“I find it hard to express” . . . “nightmares of the past”: William James to Ellen Hooper, May 10, 1901, Swann. James wrote this letter from his brother Henry’s home, Lamb House, in Rye, England. James was responding to the news of Ned Hooper’s hospitalization, but he had not yet heard about Ned’s death on June 25. Never before published, the letter reads in its entirety as follows: “In a letter from Mrs. Gibbens which arrived yesterday she says that she has heard that your father has gone to the McLean Asylum. I find it hard to express the sorrow I feel, both for him and for you, for I suppose his condition to have been akin to melancholia, and think it not improbable there may be suicidal impulses. He was such a model of soundness and balance, that this was the last thing I ever dreamed of as possible in his life. But anything and everything is possible for every mother’s child of us—we are all in the same box, and not only death but all forms of decay knock at our gate and summon us to go out into their wilderness, and yet every ideal we dream of is realized in the same life of which these things are part, and we must house it and suffer it and take whatever it brings for the sake of the ends that are certainly being fulfilled by its means, behind the screen. The abruptness of your father’s case shows well how purely extraneous and disconnected with the patient’s general character these cerebral troubles may be. Probably an internally generated poison in the blood which ‘science’ any day may learn how to eliminate or neutralize, and so make of all these afflictions so many nightmares of the past. I wish that I could see you all and hear about it and talk it over. I hope that before we get home it will be happily ended, and he as well as he was before the fall, though I don’t know what effects that may leave on his bodily condition. Dear Ellen, these experiences bring people close to their friends, and I hope that you and all of you are gaining this alleviation. I have known all the branches of your family so long, and have such an altogether peculiar fondness and admiration for them, and owe so much of what has been best in my life to them, that any disaster happening to any of them feels as if it came close to home. Let us all be nearer together after this—I wish I could be nearer still to your dear father—it is only to say this that I have taken up the pen. Alice joins me in a tenderest message of sympathy and so does H. J. Junior who is with us at last. We are doing well, and I so much better that I begin my Edinburgh lecture course next Thursday with a very stout heart indeed. It is cloudy in one place and sunny elsewhere, everlastingly. Love to all of you! Wm James”
[>] “For thirty years”: HA to CMG, July 3, 1901, Letters, vol. 5, 260.
“trinity of fathers”: Mabel Hooper La Farge to Wilbur L. Cross, January 1941, as quoted in Tehan, Henry Adams in Love, 287.
Lizzie Cameron held a higher rank: From notes taken by Harold Dean Cater, HA-CK Papers.
[>] Henry liked to read aloud: Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres was privately printed in 1904 and published commercially by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1913.
“I kept every scrap”: EC to HA, December 7, 1915, Letters, vol. 6, 704, n1.
“you’re not dead”: EC to HA, January 27, 1891, Henry Adams Papers, Microfilm edition of the Adams family papers, MHS.
“life is grim”: HA to Thomas F. Bayard, January 20, 1886, Letters, vol. 3, 3.
bracingly honest: For an account of Henry’s great-grandfather, John Adams, and his reputation for honesty, see David McCullough’s John Adams, esp. 17–20.
[>] “I often wonder”: EC to Louisa Hooper Thoron, February 18, 1934, Hooper-Adams Papers, MHS.
“I think that now you and I”: HA to Rebecca Dodge Rae, December 7, 1896, HA-CK Papers.
“wisdom is silence”: HA to APF, December 8, 1889, Henry Adams letters to Anne (Palmer) Fell, MHS. Andrew Delbanco asserts that “irony is the fire of the Education. It burns away the personal memories and leaves a floating consciousness trying to slip into phase with the flow of history.” Henry left out the years of his marriage and the circumstances of Clover’s death because “he could not bear to write about this event in the ironic voice of the rest of the ‘autobiography,’ as if it had happened at a distance, to be recorded by the bemused observer along with everything else.” Delbanco, Required Reading (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997), 99.
“to go back” . . . “to Beverly”: Cater, Henry Adams and His Friends, civ.
“I wander every morning”: HA to EC, June 2, 1917, Letters, vol. 6, 754.
[>] Later in the summer: HA to EC, August 3, 1917, Letters, vol. 6, 763.
“My child” . . . “your Aunt Clover”: Cater, Henry Adams and His Friends, cii.
half-empty vial: According to Cater, after Henry died, Aileen Tone “looked in his desk for possible written instructions as to what he would like to have done in such an event. In the top drawer was the bottle, containing the remainder of the cyanide potassium, as it had been found after Mrs. Adams’s suicide.” HA-CK Papers. Aileen had been asked by Louisa Hooper to take up the role of secretary and companion to Henry, starting in late 1912. The two women had been friends while in Paris. In Aileen’s copy of Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres, Henry had inscribed “to niece Aileen Tone from Uncle Henry.”
