Nowhere else in
the world could one expect to figure in a role so unprofessional.
The young man knew no longer what character he bore. Private
secretary in the morning, son in the afternoon, young man about
town in the evening, the only character he never bore was that of
diplomatist, except when he wanted a card to some great function.
His diplomatic education was at an end; he seldom met a diplomat,
and never had business with one; he could be of no use to them,
or they to him; but he drifted inevitably into society, and, do
what he might, his next education must be one of English social
life. Tossed between the horns of successive dilemmas, he reached
his twenty-sixth birthday without the power of earning five
dollars in any occupation. His friends in the army were almost as
badly off, but even army life ruined a young man less fatally
than London society. Had he been rich, this form of ruin would
have mattered nothing; but the young men of 1865 were none of
them rich; all had to earn a living; yet they had reached high
positions of responsibility and power in camps and Courts,
without a dollar of their own and with no tenure of office.
Henry Adams had failed to acquire any useful education; he
should at least have acquired social experience. Curiously
enough, he failed here also. From the European or English point
of view, he had no social experience, and never got it.
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