Incomplete though it was, the system
seemed on the whole to satisfy the wants of society better than
any other part of the social machine, and society was content
with its creation, for the time, and with itself for creating it.
Nothing new was to be done or learned there, and the world
hurried on to its telephones, bicycles, and electric trams. At
past fifty, Adams solemnly and painfully learned to ride the
bicycle.
Nothing else occurred to him as a means of new life. Nothing
else offered itself, however carefully he sought. He looked for
no change. He lingered in Washington till near July without
noticing a new idea. Then he went back to England to pass his
summer on the Deeside. In October he returned to Washington and
there awaited the reelection of Mr. Cleveland, which led to no
deeper thought than that of taking up some small notes that
happened to be outstanding. He had seen enough of the world to be
a coward, and above all he had an uneasy distrust of bankers.
Even dead men allow themselves a few narrow prejudices.
CHAPTER XXII
CHICAGO (1893)
DRIFTING in the dead-water of the fin-de-siecle -- and during
this last decade every one talked, and seemed to feel
fin-de-siecle -- where not a breath stirred the idle air of
education or fretted the mental torpor of self-content, one lived
alone.
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