By twisting life to follow accidental and devious paths, one
might perhaps find some use for accidental and devious knowledge,
but this had been no part of Henry Adams's plan when he chose the
path most admired by the best judges, and followed it till he
found it led nowhere. Nothing had been further from his mind when
he started in November, 1858, than to become a tourist, but a
mere tourist, and nothing else, he had become in April, 1860,
when he joined his sister in Florence. His father had been in the
right. The young man felt a little sore about it. Supposing his
father asked him, on his return, what equivalent he had brought
back for the time and money put into his experiment! The only
possible answer would be: "Sir, I am a tourist! "
The answer was not what he had meant it to be, and he was not
likely to better it by asking his father, in turn, what
equivalent his brothers or cousins or friends at home had got out
of the same time and money spent in Boston. All they had put into
the law was certainly thrown away, but were they happier in
science? In theory one might say, with some show of proof, that a
pure, scientific education was alone correct; yet many of his
friends who took it, found reason to complain that it was
anything but a pure, scientific world in which they lived.
Meanwhile his father had quite enough perplexities of his own,
without seeking more in his son's errors.
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