“Silent while years” . . . “till the end”: HA commonplace book, Homans Collection, MHS. Ernest Samuels suggests that Henry thought the “highest wisdom must be the wisdom of silence, the silence of perfected knowledge and being,” a value he expressed in his narrative poem “Buddha and Brahma,” composed in blank verse in 1891 and published much later in the Yale Review. Samuels, The Major Phase, 64. See also “Buddha and Brahma,” Yale Review, vol. 5 (1915): 82–89.
“The thorns he spares”: Algernon Charles Swinburne, Poems and Ballads: Second Series, 3rd ed. (London: Chatto and Windus, Piccadilly, 1882).
Index
Abney, Captain, [>]–[>]
Académie Royale de Médecine, [>]
Adams, Abigail (great-grandmother of Henry Adams), [>], [>]
Adams, Abigail Brooks (mother of Henry Adams)
absence from son Henry’s wedding, [>]
Adams (Clover) and, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>] (n)
at death of daughter, Louisa Catherine, [>]
description of, [>]
on engagement of son Henry to Clover, [>]
health of, [>]–[>], [>]
during honeymoon of Henry and Clover Adams, [>]–[>]
marriage of, [>], [>]–[>] (n)
Adams, Arthur (brother of Henry Adams), [>]
Adams, Brooks (brother of Henry Adams), [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Adams, Charles (son of John Adams), [>]–[>]
Adams, Charles Francis (father of Henry Adams), [>], [>], [>], [>]
absence from son Henry’s wedding, [>]
Adams (Clover) and, [>], [>], [>]
death of, [>]
on engagement of son Henry to Clover, [>]
family of, [>]–[>]
during honeymoon of Henry and Clover Adams, [>]–[>]
marriage of, [>]
public life of, [>], [>]
relationship of, with son Henry, [>]
slavery and, [>], [>]
Adams, Charles Francis, Jr. (brother of Henry Adams), [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>] (n)
Adams, Clover, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
birth of, [>]
on Brooks (Reverend Phillips), [>]
building of homes of, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>], [>] (n)
Cameron (Elizabeth “Lizzie”) and, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>] (n)
Carlyle (Jane Walsh) and, [>]
childhood of, [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>] (n)
on childlessness of, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]
Civil War and, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>]
dark moods of, [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
at death of aunt (Susan Sturgis Bigelow), [>], [>] (n)
after death of father, [>]–[>]
at death
of mother, [>]–[>]
death/suicide of, [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>] (n), [>]–[>] (n), [>]–[>] (n), [>] (n)
Democracy and, [>]–[>]
depression of, [>]–[>], [>], [>] (n)
description of, [>], [>], [>]
Dodge (Rebecca) and, [>]–[>], [>]
dogs of, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
dress/appearance and, [>]–[>], [>], [>]
education of, [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]
engagement/marriage/honeymoon of, [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>] (n)
Esther novel and, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>] (n), [>] (n)
finances of, [>]–[>]
on friendships of, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>] (n), [>] (n)
Gardner (Isabella Stewart) and, [>]–[>]
Hay (John) and, [>]
with her nieces (brother Ned’s daughters), [>]–[>]
Histoire de Ma Vie (Sand) and, [>]–[>]
Hooper (Alice Mason) and, [>], [>], [>]
Hooper (Anne Sturgis) and, [>] (n)
Hooper (Eunice) on, [>] (n)
horses of, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
during illness/death of Hooper (Fanny Chapin), [>]–[>], [>]
James (Henry) and, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>] (n)
King (Clarence) and, [>], [>]
married life of, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>] (n)
Mason (William Powell) and, [>]–[>]
meeting Adams (Henry), [>]–[>]
memorial for, [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>] (n)
on mental illness, [>]
Miles (Nelson) and, [>]–[>]
politics and, [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
relationship of, with her brother, [>], [>]–[>], [>]
relationship of, with her father, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>] (n), [>] (n), [>] (n)
relationship of, with her in-laws, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>] (n)
relationship of, with her mother, [>]–[>]
relationship of, with her sister, [>]–[>], [>]
Richardson (Henry Hobson) and, [>]–[>], [>]
Shattuck (Frederick) and, [>]
solitude of, [>], [>], [>]
Tappan (Caroline Sturgis “Aunt Cary”) and, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>] (n), [>] (n), [>] (n)
in Virginia, [>]–[>]
volunteer work of, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]
Wilde (Oscar) and, [>]
on writing of, [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]
See also art; Egypt; England; Europe; photography of Clover Adams; Washington, D.C.
