Page:The Education of Henry Adams (1907).djvu/172

 likely to be in Boston,—let alone New York or Washington,—and if his reception varied inconceivably between extreme courtesy and extreme neglect, it merely proved that he had become, or was becoming at home. Not from a sense of personal griefs or disappointments did he labor over this part of the social problem, but only because his education was becoming English, and the further it went, the less it promised.

By natural affinity the social eccentrics commonly sympathised with political eccentricity. The English mind took naturally to rebellion,—when foreign,—and it felt particular confidence in the southern confederacy because of its combined attributes,—foreign rebellion of English blood,—which came nearer ideal eccentricity than could be reached by Poles, Hungarians, Italians or Frenchmen. All the English eccentrics rushed into the ranks of rebel sympathisers, leaving few but well-balanced minds to attach themselves to the cause of the Union. None of the English leaders on the northern side were marked eccentrics. William E. Forster was a practical, hard-headed Yorkshireman, whose chief ideals in politics took shape as working arrangements on an economical base. Cobden, considering the one-sided conditions of his life, was remarkably well-balanced. John Bright was stronger in his expressions than either of them, but with all his self-assertion he stuck to his point, and his point was practical. He did not, like Gladstone, box the compass of thought, "furiously earnest," as Monckton Milnes said, "on both sides of every question;" he was rather, on the whole, a consistent conservative of the old Commonwealth type, and seldom had to defend inconsistencies. Monckton Milnes himself was regarded as an eccentric, chiefly by those who did not know him, but his fancies and hobbies were only ideas a little in advance of the time; his manner was eccentric but not his mind, as anyone could see who read a page of his poetry. None of them, except Milnes, was a University man. As a rule, the Legation was troubled very little, if at all, by indiscretions, extravagances or contradictions among its English friends. Their work was always judicious, practical, well-considered, and almost too cautious. The "cranks" were all rebels, and the list was portentous. Perhaps it might be headed by old Lord Brougham, who had the audacity to appear at a July 4th reception at the Legation, led by Joe Parkes, and claim his old credit as "Attorney General to Mr. Madison." The Church was rebel, but the dissenters were mostly with the Union. The Universities were rebel, but the University-men who enjoyed most public confidence,