The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-02-02
By HENRY MCBRIDE.


He was studying the laws of motion.
and had struck two large question or
vital Importance to America-inertia of
race and ,inertia OF sex.-"Thes Educa-
ton OF Henry Adams" page 4i4.
ITO disentangle a single thread
from such a complicated weave
as The Education of Henry
Adams" would be impossible, so the
conspicuous and important fact that
Bostonian in the pursuit OF art has
finally like Walt Whitman. mentioned
the word Sex. cannot be presented
without admitting that he mentioned
"dynamos" and "X-rays,'' in the same
breath.
This will seem peculiarly and anus
ingly American to foreigners who, al
ways having had Art and. always hay
ing had Sex and generally finding them
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.. will regard the ef-
fort to reduce either one of these terms
to algebraic equations, as something
more Shandian than even poor Lau-
renee Sterne ever dreamed Of
But the fact remains, and | am in
clined to regard the occasion as an MS
toric one, that no matter how Mr..
Adams may have mouthed the word.
ne did pronounce il, and as the WORD
must be pronounced many times on
this side of the water before our great
but inexperienced public loses its fright
OF the word sufficiently TO enfranchise
our artists whose very lives and souls
depend upon a little knowledge of this
subject, ! hasten to quote him.
But first l suppose ! ought to cx-
plain how this writer. who sprang
from that House of Adams that sup
piled so many early Presidents to this
nation, came upon his clear perceptions
and thirst for truth, Adams is sur
passingly frank, franker even than
Walt whitman, who didn't after all
tell his terrible secret" to Horace
Traubel, although il was trembling
upon his lips during three. huge vol
umes OF revelations. 1t was not alone
that Adams was born early enough in
New England to have caught the
Thoreau- Emerson enthusiasm for the
higher facts, but chiefly, think. that
ne drifted at a tender age into the pro-
fession of diplomacy, and no profess
sion imaginable TO moderns fetches
one up so against the realities of life
as that one docs. So it is surprising
Cor perhaps not if you have already
read your Disrael) to find this young
dandy OF the diplomatic service calmly
ell h. &c ~ ntg,as,
OF al, nations until he discovers what
power" there may be in secret behind
the promises or threats, and resolving
everything finally into the highly char
acteristlc question of coal output"
The coal output of the world,
speaking roughly, doubled every ten
Saars between 1870 and 1900 in the
fosYi of utilized power, for the ton of
coal yielded three or four times as
much power in 1900 as in 1870" and
so on and on.
Mr.. Adams is very exact with his
coal figures. and long before the late
unpleasantness with Germany had
been considered by any than romano
ers and poets had awarded world SUI
premacy 10 the nation that got most
power from her coal. The particular
nation he had in mind need not he
mentioned here, but at least 1t can be
stated that the picture he gives us OF
it's future does not seem any more
slluring than our knowledge of its
present:
"He could see that the new Ameri-
can--thc child of incalculable coal
power, chemical power electric power
and radiating energy, as we'll as of new
forces yet undetermined must be a
sort OF god compared with any former
creation of nature. At the rate OF
progress since 1900 every American
who lived into the year 1000 would
know how TO control unlimited power
He would think in complexities un-
imaginable to an earlier mind" &c.
This preamble is slight, but sum.
Client perhaps to prepare the gentle
reader for an acquaintance with Henry
Adams. a Yankee calculator. student
and diplomat whose education. lament.
eole as II was In many respects, hat
tanRht him To acknowledge force ant
nothing but force. He saw in In,
gothic cathc4rals of France not onl,
IN" hymns Ia the Virgin which the,
undoubtedly are, but an expression O
concrete and physical power which