The Education of Henry Adams
before it reacts on himself. Demolition of one's idols is painful, and
Carlyle had been an idol. Doubts cast on his stature spread far into
general darkness like shadows of a setting sun. Not merely the idols
fell, but also the habit of faith. If Carlyle, too, was a fraud, what
were his scholars and school?
Society as a rule was civil, and one had no more reason to
complain than every other diplomatist has had, in like conditions, but
one's few friends in society were mere ornament. The Legation could not
dream of contesting social control. The best they could do was to
escape mortification, and by this time their relations were good enough
to save the Minister's family from that annoyance. Now and then, the
fact could not be wholly disguised that some one had refused to
meet--or to receive--the Minister; but never an open insult, or any
expression of which the Minister had to take notice. Diplomacy served
as a buffer in times of irritation, and no diplomat who knew his
business fretted at what every diplomat--and none more commonly than
the English--had to expect; therefore Henry Adams, though not a
diplomat and wholly unprotected, went his way peacefully enough, seeing
clearly that society cared little to make his acquaintance, but seeing
also no reason why society should discover charms in him of which he
was himself unconscious. He went where he was asked; he was always
courteously received; he was, on the whole, better treated than at
Washington; and he held his tongue.
For a thousand reasons, the best diplomatic house in London was
Lord Palmerston's, while Lord John Russell's was one of the worst. Of
neither host could a private secretary expect to know anything. He
might as well have expected to know the Grand Lama. Personally Lord
Palmerston was the last man in London that a cautious private secretary
wanted to know. Other Prime Ministers may perhaps have lived who
inspired among diplomatists as much distrust as Palmerston, and yet
between Palmerston's word and Russell's word, one hesitated to decide,
and gave years of education to deciding, whether either could be
trusted, or how far. The Queen herself in her famous memorandum of
August 12, 1850, gave her opinion of Palmerston in words that differed
little from words used by Lord John Russell, and both the Queen and
Russell said in substance only what Cobden and Bright said in private.
Every diplomatist agreed with them, yet the diplomatic standard of
trust seemed to be other than the parliamentarian. No professional
diplomatists worried about falsehoods. Words were with them forms of
expression which varied with individuals, but falsehood was more or
less necessary to all. The worst liars were the candid. What
diplomatists wanted to know was the motive that lay beyond the
expression. In the case of Palmerston they were unanimous in warning
new colleagues that they might expect to be sacrificed by him to any
momentary personal object. Every new Minister or Ambassador at the
Court of St. James received this preliminary lesson that he must, if
possible, keep out of Palmerston's reach. The rule was not secret or
merely diplomatic. The Queen herself had emphatically expressed the
same opinion officially. If Palmerston had an object to gain, he would
go down to the House of Commons and betray or misrepresent a foreign
Minister, without concern for his victim. No one got back on him with a
blow equally mischievous--not even the Queen--for, as old Baron Brunnow
described him: "C'est une peau de rhinocere!" Having gained his point,
he laughed, and his public laughed with him, for the usual British--or
American--public likes to be amused, and thought it very amusing to see
these beribboned and bestarred foreigners caught and tossed and gored
on the horns of this jovial, slashing, devil-may-care British bull.
Diplomatists have no right to complain of mere lies; it is
their own fault, if, educated as they are, the lies deceive them; but
they complain bitterly of traps. Palmerston was believed to lay traps.
He was the enfant terrible of the British Government. On the other
hand, Lady Palmerston was believed to be good and loyal. All the
diplomats and their wives seemed to think so, and took their troubles
to her, believing that she would try to help them. For this reason
among others, her evenings at home--Saturday Reviews, they were
called--had great vogue. An ignorant young American could not be
expected to explain it. Cambridge House was no better for entertaining
than a score of others. Lady Palmerston was no longer young or
handsome, and could hardly at any age have been vivacious. The people
one met there were never smart and seldom young; they were largely
diplomatic, and diplomats are commonly dull; they were largely
political, and politicians rarely decorate or beautify an evening
party; they were sprinkled with literary people, who are notoriously
unfashionable; the women were of course ill-dressed and middle-aged;
the men looked mostly bored or out of place; yet, beyond a doubt,
Cambridge House was the best, and perhaps the only political house in
London, and its success was due to Lady Palmerston, who never seemed to
make an effort beyond a friendly recognition. As a lesson in social
education, Cambridge House gave much subject for thought. First or
last, one was to know dozens of statesmen more powerful and more
agreeable than Lord Palmerston; dozens of ladies more beautiful and
more painstaking than Lady Palmerston; but no political house so
successful as Cambridge House. The world never explains such riddles.
The foreigners said only that Lady Palmerston was "sympathique."
The small fry of the Legations were admitted there, or
tolerated, without a further effort to recognize their existence, but
they were pleased because rarely tolerated anywhere else, and there
they could at least stand in a corner and look at a bishop or even a
duke. This was the social diversion of young Adams. No one knew
him--not even the lackeys. The last Saturday evening he ever attended,
he gave his name as usual at the foot of the staircase, and was rather
disturbed to hear it shouted up as "Mr. Handrew Hadams!" He tried to
correct it, and the footman shouted more loudly: "Mr. Hanthony Hadams!"
