to my remarks on Yumoto as connected with the 
sexes, I decline to do it. In spite of King, I affirm that sex does not 
exist in Japan, except as a scientific classification. I would not affirm 
that there are no exceptions to my law; but the law itself I affirm as the 
foundation of archaic society. Sex begins with the Aryan race. I have 
seen a Japanese beauty, which has a husband, Nabeshame^ if I hear 



378 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

right a live Japanese Marquis, late Daimio of Hizo, or some other 
place; but though he owns potteries, he has, I am sure^no more suc- 
cessful bit of bric-i-brac than his wife is; but as for being a woman, 
she is hardly the best Satsuma.... 

To John Hay 

KIOTO, 9 September, 1886. 

Kioto at last! La Farge and I made an impressive entry at nine 
o'clock last night, with our suite, by moonlight, and this morning 
at half past six o'clock we are sitting on our verandah, looking out 
over the big city, he sketching, and both of us incessantly wishing that 
you and King were with us, for there is no kind of doubt that Japan is 
omoshirvt, a word we pronounce amushrvi y which means amusing, and 
is always in use. Kioto is omoshirvi as we look over it; a sort of Jap- 
anese Granada. For two months we have heard and talked of nothing 
but Kioto, and here we are! Think of it, dissolute man! It is being in 
the new Jerusalem with a special variety of Jews. You see at once why 
La Farge and I are up and active at six A.M. . . . 

La Farge and I, after six days of boiled and furious activity at 
Yokohama, trying to get things done, which is something the Japa- 
nese never do, gave it up; but I would have given you a present if you 
could have seen us on our expedition last Friday to what the old books 
called the Dye boofs.* This remnant of the vanished splendor of Ka- 
makura is about twenty miles from Yokohama, and next to Kioto and 
Narra, we have damned it persistently for two months because of the 
heat. I bought for you or others various specimens of so-called 
Kamakura lacquer, the only instance in human history where nacre has 
been used with success; and every time I saw the stuff, I cursed it be- 
cause I had not had energy to see the Dai Butsu. Last Friday we 
saw it, and as La Farge says, it is the most successful colossal figure in 
the world; he sketched it, and I, seizing the little priest's camera, 
mounted to the roof of his porch, and, standing on my head at an 
angle of impossibility, perpetrated a number of libels on Buddha and 
Buddhism without shame at the mild contempt of his blessed little 
moustache^ which is acht Japanesisch of today. This is not my story. 
I mention it in passing Kamakura, for we saw no more of die city 
which is no longer existing or visible; but having lunched at a tea- 
house, and watched a heavy shower make the roads hopeless, we were 
persuaded by the Ho Houro, Japanese phoenix, an acute disease 

1 Daibutso, or Great Buddha, 



JAPANESE A&D CHINESE ART 379 

known as a travelling servant whose death in torture is a matter only 
of hours to return by way of the beach of Enoshima. Although we 
knew that all view of Fuji the only object of such a trip was 
hopeless, we let ourselves in for what proved to be an hour's walk over 
a soft sand-beach in a steam-bath. In half the distance La Farge fell 
into his jinrickshaw exhausted, and I tumbled into the Pacific ocean 
and swam or waded to the next village. When I tried to come out of 
the water, the surf covered me with black sand; my clothes were so 
wet that I could not get them on, and my boots were full of water. 
So I put on my coat, tied a yellow oil-paper rain-cover round my waist, 
and seating myself in my kurama, stuck my naked legs over the foot- 
board, and was whirled through the village like a wild Indian. The 
curious part of the matter was that in a mile of transit to the nearest 
tea-house, not even a child raised an eyelid of surprise, whereas La 
Farge, who followed later, in complete European costume, was re- 
ceived with enthusiasm. Evidently my outfit is the one expected from 
Americans in this country. We drove back to Yokohama afterwards 
in the dark, and I could not wonder at the calmness with which my 
legs had been received. As we drove through mile after mile of vil- 
lage without front walls, every house offered a dimly lighted study of 
legs in' every attitude. My eyes still whirl with the wild succession of 
men's legs, and of women's breasts, in every stage of development and 
decomposition, which danced through that obscurity. 

On Sunday we took a French steamer for Kobe Kobe is only the 
European settlement for Osaka and Kioto, a kind of waiting-room, to 
Yamanaka's, towards whose shop I am leading you.... Only one 
lesson was impressed more deeply than ever on my heart; which was 
that if I want good things, I must buy Chinese. In porcelain there 
is no comparison; in embroidery, none; in kakimonos, not much. The 
best Chinese is always out of sight ahead, as in cloisonn, and, I think, 
even in bronze, though bronze is the Japanese metal. Only in gold 
lacquer and small metal work, like sword-guards, or perhaps small 
ivories, like netsukes, where Japanese humor and lightness have the 
field to themselves, the Japanese excel. They are quite aware of their 
own inferiority, and the prices they pay for good Chinese or Corean 
work are out of all proportion to their own.... 

My trouble is in the temptation to buy masses of indifferent work, 

which is the best I can get None of the things are large. Except for 

temples or gardens the Japs make few large things for themselves. 
Their small houses and low rooms are not suited to big ornament. 
Everything you see of that sort, especially tall bronzes, porcelains and 



380 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

lacquers, unless it comes from temples or gardens, is made for export 
and is not true Japanese. Things like Inros, lacquer boxes a few 
inches long; nefsukes of ivory or wood^fukusas, or embroidered and 
woven stuffs like my eagle-and-ocean screen; swords; small kaki- 
monos; tea-jars from two to twelve inches high; flower vases, porcelain 
or bronze, from ten inches to eighteen in height; in short, anything 
that will go on a table, or is easily handled, is Japanese domestic de- 
coration. The big vases, especially the big grotesque bird-flower-and- 
dragon vases, are never seen out of the shops in Yokohama. No Jap- 
anese ever dreamed of such decoration, except perhaps for a temple or 
some public place. All his best, choicest and Jap-sneeziest work is in 
little things to be worn, or to be shown to guests at his Cha-no~yu, or 
Tea-party, in a bare little room, about ten feet square, with walls of 
Chinese simplicity; white plaster and wood unplaned.... 

Sunday , 12 Septr. This travelling is taking hold of my system. We 
cannot stand the pace. At our age occasional repose is a benefit. 
La Farge and I have jounced in kurumas, rattled through temples; 
asked questions, and talked Japanese, or listened to it, till we cower in 
fear before every new suggestion. We are nauseated by curios; I de- 
test temples; he is persecuted by letters of introduction, and I, who 
have delivered only one of mine, pass all my time trying to escape 
hospitality. At last I understand the duties of life. Never be hospi- 
table to a traveller. He is only happy in freedom. Damn him, and let 
him go. 

One Japanese interior is highly amusing, but the joke is not rich 
enough for two. I find myself here with La Farge, T. Walsh, of Walsh, 
Hall & Co., two interpreters; a travelling servant; the Governor of 
Kioto's secretary; three Kioto merchants; and madness! The temples 
are ordered to produce their treasures for us; the houses drag out all 
their ancestral properties, and very curious they are; the artists in 
porcelain, the dealers in curios, and even the schools we are expected 
to inspect as connoisseurs. Today we had three hours at the house of 
Kassiobawara San, an elderly merchant here, who happens to live in 
the oldest house in the city; then at noon we started in kurumas, with 
a stewing heat, for a river twelve miles off; then we shot what the Ho 
calls "rabbits'* for an hour, in a boat; we got through the rapids only 
to jounce for another hour or two in kurumas back to Kioto, where 
two makers of porcelain and a big curio dealer were sitting at the door 
of my room, and a Japanese gentleman was waiting to call on La 
Farge. The Japanese gentleman sat till half past eleven, thereby 
driving us to wish ourselves in bed or somewhere. 



A GEISHA BALL 381 



All the same, since leaving Nikko we have just piled in the impres- 
sions. If we do not soon become masters of the Japanese science, we 
shall at least learn something of our own to take its place. We will 
turn out a new Japan of our own. La Farge has bought materials 
enough vast mounds of rubbish to construct a world of deco- 
ration, paint forests of pictures, and exhaust the windows of Chris- 
tianity. I have learned so many new facts of which I am ignorant, 
that I could fill winter evenings with my want of knowledge. The only 
branch we have not yet exhausted is that of the dances, and we in- 
tend to begin today on this sphere of usefulness. Geishas are ordered 
for this evening. If they please me as little as most of their Japanese 
sisters, I shall not want further acquaintance. I am in hot pursuit of 
the Butterfly Dance, and have started a chase through the temples in 
search of it. On the whole, Osaka and Kioto pan out well. 

Wednesday morning, 15 Seftr. I close this despatch by reporting 
that we had our Geisha ball, in all the forms, last night. No words can 
give you an idea of the drollness. I am lost in astonishment at this 
flower of eastern culture. I cannot quite say that it is like an imagi- 
nary theatre in a nursery of seven-year-old girls, or that it is absolutely 
and disgustingly proper, because all my Japanese friends got drunk on 
saki, and some of the singing women were highly trained; but for an 
exhibition of mechanical childishness I have seen nothing to equal it 
except a Japanese garden, or a batch of Japanese dolls. Absolutely the 
women's joints clacked audibly, and their voices were metallic. 

I will tell you all about it when we meet; but La Farge is so much 
more amusing about it than I can be, that you had better wait till our 
book comes out, in which he will write the story, and I draw the pic- 
tures. 



XIII 

WASHINGTON AND QUINCY 
WITH TRIPS WEST AND SOUTH 

1886-1889 
To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

1603 H STREET, 12 December, 1886. 

My father's death x came at last as quietly as his long decline had 
come gently. I had been back from Japan about a fortnight, and had 
at once gone to see him. I thought him failing so slowly that he might 
well survive the winter; but he was liable at any moment to give out 
and the end could not be far. . . . 

