Part 6 (2/2)

In due course this party of five men sat down to dinner with the usual club manners of ladyless dinner-tables, easy and formal at the same time Conversation ran first to Oliphant who told his dramatic story simply, and from hiht it ti Swinburne out Then, at last, if never before, Ada, he found; but he was none the wiser; only the more astonished For once, too, he felt at ease, for the others were no less astonished than hirew apace For the rest of the evening Swinburne figured alone; the end of dinner ue only freer, for in 1862, even when ladies were not in the house, suests usually smoked in the stables or the kitchen; but Monckton Milnes was a licensed libertine who let his guests smoke in Adanorant of manners; and there after dinner all sat--or lay--till far into the night, listening to the rush of Swinburne's talk In a long experience, before or after, no one ever approached it; yet one had heard accounts of the best talking of the ti the rest, of Voltaire, who seemed to approach nearest the pattern

That Swinburne was altogether new to the three types of inal, wildly eccentric, astonishi+ngly gifted, and convulsingly droll, Adams could see; but what more he was, even Milnes hardly dared say They could not believe his incredible e of literature, classic,a play of Sophocles or a play of Shakespeare, forward or backward, froo They knew not what to make of his rhetorical recitation of his own unpublished ballads--”Faustine”; the ”Four Boards of the Coffin Lid”; the ”Ballad of Burdens”--which he declaiular that his most appreciative listener should have been the author only of pretty verses like ”We wandered by the brook-side,”

and ”She seemed to those that saw them meet”; and who never cared to write in any other tone; but Milnes took everything into his sy Adams whose standards were stiffest of all, while Swinburne, though es far from them, united them by his humor even more than by his poetry The story of his first day as a member of Professor Stubbs's household was professionally clever farce, if not high co man who could write a Greek ode or a Provencal chanson as easily as an English quatrain

Late at night when the sy of Keir wanted to take with him to his chamber a copy of ”Queen Rosamund,” the only volume Swinburne had then published, which was on the library table, and Adaht hi was ejaculating explosions of wonder, until at length, at the foot of the stairs and at the cliination, he paused, and burst out: ”He's a cross between the devil and the Duke of Argyll!”

To appreciate the full merit of this description, a judicious critic should have known both, and Henry Adams knew only one--at least in person--but he understood that to a Scotchlish experience, supernatural, and what the French callas well as Milnes should regard Swinburne as a prodigy greatly co to iine that Swinburne was a natural product of Oxford, as muffins and pork-pies of London, at once the cause and effect of dyspepsia The idea that one has actually enius dawns slowly on a Boston mind, but it made entry at last

Then caenius never was in doubt, but frohts, was never fellow and Emerson, the doubts of Lowell and the huht of Swinburne's talk What could a shy young private secretary do about it? Perhaps, in his good nature, Milnes thought that Swinburneor Oliphant, but he could hardly have fancied Henry Ada in hiernon Swinburne than he could interest Encke's comet To Swinburne he could be no enius was an education almost ultimate, for one touched there the limits of the humanto give--nothing even to offer

Swinburne tested hio for to hio was the surest and quickest of standards French poetry is at best a severe exercise for foreigners; it requires extraordinary knowledge of the language and rare refinement of ear to appreciate even the recitation of French verse; but unless a poet has both, he lacks so of poetry Adams had neither To the end of his life he never listened to a French recitation with pleasure, or felt a sense of majesty in French verse; but he did not care to proclaim his weakness, and he tried to evade Swinburne's vehe an affection for Alfred de Musset Swinburne would have none of it; de Musset was unequal; he did not sustain hiiven a world or two, if he owned one, to sustain hio; but his education as well as his ear was at fault, and he succue Landor In truth the test was the salish the qualities that he felt in Hugo's French; and Adaross, for, when forced to despair, he had to ad o nor Landor was lost

The sentence was just and Adams never appealed froht know it in smell Keenly mortified by the dullness of his senses and instincts, he kneas no companion for Swinburne; probably he could be only an annoyance; no number of centuries could ever educate him to Swinburne's level, even in technical appreciation; yet he often wondered whether there was nothing he had to offer that orth the poet's acceptance Certainly such e as the A, had he knoas hardly worth the acceptance of any one

Only in France is the attitude of prayer possible; in England it becao and Landor, was almost as helpless as an American private secretary in personal contact with them Ten years afterwards Adamswith delight at a call he had e rooainst the walls, and Hugo at one end throned No one spoke At last Hugo raised his voice solemnly, and uttered the words: 'Quant a moi, je crois en Dieu!' Silence followed

Then a woman responded as if in deep meditation: 'Chose sublime! un Dieu qui croft en Dieu!”'

With the best of will, one could not do this in London; the actors had not the instinct of the dra in instinct As soon as he reached town he hurried to Pickering's for a copy of ”Queen Rosa, Pickering had sold seven copies When the ”Poereat success and scandal, he sought one of the first copies from Moxon If he had sinned and doubted at all, he wholly repented and did penance before ”Atalanta in Calydon,” and would have offered Swinburne a soleo, if it would have pleased the poet Unfortunately it orthless

The three young men returned to London, and each went his oay Ada desperate, but ”the London season,” Milnes used to say, ”is a season forfriends”; there was no intimate life Of Swinburne he saw no more till Monckton Milnes summoned his whole array of Frystonians to support hi at the dinner of the Authors' Fund, when Adams found himself seated next to Swinburne, faain Oliphant he met oftener; all the world knew and loved him; but he too disappeared in the way that all the world knows Stirling of Keir, after one or two efforts, passed also fro-Maxwell The only record of his wonderful visit to Fryston isters of the St James's Club, for immediately afterwards Milnes proposed Henry Adams for membershi+p, and unless his memory erred, the nomination was seconded by Tricoupi and endorsed by Laurence Oliphant and Evelyn Ashley The list was a little singular for variety, but on the whole it suggested that the private secretary was getting on

