The
women were jealous because, at heart, King had no faith in the
American woman; he loved types more robust.
The young men of the Fortieth Parallel had Californian
instincts; they were brothers of Bret Harte. They felt no
leanings towards the simple uniformities of Lyell and Darwin;
they saw little proof of slight and imperceptible changes; to
them, catastrophe was the law of change; they cared little for
simplicity and much for complexity; but it was the complexity of
Nature, not of New York or even of the Mississippi Valley. King
loved paradox; he started them like rabbits, and cared for them
no longer, when caught or lost; but they delighted Adams, for
they helped, among other things, to persuade him that history was
more amusing than science. The only question left open to doubt
was their relative money value.
In Emmons's camp, far up in the Uintahs, these talks were
continued till the frosts became sharp in the mountains. History
and science spread out in personal horizons towards goals no
longer far away. No more education was possible for either man.
Such as they were, they had got to stand the chances of the world
they lived in; and when Adams started back to Cambridge, to take
up again the humble tasks of schoolmaster and editor he was
harnessed to his cart. Education, systematic or accidental, had
done its worst.
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