other the effect or illusion of a public opinion. They straggled
apart, at longer and longer intervals, through the procession,
but they were still within hearing distance of each other. The
drift was still superficially conservative. Just as the Church
spoke with apparent authority, of the quarterlies laid down an
apparent law, and no one could surely say where the real
authority, or the real law, lay. Science lid not know. Truths a
priori held their own against truths surely relative. According
to Lowell, Right was forever on the scaffold, Wrong was forever
on the Throne; and most people still thought they believed it.
Adams was not the only relic of the eighteenth century, and he
could still depend on a certain number of listeners -- mostly
respectable, and some rich.

Want of audience did not trouble him; he was well enough off in
that respect, and would have succeeded in all his calculations if
this had been his only hazard. Where he broke down was at a point
where he always suffered wreck and where nine adventurers out of
ten make their errors. One may be more or less certain of
organized forces; one can never be certain of men. He belonged to
the eighteenth century, and the eighteenth century upset all his
plans. For the moment, America was more eighteenth century than
himself; it reverted to the stone age.

As education -- of a certain sort -- the story had probably a
certain value, though he could never see it. One seldom can see
much education in the buck of a broncho; even less in the kick of
a mule. The lesson it teaches is only that of getting out of the
animal's way. This was the lesson that Henry Adams had learned
over and over again in politics since 1860.