"Never. Never once." She had a wonderful air of answering for it. "I know." I saw that, after all, she really believed she knew, and I had indeed, for that matter, to recognize that I myself believed her knowledge to be sound. Only there went with it a complacency, an enjoyment of having really made me see what could be done for her, so little to my taste that for a minute or two I could scarce trust myself to speak: she looked somehow, as she sat there, so lovely, and yet, in spite of her loveliness-or perhaps even just because of it-so smugly selfish; she put it to me with so small a consciousness of anything but her personal triumph that, while she had kept her skirts. clear, her name unuttered and her reputation untouched, "they" had been in it even more than her success required. It was their skirts, their name and their reputation that, in the proceedings at hand, would bear the brunt. It was only after waiting a while that I could at last say: "You're perfectly sure then of Mrs. Brivet's intention?" "Oh, we've had formal notice." "And he's himself satisfied of the sufficiency——————?” "Of the sufficiency?" "Of what he has done." She rectified. "Of what he has appeared to do." "That is then enough?" "Enough," she laughed, "to send him to the gallows!" To which I could only reply that all was well that ended well. V ALL for me, however, as it proved, had not ended yet. Brivet, as I have mentioned, duly reappeared to sit for me, and Mrs. Cavenham, on his arrival, as consistently went abroad. He confirmed to me that lady's news of how he had "fetched," as he called it, his wife-let me know, as decently owing to me after what had passed, on the subject, between us, that the forces set in motion had logically operated; but he made no other allusion to his late accomplice-for I now took for granted the close of the connection-than was conveyed in this intimation. He spoke and the effect was almost droll-as if he had had, since our previous meeting, a busy and responsible year and wound up an affair (as he was accustomed to wind up affairs) involving a mass of detail; he even dropped into occasional reminiscence of what he had seen and enjoyed and disliked during a recent period of rather farreaching adventure; but he stopped just as short as Mrs. Cavenham had done—and, indeed, much shorter than she of introducing Mrs. Dundene by name into our talk. And what was singular in this, I soon saw, was-apart from a general discretion—that he abstained not at all because his mind was troubled, but just because, on the contrary, it was so much at ease. It was perhaps even more singular still, meanwhile, that, though I had scarce been able to bear Mrs. Cavenham's manner in this particular, I found I could put up perfectly with that of her friend. She had annoyed me, but he didn'tI give the inconsistency for what it is worth. The obvious state of his conscience had always been a strong point in him and one that exactly irritated some people as much as it charmed others; so that if, in general, it was positively, and in fact quite aggressively approving, this monitor, it had never held its head so high as at the juncture of which I speak. I took all this in with eagerness, for I saw how it would play into my work. Seeking as I always do, instinctively, to represent sitters in the light of the thing, whatever it may be, that facially, least wittingly or responsibly, gives the pitch of their aspect, I felt immediately that I should have the clue for making a capital thing of Brivet were I to succeed in showing him in just this freshness of his cheer. His cheer was that of his being able to say to himself that he had got all he wanted precisely as he wanted: without having harmed a fly. He had arrived so neatly where most men arrive besmirched, and what he seemed to cry out as he stood before my canvaswishing everyone well all round-was: "See how clever and pleasant and practicable, how jolly and lucky and rich I've been!" I determined, at all events, that I would make some such characteristic words as these cross, at any cost, the footlights, as it were, of my frame. Well, I can't but feel to this hour that I really hit my nail-that the man is fairly painted in the light and that the work remains as yet my high-water mark. He himself was delighted with it-and all the more, I think, that before it was finished he received from America the news of his liberation. He had not defended the suitas to which judgment, therefore, had been expeditiously rendered; and he was accordingly free as air and with the added sweetness of every augmented appearance that his wife was herself blindly preparing to seek chastisement at the hands of destiny. There being at last no obstacle to his open association with Mrs. Cavenham, he called her directly back to London to admire my achievement, over which, from the very first glance, she as amiably let herself go. It was the very view of him she had desired to possess; it was the dear man in his intimate essence for those who knew him; and for any one who should ever be deprived of him it would be the next best thing to the sound of his voice. We of course by no means lingered, however, on the contingency of privation, which was promptly swept away in the rush of Mrs. Cavenham's vision of how straight also, above and beyond, I had, as she called it, attacked. I couldn't quite myself, I fear, tell how straight, but Mrs. Cavenham perfectly could, and did, for everybody: she had at her fingers' ends all the reasons why the thing would be a treasure even for those who had never seen "Frank." I had finished the picture, but was, according to my practice, keeping it near me a little, for afterthoughts, when I received from Mrs. Dundene the first visit she had paid me for many a month. "I've come," she immediately said, “to ask you a favor"; and she turned her eyes, for a minute, as if contentedly full of her thought, round the large workroom she already knew so well and in which her beauty had really rendered more services than could ever be repaid. There were studies of her yet on the walls; there were others thrust away in corners; others still had gone forth from where she stood and carried to far-away places the reach of her lingering look. I had greatly, almost inconveniently missed her, and I don't know why it was that she struck me now as more beautiful than ever. She had always, for that matter, had a way of seeming each time a