My journey to Japan had at least the advantage of consuming five 
months, and of doing it in a very amusing way. I suppose I may call 
myself rather an old traveller; but I never made any journey half so 
entertaining. My sense of humor developed itself so rapidly that I 
was in a broad laugh from the time I landed at Yokohama, and can't 
help laughing whenever I think of the droll island and people. I took 
with me a well-known New York artist, John La Farge, an old ac- 
quaintance, and a very unusual man, who stands far away at the head 
of American art, but who interests me more as a companion than as a 
painter, for he kept me always amused and active. We were three 
months on shore, and became quite Japanned. If it were not that the 
country and people are now as familiar to everybody as though they 
were a part of Clapham, I should be half tempted to tell you something 
about them; but die traveller has at last learned his own rank in bore- 
dom, and has the sense to hold his tongue. The only practical result 
of the trip has been to make me earnest to close up everything here, 
finish history, cut society, foreswear strong drink and politics, and 
start in about three years for China, never to return. China is the 
great unknown country of the world. Sooner or later, if health holds 
out, I shall drift there; and once there, I shall not soon drift back. 
You may find me there with a false pig-tail, and a button on the top of 
my head as a mandarin of a new class. . . . 

I am trying to boil up my old interest in history enough to finish my 
book, but the fuel is getting scarce. I think the chances about even 
whether it will ever be published or not. Society is getting new tastes, 

* Charles Francis Adams died November ai, 1886. 



SIR CECIL SPRING RICE 383 

and history of the old school has not many years to live. I am willing 
enough to write history for a new school; but new men will doubtless 
do it better, or at least make it more to the public taste. 

To John Hay 

WASHINGTON, i May, 1887. 


I see that Eli Thayer has gone for Nicolay. I have gone for your 
poem in the Century of today. If this is fruit of your mature wine, 
I think you are happy in preserving the flavor of your vine-yard. 
*Tis pretty, Nay, 'tis much! Perhaps the conclusion is a little weak; 
but I would not care to strengthen it. King says we ought to publish 
our joint works under the title of "The Impasse Series," because they 
all ask questions which have no answers; but nothing has any real 
answer, and when one walks deliberately into these blind alleys where 
Impasse is stuck up at every step, one cannot, without a certain ridi- 
cule, knock one's head very violently against the brick wall at the 
end. Victor Hugo did this, to the delight of Frenchmen; but, for our 
timider natures, let us go on, as before, and, when we see the brick wall, 
take off our hats to it with the good manners we most affect, and say 
in our choicest English: Monseigneur^ fattendrai. You have done it 
charmingly. Please say it some more. 

Yes, Angell was my scholar, but I prefer his visits.... 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

1603 H STREET, 8 May, 1887. 
** 

An intelligent and agreeable fellow has turned up here at your lega- 
tion; about the last place one looks for such. His name is Spring Rice, 1 
and he has creditable wits. Mad, of course, but not more mad than an 
Englishman should be. Unluckily he is here only for a short time, and 
goes back to the Foreign Office in the autumn. He drops in at times on 
me for meals, and pays in a certain dry humor, not without suggestions 
of Monckton Milnes's breakfasts five and twenty years ago. Other Eng- 
lishmen twain or more have been here, and, for some unintelligible 
or unremembered object, have sat at my table; but I forget me as to 
their names or looks except the Yates Thompsons, who were scourg- 
ing the land with a mJde y verwegene Jagd. The statistician does not im- 
prove with age and newspapering.... 

1 Sir Cecil Arthur Spring Rice (1859-1918), later British ambassador at Washington. 



384 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

To Elizabeth Cameron 

WASHINGTON, Friday morning, [1887.] 

Your note reached me as I was going to dine with the venerable 
historian x at six o'clock. After dinner I called again to see you, but 
once more failed. 

Your invitation is seductive to a cookless wanderer on what Mr. 
Longfellow was pleased to call life's solemn main, meaning probably 
that the voyage was always serious when the wanderer was unfed. 
My trouble, however, is not so much one of food as of a sentimental 
wish to see you again, and hear of your welfare, you being more or less 
the only friend whose meeting I have not dreaded for fear of hearing ill 
tidings. I hope my harvest of thorns is now gathered in, and I can en- 
joy the few flowers there are 

To John Hay 

28 June, 1887. 



My gaiety has been exhausting and continuous. I have called on 
two old ladies of eighty or more, and have frequented various invalids 
and persons in bad condition. Dr. William Everett has called upon 
me. I have returned the civility. I have given rifles to my two twin 
nephews, with which they are as certain as possible to kill each other, 
or some one else; but I don't care, because they have a big new sailboat 
which will drown them if they escape shooting. They are twelve years 
old. My nieces all prefer jack-knives, an amiable taste, showing re- 
finement and literary propensities. 

In the entire horizon that bounds my cell, I see nothing that would 
bear shipment to London Sturgis Bigelow has come home to nurse 
his father a who is either dying or pretending to die; I think the former, 
though the doctors have hinted the latter, because H. J. B. is so bent 
on his own way that they can never tell what else ails him. I write 
history as though it were serious, five hours a day; and when my hand 
and head get tired, I step out into the rose-beds and watch my favorite 
roses. For lack of thought, I have taken to learning roses, and talk of 
them as though I had the slightest acquaintance with the subject, 

In short, the summer is just what I expected, with a few details 
better and a few worse. . . . 

1 George Bancroft. 

3 Henry Jacob Bigelow (1818-1890). He died October 30, 1890. 



To MRS. DON CAMERON 385 

To Elizabeth Cameron 

QUINCY, Sept. 12, 1887. 

Tell Martha that I know all about it, and distinctly remember my 
sufferings at her early age. Perhaps she won't believe it, but you must 
assure her that I never hesitate to tell a lie 

My brother Brooks will be back from Europe on Octo. i, and on 
that day I shall fly to Washington, and perhaps further. Frosts are 
excellent for babies, but I prefer other milk for men Perhaps you 
would like to go to Mexico. If King will take us with him, we can have 
a republican time. I must explode into space somewhere, after this 
summer of galley-slave toil. My comfort is to think that the public 
shall suffer for it, and any number of defunct statesmen will howl, in 
the midst of their flames, at the skinning they are getting this season, 
owing to my feeling cross. 

To John Hay 

QUINCY, 13 Sept., 1887. 
** 

I shall be in New York on October i, or soon afterwards, and thence 
to Washington direct, where I am to wait for King. He will tell you 
what we mean to do, for I shall be guided by him. You would do well 
to join us. You will have to make a good many jokes to brighten up the 
last half dozen centuries, and you should lay in a supply in Mexico. 

I too have been working, like a Buffalo Bill, all summer, and I carry 
back to Washington a whole new volume prepared for the printer since 
June 15. At last I have bowed to the caligrapher, and weeping I dic- 
tate. With this vile modern innovation I shall spoil my work, but I 
shall either be in my pleasant grave on this day two years, or my history 
will be done and out. I have notified the Japanese government to be- 
gin operations in China at that date. . . . 

To Elizabeth Cameron 

WASHINGTON, 23 Oct, 1887. 
* 

My first cook comes tomorrow, an Irish lady who has worked for the 
whole diplomatic corps, including the Gerolts, Schlozer, 1 Thornton, 
and Aristarchi. a I suppose she drinks, or has fits; but I liked her voice. 

1 Kurd von Schlozer. a Gr^goire Aristarchi Bey. 



386 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Will you come and dine with'the Chinese Minister/ who will be my only 
dignitaried guest this winter? He has some rare porcelain, and I want 
him to divide it between us. Tomorrow we are to have a storm and 
I am going to Mt. Vernon with the Endicotts and Herschels. This is 
the alternative to dinners. If this melancholy procession does not fin- 
ish me, I shall try to survive till you come. 

I know of nothing that I want in the way of shopping, unless you 
happen to see a chimney that doesn't smoke. If so, buy it for me if not 
too dear, as James Lowther said of the tooth-brush. If you are going to 
get dresses in New York, I shall not expect you before Thanksgiving, 
which is the worse for me as I shall never see the dresses. Your diplo- 
matic flock is scattering. I suppose you will see Jenisch * in New York 
on his way to the journey I did not make, . . . 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

WASHINGTON, 30 October, 1887. 

If I have not written since your last letter three months ago, my 
reason was that I had nothing to say. I passed the whole summer at 
Quincy taking care of my mother; and during those four months I 
never left the place for a night. On leaving Quincy four weeks ago, I 
meant to make a trip to Mexico; but at the last moment was stopped 
by telegrams which announced floods, fever and broken roads, so that 
Clarence King, who was to be my companion, would not go. Of the 
world I see and hear nothing; but I have worked very hard, and have 
completed a third volume; so that only one more volume remains to be 
done, and I hope in two years to close up my life as far as literature and 
so-called usefulness go. I have got to the point where they bore 
me. 

Winter is beginning again. To make a little fresh interest I have 
bought a green-house, and have taken to forcing roses and things. The 
amusement is rather more expensive than a good-sized yacht, but it is 
an aristocratic occupation, and I am singular in following it, for in this 
city no other gentleman cultivates flowers or fruits. As long as I have 
roses to give away, no one will comment on my gray hair or bald head, 
or the crows-feet that are deep as wells under my eyes. The women at 
least will see nothing but ambrosial curls. As I never dine out or go 
into society, I cannot introduce the fashion of wearing garlands, but I 
can look at them, which must be pleasanter. My table is loaded with 
flowers, and I have to buy Chinese vases, at God knows what cost, to 

x Chang Yen Boon. Mr. Rucker Jenisch, attache* of the German Legation. 



JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN 387 

show them. Flowers and bric-a-brac are refined tastes, but, when com- 
bined with history, would ruin Ferdinand Rothschild.*.. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

Los BANOS DE S. DIEGO, 
8 March, 1888. 

In the course of aimless wandering I have drifted for a day to this 
Spanish hole in the middle of Cuba, and bethink myself that I owe you 
a letter. An evening with nothing to do at a Cuban sulphur-bath tends 
to recall one's friends to one's mind. While the chattering Cubans are 
playing loto at the next table, I will try to write a few pages to bore 
you. 

