Cambridge was pretty, and the dons
were kind. Mr. Evarts enjoyed his visit but this was merely a
part of the private secretary's day's work. What affected his
whole life was the intimacy then begun with Milnes Gaskell and
his circle of undergraduate friends, just about to enter the
world.
Intimates are predestined. Adams met in England a thousand
people, great and small; jostled against every one, from royal
princes to gin-shop loafers; attended endless official functions
and private parties; visited every part of the United Kingdom and
was not quite a stranger at the Legations in Paris and Rome; he
knew the societies of certain country houses, and acquired habits
of Sunday-afternoon calls; but all this gave him nothing to do,
and was life wasted. For him nothing whatever could be gained by
escorting American ladies to drawing-rooms or American gentlemen
to levees at St. James's Palace, or bowing solemnly to people
with great titles, at Court balls, or even by awkwardly jostling
royalty at garden-parties; all this was done for the Government,
and neither President Lincoln nor Secretary Seward would ever
know enough of their business to thank him for doing what they
did not know how to get properly done by their own servants; but
for Henry Adams -- not private secretary -- all the time taken up
by such duties was wasted.
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