Clover Adams

by Natalie Dykstra

  [>] each Civil War stereograph: War Views, Adams-Thoron Photographs, Photo. Coll. 42, MHS.

  The war had not changed: See William W. Stowe, Going Abroad: European Travel in Nineteenth-Century American Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).

  album with a gold-embossed: Henry Adams Photograph Collection, Photo. Coll. 40, Album 5, MHS.

  “In that Civil War”: Barrett Wendell, A Literary History of America (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1900), 478. Wendell was a professor of literature at Harvard College from 1880 to 1917.

  The cataclysm had badly shaken: For a vivid description of the city’s transformation, see Middle Years, 7. Charles Dickens wrote to his friend Charles Sumner, the long-time Massachusetts senator, on his return visit to Boston in 1867 for a reading tour of A Christmas Carol and The Pickwick Papers, that his twenty-five-year absence seemed “but so many months” except for the city’s “sweeping changes.” Quoted in Stephen Puleo, A City So Grand: The Rise of an American Metropolis, Boston, 1850–1900 (Boston: Beacon Press, 2010), 154. Henry Adams would fear becoming what Bostonians became mocked for. “I care a great deal,” he wrote to Henry Cabot Lodge in 1875, “to prevent myself from becoming what of all things I despise, a Boston prig (the intellectual prig is the most odious of all).” HA to Henry Cabot Lodge, May 26, 1875, Letters, vol. 2, 227–28.

  [>] “I feel about this”: MHA to CST, August 31, 1863, Unprocessed Thoron papers, *93M–35 (b), Houghton.

  “certainly the most married”: Alice James to Anne Ashburner, February 13, 1875, in Rayburn S. Moore, “The Letters of Alice James to Anne Ashburner, 1873–78: The Joy of Engagement (Part 2),” Resources for American Literary Study, vol. 27, no. 2 (2001): 198.

  “capacity for personal attachment”: Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Science, vol. 22, no. 14 (1887), 527. Ida Agassiz Higginson, older sister of Clover’s friend Pauline Agassiz, remarked on Gurney’s capacity to “look all around things.” Quoted in Edward Waldo Emerson, The Early Years of the Saturday Club: 1855–1870 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918), 444.

  “to have such a bright person”: Fanny Hooper to Lillian Clarke, June 1868, Swann.

  [>] “her hair”: Ellen Tucker Emerson to Edith Emerson, January 8, 1858, in The Letters of Ellen Tucker Emerson, ed. Edith E. W. Gregg; foreword by Gay Wilson Allen, vol. 1 (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1982), 139.

  “lovely head”: Bliss Perry, Life and Letters of Henry Lee Higginson, vol. 2 (Boston: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1921), 373.

  “‘Cupid has made’” . . . “housekeeping and solitude”: Ellen Tucker Emerson to unknown addressee, n.d., Gregg, The Letters of Ellen Tucker Emerson, vol. 1, 501.

  women outnumbered men: The 1870 census records the Massachusetts population as 1,457,351 residents. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1960), 13.

  114 Beacon Street: The Boston Directory, Embracing the City Record, General Directory of the Citizens, and a Business Directory for the Year (Boston: Adams, Sampson, & Company, 1862). See also www.bosarchitecture.com/backbay/beacon/114 .html.

  “drifts towards her thirties”: MHA to APF, April 26, 1885, Hooper-Adams Papers, MHS.

  “constantly ailing . . . to be called invalides”: Abba Goold Woolson, Women in American Society (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1873), 189–93.

  [>] problem in the nervous system: Ellen L. Bassuk, “The Rest Cure: Repetition or Resolution of Victorian Women’s Conflicts?” in The Female Body in Western Culture: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Susan Rubin Suleiman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), 141–42. Neurasthenia seemed to beset those with a more refined and delicate nature, making it, for those in the middle and upper classes, also a more coveted diagnosis than hysteria, with its implication that the patient was acting out or was uncontrollable. Both men and women were diagnosed with neurasthenia, and cures varied widely. The most popular treatment, the rest cure, developed by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell after the war to treat battle-fatigued soldiers, was nonetheless most often prescribed for women. The patient would be isolated in a sickroom far from the strains of family life and forbidden to read or write; a strict daily regimen had to be followed: enforced rest, a diet of bland fatty foods, and “passive exercise” such as hydrotherapy and massage. Some patients improved and some famously worsened, as dramatized by the narrator of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1892 short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” See Nancy Theroit, “Women’s Voices in Nineteenth-Century Medical Discourse: A Step Toward Deconstructing Science,” Signs, vol. 19, no. 1 (Autumn 1993): 8. By 1910, subsequent to the work of Freud, neurasthenia went out of fashion as a diagnosis, replaced by psychoanalytic explanations for the patient’s symptoms. See F. G. Gosling, Before Freud: Neurasthenia and the American Medical Community, 1870–1910 (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1987); Barbara Sicherman, “The Uses of a Diagnosis: Doctors, Patients, and Neurasthenia,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, vol. 32, no. 2 (January 1977); Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 84–92; Natalie Dykstra, “‘Trying to Idle’: Work and Illness in The Diary of Alice James,” in The New Disability History: American Perspectives, ed. Paul Longmore and Laurie Umanski (New York: New York University Press, 2001).