I forget where or when my last letter was written. I can only re- 
member that I had a more than usually unsatisfactory winter at 
Washington. I have got into a bad way of never leaving my house ex- 
cept to see one or two intimates, like John Hay. Society scares and 
bores me, and I have wholly dropped it. During the cold weather I 
pass an hour every afternoon at my greenhouse and watch my roses. 
If it were not that friends are very good natured, and come in unasked 
to breakfast and dinner, I should be a hermit. One of my most valu- 
able allies is a young fellow of your Legation, whose name I have al- 
ready mentioned to you Spring Rice who not only comes two or 
three times a week to dinner, and keeps me posted about the world's 
doings, whether I care for them or not, but also brings Englishmen with 
him, if he thinks them worth knowing. Among others he brought Mr. 
Chamberlain, 1 who took kindly to my habits, and asked himself several 
times to dinner without other company than ourselves. Chamberlain 
amused and interested me. He talked much and well, very openly, and 
with a certain naivet6 that I hardly expected. He was a success in 
society, and was received with an amount of attention that seemed to 
puzzle him, considering how little favor he got from newspapers and 
politicians.... On the whole he made a decided mark, and held more 
than his own against all comers. His opinion of America is not a high 
one, and he took little trouble to disguise it; but as he studied it only 
on the political side, he did not disturb our complacency. His chief ob- 
jection was that we cared little for statesmen and orators.... 

I have been particularly well all winter, but the disease of restless- 
ness is quite as trying as most fevers. Clarence King was ordered by 

1 Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914), who was in the United States to negotiate a treaty on 
North American fisheries. 



388 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

his physicians to take these absurd baths for rheumatism. I made 
every arrangement to come with him. John Hay, who has some chronic 
inflammation of the vocal cords, agreed to be of the party. At the last 
moment King's physicians would not let him go; but I was bound to go 
somewhere, so I took my companion, Theodore Dwight, and started 
with him and Hay for Florida three weeks ago. Hay left us after a 
fortnight, to return home, but Dwight and I rambled on, crossed from 
Florida to Havana, and have been a week in Cuba. I like summer, and 
palms, Spain and garlic; I do not much object to dirt or smells; and 
this time I thought my stomach so strong that I went even to a bull- 
fight, which was declared to be the most splendid ever seen in Havana. 
Splendid it certainly was, but one bull settled my stomach so effectu- 
ally that I left the other five to the mercies of the rest of their admirers. 
Havana is a gay ruin, but after being kept awake five nights by the 
noise and smell, I thought that country air would do us good, so we 
came about a hundred miles into the western end of the island. Next 
Wednesday I expect to start back in order to reach Washington on the 
1 8th. 

Meanwhile history has made little progress. I want to go to the Fiji 
Islands next summer, a five months affair; but am in doubt whether I 
can fairly get away. The object of such long expeditions about the 
Pacific is to tire myself out till home becomes rest. If I can do this 
within two years, things will be simplified. Otherwise, there is no help 
but to start then for good, and go till I drop. You can have no idea of 
the insanity of restlessness. Reason is helpless to control it. ... 

To Elizabeth Cameron 

QUINCY, 10 June, 1888. 
..... 

When I bade you good-bye and climbed your Vestibule Train, with 
a mind which, as you may have observed, was for once quite bird-like 
for cheerfulness and anticipation of pleasure, I could not help a slight 
depression at finding that astonishing creation of man's genius and 
luxury to be entirely intended and used for the conveyance of Chicago 
German Jews. Why did Matthew Arnold see nothing to interest him in 
our civilisation? I saw, between Harrisburg and New York enough in 
a single Vestibule Train to interest the remainder of my life in answer- 
ing a single conundrum why the German Jew should be the aim and 
end of our greatest triumphs in science and civilisation. ... I arrived at 
the Brunswick and took a solitary dinner, after which I found myself 



HISTORICAL WRITING 389 

fairly desperate in a ghastly solitude. Under more favorable condi- 
tions I could have taken, like my friend whose name I have forgotten 
in Musset's Caprices de Marianne > to a bottle of wine, and tobacco, till 
stupefaction should bring back content; but after June i I drink no 
wine till October, so this reserve was barred, and at half past nine I 
took to solitaire. Degrading as the confession is, I had nothing better 
to do, and I wasted immortal time trying to think how cards should be 
put one on another. Five years ago, I should have treated with proud 
consciousness of superiority the suggestion of such a fall; but I was 
glad, last Thursday night, to shuffle cards and wish for October when 
wine would be allowed. Yet in the midst of my most interesting com- 
bination, a knock came at my door, and Clarence King appeared. 
Soon afterwards La Farge came in. They taught me all die nothing- 
ness of art, science and society till after midnight, and I was with them 
all the next day and evening, when King and La Farge became so ex- 
hausted by the prolonged mental effort that both went to sleep, one on 
the bed, the other on the sofa, where I left them at King's room, while 
I resumed solitaire. So it is that, as civilisation ends in the Chicago 
Jew, the society of our most amusing friends leads back to shuffling of 
cards. Yet you wonder that I long for the Cannibal Islands- . . . 

To John Hay 

QUINCY, 8 July, 1888. 

I would give a ream of ruled law cap, written full of history, to be 
going with you to Colorado; but yet awhile I must abide here, and, to 
admit the truth, the frenzy of finishing the big book has seized me, 
until, as the end comes nigh, I hurry off the chapters as though they 
were letters to you. I think that five more chapters will pretty much 
finish the story. A concluding Chapter or Book must be still written on 
topics and tendencies, but I shall begin printing next autumn. 

I am glad to see your hancj. again on the Lincoln. Criticism is not 
needed, but I have now gathered about me an epidermis of nerves 
sensitive at peculiar and arbitrary points. I know that my sensitive 
points are no more properly sensitive than a million others, but I trust 
to the devil to be good enough to spare me more, or I shall never get 
through a proof-sheet at all. My last axiom, invented within three 
months, is that the present tense must never be employed in historical 
writing, and can never under any circumstances be so good as the past 
tense; while the word now should be ruthlessly struck out wherever it 
occurs, no matter under what apparent necessity it is used. I com- 



390 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

municate this satanic idea to you on Mark Twain's theory of getting 
rid of it. Perhaps if you take it up, I may forget it. Anyway it is sure 
to make you uneasy, which is always good for a middle-aged and indo- 
lent protectionist* . . . 

To Elizabeth Cameron 

QUINCY, 15 July, 1888. 
*** 

She [Martha] r ought to come here and be my secretary, and relieve 
Dwight, who is now a sort of literary factotum, and will soon be in 
general charge of the establishment, from the kitchen to the barn. I 
don't know how he can manage a farm, but I do know that neither 
my brothers nor I can do any better, so you may see him milking a 
cow, and reading an old MS. at the same time. We none of us know 
our whole genius till we Ve been tried. . . . 

Midsummer has come, the strawberries and roses have dropped and 
faded, my last half-dozen chapters are begun, and my nephew Charley 
has beaten everything with his new cutter the Babboon; I am as cold 
as usual in a Boston summer, and my brothers are taking their families 
to the Glades in order to be colder; Stanford White has sent me a 
salmon from Ristigouche^ and John Hay has gone to Colorado; my 
mother is still eighty years old or more, and Miss Baxter is in New 
York; I see or hear dimly that some new political jackanapes is set up 
for President, and that Congress is likely to be in session for two 
months yet...* 

To John Hay 

QUINCY, 22 July, 1888. 
* 

My fury about the historical present was a long-penned but always 
forgotten volume of irritation at your collaborator's extravagant and 
exuberant indulgence in that obscene habit. I am not aware that you 
sinned. Yet I object even to saying in my favorite phrase: "The 
greatest of all philosophers, the wise and polite Kung-fu-tse, ob- 
serves." The assertion is ridiculous on its face, for Kung died more 
than two thousand years ago.... 

Deep am I in the peace of Ghent. I am haunted by the idea that no 
general historian has given a detailed account of a negotiation. Ban- 

Martfia Cameron. 



THE END OF THE GREENHOUSE 391 

croft slurs the treaty of 1783. I know no model for such a narrative, 
yet it interests me more than war. Is a foreign ideal on record?... 

To Elizabeth Cameron 

QUINCY, 19 August, 1888. 

Did you, or did you not, leave any plants in my greenhouse? The 
question is one which I would gladly have answered in the negative, 
for, ten days ago, I received a series of telegrams and letters from 
Washington, from which, among a mass of incoherent details about 
contractors, storms, plants and Mrs. Durkin's bonnet, we eliminated 
the central idea that, in the process of rebuilding the greenhouse, the 
contractor had removed the sides while he loaded the top, and one 
morning, while Mrs. Durkin was putting on her bonnet, he had come 
in to announce that the whole greenhouse roof was flat on the ground, 
with the plants and Durkin under it. Durkin must have got out, for he 
wrote me the same day a letter in which the i's and h's played hide and 
seek in the least expected corners, but except to inform me that the 
contractor was Bosh, and that I must rebuild the whole place on a 
new plan, he furnished no information even about his own sense of 
wrong. I telegraphed to Ward Thoron to stop building, wind up the 
concern, sell the plants, and convert the place for the time into a sum- 
mer garden. So there is an end of the greenhouse; but I hope you had 
nothing in it, or that whatever you had has not been crushed or sold. 
For the present a garden will remain there, but only for spring and 
autumn purposes. 

I admit to being greatly pleased with this catastrophe, for I wanted 
to have liberty for some newer folly, and the garden was beginning to 
be a bore. . . . 

To John Hay 

QUINCY, 9 Sept., 1888. 


I sit at my desk six hours every day, and spin my web with the in- 
dustry of Anthony Trollope. I can hardly believe my own ears when 
I say that tomorrow my narrative will be finished; all my wicked 
villains will be duly rewarded with Presidencies and the plunder of the 
innocent; all my models of usefulness and intelligence will be fitiy 
punished, and deprived of office and honors; all my stupid people, in- 



392 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

eluding my readers, will be put to sleep for a thousand years; and 
when they wake up, they will find their beards grown to their waists, 
and will rub their eyes, and ask: "Do the crows still fly over Wash- 
ington?"*.. 

To Elizabeth Cameron 

QUINCY, 16 Sept,, 1888. 
**.. 

By October I, I shall begin to start the caravan for Washington 
again, and probably open house on the I5th, if the lady who works for 
the crowned heads of Europe condescends to save you the trouble of 
finding me another cook. I carry back the last volume of my history, 
finished; and I begin at once to print the whole affair. China looms in 
the distance. I believe your husband and the other gentlemen who 
haunt the Capitol, have been trying to pick a quarrel with China so as 
to get me shut out, or massacred when in; but it won't matter. If shut 
out I shall set up an empire of my own on an island by itself, and if 
massacred I shall go straight to Heaven or somewhere else with the 
missionaries. The Senate means well, but it is too well-intentioned for 
its supply of human weaknesses. . . . 

