Henry Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr.
[London] July 17, 1863
We are in receipt of all your sanguinary letters, as well as of news down to the 4th, telling of Cyclopean battles, like the struggles of Saturn and Terra and Hyperion for their empire, lasting through sunrise after sunrise, in an agony such as heralds the extinction of systems. It’s a pity that we ‘re civilized. What a grand thing Homer would have made of it; while in our day, men only conceive of a battle as of two lines of men shooting at each other till one or the other gives way. At this distance, though, even now it’s very grand and inspiring. There’s a magnificence about the pertinacity of the struggle, lasting so many days, and closing, so far as we know on the eve of our single national anniversary, with the whole nation bending over it, that makes even these English cubs silent. Dreadful I suppose it is, and God knows I feel anxious and miserable enough at times, but I doubt whether any of us will ever be able to live contented again in times of peace and laziness. Our generation has been stirred up from its lowest layers and there is that in its history which will stamp every member of it until we are all in our graves. We cannot be commonplace. The great burden that has fallen on us must inevitably stamp its character on us. I have hopes for us all, as we go on with the work. . . .
The peculiar attraction of our position is one that is too subtle to put one’s hand upon, and yet that we shall be sure to miss extremely when we leave it. The atmosphere is exciting. One does every day and without a second thought, what at another time would be the event of a year, perhaps of a life. For instance, the other day we were asked out to a little garden party by the old Duchess of Sutherland at Chiswick, one of the famous nobleman’s places in England. Dukes and Duchesses, Lords and Ladies, Howards and Russells, Grosvenors and Gowers, Cavendishes, Stuarts, Douglases, Campbells, Montagues, half the best blood in England was there, and were cutting through country dances and turning somersets and playing leap-frog in a way that knocked into a heap all my preconceived ideas of their manners. To be sure it was only a family party, with a few friends. You may be certain that I took no share in it. A stranger had better not assume to be one of the Gods.
Or again! I have just returned from breakfasting with Mr. Evarts, and we had Cyrus Field, Mr. Blatchford and his wife, and Mr. Cobden at table. The conversation was not remarkable to me; so little so that I should probably make only a bare note of it. But Cobden gave a vigorous and amusing account of Roebuck, whom he covered with epithets, and whose treatment of himself he described, going over some scenes in Parliament when Sir Robert Peel was alive. He sketched to us Gladstone’s “uneasy conscience” which is always doubting and hesitating and trying to construct new theories. Cyrus Field rattled ahead about his telegraph and told again the story of his experiences. Mr. Evarts talked about England and the policy of the country, for he goes home today, and indeed left us only to fire a parting shot into Gladstone. We discussed the war news and Bancroft Davis came in, arguing that Lee’s ammunition must be exhausted. Cobden was very anxious about the battles, and varied his talk, by discussing a movement he proposes to make in Parliament before it rises. He rather regrets that they did n’t force Roebuck’s motion to a division, and wants to get in a few words before the close.
So we go on, you see, and how much of this sort of thing could one do at Boston! And the camp could only make up for it in times of action. Even the strangely hostile tone of society here has its peculiar advantage. It wakes us up and keeps our minds on a continual strain to meet and check the tendency. To appear confident in times of doubt, steady in times of disaster, cool and quiet at all times, and unshaken under any pressure, requires a continual wakefulness and actually has an effect to make a man that which he represents himself to be. Mr. Evarts is grand in these trials, and from him and Mr. Seward and the Chief, one learns to value properly the power of momentum.
All this to you seems, I suppose, curious talk, to one who has just got through with the disgusts of one campaign and is recruiting for another, as I suppose you are doing now. We are very anxious about you as you may suppose, but trust that your regiment is too much used up to fight much more without rest. Besides, in the confusion and excitement of the great struggle, we are glad to counteract anxiety by hope. And though our good friends down town do persist in regarding the news as favorable to the South, we on the whole are inclined to hope, and to feel a certain confidence that friend Lee has got his swing. There is also the usual rumor of the fall of Vicksburg, as the very last telegram by the steamer, but we do not put much confidence in stories of that sort. Meade’s despatch at eight o’clock on the evening of the 3d is all the news that I put any faith in. And with that I am patient. . . .
Politically we are trying to get everything in trim in order to have all clear during the next three months when England is without a Government and drifts. There is only one serious danger, and against that we are doing our best to guard. If you could win a few victories, it would be the best guaranty for good behavior, and I am free to say that England has remained quiet as long as we could reasonably expect, knowing her opinions, without solid guaranties of ultimate success on our part. . . .
I shall send you your friend W. H. Russell’s Gazette if he has as blackguard a notice of us in it as he usually does.
