" "Nicolay is dying. I went to see him
yesterday, and he did not know me." Among the letters of
condolence showered upon him was one from Clarence King at
Pasadena, "heart-breaking in grace and tenderness -- the old King
manner"; and King himself "simply waiting till nature and the foe
have done their struggle." The tragedy of King impressed him
intensely: "There you have it in the face!" he said -- "the best
and brightest man of his generation, with talents immeasurably
beyond any of his contemporaries; with industry that has often
sickened me to witness it; with everything in his favor but blind
luck; hounded by disaster from his cradle, with none of the joy
of life to which he was entitled, dying at last, with nameless
suffering alone and uncared-for, in a California tavern. Ca vous
amuse, la vie?"
The first summons that met Adams, before he had even landed on
the pier at New York, December 29, was to Clarence King's
funeral, and from the funeral service he had no gayer road to
travel than that which led to Washington, where a revolution had
occurred that must in any case have made the men of his age
instantly old, but which, besides hurrying to the front the
generation that till then he had regarded as boys, could not fail
to break the social ties that had till then held them all
together.
Ca vous amuse, la vie? Honestly, the lessons of education were
becoming too trite.
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