To John Hay 

QUINCY, 23 Sept, 1888. 
.. ...... 

I have composed the last page of my history, and the weather is so 
wet that for a week I've been in vain trying to do Gibbon and walk up 
and down my garden. I wish Gibbon had been subjected to twelve 
inches of rain in six weeks, in which case he would not have waited to 
hear the bare-footed monks sing in the Temple of Jupiter, and would 
have avoided arbors as he would rheumatics. I am sodden with cold 
and damp, and hunger for a change. . . . 

To Elizabeth Cameron 

U. P. CAR oio. ON THE PLATTE RIVER. 
17 October, 1888. 

Here I am again, in your old quarters, still warned that God hates 
a liar, and that Truth is mighty. This time I am taking my baronet * 

1 Sir Robert Cunliffc. 



To CALIFORNIA WITH SIR ROBERT CUNLIFFE 393 

where the sunset beckons. Beyond the night, beyond the day, that 
happy baronet follows me the most delighted and astonished baro- 
net that ever was, because the old car happened to be returning empty 
from Boston, and picked us up at Chicago to carry us over the U.P. 
territory. No Duke ever felt so grand as my modest Sir Robert in his 
own particular car. 

We shall go up to Portland by the Short Line, and then down to San 
Francisco by the new Shasta route. There we shall become mortals 
again, and knock about California for three weeks, before returning 
by way of New Orleans and St. Augustine to Washington, about 
November 27. . . , 

The weather is, even here, cloudy, cold and raw, the plains dull and 
brown, and the wind rough. We shall grumble if the sun fails us to- 
morrow, for we have pursued it as though we were still as young lovers 
as when we pursued the British maidens whose age is now as doubtful 
as that of the geologic reptilians, whose bones Marsh digs from these 
weary plains. As yet our mistress, the sun, has shone but two days 
since we left the coast. I suppose it is because we are growing old. 
Anyway I object. No amount of physical comfort atones for such 
neglect. 

At Chicago Frank McVeagh devoted himself to us, and Mrs. Mc- 
Veagh threw open her exquisite house, to which mine is a cheap log- 
cabin, and asked charming young persons to dine, who made the 
venerable British lion curl his mane and purr with pleasure. I asked 
each of the fascinators to share our ear and hearts, such as they were; 
but as usual they trampled on us, and we were obliged to wander on 
alone, like the last buffalo 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

UNION CLUB, SAN FRANCISCO, 28 October, 1888. 

Robert's arrival broke the long stillness of the summer, and started 
me off, on the I3th, to take him wherever he wanted to go. Since then 
we have wandered steadily westward, four thousand miles, through all 
sorts of scenery and people; stopping at Salt Lake; visiting the Sho- 
shone Falls, which tourists have hardly yet discovered in the lava 
deserts of Idaho; descending the Columbia River in Oregon; and turn- 
ing south seven hundred miles down the Pacific coast till we arrived 
here yesterday morning. I took Robert out to see the sun, setting in a 
hazy summer light over the Pacific; and I offered to take him on, still 
westward, as far as the sun went; but he showed at last the effect of 



394 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

age and travel; he refused to go further, and turned his face eastward. 
Apparently we are at the end. 

I think he has enjoyed the trip, though the work is certainly hard, 
and the fatigue more steadily exhausting than one at first suspects. 
As for me, I am always contented when in motion, and ask no better 
than to wander on. Tomorrow we start for the Yosemite; and when 
we are done with this part of California we shall go south to the Mexi- 
can border, and home to Washington by way of New Orleans. We ex- 
pect to reach Washington about Nov. 25, and Robert sails December 
12 for Liverpool. Robert is the same pleasant travelling companion 
that he was twenty years ago, and takes life as gaily and with as much 
appreciation as ever. I am heartily glad to have this outing with him, 
for the chance is small that we should ever renew our youth in any 
other way. We sometimes speculate whether you would enjoy our 
adventures, such as they are; and whether you would be intolerably 
bored by suffocating dust and jouncing carts; vast sand deserts, and 
barren sage-brush plains, over which one has to travel, day and night, 
without much sleep, till one's ideas of the world become altogether 
upset, and even the solidest Yorkshire valet gets tired of wondering 
where the country-seats are. Fortunately Robert brought no valet, 
and we carry our own dust, inch deep, with a green reflet, in patience, 
without being obliged to dust a servant too. I expect to find Robert 
quite ground away, as by a sand-blast, before I get him across the 
great American plains 

At this distance I think even Ireland seems a less overpowering 
element in the cosmos than it seems nearer home; and one finds the 
Chinaman take the place of the ubiquitous Irishman, politics and all. 
Both are rather a bore; but the Chinaman bores one in a new way, as 
Dr. Johnson said of the poet Gray 

To Elizabeth Cameron 

YOSEMITE VALLEY 
Sunday, 4 Nov., 1888. 

With the deepest contrition for having disobeyed and offended you, 
I must still confess that here we are in the Yosemite Valley, and, un- 
like the ambitious youth Rasselas, we are anything but eager to leave 
it. Last night a little rain fell die first since April and today all 
the hills are white, and the pines powdered with snow. I have just re- 
turned from a long day in the mountains, where the fresh snow was 
about us, and where I felt myself a modified, though deteriorated, 



THE BARONET SEEING AMERICA 395 

black bear, with strong prejudices against civilisation. In this spirit, 
inflamed by an atmosphere of third-rate Britishers created by a party 
of belated globe-trotters who have drifted here to our perdition, I am 
trying to reconcile myself with my fellow-man by writing to you, who 
are the chief reconciling element. For the moment the Yosemite is a 
good enough Gobi for me; but, though I feel ashamed to say so to you, 
it is true that the other day, arriving at San Francisco, I took my 
baronet out to the Cliff House, where the Pacific was rolling in its 
long surf in the light of a green and yellow sunset; and there I pointed 
to the Golden Gate and challenged the baronet to go on with me. 
Ignominiously he turned his back on all that glory, and set his face 
eastward for his dear fogs; and I, too, for the time, submitted; but the 
longing was as strong as ever 

My baronet has enjoyed his journey, which has indeed been a suc- 
cession of rapid and fantastic changes such as even I 3 who have trav- 
elled in America occasionally could hardly take in. When I wrote to 
you from the Platte Valley we were already well shaken up to new 
sensations. We had or he had seen Tuxedo, Chicago, and U.P. 
Car oio which was the loftiest emotion of all; but the next day he 
learned what sagebrush was; the third, he saw Salt Lake and passed 
an afternoon wandering along its shores; next he had a sensation 
watching the Utah Mountains for a whole day, which ended by bring- 
ing us to Shoshone. You should have seen us two animated dust- 
heaps driving across twenty-five miles of fluid dust and solid lava to 
see Shoshone Falls, and clambering down and up that pleasing ravine, 
much as though we slid down from Table Rock by a rope. My legs 
ached for a week, and my very hat stood on end with terror, but this 
was a trifle compared to its condition when the mainspring of our 
wagon broke, on the way back, and the baronet and I were bumped 
for twelve miles of solid lava blocks in a solider dust, till we regained 
our car. Then we struck a furious storm on the summit of the Oregon 
mountains, and ran twenty miles down-hill over trees corduroying the 
track; but I preferred this to running over cows, as in Idaho, though 
the cows are perhaps a softer road-bed. We went down the Dalles by 
steamer, with a rain-accompaniment, and saw Portland through a 
water-fall heavier than the Shoshone. The day passed in running by 
Mt. Shasta in northern California was another sensation worth hav- 
ing; but we found San Francisco dull in spite of its swell club-house; 
and we lost our glory when we left our car. 

Last Monday night we started for the Sierras and arrived here 
Wednesday afternoon. Since then we have passed a year or two in the 



396 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

amusement of climbing the face of cliffs three thousand feet high, and 
standing on their edge afterwards. This sensation certainly takes 
away one's breath, if that is its object, and at last I have struck on the 
edge business, leaving it to the baronet on the principle that his son 
may just as well succeed now as later to the baronetcy. I prefer to 
break my own neck short of three thousand feet, not requiring so 
much time as the Britisher for reflection in the air. Tomorrow we go 
after the big trees, another sensation. Then we go back to San Fran- 
cisco; thence to Monterey, Santa Barbara and New Orleans, and 
finally to Washington on or about the 25th 

My baronet is a charming companion, and I am but an indifferent 
one whose only virtue is a willingness to go anywhere and stay as long 
or as short a time as he likes, and whose chief vice is to discuss geology 
by the hour without understanding the first principle of it. If I bore 
him, he does not bore me, but is appreciative, and quite hostile to all 
useful information. Even the lurid figure of Mr. Gladstone has been 
temporarily overshadowed in his mind by the cliffs and forests of the 
Yosemite, and we shall cast our votes on Tuesday among the big trees, 
indifferent to what political party they belong. I do not believe them 
to be republican, democratic or Gladstonian, but if they are either, 
more's the pity, and they may yet live to forget it. ... 

To Elizabeth Cameron 

CHARLESTON CLUB, 23 February, 1889. 

I am very doubtful whether I can ever return to Washington. My 
decline in morals and manners, owing to the evil influences of Tom 
Lee and Willy Phillips has been so rapid as to leave little hope of ulti- 
mate recovery. I am afraid to look Martha in the face, and dare not 
meet you until I am purified by the moral atmosphere of the new ad- 
ministration. My two companions have led me into wild excesses. 
We succeeded in getting, with much difficulty, to a light-house where 
Tom Lee was to shoot ducks, and Phillips was to enjoy perpetual sum- 
mer. The summer began by landing in an open boat, after breaking a 
quarter of a mile of ice with oars, and then wading through a mile of 
half frozen swamp. Tom's shooting consisted in chasing ducks over 
ponds; and, as ducks fly rather faster than lightning, we had nothing 
but cold boiled pork and potato to eat. Getting tired of this sport, we 
tried to escape from North Carolina, but escape was impossible. After 
long imprisonment we seized an open boat, and made a perilous voyage 
in Arctic cold, to Roanoke island. There we were detained a week or 



WITH SIR ROBERT IN THE SOUTH 397 

two, searching for the lost colony of Sir Walter Raleigh. A steamer at 
last passed near, and we hailed her at midnight from the shore. She 
took us aboard and carried us to Little Washington, a sweet tranquil 
spot, but one from which no man was ever known to come away. By 
this time which was just a week ago we were reduced to extreme 
despair, and my two companions could only sustain themselves by 
obliging me to learn euchre and poker, by means of which they took 
away all my money, leaving me no resource but to follow them as long 
as they would pay my expenses. They dragged me on board a small 
steamer at three o'clock one morning, and carried me fifty or sixty 
miles up the Tar River. There, at a spot called Tarbow, they landed, 
and after another night of anguish, owing to Tom Lee's aversion to 
drummers, we caught the first train that came by. It happened to be 
bound south on the Atlantic Coast Line, and I found myself at 
Charleston the next morning, in a drenching rain, cold as Archangel, 
and dirty as an Esquimau. 