CHAPTER X

POLITICAL MORALITY (1862)

ON Moran's promotion to be Secretary, Mr Seward inquired whether Minister Adams would like the place of assistant Secretary for his son It was the first--and last--office ever offered him, if indeed he could claim as offered in fact to his father To the man could make some sort of assistant Secretary; only one, just at that moment, could make an assistant Son More than half his duties were do absences; they always required independence of the Government service His position was abnoro to Court as Attache, though he was never attached, and after five or six years' toleration, the decision was declared irregular In the Legation, as private secretary, he was liable to do Secretary's work In society, when official, he was attached to the Minister; when unofficial, he was a young an to find advantages in having no position at all except that of young entleman; just a ular; at that tiular; yet it lent itself to a sort of irregular education that seee in Secretary Seward's er, he too got education He felt, at last, that his official representatives abroad needed support

Officially he could give thereat value to any one; and at best the ht of an office had little to do with the public Governments were made to deal with Governments, not with private individuals or with the opinions of foreign society In order to affect European opinion, the weight of Aht to bear personally, and had to be backed by the weight of Aorously to work and sent over every important Aation more or less intimately, and Henry Adams had a chance to see them all, bankers or bishops, who did their work quietly and well, though, to the outsider, the work seemed wasted and the ”influential classes” more indurated with prejudice than ever

The waste was only apparent; the work all told in the end, and entlemen were sent over to aid the Minister and to cooperate with hi of these was Thurlow Weed, who came to do what the private secretary hinorance of his oers

Mr Weed took charge of the press, and began, to the aation had learned to accept as the invariable mistake of every amateur diplomat; he wrote letters to the London Tiot into his hands the threads of ement, and did quietly and smoothly all that was to be done With his work the private secretary had no connection; it was he that interested Thurlow Weed was a complete A and beautifully balanced; his temper never seemed ruffled; his manners were carefully perfect in the style of benevolent simplicity, the tradition of Benjaement and patient address; but the trait that excited enthusiasm in a private secretary was his faculty of irresistibly conquering confidence Of all flowers in the garden of education, confidence was beco Adams followed hi since become a blind instinct--but rather with sy

The syeh Adams never met another such master, or any one who approached him; nor was the confidence due to any display of professions, either moral or social, by Mr Weed The trait that astounded and confounded cynicism was his apparent unselfishness

Never, in anylike it The effect of power and publicity on all ravation of self, a sort of tu the victim's sympathies; a diseased appetite, like a passion for drink or perverted tastes; one can scarcely use expressions too strong to describe the violence of egotism it stimulates; and Thurlow Weed was one of the exceptions; a rare iht apparently not of hi with He held hirasped power, but not office He distributed offices by handfuls without caring to take theave, but he did not receive This rare superiority to the politicians he controlled, a trait that private secretaries never met in the politicians themselves, excited Adaet behind it, and to educate himself from the stores of Mr Weed's experience, he found the study still ement was an instinct with Mr Weed; an object to be pursued for its own sake, as one plays cards; but he appeared to play with h they were only cards; he see himself one of them He took them and played them for their face-value; but once, when he had told, with his usual humor, so even for the Albany lobby, the private secretary ht: ”Then, Mr Weed, do you think that no politician can be trusted?” Mr Weed hesitated for aso”

This lesson, at the tih Mr Weed had said: ”Youth needs illusions!” As he grew older he rather thought that Mr Weed looked on it as a question of how the ga men most needed experience They could not play well if they trusted to a general rule Every card had a relative value Principles had better be left aside; values were enough Adams knew that he could never learn to play politics in so masterly a fashi+on as this: his education and his nervous systeh he admired all the more the impersonal faculty of the political areatest politicians in history had seeardbecause another famous New Yorker came over at the same time who liked to discuss the same problem Secretary Seward sent Williaan an acquaintance with Mr Evarts that soon became intimate Evarts was as individual as Weed was iame, or hoas played, and e and liberal way, like Daniel Webster, ”a great advocate employed in politics” Evarts was also an economist of morals, but with him the question was rather how much morality one could afford ”The world can absorb only doses of truth,” he said; ”too ht education in order to adjust the dose

The teachings of Weed and Evarts were practical, and the private secretary's life turned on their value England's power of absorbing truth was slishmen, such as Palmerston, Russell, Bethell, and the society represented by the Ti Post, as well as the Tories represented by Disraeli, Lord Robert Cecil, and the Standard, offered a study in education that sickened a young student with anxiety He had begun--contrary to Mr Weed's advice--by taking their bad faith for granted Was he wrong? To settle this point became the main object of the diplomatic education so laboriously pursued, at a cost already stupendous, and pro as one thought one's self dealing with honest ues

Thus far, the private secretary felt officially sure of dishonesty The reasons that satisfied hiether satisfied his father, and of course his father's doubts gravely shook his own convictions, but, in practice, if only for safety, the Legation put little or no confidence in Ministers, and there the private secretary's diploerency, the ethened the belief that Lord Russell had started in May, 1861, with the assumption that the Confederacy was established; every step he had taken proved his persistence in the same idea; he never would consent to put obstacles in the way of recognition; and he aiting only for the proper moment to interpose All these points seeation would have doubted or even discussed thee, and persisted in assuring

Minister Adams of his honest and impartial neutrality