  “appendage to five cushions”: The Diary of Alice James, ed. Leon Edel (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1964), 81. See also Jean Strouse, Alice James: The Life of the Brilliant but Neglected Younger Sister of William and Henry James (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1980); and R. W. B. Lewis, The Jameses: A Family Narrative (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1991), 380–81.

  She was interested in art: Kirsten Swinth documents how women “entered art in unprecedented numbers after the Civil War, flooding art schools, hanging their pictures alongside men’s, pressing for critical recognition, and competing for sales in an unpredictable market.” Swinth, Painting Professionals: Women Artists and the Development of Modern American Art, 1870–1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 1. In addition, several colleges had started to admit female students, though not Harvard College. Oberlin College, the first coeducational school, was established in 1833; Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, an all-female college, was founded in 1837; and Vassar College began classes in 1865. Regardless of these developments, in the 1860s, college was not considered a suitable option for a young woman of Clover’s social class.

  [>] a life member: First Annual Report of the Directors of the Massachusetts Infant Asylum, 2nd ed. (Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1868), 36.

  founding member: Our Dumb Animals, vol. 5, no. 1 (June 1872), 305.

  “I hope you’re not going” . . . “orphan girl to sew”: Ellen Tucker Emerson to Ralph Waldo Emerson, August 27, 1868, in Gregg, Letters of Ellen Tucker Emerson, vol. 1, 502. This letter is also the source that confirms Clover’s involvement with Dorchester’s Industrial School for Girls and the Howard Industrial School for Colored Women and Girls in Cambridge.

  “perfectly delightful”: MHA to Eleanor Shattuck, February 5, 1871, George Cheyne Shattuck Papers, vol. 24, MHS.

  “plunged”: MHA to RWH, September 15, 1872, LMHA, 39. Clover recalled reading through the history with Ida to her father after meeting Professor Mommsen while in Berlin. Clover’s copy of Mommsen’s book is dated 1865–66.

  “full of funny stories”: Ellen Tucker Emerson to Ralph Waldo Emerson, August 27, 1868, in Gregg, Letters of Ellen Tucker Emerson, vol. 1, 502.

  [>] “Switzerland in the summer”: MHA to Catharine L. Howard, March 3, 1869, LMHA, 473.

  “mild drizzle” . . . “whispered once”: MHA to Eleanor Shattuck, February 5, 1871, George Cheyne Shattuck Papers, vol. 24, MHS.

  [>] “hot sun” . . . “effect on the brain”: MHA to Eleanor Shattuck, March 15, 1871, George Cheyne Shattuck Papers, vol. 24, MHS. Phillips Brooks, first cousin of Henry Adams, became rector of Trinity Church, Boston, in 1869.


  CHAPTER 5. Henry Adams

  [>] “Dr. & Miss Hooper”: Facsimile of Henry’s engagement book, reproduced in LMHA, opp. xiv.

  [>] “oasis in this wilderness”: HA to CMG, May 22, 1871, Letters, vol. 2, 110.

  “the design” . . .“very steadily”: HA to Brooks Adams, March 3, 1872, Letters, vol. 2, 132.

  “never in his life”: T. S. Eliot, “A Sceptical Patrician,” Athenaeum (May 23, 1919): 361–62.

  “The history of my family”: As quoted in Paul C. Nagel, Descent from Glory: Four Generations of the John Adams Family (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983; reprinted by Harvard University Press, 1999), 3.

  [>] “the only one”: Charles Francis Adams, July 4, 1829, in Diary of Charles Francis Adams, vol. 2, ed. Aïda DiPace Donald and David Donald (Cambridge, MA: Belknap–Harvard University Press, 1964), 398. For early Adams family history, see especially David McCullough, John Adams (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001); Nagel, Descent from Glory; and Stephen Hess, America’s Political Dynasties (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1997), 11–49.

  “strange as it may seem”: As quoted in Middle Years, 316.

  He had the habit: For details of how Henry held his hands in his pockets, see “Henry Adams Again,” New York Times, June 15, 1919.

  “very—very bald”: HA to CMG, March 30, 1869, Letters, vol. 2, 24.

