After five or six years of constant practice, any one can
acquire the habit of going from one strange company to another
without thinking much of one's self or of them, as though
silently reflecting that "in a world where we are all insects, no
insect is alien; perhaps they are human in parts"; but the dreamy
habit of mind which comes from solitude in crowds is not fitness
for social success except in London. Everywhere else it is
injury. England was a social kingdom whose social coinage had no
currency elsewhere.
Englishwomen, from the educational point of view, could give
nothing until they approached forty years old. Then they become
very interesting -- very charming -- to the man of fifty. The
young American was not worth the young Englishwoman's notice, and
never received it. Neither understood the other. Only in the
domestic relation, in the country -- never in society at large --
a young American might accidentally make friends with an
Englishwoman of his own age, but it never happened to Henry
Adams. His susceptible nature was left to the mercy of American
girls, which was professional duty rather than education as long
as diplomacy held its own.
Thus he found himself launched on waters where he had never
meant to sail, and floating along a stream which carried him far
from his port. His third season in London society saw the end of
his diplomatic education, and began for him the social life of a
young man who felt at home in England -- more at home there than
anywhere else.
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