Part 5 (2/2)

Whatever Minister Adams may have felt, the first effect of this shock upon his son produced only a dullness of corasp 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 fao home within a feeeks 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 hiht 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 ht lose his nerve or his tee of statesenerations, 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 ht, 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 iue Duent Street, in the midst of a London season, without a friend or even an acquaintance, he preferred to laugh at his father's bewildersir” 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 re 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 caer 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 blohich prostrated Seward and Sumner, passed over him Lord John Russell had acted--had probably intended to act--kindly by hi 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 ashaer 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 huether 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 diploents are liable to be put, so to speak, in a corner, and are none the worse for it Minister Adaood while it lasted, and he had only the chances of war to fear The son had no such coht 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 hiation was social ostracis he had known Entire solitude in the great society of London was doubly desperate because his duties as private secretary required hio 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 ave his father the smallest help, unless it were as a footer children

He found hiular situation for one as to be useful As he caan 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

Jao only as an invited guest, theabout the tables, more helpless than himself, was: ”Quel chien de pays!” or, ”Que tu es beau aujourd'hui, ive or get information That was the affair of their chiefs, ere 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- professional in worry

E to pieces and diplo 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 wasto his vanity

His little mistakes in etiquette or address ot 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 aand hoped that no one noticed hiiven 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 Adah, was always playing leap-frog Still another nighter of Somerset, a terrible vision in castanets, who seized hi before the assehter of the Turkish Aht 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 theer felt doubt For the next year they went on only froland at once, and never assuto see theo 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 Poto a much pleasanter life than his own With this idea uppermost in his an the winter Any winter in London is a severe trial; one's first winter is the ; but the month of Deceorged a glutton of gloo to resist complete nervous depression in the solitude of Mansfield Street, during the absence of the Minister and Mrs Ada the seizure of Mason and Slidell froht 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 aiting only for its own er to strike first

They telegraphed the news to the Minister, as staying with Monckton Milnes at Fryston in Yorkshi+re How Mr Adahton and William E Forster as one of the Fryston party The moment was for him the crisis of his diplo of another intolerable delay, as though they were aorders to quit an abandoned position At the moment of sharpest suspense, the Prince Consort sickened and died Portland Place at Christ was never a rosy landscape, but in 1861 the most hardened Londoner lost his ruddiness The private secretary had one source of co

He was mistaken--of course! He had been mistaken at every point of his education, and, on this point, he kept up the saer, always deluded by the notion that the end was near To hi 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 hiation records One of these, and to him the”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 coone down to Manchester to study the cotton fa account of his visit which his brother Charles had published in the Boston Courier Unfortunately it was printed with his na shape possible--that of a long, satirical leader in the London Times Luckily the Tih 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 rushi+ng to the Times office, to tell theation to tell Adams all he did not want to know about the Tiht his ”usefulness” at an end in other respects than in the press, but a day or two ht him the value of obscurity He was totally unknown; he had not even a club; London was eht 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 Adaain

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 volunteerTrent Affairs and rebel cruisers He wrote no more letters and , and felt unkindly towards the editor of the London Ti hi these attentions; but the Trent Affair passed like a snowstoration, 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 Governain 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 heavywithout i 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 leams of sunshi+ne were on the days he passed at Walton-on-Thais 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 Tho, whose little dinners in Upper Grosvenor Street were certainly the best in London; but none offered a refuge to coe was a liberal education Mrs Russell Sturgis was one of the woent boy attaches himself as closely as he can Henry Adae of the world, but he knew enough to understand that a cub needed shape The kind of education hewois, a dozen years older than hiood-naturedly trained a school of such, without an effort, and with infinite advantage to theot the anxieties of Portland Place During two years of miserable solitude, she was in this social polar winter, the single source of waration itself was ho but united All the inmates made common cause, but this was no education One lived, but was ht be exactly true of the younger members of the household, it was not quite so with the Minister and Mrs Adaained foothold For some reason partly connected with Aun with violent social prejudice against Lincoln, Seward, and all the Republican leaders except Sumner Faenerations with the impenetrable stupidity of the British le 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 A to do with it The Copperhead was at holishman was a coarse animal and liked coarseness Had Lincoln and Seward been the ruffians supposed, the average Englishly quiet manner and the unassailable social position of Minister Adanore 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 Washi+ngton Government would soon crumble, and that Minister Adams would vanish with the rest

This situationdiploht and treated as members of one family, and rarely had in view the possibility of total extinction; but the Governarded the Washi+ngton 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 en Government He was to be received and considered; to be cordially treated as, by birth and etting behind a stupidity gave the Minister every possible advantage over a European diploe, birth, habit, ceased to exist Diplomacy held diplomats apart in order to save Governments, but Earl Russell could not hold Mr Adauishable from a Londoner In society few Londoners were so widely at ho 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 hireatly relieved to be supported They sahat the private secretary in May had overlooked, the hopeless position they were in if the Ath was theirs, they lost no ti to all the world their estimate of the Minister's character Between the 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 hed at Monckton Milnes Every bore was used to talk fa”; and of course he hi ridicule with the indifference of one who knew himself to be the first wit in London, and a reat many men A word from him went far An invitation to his breakfast-table went farther Behind his alh of Silenus, he carried a fine, broad, and high intelligence which no one questioned As a young ht poetry, and which were certainly not altogether prose Later, in Parliaood for the place and too high for the audience Socially, he was one of two or three , 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 lad of admission His breakfasts were famous, and no one liked to decline his invitations, for it was erous 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 Broughahaood-nature of London; the Gargantuan type of its refineure of May Fair

Coures like Hayward, or Delane, or Venables, or Henry Reeve were quite secondary, but Willia whatever to do with May Fair Except in being a Yorkshi+reman he was quite the opposite of Milnes He had at that tie of Milnes's wit or variety; he was a tall, rough, ungainly figure, affecting the singular form of self-defense which the Yorkshi+rehness assumed to cover an internal, emotional, almost sentimental nature Kindly he had to be, if only by his inheritance froree removed Sentimental and emotional he hter of Dr Arnold to old, without a trace of base metal; honest, unselfish, practical; he took up the Union cause and made himself its champion, as a true Yorkshi+reman was sure to do, partly because of his Quaker anti-slavery convictions, and partly because it gave hi 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 leadershi+p, and made him a powerful champion, not so er, the friends of the Union in England began to take heart Minister Adahts, caht now and then a stray gleain to clear for these burly Yorkshi+reht 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 ht and Richard Cobden were never seen, and even in Parlia 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 tiainst Palers to London society, they were at hohtful dinner-co alith reckless freedoht was the hted in both, and nourished an ardent wish to see theway of the House

With four such allies as these, Minister Adaer quite helpless For the second time the British Ministry felt a little ashaht, and disposed to wait before ation ere no fair-weather companions The old anti-slavery, Exeter Hall, Shaftesbury clique turned out to be an annoying and troublesoyll 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 hi 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 hiular form of loquacity; he insisted that it was the fault of Mr Mill hi 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 adh at other periods of life he was sufficiently and even ale occasion during this trying year, when he had to complain of rudeness

Friendliness he found here and there, but chiefly a fashi+onable or socially powerful people, either h not even this rule was quite exact, for Frederick Cavendish's kindness and intimate relations made Devonshi+re House almost familiar, and Lyulph Stanley's ardent Americanism created a certain cordiality with the Stanleys of Alderley whose house was one of the yll, 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 hich his friendly relations never ceased for near half a century, and then only when death stopped thehes caan 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 es of social relations to his father and mother, to him the whole business of diploo home

CHAPTER IX