little different and a little better. Dressed very simply in black materials, feathers and lace, that gave the impression of being light and fine, she had indeed the air of a special type, but quite as some great lady might have had it. She looked like a princess in Court mourning. Oh, she had been a case for the petitionerwas everything the other side wanted! "Mr. Brivet," she went on to say, "has kindly offered me a present. I'm to ask of him whatever in the world I most desire." I I knew in an instant, on this, what was coming, but I was at first wholly taken up with the simplicity of her allusion to her late connection. Had I supposed that, like Brivet, she wouldn't allude to it at all? or had I stupidly assumed that if she did it would be with ribaldry and rancor? hardly know; I only know that I suddenly found myself charmed to receive from her thus the key of my own freedom. There was something I wanted to say to her, and she had thus given me leave. But for the moment I only repeated as with amused interest: "Whatever in the world—?” "Whatever in all the world.” "But that's immense, and in what way can poor I help——?” "By painting him for me. I want a portrait of him." I looked at her a moment in silence. She was lovely. "That's what-'in all the world' you've chosen?" "Yes-thinking it over: full-length. want it for remembrance, and I want it as you will do it. It's the only thing I do want." "Nothing else?" "Oh, it's enough." I turned about-she was wonderful. I had whisked out of sight for a month the picture I had produced for Mrs. Cavenham, and it was now completely covered with a large piece of stuff. I stood there a little, thinking of it, and she went on as if she feared I might be unwilling. "Can't you do it?" It showed me that she had not heard from him of my having painted him, and this, further, was an indication that, his purpose effected, he had ceased to see her. "I suppose you know," I presently said, "what you've done for him?" "Oh yes; it was what I wanted." "Even to his marrying Mrs. Cavenham?" She hesitated. "As well her as anyone, from the moment he couldn't marry me." "It was beautiful of you to be so sure of that," I returned. "How could I be anything else but sure? He doesn't so much as know me!" said Alice Dundene. "No," I declared, "I verily believe he doesn't. There's your picture," I added, unveiling my work. She was amazed and delighted. "I may have that?" "So far as I'm concerned-absolutely." "Then he had himself the beautiful thought of sitting for me?" I faltered but an instant. "Yes." I am still keeping the thing to send to her, punctually, on the day he's married; but I had of course, on my understanding with her, a tremendous bout with Mrs. Cavenham, who protested with indignation against my "base treachery" and made to Brivet an appeal for redress which, enlightened, face to face with the magnificent humility of his other friend's selection, he couldn't, for shame, entertain. All he was able to do was to suggest to me that I might for one or other of the ladies, at my choice, do him again; but I had no difficulty in replying that my best was my best and that what was done was done. He assented with the awkwardness of a man in dispute between women, and Mrs. Cavenham remained furious. "Can't 'they' of all possible things, think!-take something else?" "Oh, they want him!" "Him?" It was monstrous. "To live with," I explained-"to make up." "To make up for what?" "Why, you know, they never saw him alone." HENRY ADAMS (1838-1918) Henry Brooks Adams was the son of Charles Francis Adams, the grandson of John Quincy Adams, and the great-grandson of John Adams. He was born in Boston on 16 February, 1838. He was graduated from Harvard College twenty years later, and was chosen Class Orator by his classmates. In the fall of 1858 he went to Germany with the intention of studying civil law at Berlin. He attended only one lecture, but he did study to some effect the German language. The winter of 1859-1860 he spent in Italy and then, after a few months in France, returned to Boston-only to be taken down to Washington by his father, a member of the House of Representatives, as his private secretary. In the spring of 1861 his father was appointed Ambassador to England, and Henry went with him, still acting as his private secretary. He lived in England, with several intervals of travel on the Continent, until 1868, and during the latter part of this period contributed several essays to the North American Review. He had abandoned all intention of ever studying the law when he had gone to England, and now, upon his return, he hoped to become known as a political writer, and to win, if not office, at least leadership and influence as a reformer in the Democratic party. He began well enough. One of his essays was reprinted by the Democratic National Committee and thousands of copies were circulated through the country. But his observation of the press and of conditions in Washington in 1869 and 1870 convinced him that his aim was mistaken, for he felt forced to conclude that the Republicans were so firmly intrenched as to make any hope of reform chimerical for at least a generation, and he had no taste for leadership which, in such circumstances, was bound to be without practical result. Accordingly he was tempted when, in 1870, he was asked to become an assistant professor of history at Harvard and, at the same time, editor of the North American Review. He protested that he knew no history, but he finally accepted the double appointment, and taught medieval history at Harvard until 1877. He then resigned his post, tiring of it because he felt that his hard work had to be done unintelligently and that it brought no commensurate returns either to himself or to his students. Adams now threw himself into the study of American history in the early years of the nineteenth century, going to live in Washington for the purpose (he had married, and in 1884 he began to build himself a home in Washington). In 1879 he published a biography of Albert Gallatin and an edition of his writings. In the following year he published (anonymously) a satirical novel, Democracy, in 1882 a life of John Randolph, and in 1884 another satirical novel (over a pseudonym) entitled Esther. These three books all have interest and value, and the two novels deserve to be read much more widely than hitherto they have been, but the great work of this period was his