Adams's
life, past or future, was a succession of violent breaks or
waves, with no base at all. King's abnormal energy had already
won him great success. None of his contemporaries had done so
much, single-handed, or were likely to leave so deep a trail. He
had managed to induce Congress to adopt almost its first modern
act of legislation. He had organized, as a civil -- not military
-- measure, a Government Survey. He had paralleled the
Continental Railway in Geology; a feat as yet unequalled by other
governments which had as a rule no continents to survey. He was
creating one of the classic scientific works of the century. The
chances were great that he could, whenever he chose to quit the
Government service, take the pick of the gold and silver, copper
or coal, and build up his fortune as he pleased. Whatever prize
he wanted lay ready for him -- scientific social, literary,
political -- and he knew how to take them in turn. With ordinary
luck he would die at eighty the richest and most many-sided
genius of his day.
So little egoistic he was that none of his friends felt envy of
his extraordinary superiority, but rather grovelled before it, so
that women were jealous of the power he had over men; but women
were many and Kings were one. The men worshipped not so much
their friend, as the ideal American they all wanted to be.
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