His Quincy district had
sent him to Congress, and in the spring of 1860 he was in the
full confusion of nominating candidates for the Presidential
election in November. He supported Mr. Seward. The Republican
Party was an unknown force, and the Democratic Party was torn to
pieces. No one could see far into the future. Fathers could
blunder as well as sons, and, in 1860, every one was conscious of
being dragged along paths much less secure than those of the
European tourist. For the time, the young man was safe from
interference, and went on his way with a light heart to take
whatever chance fragments of education God or the devil was
pleased to give him, for he knew no longer the good from the bad.
He had of both sorts more than he knew how to use. Perhaps the
most useful purpose he set himself to serve was that of his pen,
for he wrote long letters, during the next three months, to his
brother Charles, which his brother caused to be printed in the
Boston Courier; and the exercise was good for him. He had little
to say, and said it not very well, but that mattered less. The
habit of expression leads to the search for something to express.
Something remains as a residuum of the commonplace itself, if one
strikes out every commonplace in the expression. Young men as a
rule saw little in Italy, or anywhere else, and in after life
when Adams began to learn what some men could see, he shrank into
corners of shame at the thought that he should have betrayed his
own inferiority as though it were his pride, while he invited his
neighbors to measure and admire; but it was still the nearest
approach he had yet made to an intelligent act.
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