The Education of Henry Adams

CHAPTER VIII

DIPLO­MA­CY (1861)

HARD­LY a week passed when the news­pa­pers an­nounced that Pres­ident Lin­coln had se­lect­ed Charles Fran­cis Adams as his Min­is­ter to Eng­land. Once more, silent­ly, Hen­ry put Black­stone back on its shelf. As Fri­ar Ba­con’s head sen­ten­tious­ly an­nounced many cen­turies be­fore: Time had passed! The Civ­il Law last­ed a brief day; the Com­mon Law pro­longed its shad­owy ex­is­tence for a week. The law, al­to­geth­er, as path of ed­uca­tion, van­ished in April, 1861, leav­ing a mil­lion young men plant­ed in the mud of a law­less world, to be­gin a new life with­out ed­uca­tion at all. They asked few ques­tions, but if they had asked mil­lions they would have got no an­swers. No one could help. Look­ing back on this mo­ment of cri­sis, near­ly fifty years af­ter­wards, one could on­ly shake one’s white beard in silent hor­ror. Mr. Adams once more in­ti­mat­ed that he thought him­self en­ti­tled to the ser­vices of one of his sons, and he in­di­cat­ed Hen­ry as the on­ly one who could be spared from more se­ri­ous du­ties. Hen­ry packed his trunk again with­out a word. He could of­fer no protest. Ridicu­lous as he knew him­self about to be in his new role, he was less ridicu­lous than his bet­ters. He was at least no pub­lic of­fi­cial, like the thou­sands of im­pro­vised sec­re­taries and gen­er­als who crowd­ed their jeal­ousies and in­trigues on the Pres­ident. He was not a vul­ture of car­rion — pa­tron­age. He knew that his fa­ther’s ap­point­ment was the re­sult of Gov­er­nor Se­ward’s per­son­al friend­ship; he did not then know that Sen­ator Sum­ner had op­posed it, or the rea­sons which Sum­ner al­leged for think­ing it un­fit; but he could have sup­plied proofs enough had Sum­ner asked for them, the strongest and most de­ci­sive be­ing that, in his opin­ion, Mr. Adams had cho­sen a pri­vate sec­re­tary far more un­fit than his chief. That Mr. Adams was un­fit might well be, since it was hard to find a fit ap­point­ment in the list of pos­si­ble can­di­dates, ex­cept Mr. Sum­ner him­self; and no one knew so well as this ex­pe­ri­enced Sen­ator that the weak­est of all Mr. Adams’s proofs of fit­ness was his con­sent to quit a safe seat in Congress for an ex­ceed­ing­ly un­safe seat in Lon­don with no bet­ter sup­port than Sen­ator Sum­ner, at the head of the For­eign Re­la­tions Com­mit­tee, was like­ly to give him. In the fam­ily his­to­ry, its mem­bers had tak­en many a dan­ger­ous risk, but nev­er be­fore had they tak­en one so des­per­ate.

The pri­vate sec­re­tary trou­bled him­self not at all about the un­fit­ness of any one; he knew too lit­tle; and, in fact, no one, ex­cept per­haps Mr. Sum­ner, knew more. The Pres­ident and Sec­re­tary of State knew least of all. As Sec­re­tary of Lega­tion the Ex­ec­utive ap­point­ed the ed­itor of a Chica­go news­pa­per who had ap­plied for the Chica­go Post-​Of­fice; a good fel­low, uni­ver­sal­ly known as Charley Wil­son, who had not a thought of stay­ing in the post, or of help­ing the Min­is­ter. The As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary was in­her­it­ed from Buchanan’s time, a hard work­er, but so­cial­ly use­less. Mr. Adams made no ef­fort to find ef­fi­cient help; per­haps he knew no name to sug­gest; per­haps he knew too much of Wash­ing­ton, but he could hard­ly have hoped to find a staff of strength in his son.

The pri­vate sec­re­tary was more pas­sive than his fa­ther, for he knew not where to turn. Sum­ner alone could have smoothed his path by giv­ing him let­ters of in­tro­duc­tion, but if Sum­ner wrote let­ters, it was not with the ef­fect of smooth­ing paths. No one, at that mo­ment, was en­gaged in smooth­ing ei­ther paths or peo­ple. The pri­vate sec­re­tary was no worse off than his neigh­bors ex­cept in be­ing called ear­li­er in­to ser­vice. On April 13 the storm burst and rolled sev­er­al hun­dred thou­sand young men like Hen­ry Adams in­to the surf of a wild ocean, all help­less like him­self, to be beat­en about for four years by the waves of war. Adams still had time to watch the reg­iments form ranks be­fore Boston State House in the April evenings and march south­ward, qui­et­ly enough, with the air of busi­ness they wore from their cra­dles, but with few signs or sounds of ex­cite­ment. He had time al­so to go down the har­bor to see his broth­er Charles quar­tered in Fort In­de­pen­dence be­fore be­ing thrown, with a hun­dred thou­sand more, in­to the fur­nace of the Army of the Po­tomac to get ed­ucat­ed in a fury of fire. Few things were for the mo­ment so triv­ial in im­por­tance as the soli­tary pri­vate sec­re­tary crawl­ing down to the wretched old Cu­nard steam­er Ni­agara at East Boston to start again for Liv­er­pool. This time the pitch­er of ed­uca­tion had gone to the foun­tain once too of­ten; it was fair­ly bro­ken; and the young man had got to meet a hos­tile world with­out de­fence — or arms.