Tomorrow these savage men are to take me to Savannah. From 
there I know not what to expect. I have overheard Tom Lee talking 
of a ball, with which your name was coupled, and which seemed to be 
expected for the week after next. Perhaps I may be carried back to 
Washington, if he wants to go to the ball; or perhaps I may be sent to 
some spot still more dreadful than North Carolina, if there is one. I 
am at their mercy, and shall continue to play euchre and eat shad as 
long as life holds out 

To Charles Milnes Gaskett 

WASHINGTON, 21 April, 1889. 
** 

Robert and I ceased our wanderings only in December, and I started 
again in six weeks to pass the month of February knocking about an 
unknown region called the North Carolina Sounds, a vast wilderness 
of sand, mud and forest, populated by wild ducks and a genial fish 
called the shad. When March began, I had to return, for the printers 
could no longer be neglected, and I have made my contract for pub- 
lishing the eternal history which has been the bore of my friends and 
myself for ten years. The first two volumes are pretty nearly ready, 
and will appear, I suppose, either in the summer or autumn, to be 
followed by the rest as fast as the publisher pleases. The printing and 
preparing tie me down quite tight, so that I shall not run away again 
till all is finished. . . . 



398 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

We have had a change of administration here which has interested 
many people, but makes little difference to the world or society. I know 
not a man in the new lot, high or low, and for the first time in thirty 
years, have not an acquaintance in the cabinet. Acquaintances grow 
somewhat scarce, at best, as one becomes more exacting with age. 
The dread of a bore grows to horror. John Hay remains my only com- 
panion, but he too starts for England in three weeks 

Our new minister to London, who is known familiarly here as Bob 
Lincoln, will, I hope, be liked. He is a good fellow, rather heavy, but 
pleasant and sufficiently intelligent. I have known him slightly for 
some years. Hay has known him since childhood, and is very intimate 
with him. Unless Hay himself were to have the place, Lincoln was as 
good a man as was likely to be sent. . . . 

To Elizabeth Cameron 

WASHINGTON, 19 May, 1889. 

Theodore Roosevelt was at Lodge's. You know the poor wretch has 
consented to be Civil Service Commissioner and is to be with us in 
Washington next winter with his sympathetic little wife. He is search- 
ing for a house. I told him he could have this if he wanted it; but 
nobody wants my houses though I offer them freely for nothing. I 
went to talk Central Asia with Rosen the other day, and Rosen com- 
plained of the rents charged at Beverly. I told him I had two houses 
there, either of which he might have for nothing; but he will go on, 
just die same, scolding about rents. Luckily he offers no objection to 
our Asiatic Mystery, and I expect to make a sort of Marco Polo cara- 
van. History bids fair to get quickly out of the way. By next January 
I hope it will be finished 

To Elizabeth Cameron 

WASHINGTON, 2 June, 1889. 

In half an hour I must start for New York and Boston, and I intend 
to amuse myself for the last half hour by writing a word to you. The 
town is at an end. Everyone except Justice Gray 1 and Secretary 
Bayard 3 has got married or gone, and those two Arcadians are to get 
married and go next week. By way of celebration we have had rains 

1 Horace Gray (1828-1902) married, June 4, 1889, ]*&* Matthews. 
a Thomas Francis Bayard married. May 7, 1889, Mary W. Clymer. 



DEATH OF ABIGAIL BROWN ADAMS 399 

oh, but real rains that you read about. At the first glimpse of sunshine 
yesterday I started off on Daisy to see what was left of the universe. 
I found all the old bridges gone on Rock Creek, and had to come down 
to our new bridge to cross, where Martha's little waterfall quite roared. 
Rock Creek tumbled like the rapids at Niagara. I came across, and 
down to the Potomac about half way to the Chain Bridge. The whole 
thing was running loose. The canal was busted and running like an 
insane mule. The river was quite superb. I raced with casks and 
beams, but they beat me, though Daisy was going an easy seven miles. 
This morning, Pennsylvania Avenue is flooded and the trains and 
steamers can't run. I am going to try the B. & O. train at noon, for I 
must meet King and La Farge at dinner at seven, but I doubt whether 
even the B. & O. will get me through. . . . 

Quincy, 9 June. On arriving here last Tuesday evening I found my 
mother already unconscious and rapidly sinking. She died Thursday 
night, without recovering consciousness or speech. The decline was so 
rapid that I knew nothing of it till I arrived, although we were aware 
that it was likely to happen at any time 

Apparently I am to be the last of the family to occupy this house 
which has been our retreat in all times of trouble for just one hundred 
years. I suppose if two Presidents could come back here to eat out 
their hearts in disappointment and disgust, one of their unknown de- 
scendants can bore himself for a single season to close up the family 
den. None of us want it, or will take it. We have too many houses al- 
ready, and no love for this 

To Anna Cabot Mills Lodge 

QUINCY, 1 8 June, 1889. 
DEAR MRS. LODGE, 

Many thanks for your kind letter. 

I return brother Sturgis's remarks, which were evidently meant for 
feminine sympathies rather than for criticism. Of course I sympathize, 
but can't tell him so. Our conclusions are too far apart. Sturgis is, 
like everyone else, bound to find Paradise in this world, and seems to 
be in dead earnest. Thousands and millions of men have taken his 
road before, with more or less satisfaction, but the mass of mankind 
have settled to the conviction that the only Paradise possible in this 
world is concentrated in the three little words which the ewig man 
says to the ewige woman. Sturgis calls this the Fireside, and thinks he 
knows better. He looks for his Paradise in absorption in the Infinite. 



400 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Probably the result will be the same. Sooner or later, fate commonly 
gets bored by the restless man who requires Paradise, and sets its foot 
on him with so much energy that he curls up and never wriggles again. 
When Sturgis can't squirm any longer, and suddenly realizes that 
Paradise is a dream, and the dream over, I fear that he is too sensitive 
a nature to stand the shock, and perhaps it wouldn't be worth his 
while to try. 

I am very hard at work for the summer, and still looking for that 
Japanese box which comes not though it should. Thanks for your 
kind invitation. If I go anywhere I shall certainly come to you. Tell 
Constance I am in despair about her dress. Ever truly yours. 

To Ehzabeth Cameron 

QUINCY, 27 June, 1889. 

Your letter fromTRaith, written at the news of my mother's death, 
reached me yesterday, and today I see the announcement of your 
father-in-law's death x 

I know that Mr. Cameron's death must be an event of very serious 
consequences to your husband and his family, but I know too little 
what consequences to expect, to be able to say anything about it. I 
have been through all these experiences recently, and know only that 
nothing is to be said. 

A million thanks for your kind sympathy with me. The world has 
some slight compensations for its occasional cruelties. I suppose, for 
instance, that in gradually deadening the senses it cuts away the un- 
pleasant as well as the pleasant. As I walk in the garden and the fields 
I recall distinctly the acuteness of odors when I was a child, and I re- 
member how greatly they added to the impression made by scenes and 
places. Now I catch only a sort of suggestion of the child's smells and 
lose all the pleasure, but at least do not get the disgusts. Life is not 
worth much when the senses are cut down to a kind of dull conscious- 
ness, but it is at least painless. As for me, waste no sympathy. My 
capacity for suffering is gone 

To John Hay 

QUINCY, 21 July, 1889. 
*...... .. 

By this time you are on the Eiffel Tower or Mont Blanc or some 
such treiffel, enjoying the change of climate, and the cotehttes b la 

1 Simon Cameron died June 26, 1889. 



A GHOST'S WORLD 401 

Boulangerc. I can not follow you. My range of vision does not extend 
beyond Nahant. My excitement is going to Baseball matches with 
my nephews and nieces. We saw your Cleveland heroes beat our 
Boston swells, and Chicago get a severe rebuke from us. Unfortu- 
nately I have not seen John L. Sullivan, though I would go far to 
do^so, nor have I read the report of his famous battle, nor heard a 
word of Clarence King, nor been to stay with Mrs. Cabot Lodge, 
though I see that both Cabot and Teddy Roosevelt are on the shop- 
counters in apparent self-satisfaction, which makes me as sick as 
Possum 1 to reflect that I too can no longer avoid that disgusting and 
drivelling exhibition of fatuous condescension. All books should be 
posthumous except those which should be buried before death, and 
they should stay buried.... 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

WASHINGTON, 24 November, 1889. 

I have lost count of our letters, and remember only that I have 
heard nothing from you for a very long time. Lucidly time no longer 
affects me. I have become as indifferent as the Egyptian Sphinx to 
the passage of centuries, and my friends always remain young because 
I don't see them. You can't imagine how pleasantly I remember 
England, and how very much alive you all are, though you have been 
dead or quarrelled these many years. 

I am as dead as a mummy myself, but don't mind it. As a ghost I 
am rather a success in a small way, not to the world, but to my own 
fancy, which I presume to be a ghost's world, as it is mine. Things run 
by with spectre-like silence and quickness. As I never leave my house, 
and never see a newspaper, and never remember what I am told, the 
devil might get loose and wander about the world for months before I 
should meet him, and then I should not know who he was. You can 
have no idea how still and reposeful, and altogether gentlemanly a 
place the world is, till you leave it. 