  [>] Henry had grown up: For a discussion of Henry’s early life and education, see Ernest Samuels, The Young Henry Adams (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1948), 3–52. Henry would be less engaged by Boston’s Transcendentalist fervor than many of Clover’s relatives were; his family was rooted more in the political than the religious debates of the time. Later, as editor of the North American Review, he would sum up his opinion of those “who pondered on the True and Beautiful” in a review of Octavius Brooks Frothingham’s Transcendentalism in New England, an early history of the movement. Except for Emerson, “whose influence is wider now than it was forty years ago,” Henry dismissed most Transcendentalists as those who sought “conspicuous solitudes” and “looked out of windows and said, ‘I am raining.’” Henry Adams, “Critical Notices: Frothingham’s Transcendentalism,” North American Review, vol. 123, no. 253 (October 1876), 470–71. Garry Wills rightly notes, however, that Transcendentalism may have “left a deeper mark” on Henry than he acknowledged, given the “nature mysticism of his novel Esther” and how his “later admiration of ‘Oriental religions’ paralleled Thoreau.” Garry Wills, Henry Adams and the Making of America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005), 39.

  “One of us”: HA to CFA Jr., December 13, 1861, Letters, vol. 1, 265.

  [>] “a golden time”: As quoted in Samuels, The Young Henry Adams, 121; “biggest piece of luck”: HA to CMG, April 16, 1911, Letters, vol. 6, 441.

  again worked as a journalist: For a listing of Henry’s publications during this time, see Samuels, The Young Henry Adams, 317–18.

  “it is the teacher”: CFA to HA, July 11, 1870, Adams.

  “utterly and grossly”: HA to CMG, September 29, 1870, Letters, vol. 2, 81. Henry protested to President Eliot, “I know nothing about Medieval History,” to which Eliot replied, “If you will point out any one who knows more, Mr. Adams, I will appoint him.” Samuel Eliot Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard, 1636–1936 (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1986), 348.

  “greatest teacher”: Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard, 349.

  [>] “I allotted to each man”: C. E. Schorer, “A Letter from Henry Cabot Lodge,” The New England Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 3. (September 1952): 391.

  “a man of pure intellect”: Stewart Mitchell, “Henry Adams and Some of His Students,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Third Series, vol. 66 (October 1936–May 1941): 307.

  library books on reserve: Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard, 348.

  “cultivated their genealogies”: Middle Years, 7.

  “makes me so unhappy”: Louisa Catherine Adams, as quoted in Nagel, Descent from Glory, 206.

  [>] “fearfully trying”: HA to CMG, July 13, 1870, Letters, vol. 2, 74.

  “too awful to dwell on”: Abigail Brooks Adams, as quoted in Edward Chalfant, Better in Darkness: A Biography of Henry Adams, His Second Life, 1862–1891 (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1994), 722.

  “one of my trusted supports”: CFA, Diary, May 20, 1879, Adams.

  “is merely that” . . . “get along somehow”: HA to CFA, January 7, Letters, vol. 2, 124.

  [>] “a very uncomfortable week” . . . “everyone’s nerves”: HA to CFA, January 14, 1872, Letters, vol. 2, 125–26.

  “I have great reliance”: CFA to HA, January 30, 1872, Adams.

  “so far away superior” . . . “It is Clover Hooper”: HA to Brooks Adams, March 3, 1872, Letters, vol. 2, 132.

  “happy as ideal lovers”: HA to CMG, May 30, 1872, Letters, vol. 2, 137; “has a certain vein”: HA to CMG, June 23, 1872, Letters, vol. 2, 140.

  [>] Clover’s family welcomed: Many years later, Henry would remember with pleasure that he had been made a co-executor of his father-in-law’s estate, along with his brothers-in-law, Ned Hooper and Whitman Gurney. HA to CMG, May 10, 1885, Letters, vol. 2, 611.

  “I am sure” . . . “delighted with”: Oliver Wendell Holmes to CFA, March 14, 1872, Adams.

  the engagement had “surprised”: CFA, Diary, March 2, 1872, Adams.

  “Heavens!—no!—”: CFA Jr., Memorabilia, May 3, 1891, Adams.

  She assured her: MHA to Eleanor Shattuck, March 8, 1872, George Cheyne Shattuck papers, vol. 24, MHS. Clover indicated that Eleanor’s younger brother, Frederick, almost got in the way of her engagement. Tell Fred, she wrote Eleanor, “that he nearly stopped all this—that if he had sat one hour longer that fatal Tuesday P.M. this might never have come to pass—so I like him better than ever. Henry outstayed him.”

  “horrid dream” . . . “put my whole heart into it.”: The original of this letter has not been found; quoted in Mrs. Henry Adams, 105–6.

