He could see nothing in the
situation that could be of use to him. His friends had won no
more from it than he. His brother Charles, after three years of
civil life, was no better off than himself, except for being
married and in greater need of income. His brother John had
become a brilliant political leader on the wrong side. No one had
yet regained the lost ground of the war.
He went to Newport and tried to be fashionable, but even in the
simple life of 1868, he failed as fashion. All the style he had
learned so painfully in London was worse than useless in America
where every standard was different. Newport was charming, but it
asked for no education and gave none. What it gave was much gayer
and pleasanter, and one enjoyed it amazingly; but friendships in
that society were a kind of social partnership, like the classes
at college; not education but the subjects of education. All were
doing the same thing, and asking the same question of the future.
None could help. Society seemed founded on the law that all was
for the best New Yorkers in the best of Newports, and that all
young people were rich if they could waltz. It was a new version
of the Ant and Grasshopper.
At the end of three months, the only person, among the hundreds
he had met, who had offered him a word of encouragement or had
shown a sign of acquaintance with his doings, was Edward
Atkinson.
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