Since the reign of Pterspis, nothing
had greatly changed; nothing except the monks. Lying on the turf
the ground littered with newspapers, the monks studied the war
correspondence. In one respect Adams had succeeded in educating
himself; he had learned to follow a campaign.
While at Wenlock, he received a letter from President Eliot
inviting him to take an Assistant Professorship of History, to be
created shortly at Harvard College. After waiting ten or a dozen
years for some one to show consciousness of his existence, even a
Terabratula would be pleased and grateful for a compliment which
implied that the new President of Harvard College wanted his
help; but Adams knew nothing about history, and much less about
teaching, while he knew more than enough about Harvard College;
and wrote at once to thank President Eliot, with much regret that
the honor should be above his powers. His mind was full of other
matters. The summer, from which he had expected only amusement
and social relations with new people, had ended in the most
intimate personal tragedy, and the most terrific political
convulsion he had ever known or was likely to know. He had failed
in every object of his trip. The Quarterlies had refused his best
essay. He had made no acquaintances and hardly picked up the old
ones. He sailed from Liverpool, on September 1, to begin again
where he had started two years before, but with no longer a hope
of attaching himself to a President or a party or a press.
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