  [>] “One of my congratulatory letters”: HA to CMG, March 26, 1872, Letters, vol. 2, 133–34.

  [>] a derogatory term: The term bluestocking originated in England in reference to a group of eighteenth-century women intellectuals. It had by the nineteenth century turned into a mocking sobriquet.

  “My young female”: HA to CMG, May 30, 1872, Letters, vol. 2, 137.

  found the ceremony “peculiar”: CFA Jr. wrote to his father: “The wedding was like the engagement—peculiar.” He added: “everyone to his fate.” CFA Jr. to CFA, June 28, 1872, Adams.

  “We think our wedding” . . . “kindness and assistance”: MHA and HA to RWH, June 28, 1872, Letters, vol. 2, 141–42. Henry’s letter is on the reverse side of Clover’s letter to Dr. Hooper.

  [>] Wedding gifts inundated: MHA to EWH, July 7, 1872, Adams-Thoron Papers, MHS.

  “time for seeing Egypt”: The Adamses used the 1867 edition. Sir John Gardner Wilkinson, A Handbook for Travellers in Egypt . . . (London: John Murray, 1867), 2.

  CHAPTER 6. Down the Nile

  [>] “very beautiful”: MHA to RWH, July 26, 1872, LMHA, 17.

  “cursed the sea” . . . “Think it may have”: MHA to RWH, July 9–July 19, 1872, LMHA, 14.

  [>] “gossamer-like web”: Henry Adams, review of Their Wedding Journey, by William Dean Howells, North American Review, no. 235 (April 1872): 444.

  “see all we want”: MHA to RWH, July 9–July 19, 1872, LMHA, 15.

  “Often think of Beverly”: MHA to RWH, July 9–19, 1872, LMHA, 16.

  She enclosed with her letter: “Sketch of Stateroom on Board a Ship.” Sketch by MHA, July 13, 1872. Copy of photograph from MHA Photographs, photograph number 50.133, MHS.

  “scour” . . . “young colts”: MHA to RWH, July 23, 1873, LMHA, 133.

  “We feel”: MHA to RWH, July 26, 1872, LMHA, 19.

  “full of roses . . . were nowhere”: MHA to RWH, July 26, 1872, LMHA, 18. For a vivid descripti
on of Charles Milnes Gaskell, see William Dusinberre, “Henry Adams in England,” Journal of American Studies, vol. 11, no. 2 (August 1977), 163–86. Dusinberre (178) argues that Henry James used Gaskell as a model for Lord Warburton in The Portrait of a Lady.

  [>] “too ferocious to be liked”: Education, 207.

  “very charming” . . . “gasp”: MHA to RWH, August 7, 1872, LMHA, 20–21.

  “until brains and legs”: MHA to RWH, September 8, 1872, LMHA, 37.

  “pictures in the gallery”: MHA to RWH, August 23, 1872, LMHA, 25.

  “They had never heard”: MHA to RWH, August 23, 1872, LMHA, 26.

  “the role of old married people”: MHA to EHG, September 5, 1872, LMHA, 30.

  [>] “Travelling would be”: MHA to RWH, August 23, 1872, LMHA, 29.

  “so rich that I was quite”: MHA to RWH, September 8, 1872, LMHA, 36.

  “bad luck in the matter”: MHA to RWH, September 15, 1872, LMHA, 40.

  “hard” . . . “good fun”: MHA to RWH, September 8, 1873, LMHA, 37.

  “though it’s dreary”: MHA to RWH, March 11, 1872, LMHA, 82.

  “to patch up”: MHA to RWH, November 17, 1872, LMHA, 57; Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Egypt (1867) lists three pages of items “useful for a journey in Egypt.”

  [>] Boston had erupted in flames: The city lost over 775 buildings to the fire, which ranged over more than 60 acres. Estimates of total damage were between $70 to $75 million. Twenty thousand people lost jobs and many were left homeless. The exact number of dead and wounded was never made official. See Stephanie Schorow, Boston on Fire: A History of Fires and Firefighting in Boston (Beverly, MA: Commonwealth Editions, 2003); F. E. Frothingham, The Boston Fire (New York: Lee, Shepard & Dillingham, 1873).

  “rejoiced to hear”: MHA to RWH, December 21, 1872, LMHA, 63.

  “Beverly is certainly”: MHA to RWH, August 7, 1872, LMHA, 24; “I miss you all”: September 8, 1872, LMHA, 38; “I miss you very, very much”: MHA to RWH, October, 20, 1872, LMHA, 52.

  “I miss you” . . . “I do very often”: MHA to RWH, November 17, 1872, LMHA, 58.