The sit­ua­tion did not seem even com­ic, so ig­no­rant was the world of its hu­mors; yet Min­is­ter Adams sailed for Eng­land, May 1, 1861, with much the same out­fit as Ad­mi­ral Dupont would have en­joyed if the Gov­ern­ment had sent him to at­tack Port Roy­al with one cab­in-​boy in a row­boat. Luck­ily for the cab­in-​boy, he was alone. Had Sec­re­tary Se­ward and Sen­ator Sum­ner giv­en to Mr. Adams the rank of Am­bas­sador and four times his salary, a palace in Lon­don, a staff of trained sec­re­taries, and per­son­al let­ters of in­tro­duc­tion to the roy­al fam­ily and the whole peer­age, the pri­vate sec­re­tary would have been cab­in-​boy still, with the ex­tra bur­den of many mas­ters; he was the most for­tu­nate per­son in the par­ty, hav­ing for mas­ter on­ly his fa­ther who nev­er fret­ted, nev­er dic­tat­ed, nev­er dis­ci­plined, and whose idea of Amer­ican diplo­ma­cy was that of the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry. Min­is­ter Adams re­mem­bered how his grand­fa­ther had sailed from Mount Wol­las­ton in mid­win­ter, 1778, on the lit­tle frigate Boston, tak­ing his eleven-​year-​old son John Quin­cy with him, for sec­re­tary, on a diplo­ma­cy of ad­ven­ture that had hard­ly a par­al­lel for suc­cess. He re­mem­bered how John Quin­cy, in 1809, had sailed for Rus­sia, with him­self, a ba­by of two years old, to cope with Napoleon and the Czar Alexan­der sin­gle-​hand­ed, al­most as much of an ad­ven­tur­er as John Adams be­fore him, and al­most as suc­cess­ful. He thought it nat­ural that the Gov­ern­ment should send him out as an ad­ven­tur­er al­so, with a twen­ty-​three-​year-​old son, and he did not even no­tice that he left not a friend be­hind him. No doubt he could de­pend on Se­ward, but on whom could Se­ward de­pend? Cer­tain­ly not on the Chair­man of the Com­mit­tee of For­eign Re­la­tions. Min­is­ter Adams had no friend in the Sen­ate; he could hope for no fa­vors, and he asked none. He thought it right to play the ad­ven­tur­er as his fa­ther and grand­fa­ther had done be­fore him, with­out a mur­mur. This was a lofty view, and for him an­swered his ob­jects, but it bore hard on cab­in-​boys, and when, in time, the young man re­al­ized what had hap­pened, he felt it as a be­tray­al. He mod­est­ly thought him­self un­fit for the ca­reer of ad­ven­tur­er, and judged his fa­ther to be less fit than him­self. For the first time Amer­ica was pos­ing as the cham­pi­on of le­git­ima­cy and or­der. Her rep­re­sen­ta­tives should know how to play their role; they should wear the cos­tume; but, in the mis­sion at­tached to Mr. Adams in 1861, the on­ly rag of le­git­ima­cy or or­der was the pri­vate sec­re­tary, whose stature was not suf­fi­cient to im­pose awe on the Court and Par­lia­ment of Great Britain.

One in­evitable ef­fect of this les­son was to make a vic­tim of the schol­ar and to turn him in­to a harsh judge of his mas­ters. If they over­looked him, he could hard­ly over­look them, since they stood with their whole weight on his body. By way of teach­ing him quick­ly, they sent out their new Min­is­ter to Rus­sia in the same ship. Sec­re­tary Se­ward had oc­ca­sion to learn the mer­its of Cas­sius M. Clay in the diplo­mat­ic ser­vice, but Mr. Se­ward’s ed­uca­tion prof­it­ed less than the pri­vate sec­re­tary’s, Cas­sius Clay as a teach­er hav­ing no equal though pos­si­bly some ri­vals. No young man, not in Gov­ern­ment pay, could be asked to draw, from such lessons, any con­fi­dence in him­self, and it was no­to­ri­ous that, for the next two years, the per­sons were few in­deed who felt, or had rea­son to feel, any sort of con­fi­dence in the Gov­ern­ment; fewest of all among those who were in it. At home, for the most part, young men went to the war, grum­bled and died; in Eng­land they might grum­ble or not; no one lis­tened.

Above all, the pri­vate sec­re­tary could not grum­ble to his chief. He knew sur­pris­ing­ly lit­tle, but that much he did know. He nev­er la­bored so hard to learn a lan­guage as he did to hold his tongue, and it af­fect­ed him for life. The habit of ret­icence — of talk­ing with­out mean­ing — is nev­er ef­faced. He had to be­gin it at once. He was al­ready an adept when the par­ty land­ed at Liv­er­pool, May 13, 1861, and went in­stant­ly up to Lon­don: a fam­ily of ear­ly Chris­tian mar­tyrs about to be flung in­to an are­na of li­ons, un­der the glad eyes of Tiberius Palmer­ston. Though Lord Palmer­ston would have laughed his pe­cu­liar Palmer­ston laugh at fig­ur­ing as Tiberius, he would have seen on­ly ev­ident re­sem­blance in the Chris­tian mar­tyrs, for he had al­ready ar­ranged the cer­emo­ny.

