All thought of serious education had long
vanished. He tried to acquire a few French idioms, without even
aspiring to master a subjunctive, but he succeeded better in
acquiring a modest taste for Bordeaux and Burgundy and one or two
sauces; for the Trois Freres Provencaux and Voisin's and
Philippe's and the Cafe Anglais; for the Palais Royal Theatre,
and the Varietes and the Gymnase; for the Brohans and Bressant,
Rose Cheri and Gil Perez, and other lights of the stage. His
friends were good to him. Life was amusing. Paris rapidly became
familiar. In a month or six weeks he forgot even to disapprove of
it; but he studied nothing, entered no society, and made no
acquaintance. Accidental education went far in Paris, and one
picked up a deal of knowledge that might become useful; perhaps,
after all, the three months passed there might serve better
purpose than the twenty-one months passed elsewhere; but he did
not intend it -- did not think it -- and looked at it as a
momentary and frivolous vacation before going home to fit himself
for life. Therewith, after staying as long as he could and
spending all the money he dared, he started with mixed emotions
but no education, for home.
CHAPTER VII
TREASON (1860-1861)
WHEN, forty years afterwards, Henry Adams looked back over his
adventures in search of knowledge, he asked himself whether
fortune or fate had ever dealt its cards quite so wildly to any
of his known antecessors as when it led him to begin the study of
law and to vote for Abraham Lincoln on the same day.
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