The sun., 1918-12-08

.
come is the autobiography before us.
On the paper cover which envelOps the
book after the clearly fashion which has
come into vogue in recent years the pub
fishers have quoted these words from En-
ersOn: Beware when the great God lets
loose n thinker on the planet" We are
confident that the author could not have
sanctioned this quotation. The Adamscs
have long been aristocrats, but they have
never been sclf-advcrtisers. Their ten
deney has been rather to Judge them
selves stenIy, not TO say harshly.
His Amusing Role.
When Henry Adams, after relinquish-
ing his professorship at Harvard, deter
mined 10 make Washington his home, he
says: AS soon as Grants Administra-
ton ended Inc 1877 and Evarts became
Secretary of State Adams went back
there, partly to write history, but chiefly
because his seven years of laborious ban
ishment in Boston convinced him that 50
Gr as he had a function in life it was as
stable companion to statesmen, whether
they liked it or NOT" lie characterized
his career at Harvard us failure and de-
clarcd that it had left him with no position
in the world.
Nothing else broaIens the mind of a
bright boy so much as the privilege of
early association with great men, One of
the advantages Of the smaller American
colleges of the past was the opportunity
which their students enjoyed of inter
course with professors instead of tutors
with intellectual leaders of proved ability,
rather than with those whose capacity
was in the process of development.
Henry Adams was early thrown into
contact with distinguished Bostonians at
his fathers house in Mount Vernon street.
Among these he mentions John G. Pal
frey, Richard II. Dana and Charles Sum-
ner. Palfrey's name is unknown to the
Younger generation of readers of the pres
ent day, and Richard H. Dana is re-
membered only as the author of Two
Years Before the Mast, although he was
Mt one time a prominent figure in Massa-
ehusetts and national politics.
R. H. Dana and Charles Sumner.
''Danas ideal of life was to be great
Englishman with a seat on the front
benches of the House of Commons until he
should be promoted to the woolsack; be-
yond all, with social status that should
place him above the scuffle of provincial
and unprofessiOnal annoyances.' Henry
Adams says his mind "was aristocratic TO
the tenth degree Sumner was more at
traetive TO the boy than either of the
others; Henry fairly worshipped him.
Sumner, like Richard H. Dana, valued
and cultivated his relations with English
people of prominence ale was rare,,
without a pocket full of letters from
duchesses or noblemen in England" On
account Of his bitter anti-slavery senti-
ments he was socially Ostracized in Boston
at this period, and therefore valued his
with English society all the
more. "While Sumner had neither wife
nor household and was the most socially
ambitious of all and the most hungry for
what used to be called polite society, he
could enter hardly half dozen houses in
Boston"
He was always welcome, however, at the
house of Senator Lodges father in Bea-
con street, and Longfellow stood by him
in Cambridge. At the present day, when
the name Of Sumner stands out in our
national history as that of one of the great
and honored leaders of the anti-slavery
it is difficult to realize that
there ever could have been time when
be was banned by the best people of his
own State.
The Boy and the Books.
Henry Adams tells us that the influences
under which he grew up, while he was
for college, were purely politi-