Of what they had to ex­pect, the Min­is­ter knew no more than his son. What he or Mr. Se­ward or Mr. Sum­ner may have thought is the af­fair of his­to­ry and their er­rors con­cern his­to­ri­ans. The er­rors of a pri­vate sec­re­tary con­cerned no one but him­self, and were a large part of his ed­uca­tion. He thought on May 12 that he was go­ing to a friend­ly Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple, true to the an­ti-​slav­ery prin­ci­ples which had been their stead­iest pro­fes­sion. For a hun­dred years the chief ef­fort of his fam­ily had aimed at bring­ing the Gov­ern­ment of Eng­land in­to in­tel­li­gent co­op­er­ation with the ob­jects and in­ter­ests of Amer­ica. His fa­ther was about to make a new ef­fort, and this time the chance of suc­cess was promis­ing. The slave States had been the chief ap­par­ent ob­sta­cle to good un­der­stand­ing. As for the pri­vate sec­re­tary him­self, he was, like all Bosto­ni­ans, in­stinc­tive­ly En­glish. He could not con­ceive the idea of a hos­tile Eng­land. He sup­posed him­self, as one of the mem­bers of a fa­mous an­ti-​slav­ery fam­ily, to be wel­come ev­ery­where in the British Is­lands.

On May 13, he met the of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment that Eng­land rec­og­nized the bel­ligeren­cy of the Con­fed­er­acy. This be­gin­ning of a new ed­uca­tion tore up by the roots near­ly all that was left of Har­vard Col­lege and Ger­many. He had to learn — the soon­er the bet­ter — that his ideas were the re­verse of truth; that in May, 1861, no one in Eng­land — lit­er­al­ly no one — doubt­ed that Jef­fer­son Davis had made or would make a na­tion, and near­ly all were glad of it, though not of­ten say­ing so. They most­ly im­itat­ed Palmer­ston who, ac­cord­ing to Mr. Glad­stone, “de­sired the sev­er­ance as a diminu­tion of a dan­ger­ous pow­er, but pru­dent­ly held his tongue.” The sen­ti­ment of an­ti-​slav­ery had dis­ap­peared. Lord John Rus­sell, as For­eign Sec­re­tary, had re­ceived the rebel emis­saries, and had de­cid­ed to rec­og­nize their bel­ligeren­cy be­fore the ar­rival of Mr. Adams in or­der to fix the po­si­tion of the British Gov­ern­ment in ad­vance. The recog­ni­tion of in­de­pen­dence would then be­come an un­der­stood pol­icy; a mat­ter of time and oc­ca­sion.

What­ev­er Min­is­ter Adams may have felt, the first ef­fect of this shock up­on his son pro­duced on­ly a dull­ness of com­pre­hen­sion — a sort of hazy in­abil­ity to grasp the mis­sile or re­al­ize the blow. Yet he re­al­ized that to his fa­ther it was like­ly to be fa­tal. The chances were great that the whole fam­ily would turn round and go home with­in a few weeks. The hori­zon widened out in end­less waves of con­fu­sion. When he thought over the sub­ject in the long leisure of lat­er life, he grew cold at the idea of his sit­ua­tion had his fa­ther then shown him­self what Sum­ner thought him to be — un­fit for his post. That the pri­vate sec­re­tary was un­fit for his — tri­fling though it were — was proved by his un­re­flect­ing con­fi­dence in his fa­ther. It nev­er en­tered his mind that his fa­ther might lose his nerve or his tem­per, and yet in a sub­se­quent knowl­edge of states­men and diplo­mats ex­tend­ing over sev­er­al gen­er­ations, he could not cer­tain­ly point out an­oth­er who could have stood such a shock with­out show­ing it. He passed this long day, and te­dious jour­ney to Lon­don, with­out once think­ing of the pos­si­bil­ity that his fa­ther might make a mis­take. What­ev­er the Min­is­ter thought, and cer­tain­ly his thought was not less ac­tive than his son’s, he showed no trace of ex­cite­ment. His man­ner was the same as ev­er; his mind and tem­per were as per­fect­ly bal­anced; not a word es­caped; not a nerve twitched.

The test was fi­nal, for no oth­er shock so vi­olent and sud­den could pos­si­bly re­cur. The worst was in full sight. For once the pri­vate sec­re­tary knew his own busi­ness, which was to im­itate his fa­ther as close­ly as pos­si­ble and hold his tongue. Dumped thus in­to Mau­ri­gy’s Ho­tel at the foot of Re­gent Street, in the midst of a Lon­don sea­son, with­out a friend or even an ac­quain­tance, he pre­ferred to laugh at his fa­ther’s be­wil­der­ment be­fore the wait­er’s “‘amhand­heg­gsir” for break­fast, rather than ask a ques­tion or ex­press a doubt. His sit­ua­tion, if tak­en se­ri­ous­ly, was too ap­palling to face. Had he known it bet­ter, he would on­ly have thought it worse.

Po­lit­ical­ly or so­cial­ly, the out­look was des­per­ate, be­yond re­triev­ing or con­test­ing. So­cial­ly, un­der the best of cir­cum­stances, a new­com­er in Lon­don so­ci­ety needs years to es­tab­lish a po­si­tion, and Min­is­ter Adams had not a week or an hour to spare, while his son had not even a re­mote chance of be­gin­ning. Po­lit­ical­ly the prospect looked even worse, and for Sec­re­tary Se­ward and Sen­ator Sum­ner it was so; but for the Min­is­ter, on the spot, as he came to re­al­ize ex­act­ly where he stood, the dan­ger was not so im­mi­nent. Mr. Adams was al­ways one of the luck­iest of men, both in what he achieved and in what he es­caped. The blow, which pros­trat­ed Se­ward and Sum­ner, passed over him. Lord John Rus­sell had act­ed — had prob­ably in­tend­ed to act — kind­ly by him in fore­stalling his ar­rival. The blow must have fall­en with­in three months, and would then have bro­ken him down. The British Min­is­ters were a lit­tle in doubt still — a lit­tle ashamed of them­selves — and cer­tain to wait the longer for their next step in pro­por­tion to the haste of their first.

