One of these,
and to him the most important, was to put an end forever to the
idea of being "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 common character, and
prevent clash. He had even gone down to Manchester to study the
cotton famine, and wrote a long account of his visit which his
brother Charles had published in the Boston Courier.
Unfortunately it was printed with his name, and instantly came
back upon him in the most crushing shape possible -- that of a
long, satirical leader in the London Times. Luckily the Times did
not know its victim to be a part, though 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 rushing to the Times
office, to tell them all they did not know about Henry Adams,
rushed to the Legation to tell Adams all he did not want to know
about the Times.
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