The liveliest and
most agreeable of men -- James Russell Lowell, Francis J. Child,
Louis Agassiz, his son Alexander, Gurney, John Fiske, William
James and a dozen others, who would have made the joy of London
or Paris -- tried their best to break out and be like other men
in Cambridge and Boston, but society called them professors, and
professors they had to be. While all these brilliant men were
greedy for companionship, all were famished for want of it.
Society was a faculty-meeting without business. The elements were
there; but society cannot be made up of elements -- people who
are expected to be silent unless they have observations to make
-- and all the elements are bound to remain apart if required to
make observations.
Thus it turned out that of all his many educations, Adams
thought that of school-teacher the thinnest. Yet he was forced to
admit that the education of an editor, in some ways, was thinner
still. The editor had barely time to edit; he had none to write.
If copy fell short, he was obliged to scribble a book-review on
the virtues of the Anglo-Saxons or the vices of the Popes; for he
knew more about Edward the Confessor or Boniface VIII than he did
about President Grant. For seven years he wrote nothing; the
Review lived on his brother Charles's railway articles. The
editor could help others, but could do nothing for himself.
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