This is not a sto­ry of the diplo­mat­ic ad­ven­tures of Charles Fran­cis Adams, but of his son Hen­ry’s ad­ven­tures in search of an ed­uca­tion, which, if not tak­en too se­ri­ous­ly, tend­ed to hu­mor. The fa­ther’s po­si­tion in Lon­don was not al­to­geth­er bad; the son’s was ab­surd. Thanks to cer­tain fam­ily as­so­ci­ations, Charles Fran­cis Adams nat­ural­ly looked on all British Min­is­ters as en­emies; the on­ly pub­lic oc­cu­pa­tion of all Adamses for a hun­dred and fifty years at least, in their brief in­ter­vals of quar­relling with State Street, had been to quar­rel with Down­ing Street; and the British Gov­ern­ment, well used to a lib­er­al un­pop­ular­ity abroad, even when of­fi­cial­ly rude liked to be per­son­al­ly civ­il. All diplo­mat­ic agents are li­able to be put, so to speak, in a cor­ner, and are none the worse for it. Min­is­ter Adams had noth­ing in es­pe­cial to com­plain of; his po­si­tion was good while it last­ed, and he had on­ly the chances of war to fear. The son had no such com­pen­sa­tions. Brought over in or­der to help his fa­ther, he could con­ceive no way of ren­der­ing his fa­ther help, but he was clear that his fa­ther had got to help him. To him, the Lega­tion was so­cial os­tracism, ter­ri­ble be­yond any­thing he had known. En­tire soli­tude in the great so­ci­ety of Lon­don was dou­bly des­per­ate be­cause his du­ties as pri­vate sec­re­tary re­quired him to know ev­ery­body and go with his fa­ther and moth­er ev­ery­where they need­ed es­cort. He had no friend, or even en­emy, to tell him to be pa­tient. Had any one done it, he would sure­ly have bro­ken out with the re­ply that pa­tience was the last re­source of fools as well as of sages; if he was to help his fa­ther at all, he must do it at once, for his fa­ther would nev­er so much need help again. In fact he nev­er gave his fa­ther the small­est help, un­less it were as a foot­man, clerk, or a com­pan­ion for the younger chil­dren.

He found him­self in a sin­gu­lar sit­ua­tion for one who was to be use­ful. As he came to see the sit­ua­tion clos­er, he be­gan to doubt whether sec­re­taries were meant to be use­ful. Wars were too com­mon in diplo­ma­cy to dis­turb the habits of the diplo­mat. Most sec­re­taries de­test­ed their chiefs, and wished to be any­thing but use­ful. At the St. James’s Club, to which the Min­is­ter’s son could go on­ly as an in­vit­ed guest, the most in­struc­tive con­ver­sa­tion he ev­er heard among the young men of his own age who hung about the ta­bles, more help­less than him­self, was: “Quel chien de pays!” or, “Que tu es beau au­jourd’hui, mon cher!” No one want­ed to dis­cuss af­fairs; still less to give or get in­for­ma­tion. That was the af­fair of their chiefs, who were al­so slow to as­sume work not spe­cial­ly or­dered from their Courts. If the Amer­ican Min­is­ter was in trou­ble to-​day, the Rus­sian Am­bas­sador was in trou­ble yes­ter­day, and the French­man would be in trou­ble to-​mor­row. It would all come in the day’s work. There was noth­ing pro­fes­sion­al in wor­ry. Em­pires were al­ways tum­bling to pieces and diplo­mats were al­ways pick­ing them up.

This was his whole diplo­mat­ic ed­uca­tion, ex­cept that he found rich veins of jeal­ousy run­ning be­tween ev­ery chief and his staff. His so­cial ed­uca­tion was more bar­ren still, and more try­ing to his van­ity. His lit­tle mis­takes in eti­quette or ad­dress made him writhe with tor­ture. He nev­er for­got the first two or three so­cial func­tions he at­tend­ed: one an af­ter­noon at Miss Bur­dett Coutts’s in Strat­ton Place, where he hid him­self in the em­bra­sure of a win­dow and hoped that no one no­ticed him; an­oth­er was a gar­den-​par­ty giv­en by the old an­ti-​slav­ery Duchess Dowa­ger of Suther­land at Chiswick, where the Amer­ican Min­is­ter and Mrs. Adams were kept in con­ver­sa­tion by the old Duchess till ev­ery one else went away ex­cept the young Duke and his cousins, who set to play­ing leap-​frog on the lawn. At in­ter­vals dur­ing the next thir­ty years Hen­ry Adams con­tin­ued to hap­pen up­on the Duke, who, sin­gu­lar­ly enough, was al­ways play­ing leap-​frog. Still an­oth­er night­mare he suf­fered at a dance giv­en by the old Duchess Dowa­ger of Som­er­set, a ter­ri­ble vi­sion in cas­tanets, who seized him and forced him to per­form a High­land fling be­fore the as­sem­bled no­bil­ity and gen­try, with the daugh­ter of the Turk­ish Am­bas­sador for part­ner. This might seem hu­mor­ous to some, but to him the world turned to ash­es.

