the name -- he thought he had been enough in Lord Robert's house,
in days of his struggle with adversity, to excuse the theft --
and began what he meant for a permanent series of annual
political reviews which he hoped to make, in time, a political
authority. With his sources of information, and his social
intimacies at Washington, he could not help saying something that
would command attention. He had the field to himself, and he
meant to give himself a free hand, as he went on. Whether the
newspapers liked it or not, they would have to reckon with him;
for such a power, once established, was more effective than all
the speeches in Congress or reports to the President that could
be crammed into the Government presses.

The first of these "Sessions" appeared in April, but it could
not be condensed into a single article, and had to be
supplemented in October by another which bore the title of "Civil
Service Reform," and was really a part of the same review. A good
deal of authentic history slipped into these papers. Whether any
one except his press associates ever read them, he never knew and
never greatly cared. The difference is slight, to the influence
of an author, whether he is read by five hundred readers, or by
five hundred thousand; if he can select the five hundred, he
reaches the five hundred thousand. The fateful year 1870 was near
at hand, which was to mark the close of the literary epoch, when
quarterlies gave way to monthlies; letter-press to illustration;
volumes to pages. The outburst was brilliant. Bret Harte led, and
Robert Louis Stevenson followed. Guy de Maupassant and Rudyard
Kipling brought up the rear, and dazzled the world. As usual,
Adams found himself fifty years behind his time, but a number of
belated wanderers kept him company, and they produced on each