Spring Rice has come back again with a dozen or so of admirals 
whom he is personally conducting about the dangers of youth and 
ocean. Occasionally he shelters them with me for a while, to rest a bit 
and doze over my dinner-table. They seem a temperate set, and I 
don't fear their dozing under it. The town is filled with all sorts of 
foreigners on all sorts of conferences about the most ridiculous trifles, 
such as trade with Patagonia, and fog-horns. Spring Rice runs the 

1 His dog. 



402 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

fog-horns, and so I hear them. He has broken down Admiral Mure 
Molyneux and one tough old sea-captain by dissipation, and has 
packed them off to sea to get well. In another fortnight he will have 
worn out the lot, and will be the only admiral left. . . . 

I have thrown upon the cold world two children in the shape of 
volumes, the first of eight or ten of which I am to be delivered. As they 
lost all interest for me long ago, I cannot believe that they would in- 
terest my friends, so I have sent no copies about. If any American 
should ask if I sent them to you, say Yes, and that you have read 
them with much pleasure. The conversation will not go further, and 
both of us will have made a proper appearance before posterity. . . . 



XIV 
HONOLULU AND THE SOUTH SEAS 

1890 
To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

WASHINGTON, 13 April, 1890 


I have not sent you my history for the reason that I do not think it 
a pleasant book for English reading, and do not care to send my old 
friends anything that would annoy them. In case you should hear it 
spoken ill of, you can always plead ignorance, and if you hear it spoken 
well of, you can smile acquiescence. Half of it is now out. The rest 
will follow in the autumn. 

By that time I expect to be a pirate in the South Seas. In thus 
imitating Robert Louis Stevenson I am inspired by no wish for fame 
or future literary or political notoriety, or even by motives of health, 
but merely by a longing to try something new and different. Civilisa- 
tion becomes an intolerable bore at moments, and I never could abide 
an eternity of hares and rabbits, Ireland or protective duties. As the 
English speaking world seems content to busy itself with these practi- 
cal pursuits, I mean to take a vacation; but I know not where or how 
long. Anything may happen even my reappearance in Europe. 

To Charles Milnes Gaskell 

WASHINGTON, 4 July, 1890. 

The summer waxes and still I hang on here, detained by the last 
sheet of Index, and by hopes of taking John La Farge with me again 
this time to the South Seas. Hay also remains here, held by the last 
sheets of his great work, and we bask in the tropical heat of this empty 
city, alone in our houses. Hay gets north next week. My own move- 
ments are uncertain, but I am liable any day to start for San Fran- 
cisco and Samoa. I shall need no preparation, for every last order is 
given, my trunks are ready for packing, and my wardrobe is ready 
also. I have fitted myself out for two years in the South Seas; but the 
length of my absence will depend wholly on my feelings. I may re- 
turn in two months, if I find myself more bored there than here. I may 



404 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

be gone for twenty years if I find myself more bored here than there. 
I may turn up in England for a change, and you need not be surprised 
any fine day in April or May to see me walk into your breakfast room. 
Time is nothing to me, and health is the only unknown element of 
travel. Barring illness or accident I may go anywhere and do any- 
thing. 

My disease is ennui, probably the result of prolonged labor on one 
work, and of nervous strain. The reaction of having nothing to do 
after steady labor without change for so many years, is severe. Prob- 
ably it will rapidly disappear with travel. It has hitherto always done 
so. ... 



To Elizabeth Cameron 

NEW YORK, 16 August, 1890. 

I arrived here at half past twelve last night, and now that I have 
finished packing, paid for my tickets and stateroom, bought my last 
little pair of shoes (I have now a dozen, I think,) and nothing more to 
do but look after La FargeVho is struggling with the whole Inferno, I 
find your note of yesterday, and take a rest in answering it, or at least 
in acknowledging it. As I wrote you a line from the Lodges', yours is 
already answered. 

I never felt the sensation before of hurrying about with a hundred 
things on my mind, and only one thing in it. The prepossession made 
me forget even my last proof-sheets, which must now go to Dwight. I 
am also a stranger of late years to the choking sensation of depart- 
ure, and hardly know whether to be glad or sorry at feeling it once 
more. Until now I never fairly realised that life has become mainly a 
series of farewells. 

So be it, since it can be nothing else La Farge I saw at nine 
o'clock. He had then three pictures to paint, two windows to lead, 
and his packing to do, but promised to be ready at four o'clock. He 
was very gay and impecunious as ever, and is going to take his Japan- 
ese boy with him. To my constant amusement he always ends with 
the same grave serenity that he shall do this at his own expense. 1 ... 

(In pencil.) 6.45. Here we are en route, without delay, running 
along die Hudson. La Farge is in high spirits, and already flattering 
himself with the appointment of court painter to the King of 1 the 
Sandwich Islands. . . . 

1 The artist also wrote letters descriptive of scenes and impressions which were published in 
1912 is Reminiscences of tfie South Se^ illustrated by a number of his studies in colors. 



ON THE WAY TO HONOLULU WITH LA FARGE 405 

To Elizabeth Cameron 

"ZEALANDIA," TUESDAY, 26 August, 1890. 
* 

As usual, the sea off California was up-and-down, swash and roll, 
trying as possible to a landsman, but it moderated a little yesterday, 
and we got on our legs again. We do not go to meals, but this is chiefly 
because the boat is full, and our seats offer no attractions. Our state- 
rooms are pleasant, on deck, airy and private, and there we live, read- 
ing, sleeping, and now writing. Presently I shall get out my water- 
colors, and try to set La Farge to painting. The sky is thick and we 
have had little sun, but occasionally the sea is intensely blue. On the 
whole I see nothing peculiar about it. In fact I am disappointed. 
I thought that half way to the Islands I should feel the charm of 
tropical seas; but it is very like the Atlantic at the same sea- 
son, and just now the sky is gray and the water almost muddy in 
color 

Thursday, 2,8/A. If one must go to sea, these are certainly the seas to 
go to. Day after day we roll lazily along, the north-east trades blow- 
ing us gently ahead and never a change in their force or direction. The 
air is exquisitely soft; the sky always cloudy with broken masses of 
warm grey water-clouds, and now and then the sun comes out on a 
patch of blue sky, and shows us an ocean so intensely blue that the eye 
wonders whether the color is not really black. The ship is well enough 
if not good; of the passengers I know nothing. La Farge remains as al- 
ways the pleasantest of companions. It is now seven o'clock in the 
morning, and I am now taking my cup of early tea. Then I will read 
an hour on deck. I shall pass several hours trying to sketch the water 
and sky, with queer results, and I shall swear at my own stupidity for 
an hour or two more. The evening will be given to indolence and 
drowsiness over cigars on deck in the dusk, watching the water and 
struggling moon. Then bed at ten, and so in forty-eight hours we 
sight Molokai. 

Friday, tyth. The flying-fish are usually my only variety of sight, 
and they amuse me perpetually, for they really fly long distances 
fifty or a hundred yards and look like exaggerated dragon-flies, 
sometimes as large as a mackerel; but yesterday we had a sunset that 
roused us all. Such softness of greys, violets, purples, reds and blues 
you will never see, for you will never venture into these deserts. After- 
wards came a full moon, with light clouds, and it seemed to set every- 
one to singing and spooning. When I went to bed, I undressed by 



406 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

light of the moon's reflection on an intensely blue sea at ten o'clock 
at night a strange, tropical effect. 

Saturday ', ysth* 7 A.M. Molokai is in sight on our left, a dim bank in 
fog, and Oahu ahead, a higher range of hills behind which is our port, 
Honolulu. The air is still soft as the clouds, which are always a deli- 
cate violet that makes sunset and moonrise equally refined. At ten 
o'clock we shall arrive, and already the Sandwiches seem companions 
of one's youth, familiar as La Fayette Square. 

Honolulu, Sunday -, Aug. 31. We arrived yesterday morning at ten 
o'clock, and having established ourselves at the hotel, breakfasted and 
got up our enormous baggage-train, we started out at two to find Mr. 
W. O. Smith, my friend Hartwell's brother-in-law, to whom I brought 
a letter. We discovered him at his office, expecting us, and, after a 
very short preamble, he drove us up to Hartwell's house. The drive of 
about two miles was amusing as a comedy, and full of "Look at that!" 
and "What is that?" and "What good eyes she has!" and so on, but 
I can't stop to speak of Kanakas or palms or banyans or reds or purples 
or flowers or night-gown costumes or old-gold women with splashes of 
color, but must hurry to our house which we reached at last over a 
turf avenue between rows of palms. We were half an hour in getting 
into it, for it was closed, and John, the keeper, was missing; but we 
had enough to do in looking about. The place is at the mouth of a 
broad mountain-valley opening out behind Honolulu, and overlooking 
the town and harbor, to the long line of white surf some three miles 
away, and then over the purple ocean indefinitely southward. The 
sense of space, light and color, in front, is superb, and the greater 
from the contrast behind, where the eye rests on a Scotch mountain- 
valley, ending in clouds and mist, and green mountain-sides absolutely 
velvety with the liquid softness of its lights and shadows. Showers 
and mist perpetually swept down the valley and moistened the grass, 
but about us, and to the southward, the sky was always blue and the 
sun shining. The day was hot in the town, and the air like a green- 
house, but up here the north-east trade-wind blew dehciously. As for 
the grounds, they were a mass of palms, ferns, roses, many-colored 
flowers, creepers interspersed with the yellow fruit of the limes, and 
unknown trees and shrubs of vaguely tropical suggestions, all a little 
neglected, and as though waiting for us. The house when we got into 
it was large, for Hartwell has seven or eight children, and there was an 
ample supply of all ordinary things. Both La Farge and I were eager 
to move in at once. Mr. Smith drove us back to the town at five 
o'clock, and helped us to order our house-keeping necessaries; and I 