With some temper he repeated the correction, and was finally announced
as "Mr. Halexander Hadams," and under this name made his bow for the
last time to Lord Palmerston who certainly knew no better.
Far down the staircase one heard Lord Palmerston's laugh as he
stood at the door receiving his guests, talking probably to one of his
henchmen, Delane, Borthwick, or Hayward, who were sure to be near. The
laugh was singular, mechanical, wooden, and did not seem to disturb his
features. "Ha! ... Ha! ... Ha!" Each was a slow, deliberate
ejaculation, and all were in the same tone, as though he meant to say:
"Yes! ... Yes! ... Yes!" by way of assurance. It was a laugh of 1810
and the Congress of Vienna. Adams would have much liked to stop a
moment and ask whether William Pitt and the Duke of Wellington had
laughed so; but young men attached to foreign Ministers asked no
questions at all of Palmerston and their chiefs asked as few as
possible. One made the usual bow and received the usual glance of
civility; then passed on to Lady Palmerston, who was always kind in
manner, but who wasted no remarks; and so to Lady Jocelyn with her
daughter, who commonly had something friendly to say; then went through
the diplomatic corps, Brunnow, Musurus, Azeglio, Apponyi, Van de Weyer,
Bille, Tricoupi, and the rest, finally dropping into the hands of some
literary accident as strange there as one's self. The routine varied
little. There was no attempt at entertainment. Except for the desperate
isolation of these two first seasons, even secretaries would have found
the effort almost as mechanical as a levee at St. James's Palace.
Lord Palmerston was not Foreign Secretary; he was Prime
Minister, but he loved foreign affairs and could no more resist scoring
a point in diplomacy than in whist. Ministers of foreign powers,
knowing his habits, tried to hold him at arms'-length, and, to do this,
were obliged to court the actual Foreign Secretary, Lord John Russell,
who, on July 30, 1861, was called up to the House of Lords as an earl.
By some process of personal affiliation, Minister Adams succeeded in
persuading himself that he could trust Lord Russell more safely than
Lord Palmerston. His son, being young and ill-balanced in temper,
thought there was nothing to choose. Englishmen saw little difference
between them, and Americans were bound to follow English experience in
English character. Minister Adams had much to learn, although with him
as well as with his son, the months of education began to count as
aeons.
Just as Brunnow predicted, Lord Palmerston made his rush at
last, as unexpected as always, and more furiously than though still a
private secretary of twenty-four. Only a man who had been young with
the battle of Trafalgar could be fresh and jaunty to that point, but
Minister Adams was not in a position to sympathize with octogenarian
youth and found himself in a danger as critical as that of his numerous
predecessors. It was late one after noon in June, 1862, as the private
secretary returned, with the Minister, from some social function, that
he saw his father pick up a note from his desk and read it in silence.
Then he said curtly: "Palmerston wants a quarrel!" This was the point
of the incident as he felt it. Palmerston wanted a quarrel; he must not
be gratified; he must be stopped. The matter of quarrel was General
Butler's famous woman-order at New Orleans, but the motive was the
belief in President Lincoln's brutality that had taken such deep root
in the British mind. Knowing Palmerston's habits, the Minister took for
granted that he meant to score a diplomatic point by producing this
note in the House of Commons. If he did this at once, the Minister was
lost; the quarrel was made; and one new victim to Palmerston's passion
for popularity was sacrificed.
The moment was nervous--as far as the private secretary knew,
quite the most critical moment in the records of American
diplomacy--but the story belongs to history, not to education, and can
be read there by any one who cares to read it. As a part of Henry
Adams's education it had a value distinct from history. That his father
succeeded in muzzling Palmerston without a public scandal, was well
enough for the Minister, but was not enough for a private secretary who
liked going to Cambridge House, and was puzzled to reconcile
contradictions. That Palmerston had wanted a quarrel was obvious; why,
then, did he submit so tamely to being made the victim of the quarrel?
The correspondence that followed his note was conducted feebly on his
side, and he allowed the United States Minister to close it by a
refusal to receive further communications from him except through Lord
Russell. The step was excessively strong, for it broke off private
relations as well as public, and cost even the private secretary his
invitations to Cambridge House. Lady Palmerston tried her best, but the
two ladies found no resource except tears. They had to do with American
Minister perplexed in the extreme. Not that Mr. Adams lost his temper,
for he never felt such a weight of responsibility, and was never more
cool; but he could conceive no other way of protecting his Government,
not to speak of himself, than to force Lord Russell to interpose. He
believed that Palmerston's submission and silence were due to Russell.
Perhaps he was right; at the time, his son had no doubt of it, though
afterwards he felt less sure. Palmerston wanted a quarrel; the motive
seemed evident; yet when the quarrel was made, he backed out of it; for