When the end of the sea­son came, the pri­vate sec­re­tary had not yet won a pri­vate ac­quain­tance, and he hugged him­self in his soli­tude when the sto­ry of the bat­tle of Bull Run ap­peared in the Times. He felt on­ly the wish to be more pri­vate than ev­er, for Bull Run was a worse diplo­mat­ic than mil­itary dis­as­ter. All this is his­to­ry and can be read by pub­lic schools if they choose; but the cu­ri­ous and un­ex­pect­ed hap­pened to the Lega­tion, for the ef­fect of Bull Run on them was al­most strength­en­ing. They no longer felt doubt. For the next year they went on on­ly from week to week, ready to leave Eng­land at once, and nev­er as­sum­ing more than three months for their lim­it. Eu­rope was wait­ing to see them go. So cer­tain was the end that no one cared to hur­ry it.

So far as a pri­vate sec­re­tary could see, this was all that saved his fa­ther. For many months he looked on him­self as lost or fin­ished in the char­ac­ter of pri­vate sec­re­tary; and as about to be­gin, with­out fur­ther ex­per­iment, a fi­nal ed­uca­tion in the ranks of the Army of the Po­tomac where he would find most of his friends en­joy­ing a much pleas­an­ter life than his own. With this idea up­per­most in his mind, he passed the sum­mer and the au­tumn, and be­gan the win­ter. Any win­ter in Lon­don is a se­vere tri­al; one’s first win­ter is the most try­ing; but the month of De­cem­ber, 1861, in Mans­field Street, Port­land Place, would have gorged a glut­ton of gloom.

One af­ter­noon when he was strug­gling to re­sist com­plete ner­vous de­pres­sion in the soli­tude of Mans­field Street, dur­ing the ab­sence of the Min­is­ter and Mrs. Adams on a coun­try vis­it, Reuter’s tele­gram an­nounc­ing the seizure of Ma­son and Slidell from a British mail-​steam­er was brought to the of­fice. All three sec­re­taries, pub­lic and pri­vate were there — ner­vous as wild beasts un­der the long strain on their en­durance — and all three, though they knew it to be not mere­ly their or­der of de­par­ture — not mere­ly diplo­mat­ic rup­ture — but a dec­la­ra­tion of war — broke in­to shouts of de­light. They were glad to face the end. They saw it and cheered it! Since Eng­land was wait­ing on­ly for its own mo­ment to strike, they were ea­ger to strike first.

They tele­graphed the news to the Min­is­ter, who was stay­ing with Mon­ck­ton Milnes at Frys­ton in York­shire. How Mr. Adams took it, is told in the “Lives” of Lord Houghton and William E. Forster who was one of the Frys­ton par­ty. The mo­ment was for him the cri­sis of his diplo­mat­ic ca­reer; for the sec­re­taries it was mere­ly the be­gin­ning of an­oth­er in­tol­er­able de­lay, as though they were a mil­itary out­post wait­ing or­ders to quit an aban­doned po­si­tion. At the mo­ment of sharpest sus­pense, the Prince Con­sort sick­ened and died. Port­land Place at Christ­mas in a black fog was nev­er a rosy land­scape, but in 1861 the most hard­ened Lon­don­er lost his rud­di­ness. The pri­vate sec­re­tary had one source of com­fort de­nied to them — he should not be pri­vate sec­re­tary long.

He was mis­tak­en — of course! He had been mis­tak­en at ev­ery point of his ed­uca­tion, and, on this point, he kept up the same mis­take for near­ly sev­en years longer, al­ways de­lud­ed by the no­tion that the end was near. To him the Trent Af­fair was noth­ing but one of many af­fairs which he had to copy in a del­icate round hand in­to his books, yet it had one or two re­sults per­son­al to him which left no trace on the Lega­tion records. One of these, and to him the most im­por­tant, was to put an end for­ev­er to the idea of be­ing “use­ful.” Hith­er­to, as an in­de­pen­dent and free cit­izen, not in the em­ploy of the Gov­ern­ment, he had kept up his re­la­tions with the Amer­ican press. He had writ­ten pret­ty fre­quent­ly to Hen­ry J. Ray­mond, and Ray­mond had used his let­ters in the New York Times. He had al­so be­come fair­ly in­ti­mate with the two or three friend­ly news­pa­pers in Lon­don, the Dai­ly News, the Star, the week­ly Spec­ta­tor; and he had tried to give them news and views that should have a cer­tain com­mon char­ac­ter, and pre­vent clash. He had even gone down to Manch­ester to study the cot­ton famine, and wrote a long ac­count of his vis­it which his broth­er Charles had pub­lished in the Boston Couri­er. Un­for­tu­nate­ly it was print­ed with his name, and in­stant­ly came back up­on him in the most crush­ing shape pos­si­ble — that of a long, satir­ical lead­er in the Lon­don Times. Luck­ily the Times did not know its vic­tim to be a part, though not an of­fi­cial, of the Lega­tion, and lost the chance to make its satire fa­tal; but he in­stant­ly learned the nar­row­ness of his es­cape from old Joe Parkes, one of the tra­di­tion­al busy-​bod­ies of pol­itics, who had haunt­ed Lon­don since 1830, and who, af­ter rush­ing to the Times of­fice, to tell them all they did not know about Hen­ry Adams, rushed to the Lega­tion to tell Adams all he did not want to know about the Times. For a mo­ment Adams thought his “use­ful­ness” at an end in oth­er re­spects than in the press, but a day or two more taught him the val­ue of ob­scu­ri­ty. He was to­tal­ly un­known; he had not even a club; Lon­don was emp­ty; no one thought twice about the Times ar­ti­cle; no one ex­cept Joe Parkes ev­er spoke of it; and the world had oth­er per­sons — such as Pres­ident Lin­coln, Sec­re­tary Se­ward, and Com­modore Wilkes — for con­stant and fa­vorite ob­jects of ridicule. Hen­ry Adams es­caped, but he nev­er tried to be use­ful again. The Trent Af­fair dwarfed in­di­vid­ual ef­fort. His ed­uca­tion at least had reached the point of see­ing its own pro­por­tions. “Surtout point de zele!” Zeal was too haz­ardous a pro­fes­sion for a Min­is­ter’s son to pur­sue, as a vol­un­teer ma­nip­ula­tor, among Trent Af­fairs and rebel cruis­ers. He wrote no more let­ters and med­dled with no more news­pa­pers, but he was still young, and felt un­kind­ly to­wards the ed­itor of the Lon­don Times.

