If he had sinned and doubted at
all, he wholly repented and did penance before "Atalanta in
Calydon," and would have offered Swinburne a solemn worship as
Milnes's female offered Hugo, if it would have pleased the poet.
Unfortunately it was worthless.
The three young men returned to London, and each went his own
way. Adams's interest in making friends was something desperate,
but "the London season," Milnes used to say, "is a season for
making acquaintances and losing friends"; there was no intimate
life. Of Swinburne he saw no more till Monckton Milnes summoned
his whole array of Frystonians to support him in presiding at the
dinner of the Authors' Fund, when Adams found himself seated next
to Swinburne, famous then, but no nearer. They never met again.
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 from Adams's vision
into Sir William Stirling-Maxwell. The only record of his
wonderful visit to Fryston may perhaps exist still in the
registers of the St. James's Club, for immediately afterwards
Milnes proposed Henry Adams for membership, 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.
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