Secretary Seward
sent William M. Evarts to London as law counsel, and Henry began
an acquaintance with Mr. Evarts that soon became intimate. Evarts
was as individual as Weed was impersonal; like most men, he cared
little for the game, or how it was played, and much for the
stakes, but he played it in a large and liberal way, like Daniel
Webster, "a great advocate employed in politics." Evarts was also
an economist of morals, but with him the question was rather how
much morality one could afford. "The world can absorb only doses
of truth," he said; "too much would kill it." One sought
education in order to adjust the dose.
The teachings of Weed and Evarts were practical, and the
private secretary's life turned on their value. England's power
of absorbing truth was small. Englishmen, such as Palmerston,
Russell, Bethell, and the society represented by the Times and
Morning Post, as well as the Tories represented by Disraeli, Lord
Robert Cecil, and the Standard, offered a study in education that
sickened a young student with anxiety. He had begun -- contrary
to Mr. Weed's advice -- by taking their bad faith for granted.
Was he wrong? To settle this point became the main object of the
diplomatic education so laboriously pursued, at a cost already
stupendous, and promising to become ruinous. Life changed front,
according as one thought one's self dealing with honest men or
with rogues.
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