The young man did not complain of
the falsehoods; on the contrary, he was vain of his own insight
in detecting them; but he was wholly upset by the idea that
Russell should think himself true.
Young Adams thought Earl Russell a statesman of the old school,
clear about his objects and unscrupulous in his methods --
dishonest but strong. Russell ardently asserted that he had no
objects, and that though he might be weak he was above all else
honest. Minister Adams leaned to Russell personally and thought
him true, but officially, in practice, treated him as false.
Punch, before 1862, commonly drew Russell as a schoolboy telling
lies, and afterwards as prematurely senile, at seventy. Education
stopped there. No one, either in or out of England, ever offered
a rational explanation of Earl Russell.
Palmerston was simple -- so simple as to mislead the student
altogether -- but scarcely more consistent. The world thought him
positive, decided, reckless; the record proved him to be
cautious, careful, vacillating. Minister Adams took him for
pugnacious and quarrelsome; the "Lives" of Russell, Gladstone,
and Granville show him to have been good-tempered, conciliatory,
avoiding quarrels. He surprised the Minister by refusing to
pursue his attack on General Butler. He tried to check Russell.
He scolded Gladstone.
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