HONOLULU 407 



never but once saw La Farge so much amused and delighted with 
everything he saw, as in this afternoon's excitement where all was new 
and full of life and color. We dined at the hotel, and at eight o'clock 
reached our house again, and installed ourselves. While our rooms 
were made ready we sat on the verandah and smoked. The full moon 
rose behind us and threw a wonderful light as far as the ocean-horizon. 
On the terrace were twin palm trees, about fifty feet high, glistening in 
the moonlight, and their long leaves waving, and, as Stoddard r says, 
"beckoning" and rustling in the strong gusts, with the human sug- 
gestion of distress which the palm alone among trees conveys to me. 
La Farge never understood or felt the palm-tree, and I am a bit con- 
ceited at thinking that last night I brought him to a true way of 
thinking. Then we took some supper, and I eat my first mango, 
which, rather to my surprise, I found delicious, a little acid, and smooth 
as oil to the tongue. Therewith, after a sleepy, palmy, moon-light, trop- 
ical pipe, we went to bed, with doubts of centipedes and quadrupeds, 
but with the consciousness of a day full of boyish fun and frolic. . . . 
Tuesday y Sept. 2 We are established as quietly as we should be 
at Beverly. As yet we have not even taken a drive, and our only visit 
to the town was last evening at sunset to buy Apollinaris and soap. 
Our cook is expected to-day. We have not even left our letters of in- 
troduction or made a call, and not a word has been said about going off 
to the other islands, or our trip to the volcano Although this is only 
our third day of Kanaka paradise, we are as lazy as though it were our 
third year. Yet La Farge has been out with his paint-box every day, 
and brings home, or rather brings in, wild daubs of brown and purple 
which faintly suggest hills and our great storm-cloud that we keep, so 
to speak, in our stable-yard, for it seems always to hang there. My 
own water-color diversions are not so amusing, but look like young 
ladies' embroidery of the last generation. If I could learn to paint 
like Martha, I should do wonders, but I cannot reach so far into high 
art, and only try to do like Turner or Rembrandt, or something easy 
and simple, which ends in my drawing a very bad copy of my own 
ignorance; but it has the charm that I felt as a boy about going fishing: 
I recognise that I am catching no fish on this particular day, but I feel 
always as though I might get a bite tomorrow. As far as I can see, 
La Farge gets no more, and is equally disappointed with every new 
attempt. I mean to photograph everything so that you may see it all, 
but photography is no longer an amusement now that it is all me- 
chanical, and you have fifty pictures in half an hour.... 

1 Charles Warren Stoddard. 



408 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Sept. 5. We are lazy and dread more ocean, but we have been to 
breakfast with Judge Dole and to dinner with Mr. Dillingham, and 
Mr. Bishop has shown me his kihalis, and his new Museum, and I have 
ridden on the ambling rocking-horse of the island, and I have driven 
La Farge up the Nuuanu valley, where we live, to the great divide or 
pass, Pali, five or six miles up, where the lava cliff suddenly drops 
down to the sea-level, and one looks northward over green valleys and 
brown headlands to where the ocean, two or three miles distant, is 
breaking in curves and curls along the coast. The view is one of the 
finest I ever saw, and quite smashed La Farge. Yet I am amused to 
think what my original idea was of what the island would be like. I 
conceived it as a forest-clad cluster of volcanoes, with fringing beaches 
where natives were always swimming, and I imagined that when I 
should leave the beach I should be led by steep paths through dense 
forests to green glades where native girls said Aloha and threw gar- 
lands round your neck, and where you would find straw huts of un- 
parallelled cleanliness always in terraces looking over a distant ocean a 
thousand feet below. The reality, though beautiful, is quite different. 
The mountains are like Scotch moors, without woods, presenting an 
appearance of total bareness. One drives everywhere over hard roads, 
and can go to most places about Honolulu by horse-car or railroad. 
On the other islands, travel is more on horseback, but the stories of 
cockroaches and centipedes, not to mention scorpions, make one's 
teeth chatter; and the mosquitoes, at night, are as bad as at Beverly. 
The absence of tropical sensation is curious. One would come here to 
escape summer. The weather is divine, but the heat never rises above 
84, and at night the thermometer always stands at 75 with a strong 
breeze too strong to sit in. After our July in Washington I feel as 
though I had run away to a cool climate, although the sense of a con- 
stant temperature is a constant surprise. . . . 

To Elizabeth Cameron 

STEAMER "W. G. HALL." 13 Sept., 1890. 

At sea again, or rather in port, for just now, at seven o'clock in the 
morning, we are leaving the little village of Kailua, and running along 
the south coast of the island of Hawaii. We tore ourselves yesterday 
morning from our comforts at Honolulu, and after a day and night of 
seasick discomfort on a local steamer, filled with natives, we are now 
in sight of Mauna Loa, and at evening shall land at Punaluu on the 
extreme south-eastern end of the island. As I detest mountains, 



THE HAWAIIANS 409 



abominate volcanoes, and execrate the sea, the effort is a tremendous 
one; but I make it from a sense of duty to the savages who killed 
Captain Cook just about here a century ago. One good turn deserves 
another. Perhaps they will kill me. I never saw a place where killing 
was less like murder. The ocean is calm and blue; the air so warm that 
I turned out of my sleepless berth at the first light of dawn. The huge 
flat bulk of Mauna Loa stretches down an interminable slope ahead of 
us, with the strange voluptuous charm peculiar to volcanic slopes, 
which always seem to invite you to lie down on them and caress them; 
the shores are rocky and lined with palms; the mountain-sides are 
green, and packed with dark tufts of forest; the place is an island 
paradise, made of lava; and the native boats queer long coffins 
with an outrigger on one side resting in the water are now coming 
out at some new landing-place, bringing mangoes, pine-apples, melons 
and alligator-pears, all which I am somewhat too nauseated to eat. 
Our steamer is filled with plaintive-looking native women the old- 
gold variety who vary in expression between the ferocious look of 
the warriors who worshipped Captain Cook and then killed him, and 
the melancholy of a generation obliged to be educated by mission- 
aries. They have a charm in this extraordinary scope of expressions 
which run from tenderness to ferocity in a single play of feature, but I 
prefer the children, who are plaintive and sea-sick in stacks about the 
decks, and lie perfectly still, with their pathetic dark eyes expressing 
all sorts of vague sensations evidently more or less out of gear with the 
cosmos. The least sympathetic character is the occasional white man. 
Third-rate places seldom attract even third-rate men, but rather 
ninth-rate samples, and these are commonly the white men of tropical 
islands. I prefer the savages who were at least the high chiefs 
great swells and very much gentlemen and killed Captain Cook. . . . We 
have been ashore to see where Captain Cook was killed, a hot little 
lava oven where the cliffs rise sharp over deep water some old 
crater-hole of all sorts of intense blue. 1 Only a hut was there> don- 
keys and mules, a few natives and a swarm of crabs jumping over the 
red rocks by the black-blue water. Mauna Loa slopes back for forty 
miles.*.. 

KILAUEA VOLCANO HOUSE, Monday y Sept. 15. 7 A.M. Our pilgrim- 
age is effected at last. I am looking, from the porch of the inn, down 
on the black floor of the crater, and its steaming and smoking lake, 
now chilled over, some two or three miles away, at the crater's farther 
end. More impressive to my fancy is the broad sloping mass of Mauna 

1 Kaawaloa, in La Farge, 38. 



410 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

Loa which rises beyond, ten thousand feet above us, a mass of rugged 
red lava, scored by deeper red or black streaks down its side, but Book- 
ing softer than babies' flesh in this lovely morning sunlight, and tinged 
above its red with the faintest violet vapor. I adore mountains 
from below. Like other deities, they should not be trodden upon. As 
La Farge remarked yesterday when I said that the ocean looked quiet 
enough: "It is quiet if you don't fool with it. How would you like to 
be sailed upon?" The natives still come up here and sit on the water's 
edge to look down at the residence of their great Goddess, but they 
never go down into it. They say they're not rich enough. The pre- 
sents cost too much. Mrs. Dominus, the king's sister, and queen-ex- 
pectant, came up here in the year 1885, and brought a black pig, two 
roosters, champagne, red handkerchiefs, and a whole basket of pre- 
sents, which were all thrown on the lava lake. The pig, having his legs 
tied, squealed half an hour before he was thoroughly roasted, and one 
of the roosters escaped to an adjoining rock, but was recaught and 
immersed. Only princesses are rich enough to do the thing suitably, 
and as Mrs. Dominus is a Sunday-school Christian, she knows how to 
treat true deities. As for me, I prefer the bigger and handsomer 
Mauna Loa, and I routed La Farge out at six o'clock or was it five 
to sketch it with its top red with the first rays of the sun We had 
a lovely day's drive yesterday up here, over grassy mountain-sides, 
and through lava beds sprinkled with hot-house shrubs and ferns. The 
air is delicious, and the temperature, when the clouds veil the sun, is 
perfect either for driving or walking. If we can only escape the steamer 
on the windward side ! but that implies sixty miles of horseback, partly 
in deluges of rain. 

HILO, Seft. 1 8. If you do not know where Hilo is don't look for it 
on the map. One's imagination is the best map for travellers. You 
may remember Hilo best because it is the place where Clarence King's 
waterfall of old-gold girls was situated. The waterfall is still here, just 
behind the Severance house where we are staying. Mrs. Severance 
took us down there half an hour ago. She said nothing about the girls, 
but she did say that the boys used habitually to go over the fall as 
their after-school amusement; but of late they have given it up, and 
must be paid for doing it. The last man who jumped off the neighbor- 
ing high rock required fifteen dollars. Mrs. Severance told this sadly, 
mourning over the decline of the arts and of surf-bathing. A Bostonian 
named Brigham took a clever photograph of a boy, just half way 
down, the fall being perhaps twelve or fifteen feet. So passes the glory 
of Hawaii, and of the old-gold girl woe is me! 



VOLCANOES 411 



As La Farge aptly quoted yesterday from some wise traveller's ad- 
vice to another, a propos of volcanoes: "You will be sorry if you go 
there, and you will be sorry if you don't go there, so I advise you to 
go." We went. The evening before last we tramped for two hours 
across rough blocks and layers of black glass; then tumbled down 
more broken blocks sixty or eighty feet into another hole; then scram- 
bled half way down another crater three in succession, one inside 
the other and sat down to look at a steaming black floor below us, 
which ought to have been red-hot and liquid, spouting fountains of 
fire, but was more like an engine house at night with two or three 
engines letting off steam and showing head-lights. The scene had a 
certain vague grandeur as night came on, and the spots of fire glowed 
below while the new moon looked over the cliff above; but I do not 
care to go there again, nor did I care even to go down the odd thirty 
or forty feet to the surface of the famous lake of liquid fire. It was 
more effective, I am sure, the less hard one hit one's nose on it. We 
tramped back in the dark; our lanterns went out, and we were more 
than three hours to the hotel. . . . 