Mr. De­lane lost few op­por­tu­ni­ties of em­bit­ter­ing him, and he felt lit­tle or no hope of re­pay­ing these at­ten­tions; but the Trent Af­fair passed like a snow­storm, leav­ing the Lega­tion, to its sur­prise, still in place. Al­though the pri­vate sec­re­tary saw in this de­lay — which he at­tribut­ed to Mr. Se­ward’s good sense — no rea­son for chang­ing his opin­ion about the views of the British Gov­ern­ment, he had no choice but to sit down again at his ta­ble, and go on copy­ing pa­pers, fil­ing let­ters, and read­ing news­pa­per ac­counts of the in­ca­pac­ity of Mr. Lin­coln and the bru­tal­ity of Mr. Se­ward — or vice ver­sa. The heavy months dragged on and win­ter slow­ly turned to spring with­out im­prov­ing his po­si­tion or spir­its. So­cial­ly he had but one re­lief; and, to the end of life, he nev­er for­got the keen grat­itude he owed for it. Dur­ing this te­dious win­ter and for many months af­ter­wards, the on­ly gleams of sun­shine were on the days he passed at Wal­ton-​on-​Thames as the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Rus­sell Stur­gis at Mount Fe­lix.

His ed­uca­tion had un­for­tu­nate­ly lit­tle to do with bankers, al­though old George Peabody and his part­ner, Ju­nius Mor­gan, were strong al­lies. Joshua Bates was de­vot­ed, and no one could be kinder than Thomas Bar­ing, whose lit­tle din­ners in Up­per Grosvenor Street were cer­tain­ly the best in Lon­don; but none of­fered a refuge to com­pare with Mount Fe­lix, and, for the first time, the refuge was a lib­er­al ed­uca­tion. Mrs. Rus­sell Stur­gis was one of the wom­en to whom an in­tel­li­gent boy at­tach­es him­self as close­ly as he can. Hen­ry Adams was not a very in­tel­li­gent boy, and he had no knowl­edge of the world, but he knew enough to un­der­stand that a cub need­ed shape. The kind of ed­uca­tion he most re­quired was that of a charm­ing wom­an, and Mrs. Rus­sell Stur­gis, a dozen years old­er than him­self, could have good-​na­tured­ly trained a school of such, with­out an ef­fort, and with in­fi­nite ad­van­tage to them. Near her he half for­got the anx­ieties of Port­land Place. Dur­ing two years of mis­er­able soli­tude, she was in this so­cial po­lar win­ter, the sin­gle source of warmth and light.

Of course the Lega­tion it­self was home, and, un­der such pres­sure, life in it could be noth­ing but unit­ed. All the in­mates made com­mon cause, but this was no ed­uca­tion. One lived, but was mere­ly flayed alive. Yet, while this might be ex­act­ly true of the younger mem­bers of the house­hold, it was not quite so with the Min­is­ter and Mrs. Adams. Very slow­ly, but quite steadi­ly, they gained foothold. For some rea­son part­ly con­nect­ed with Amer­ican sources, British so­ci­ety had be­gun with vi­olent so­cial prej­udice against Lin­coln, Se­ward, and all the Re­pub­li­can lead­ers ex­cept Sum­ner. Fa­mil­iar as the whole tribe of Adamses had been for three gen­er­ations with the im­pen­etra­ble stu­pid­ity of the British mind, and weary of the long strug­gle to teach it its own in­ter­ests, the fourth gen­er­ation could still not quite per­suade it­self that this new British prej­udice was nat­ural. The pri­vate sec­re­tary sus­pect­ed that Amer­icans in New York and Boston had some­thing to do with it. The Cop­per­head was at home in Pall Mall. Nat­ural­ly the En­glish­man was a coarse an­imal and liked coarse­ness. Had Lin­coln and Se­ward been the ruf­fi­ans sup­posed, the av­er­age En­glish­man would have liked them the bet­ter. The ex­ceed­ing­ly qui­et man­ner and the unas­sail­able so­cial po­si­tion of Min­is­ter Adams in no way con­cil­iat­ed them. They chose to ig­nore him, since they could not ridicule him. Lord John Rus­sell set the ex­am­ple. Per­son­al­ly the Min­is­ter was to be kind­ly treat­ed; po­lit­ical­ly he was neg­li­gi­ble; he was there to be put aside. Lon­don and Paris im­itat­ed Lord John. Ev­ery one wait­ed to see Lin­coln and his hirelings dis­ap­pear in one vast de­ba­cle. All con­ceived that the Wash­ing­ton Gov­ern­ment would soon crum­ble, and that Min­is­ter Adams would van­ish with the rest.

