Owing to other
causes, young Adams never got the full training of such style as
still existed. The embarrassments of his first few seasons
socially ruined him. His own want of experience prevented his
asking introductions to the ladies who ruled society; his want of
friends prevented his knowing who these ladies were; and he had
every reason to expect snubbing if he put himself in evidence.
This sensitiveness was thrown away on English society, where men
and women treated each others' advances much more brutally than
those of strangers, but young Adams was son and private secretary
too; he could not be as thick-skinned as an Englishman. He was
not alone. Every young diplomat, and most of the old ones, felt
awkward in an English house from a certainty that they were not
precisely wanted there, and a possibility that they might be told
so.
If there was in those days a country house in England which had
a right to call itself broad in views and large in tastes, it was
Bretton in Yorkshire; and if there was a hostess who had a right
to consider herself fashionable as well as charming, it was Lady
Margaret Beaumont; yet one morning at breakfast there, sitting by
her side -- not for his own merits -- Henry Adams heard her say
to herself in her languid and liberal way, with her rich voice
and musing manner, looking into her tea-cup: "I don't think I
care for foreigners!" Horror-stricken, not so much on his own
account as on hers, the young man could only execute himself as
gaily as he might: "But Lady Margaret, please make one small
exception for me!" Of course she replied what was evident, that
she did not call him a foreigner, and her genial Irish charm made
the slip of tongue a happy courtesy; but none the less she knew
that, except for his momentary personal introduction, he was in
fact a foreigner, and there was no imaginable reason why she
should like him, or any other foreigner, unless it were because
she was bored by natives.
Pages:
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302