History of the United States of America during the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison (9 vols., 1889-1891), over which he spent years of labor in Washington and in Europe. This may justly be called a masterpiece, and indeed it is the best piece of historical literature concerning America which has yet been written. It is finely conceived, exact in scholarship, written from a full background, and excellent in literary form. Adams also published in 1891 a collection of his essays, entitled Historical Essays. He had intended to continue his History, and had collected materials for so doing, but several circumstances conspired to prevent this. The death of his wife induced in him a profound reaction, similar in character to that which he had earlier experienced at the sudden and accidental death of his sister, and there swept over him a conviction of the futility of life itself and of his own work which never afterwards quite left him. This was reinforced by the quiet reception of his great History. The only tangible result he had seen of his political efforts, in 1869 and 1870, had been that a Republican senator had likened him to a begonia, showy but not useful. Now his History elicited an honorary degree (1892) from Western Reserve University and the presidency (for 1894) of the American Historical Association, but he could not discover that the work itself had more than three serious readers, and he felt that his expenditure of time and money had been excessive for this result. Furthermore, he had long felt the influence of modern science and of its pretensions to exactness and finality, and he had begun to think that such work as he and other historians were engaged upon was no better than mere antiquarian research, showy but not useful. The historian, if he was to be more than a dilettante or smatterer, must become a scientist, and this meant that his work must remain without foundation or value until he could discover the law of social development. Such was the tenor of a provocative letter which Adams sent (in lieu of a presidential address to the American Historical Association in December, 1894. And, though he did not say so, he had already been definitely stimulated to attack this problem by an hypothesis concerning social develop‐ ment propounded by his younger brother, Brooks Adams. He had read his brother's manuscrip (entitled, when later published, The Law of Civilization and Decay) in the summer of 1893, and had complained that, though the hypothesis seemed to him correct, it was not adequately supported. The theory was, briefly, that human societies develop in an inevitably repeated cycle from a state of relative simplicity and high integration to a state of high complexity producing rapid disintegration, or that history is a repeated tale of developments from unity to chaos or anarchy. Adams resolved to test this theory and to try to demonstrate it. The effort led him into a long course of historical and scientific research, which finally convinced him of the theory's truth, though he modified it by concluding that the evolution of organic life may be defined as the progressive degradation of vital energy, which means simply that the more complex and highly specialized an organism is, the lower it is in the scale of being, so that if man and the social organism are the last words in evolution they are also merely the heralds of their own approaching extinction in a chaotic flux of matter incapable of producing or sustaining life. It was Adams's effort, if not to demonstrate-for he came to recognize that demonstration was practically or perhaps finally impossible-at least to make impressive to men's imaginations this conclusion, which led him to write the three books which in recent years have made him famous. These are: Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904), The Education of Henry Adams (1907), and A Letter to American Teachers of History (1910). The first is a study of the spirit of the Middle Ages which is a work of consummate art, and which has been universally recognized as the best study of its subject to be found in the English language. The second is in form an ironical autobiography, too long, but packed with matter of absorbing interest. The third is a direct exposition of the theory which the first two are intended to illustrate. Without an understanding both of that theory and of Adams's purpose in these books the first two mentioned above cannot be fully understood, and this applies with especial force to the Education, which is profoundly misleading if read simply as an autobiog raphy. The last book which Adams wrote was a short biography of George Cabot Lodge (1911). He died on 27 March, 1918. HISTORY OF THE UNITED DURING THE ADMINISTRATIONS OF JEFFERSON VOLUME I CHAPTER II POPULAR CHARACTERISTICS THE growth of character, social and national,—the formation of men's minds,more interesting than any territorial or industrial growth,2 defied the tests of censuses and surveys. No people could be expected, least of all when in infancy, to understand the intricacies of its own char acter, and rarely has a foreigner been gifted with insight to explain what natives did not comprehend. Only with diffidence could the best-informed Americans venture, in 1 The two chapters here reprinted are used with the permission of Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons. 1800, to generalize on the subject of their own national habits of life and thought. Of all American travelers President Dwight was the most experienced; yet his four volumes of travels were remarkable for no trait more uniform than their reticence in regard to the United States. Clear and emphatic wherever New England was in discussion, Dwight claimed no knowledge of other regions. Where so good a judge professed ignorance, other observers were likely to mislead; and Frenchmen like Liancourt, Englishmen like Weld, or Germans like Bülow, were almost equally worthless authorities on a subject which none understood. The newspapers of the time were little more trustworthy than the books of travel, and hardly so well written. The literature of a higher kind was chiefly limited to New England, New York, and Pennsylvania. From materials so poor no precision of result could be expected. A few customs, more or less local; a few prejudices, more or less popular; a few traits of thought, suggesting habits of 3 Of Yale College. |