This sit­ua­tion made Min­is­ter Adams an ex­cep­tion among diplo­mats. Eu­ro­pean rulers for the most part fought and treat­ed as mem­bers of one fam­ily, and rarely had in view the pos­si­bil­ity of to­tal ex­tinc­tion; but the Gov­ern­ments and so­ci­ety of Eu­rope, for a year at least, re­gard­ed the Wash­ing­ton Gov­ern­ment as dead, and its Min­is­ters as nul­li­ties. Min­is­ter Adams was bet­ter re­ceived than most nul­li­ties be­cause he made no noise. Lit­tle by lit­tle, in pri­vate, so­ci­ety took the habit of ac­cept­ing him, not so much as a diplo­mat, but rather as a mem­ber of op­po­si­tion, or an em­inent coun­sel re­tained for a for­eign Gov­ern­ment. He was to be re­ceived and con­sid­ered; to be cor­dial­ly treat­ed as, by birth and man­ners, one of them­selves. This cu­ri­ous­ly En­glish way of get­ting be­hind a stu­pid­ity gave the Min­is­ter ev­ery pos­si­ble ad­van­tage over a Eu­ro­pean diplo­mat. Bar­ri­ers of race, lan­guage, birth, habit, ceased to ex­ist. Diplo­ma­cy held diplo­mats apart in or­der to save Gov­ern­ments, but Earl Rus­sell could not hold Mr. Adams apart. He was undis­tin­guish­able from a Lon­don­er. In so­ci­ety few Lon­don­ers were so wide­ly at home. None had such dou­ble per­son­al­ity and cor­re­spond­ing dou­ble weight.

The sin­gu­lar luck that took him to Frys­ton to meet the shock of the Trent Af­fair un­der the sym­pa­thet­ic eyes of Mon­ck­ton Milnes and William E. Forster nev­er af­ter­wards de­sert­ed him. Both Milnes and Forster need­ed sup­port and were great­ly re­lieved to be sup­port­ed. They saw what the pri­vate sec­re­tary in May had over­looked, the hope­less po­si­tion they were in if the Amer­ican Min­is­ter made a mis­take, and, since his strength was theirs, they lost no time in ex­press­ing to all the world their es­ti­mate of the Min­is­ter’s char­ac­ter. Be­tween them the Min­is­ter was al­most safe.

One might dis­cuss long whether, at that mo­ment, Milnes or Forster were the more valu­able al­ly, since they were in­flu­ences of dif­fer­ent kinds. Mon­ck­ton Milnes was a so­cial pow­er in Lon­don, pos­si­bly greater than Lon­don­ers them­selves quite un­der­stood, for in Lon­don so­ci­ety as else­where, the dull and the ig­no­rant made a large ma­jor­ity, and dull men al­ways laughed at Mon­ck­ton Milnes. Ev­ery bore was used to talk fa­mil­iar­ly about “Dicky Milnes,” the “cool of the evening”; and of course he him­self af­fect­ed so­cial ec­cen­tric­ity, chal­leng­ing ridicule with the in­dif­fer­ence of one who knew him­self to be the first wit in Lon­don, and a mak­er of men — of a great many men. A word from him went far. An in­vi­ta­tion to his break­fast-​ta­ble went far­ther. Be­hind his al­most Fal­staffi­an mask and laugh of Silenus, he car­ried a fine, broad, and high in­tel­li­gence which no one ques­tioned. As a young man he had writ­ten vers­es, which some read­ers thought po­et­ry, and which were cer­tain­ly not al­to­geth­er prose. Lat­er, in Par­lia­ment he made speech­es, chiefly crit­icised as too good for the place and too high for the au­di­ence. So­cial­ly, he was one of two or three men who went ev­ery­where, knew ev­ery­body, talked of ev­ery­thing, and had the ear of Min­is­ters; but un­like most wits, he held a so­cial po­si­tion of his own that end­ed in a peer­age, and he had a house in Up­per Brook Street to which most clever peo­ple were ex­ceed­ing­ly glad of ad­mis­sion. His break­fasts were fa­mous, and no one liked to de­cline his in­vi­ta­tions, for it was more dan­ger­ous to show timid­ity than to risk a fray. He was a vo­ra­cious read­er, a strong crit­ic, an art con­nois­seur in cer­tain di­rec­tions, a col­lec­tor of books, but above all he was a man of the world by pro­fes­sion, and loved the con­tacts — per­haps the col­li­sions — of so­ci­ety. Not even Hen­ry Brougham dared do the things he did, yet Brougham de­fied re­buff. Milnes was the good-​na­ture of Lon­don; the Gar­gan­tu­an type of its re­fine­ment and coarse­ness; the most uni­ver­sal fig­ure of May Fair.

Com­pared with him, fig­ures like Hay­ward, or De­lane, or Ven­ables, or Hen­ry Reeve were quite sec­ondary, but William E. Forster stood in a dif­fer­ent class. Forster had noth­ing what­ev­er to do with May Fair. Ex­cept in be­ing a York­shire­man he was quite the op­po­site of Milnes. He had at that time no so­cial or po­lit­ical po­si­tion; he nev­er had a ves­tige of Milnes’s wit or va­ri­ety; he was a tall, rough, un­gain­ly fig­ure, af­fect­ing the sin­gu­lar form of self-​de­fense which the York­shire­men and Lan­cashire­men seem to hold dear — the ex­te­ri­or rough­ness as­sumed to cov­er an in­ter­nal, emo­tion­al, al­most sen­ti­men­tal na­ture. Kind­ly he had to be, if on­ly by his in­her­itance from a Quak­er an­ces­try, but he was a Friend one de­gree re­moved. Sen­ti­men­tal and emo­tion­al he must have been, or he could nev­er have per­suad­ed a daugh­ter of Dr. Arnold to mar­ry him. Pure gold, with­out a trace of base met­al; hon­est, un­selfish, prac­ti­cal; he took up the Union cause and made him­self its cham­pi­on, as a true York­shire­man was sure to do, part­ly be­cause of his Quak­er an­ti-​slav­ery con­vic­tions, and part­ly be­cause it gave him a prac­ti­cal open­ing in the House. As a new mem­ber, he need­ed a field.