Tomorrow we start, through mud and gulches of torrents, on a five 
days' ride to Kawaihae, eighty miles to the westward, where we take 
steamer again. If you will believe it, I do this to avoid a day's sea- 
sickness. 

STEAMER "KiNAU," Tuesday, 23 Sept. I take it all back. Hawaii is 
fascinating, and I could dream away months here. Yet dreaming has 
not been my standard amusement of late. Never have I done such 
hard and continuous travelling as during the last ten days, since leav- 
ing Honolulu. I have told you how we reached Hilo. Friday morning 
early we left Hilo, according to our plan, with a circus of horses, to 
ride eighty miles, divided into four days. Rain was falling as we drove 
out the first eight miles to take horse at the end of the road, but we 
started off like Pantagruel, and in an hour arrived at a lovely cove or 
ravine called Onomea, where La Farge sketched till noon; one of the 
sweetest spots on earth where the land and ocean meet like lovers, and 
the natives still look almost natural. That afternoon we rode eight 
miles further. The sky cleared; the sun shone; the breeze blew; the 
road was awful, in deep holes of mud, with rocky canons to climb 
down and up at every half mile; but I never enjoyed anything in 
travel more thoroughly than I did this. Every ravine was more beau- 
tiful than the last, and each was a true Paul and Virginia idyll, wildly 
lovely in ways that made one forget life. The intensely blue ocean 
foamed into the mouths of still inlets, saturated with the tropical green 



412 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

of ferns and dense woods, and a waterfall always made a background, 
with its sound of running water above the surf. The afternoon repaid 
all my five thousand miles of weariness, even though we had to pass 
the night at one of Spreckles' sugar plantations where saturnine 
Scotchmen and a gentle-spoken Gloucestershire housekeeper enter- 
tained us till seven o'clock Saturday morning; when we started off 
again over the same mud-holes and through more canons, which dis- 
turbed La Farge because the horses were not noble animals and war- 
ranted little confidence; but to me the enjoyment was perfect. At 
noon we lunched at another plantation where a rather pretty little 
German-American woman, of the bride class, entertained us very 
sweetly, and closed our enjoyment by playing to us Weber's last 
waltz, while we looked out under vines to the deep blue ocean as one 
does from the Newport cottages. That was at Laupahoehoe planta- 
tion, and that afternoon we passed Laupahoehoe and rode hard till 
half-past five, when I dismounted before a country-house, and, before 
I realised it, tumbled up steps into an open hall where three ladies in 
white dresses were seated. I had to explain that we had invited our- 
selves to pass the night, and they had to acquiesce. The family was 
named Horner, and were Americans running several plantations and 
ranches on the island. We passed the night of Sunday at the planta- 
tion of another son, or brother, of the same family, at Kukuihaele, and 
strolled down to see the Waipio valley, which is one of the Hawaiian 
sights. Yesterday we rode twelve miles up the hills, stopping to lunch 
at the house of one Jarrett who manages a great cattle ranch. Jarrett 
was not there, but two young women were, and though they were in 
language and manners as much like other young women as might be, 
they had enough of the old-gold quality and blood to make them very 
amusing to me. They made me eat raw fish and squid, as well as of 
course the eternal poi to which I am now accustomed, then after lunch, 
while La Farge and I smoked or dozed and looked across the grass 
plains to the wonderful slopes of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, the two 
girls sat on mats under the trees and made garlands of roses and ger- 
anium which they fastened round our necks or rather round my 
neck and La Farge's hat. I was tremendously pleased by this, my first 
lei I believe they spell the word so, pronouncing it lay and wore 
it down the long, dusty ride to Kawaihae where we were to meet the 
steamer, and where we arrived just at dark in an afterglow like Egypt. 
The girls also drove down, one of them returning to Honolulu by the 
same steamer. Kawaihae seemed a terrible spot, baked by the southern 
sun against a mountain of brown lava without a drop of fresh water 



OLD-GOLD GIRLS 413 



for miles. When I dismounted and entered the dirty little restaurant, I 
found our two young ladies eating supper at a dusky table. They had 
ordered for me a perfectly raw fresh fish, and the old-goldest of the two 
showed me how to eat it, looking delightfully savage as she held the 
dripping fish in her hands and tore its flesh with her teeth. Jarrett was 
there, and took us under his care, so that an evening which threatened 
to be so awful in heat and dirt, turned out delightful. They took us to 
a native house near by, where a large platform thatched with palm- 
leaves looked under scrubby trees across the moonlit ocean which just 
lapped and purred on the beach a few yards away. Then they made 
the mistress of the house an old schoolmate, but a native and speak- 
ing little English bring her guitar and sing the Hawaiian songs. 
They were curiously plaintive, perhaps owing to the way of singing, 
but only one Kamehameha's war-dance was really interesting 
and sounded as though it were real. A large mat was brought out, and 
those of us who liked lay down and listened or slept. The moon was 
half full, and shone exquisitely and Venus sank with a trail like the 
sun's. 

From this queer little episode, the only touch of half-native life we 
have felt, we were roused by the appearance of the steamer at ten 
o'clock, and in due time were taken into the boat and set on board. I 
dropped my faded and tattered lei into the water as we were rowed out, 
and now while the "Kinau" lies at Mahukana, doing nothing, I write 
to tell you that our journey has been fascinating, in spite of prosaic 
sugar plantations, and that I am yearning to get back to Waimea, 
where I might stay a month at Samuel Parker's great ranch, and ride 
his horses about the slopes of Mauna Kea, while indefinite girls of 
the old-gold variety should hang indefinite garlands round my bronze 
neck. 

Sept. 24. Honolulu again Now that I look back on our Hawai- 
ian journey of the last ten days, it seems really a considerable ex- 
perience, and one new to common travellers in gaiters. If you feel 
enough curiosity to know what others think of the same scenes, read 
Miss Bird's travels in the Sandwich Islands. 1 I have carefully avoided 
looking at her remarks, for I know that she always dilates with a cor- 
rect emotion, and I yearn only for the incorrect ones; but you will 
surely see Islands of the soundest principles travellers' principles, I 
mean if you read Miss Bird, who will tell you all that I ought to 
have seen and felt, and for whom the volcano behaved so well, and 
performed its correct motions so properly that it becomes a joy to 
1 Isabella Lucy (Bird) Bishop, The Hawaiian Archipelago, 1875. 



414 LETTERS OF HENRY ADAMS 

follow her. To us the volcano was positively flat, and I sympathised 
actively with an Englishman, who, we were told, after a single glance 
at it, turned away and gazed only at the planets and the Southern 
Cross. To irritate me still more, we are now assured that the lake of 
fire by which we sat unmoved, became very active within four-and- 
twenty hours afterwards. These are our lucks. I never see the world 
as the world ought to be. 

In revenge I have enjoyed much that is not to be set down in liter- 
ary composition, unless by a writer like Fromentin or a spectacled and 
animated prism like La Farge. He has taught me to feel the subtleness 
and endless variety of charm in the color and light of every hour in the 
tropical island's day and night. I get gently intoxicated on the soft 
violets and strong blues, the masses of purple and the broad bands of 
orange and green in the sunsets, as I used to griser myself on absinthe 
on the summer evenings in the Palais Royal before dining at V6four's, 
thirty years ago. The outlines A of the great mountains, their reddish 
purple glow, die infinite variety of greens and the perfectly intem- 
perate shifting blues of the ocean, are a new world to me. To be sure, 
man is pretty vile, but perhaps woman might partly compensate for 
him, if one only knew where to find her. As she canters about the 
roads, a-straddle on horseback, with wreaths of faded yellow flowers, 
and clothed in a blue or red or yellow night-gown, she is rather a riddle 
than a satisfaction. . . . 

To Elizabeth Cameron 

HONOLULU, Sept. 27, 1890. 

Our steamer is lying at the wharf; our trunks are on board; four 
o'clock in the afternoon has come; we have yet to dine, before driving 
down in the moonlight to take possession of our staterooms. At mid- 
night, or soon afterwards, the "Alameda" sails, carrying us two thou- 
sand miles further. . . . 

La Farge and I had our audience of the King yesterday. We went 
to the littie palace at half-past nine in the morning, and Kalakaua re- 
ceived us informally in his ugly drawing-room. His Majesty is half 
Hawaiian, half negro; talks quite admirable English in a charming 
voice; has admirable manners; and forgive me just this once more 
seems to me a somewhat superior Chester A. Arthur; a type sur- 
prisingly common among the natives. To be sure His Majesty is not 
wise, and he has or is said to have vices, such as whiskey and 
others; but he is the only interesting figure in the government, and is 



SOCIAL HONOLULU 415 

really what the Japs call omusurvi amushroi amusing. I have 
listened by the hour to the accounts of his varied weaknesses and 
especially to his sympathies with ancient Hawaii and archaic faiths, 
such as black pigs and necromancy; but yesterday he sat up straight 
and talked of Hawaiian archeology and arts as well as though he had 
been a professor. He was quite agreeable, though not, like our own 
chief magistrate, an example of the Christian virtues. I would not be 
thought to prefer Kalakaua to Benjamin Harrison, but I own to find- 
ing him a more amusing subject. 

Socially this seems a queer place. I cheerfully forgive society for 
ignoring us, for I have caught glimpses enough of it to imagine worse 
than Washington horrors; but I find it strange that no one ever sug- 
gests our doing anything social, or tells us of anything to be done, or 
desirable to do. I make my own inferences, but without much real 
knowledge. After a month, I know little or nothing of Honolulu. We 
know everybody of much account, but we have not even been put up 
at the club. Almost no one has called on us. As for dinners or parties, 
we have as yet cost Honolulu not a bottle of wine. Apparently in order 
to see the interior of a white man's house here, one must invite oneself 
into it, as we did on our journey last week. I should suppose we had 
given offence, except that no one seems to do more than we do, or to 
have more social vogue. 

To Elizabeth Cameron 

APIA, October 9, 1890. 

Well we are here, and I am sitting in the early morning on the ve- 
randah of a rough cottage, in a grove of cocoa-nut palms, with native 
huts all about me, and across the grass, fifty yards away, I can see and 
hear the sea