to London without a thought of revolution or restlessness or
reform. He wanted amusement, quiet, and gaiety.

Had he not been born in 1838 under the shadow of Boston State
House, and been brought up in the Early Victorian epoch, he would
have cast off his old skin, and made his court to Marlborough
House, in partnership with the American woman and the Jew banker.
Common-sense dictated it; but Adams and his friends were
unfashionable by some law of Anglo-Saxon custom -- some innate
atrophy of mind. Figuring himself as already a man of action, and
rather far up towards the front, he had no idea of making a new
effort or catching up with a new world. He saw nothing ahead of
him. The world was never more calm. He wanted to talk with
Ministers about the Alabama Claims, because he looked on the
Claims as his own special creation, discussed between him and his
father long before they had been discussed by Government; he
wanted to make notes for his next year's articles; but he had not
a thought that, within three months, his world was to be upset,
and he under it. Frank Palgrave came one day, more contentious,
contemptuous, and paradoxical than ever, because Napoleon III
seemed to be threatening war with Germany. Palgrave said that
"Germany would beat France into scraps" if there was war. Adams
thought not. The chances were always against catastrophes. No one
else expected great changes in Europe. Palgrave was always
extreme; his language was incautious -- violent!

In this year of all years, Adams lost sight of education.
Things began smoothly, and London glowed with the pleasant sense
of familiarity and dinners. He sniffed with voluptuous delight
the coal-smoke of Cheapside and revelled in the architecture of