Dif­fi­dence was not one of Forster’s weak­ness­es. His prac­ti­cal sense and his per­son­al en­er­gy soon es­tab­lished him in lead­er­ship, and made him a pow­er­ful cham­pi­on, not so much for or­na­ment as for work. With such a man­ag­er, the friends of the Union in Eng­land be­gan to take heart. Min­is­ter Adams had on­ly to look on as his true cham­pi­ons, the heavy-​weights, came in­to ac­tion, and even the pri­vate sec­re­tary caught now and then a stray gleam of en­cour­age­ment as he saw the ring be­gin to clear for these burly York­shire­men to stand up in a prize-​fight like­ly to be as bru­tal as ev­er Eng­land had known. Milnes and Forster were not ex­act­ly light-​weights, but Bright and Cob­den were the hard­est hit­ters in Eng­land, and with them for cham­pi­ons the Min­is­ter could tack­le even Lord Palmer­ston with­out much fear of foul play.

In so­ci­ety John Bright and Richard Cob­den were nev­er seen, and even in Par­lia­ment they had no large fol­low­ing. They were classed as en­emies of or­der, — an­ar­chists, — and an­ar­chists they were if ha­tred of the so-​called es­tab­lished or­ders made them so. About them was no sort of po­lit­ical timid­ity. They took blunt­ly the side of the Union against Palmer­ston whom they hat­ed. Strangers to Lon­don so­ci­ety, they were at home in the Amer­ican Lega­tion, de­light­ful din­ner-​com­pa­ny, talk­ing al­ways with reck­less free­dom. Cob­den was the milder and more per­sua­sive; Bright was the more dan­ger­ous to ap­proach; but the pri­vate sec­re­tary de­light­ed in both, and nour­ished an ar­dent wish to see them talk the same lan­guage to Lord John Rus­sell from the gang­way of the House.

With four such al­lies as these, Min­is­ter Adams stood no longer quite help­less. For the sec­ond time the British Min­istry felt a lit­tle ashamed of it­self af­ter the Trent Af­fair, as well it might, and dis­posed to wait be­fore mov­ing again. Lit­tle by lit­tle, friends gath­ered about the Lega­tion who were no fair-​weath­er com­pan­ions. The old an­ti-​slav­ery, Ex­eter Hall, Shaftes­bury clique turned out to be an an­noy­ing and trou­ble­some en­emy, but the Duke of Ar­gyll was one of the most valu­able friends the Min­is­ter found, both po­lit­ical­ly and so­cial­ly, and the Duchess was as true as her moth­er. Even the pri­vate sec­re­tary shared faint­ly in the so­cial prof­it of this re­la­tion, and nev­er for­got din­ing one night at the Lodge, and find­ing him­self af­ter din­ner en­gaged in in­struct­ing John Stu­art Mill about the pe­cu­liar mer­its of an Amer­ican pro­tec­tive sys­tem. In spite of all the prob­abil­ities, he con­vinced him­self that it was not the Duke’s claret which led him to this sin­gu­lar form of lo­quaci­ty; he in­sist­ed that it was the fault of Mr. Mill him­self who led him on by as­sent­ing to his point of view. Mr. Mill took no ap­par­ent plea­sure in dis­pute, and in that re­spect the Duke would per­haps have done bet­ter; but the sec­re­tary had to ad­mit that though at oth­er pe­ri­ods of life he was suf­fi­cient­ly and even am­ply snubbed by En­glish­men, he could nev­er re­call a sin­gle oc­ca­sion dur­ing this try­ing year, when he had to com­plain of rude­ness.

Friend­li­ness he found here and there, but chiefly among his el­ders; not among fash­ion­able or so­cial­ly pow­er­ful peo­ple, ei­ther men or wom­en; al­though not even this rule was quite ex­act, for Fred­er­ick Cavendish’s kind­ness and in­ti­mate re­la­tions made De­von­shire House al­most fa­mil­iar, and Lyulph Stan­ley’s ar­dent Amer­ican­ism cre­at­ed a cer­tain cor­dial­ity with the Stan­leys of Alder­ley whose house was one of the most fre­quent­ed in Lon­don. Lorne, too, the fu­ture Ar­gyll, was al­ways a friend. Yet the reg­ular course of so­ci­ety led to more lit­er­ary in­ti­ma­cies. Sir Charles Trevelyan’s house was one of the first to which young Adams was asked, and with which his friend­ly re­la­tions nev­er ceased for near half a cen­tu­ry, and then on­ly when death stopped them. Sir Charles and La­dy Lyell were in­ti­mates. Tom Hugh­es came in­to close al­liance. By the time so­ci­ety be­gan to re­open its doors af­ter the death of the Prince Con­sort, even the pri­vate sec­re­tary oc­ca­sion­al­ly saw a face he knew, al­though he made no more ef­fort of any kind, but silent­ly wait­ed the end. What­ev­er might be the ad­van­tages of so­cial re­la­tions to his fa­ther and moth­er, to him the whole busi­ness of diplo­ma­cy and so­ci­ety was fu­tile. He meant to go home.