A young American in 1863 could see
little or nothing of the future. He might dream, but he could not
foretell, the suddenness with which the old Europe, with England
in its wake, was to vanish in 1870. He was in dead-water, and the
parti-colored, fantastic cranks swam about his boat, as though he
were the ancient mariner, and they saurians of the prime.
CHAPTER XIII
THE PERFECTION OF HUMAN SOCIETY (1864)
MINISTER ADAMS'S success in stopping the rebel rams fixed his
position once for all in English society. From that moment he
could afford to drop the character of diplomatist, and assume
what, for an American Minister in London, was an exclusive
diplomatic advantage, the character of a kind of American Peer of
the Realm. The British never did things by halves. Once they
recognized a man's right to social privileges, they accepted him
as one of themselves. Much as Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli were
accepted as leaders of Her Majesty's domestic Opposition,
Minister Adams had a rank of his own as a kind of leader of Her
Majesty's American Opposition. Even the Times conceded it. The
years of struggle were over, and Minister Adams rapidly gained a
position which would have caused his father or grandfather to
stare with incredulous envy.
This Anglo-American form of diplomacy was chiefly undiplomatic,
and had the peculiar effect of teaching a habit of diplomacy
useless or mischievous everywhere but in London.
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