Page:The Education of Henry Adams (1907).djvu/100

 the Capitol. He had little to do, and knew not how to do it rightly, but he knew of no one who knew more.

The southern type was one to be avoided; the New England type was oneself. It had nothing to show except one's own features. Setting aside Charles Sumner, who stood quite alone and was the boy's oldest friend, all the New Englanders were sane and steady men, well-balanced, educated and free from meanness or intrigue,—men whom one liked to act with, and who, whether graduates or not, bore the stamp of Harvard College. Anson Burlingame was one exception, and perhaps Israel Washburn another; but as a rule the New Englander's strength was his poise which almost amounted to a defect. He offered no more target for love than for hate; he attracted as little as he repelled; even as a machine, his motion seemed never accelerated. The character, with its force or feebleness, was familiar; one knew it to the core; one was it,—had been run in the same mould.

There remained the central and western States, but there the choice of teachers was not large and in the end narrowed itself to Preston King, Henry Winter. Davis, Owen Lovejoy and a few other men born with social faculty. Adams took most kindly to Henry J. Raymond who came to view the field for the New York Times, and who was a man of the world. The average Congressman was civil enough, but had nothing to ask except offices, and nothing to offer but the views of his district. The average Senator was more reserved, but had not much more to say, being always, excepting one or two genial natures, handicapped by his own importance.

Study it as one might, the hope of education, till the arrival of the President-elect, narrowed itself to the possible influence of only two men—Sumner and Seward.

Sumner was then fifty years old. Since his election as senator in 1851 he had passed beyond the reach of his boy friend, and, after his Brooks injuries, his nervous system never quite recovered its tone; but perhaps eight or ten years of solitary existence as senator had most to do with his development. No man, however strong, can serve ten years as school-master, priest or senator, and remain fit for anything else. All the dogmatic stations in life have the effect of fixing a certain stiffness of attitude forever, as though they mesmerised the subject. Yet even