He was
a free lance and no other career stood in sight or mind. To that
point education had brought him.
Yet he found, on reaching home, that he had not done quite so
badly as he feared. His article on the Session in the July North
American had made a success. Though he could not quite see what
partisan object it served, he heard with flattered astonishment
that it had been reprinted by the Democratic National Committee
and circulated as a campaign document by the hundred thousand
copies. He was henceforth in opposition, do what he might; and a
Massachusetts Democrat, say what he pleased; while his only
reward or return for this partisan service consisted in being
formally answered by Senator Timothy Howe, of Wisconsin, in a
Republican campaign document, presumed to be also freely
circulated, in which the Senator, besides refuting his opinions,
did him the honor -- most unusual and picturesque in a Senator's
rhetoric -- of likening him to a begonia.
The begonia is, or then was, a plant of such senatorial
qualities as to make the simile, in intention, most flattering.
Far from charming in its refinement, the begonia was remarkable
for curious and showy foliage; it was conspicuous; it seemed to
have no useful purpose; and it insisted on standing always in the
most prominent positions. Adams would have greatly liked to be a
begonia in Washington, for this was rather his ideal of the
successful statesman, and he thought about it still more when the
Westminster Review for October brought him his article on the
Gold Conspiracy, which was also instantly pirated on a great
scale.
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