Adams, Elizabeth (niece of Clover Adams), [>]
Adams, George (son of John Quincy Adams), [>]
Adams, Henry, [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>] (n)
Adams (Louisa Catherine) and, [>]
background/family of, [>]–[>], [>]
birth of, [>]
building of homes of, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>] (n)
Cameron (Elizabeth “Lizzie”) and, [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>] (n), [>]–[>] (n)
on childlessness of, [>], [>]
Civil War and, [>]–[>], [>]
death of, [>], [>] (n)
after death of Adams (Clover), [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>] (n)
at death of Adams (Clover), [>]–[>], [>]–[>] (n)
on death of Hooper (Edward “Ned”), [>]
description of, [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
dogs of, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]
engagement/marriage/honeymoon of, [>], [>]–[>]
Gurney (Ephraim Whitman) and, [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
Hooper (Robert William) and, [>], [>]
Hooper estates and, [>] (n)
horses of, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
during illness/death of Hooper (Fanny Chapin), [>]–[>]
during illness of father-in-law, [>]–[>]
James (Henry) and, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
King (Clarence) and, [>]
married life of, [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]
meeting Adams (Clover), [>]–[>]
photography and, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>] (n), [>] (n), [>] (n), [>] (n)
politics and, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
relationship of, with his father, [>]–[>], [>]
relationship of, with his mother, [>], [>]–[>]
Richardson (Henry Hobson) and, [>]
on rights/equality of women, [>]–[>], [>]–[>] (n)
solitude of, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]
as teacher at Harvard College, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>] (n)
Transcendentalism movement and, [>] (n)
travels of, [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>]
See also art; “Buddha and Brahma” (Adams, H.); Democracy (Adams, H.); Education of Henry Adams, The (Adams, H.); Egypt; England; Esther (Adams, H.); Europe; Hay, John; Historical Essays (Adams, H.); History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (Adams, H.); John Randolph (Adams, H.); Life of Gallatin (Adams, H.); Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (Adams, H.); North American Review; “Pandora” (James, H.); “Primitive Rights of Women, The” (Adams, H.); Washington, D.C.
Adams, John (great-grandfather of Henry Adams), [>], [>]
Adams, John (son of John Quincy Adams), [>], [>]
Adams, John Quincy (grandfather of Henry Adams), [>], [>], [>], [>]
Adams, John Quincy II (brother of Henry Adams), [>]
Adams, Louisa Catherine “Sister Lou” (sister of Henry Adams), [>]–[>]
Adams, Mary (sister of Henry Adams), [>]
Adams, Thomas Boylston (brother of John Quincy Adams), [>]
Adams family, genealogy of, [>]
Aeschylus, [>]–[>]
African Americans, [>], [>], [>]. See also slavery
Agamemnon (Aeschylus), [>]–[>]
Agassiz, Elizabeth Cary, [>]–[>]
Agassiz, Ida. See Higginson, Ida Agassiz
Agassiz, Louis, [>], [>]
Agassiz, Pauline. See Shaw, Pauline Agassiz
Agassiz School, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Age of Innocence, The (Wharton), [>] (n)
Alabama (ship), [>], [>], [>]
alcohol/alcoholism, [>]–[>], [>]
Alcott, Bronson, [>]
Allan & Rowell (photography studio), [>]
Allston, Washington, [>]
Alvarez, A., [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>] (n)
American, The (James, H.), [>]
American Legation, [>]
American Notes (Dickens), [>]
American Statesmen series, [>]
American West, [>]–[>]
Among the Chosen (Mary S. Emerson), [>] (n)
Anderson, Larz, [>] (n), [>] (n)
Anderson, Nicholas Longworth, [>], [>], [>] (n), [>] (n)
Andrew, John A., [>]
Anecdotes of Painting in England (Walpole), [>] (n)
Angell, George, [>]
Aristarchi Bey, [>], [>]–[>]
Arlington National Cemetery, [>]–[>], [>]
Army of the Potomac, [>], [>]
Arnold, Matthew, [>], [>]
Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist’s Mother (Whistler), [>]
art
Adams (Clover) and, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>] (n), [>] (n), [>]–[>] (n), [>] (n)
A
dams (Henry and Clover) and, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>] (n), [>] (n), [>] (n)
Esther novel and, [>]–[>], [>]
Gardner (Isabella Stewart) and, [>]–[>]
King (Clarence) and, [>]
women and, [>], [>]–[>] (n), [>] (n)
of Woolf (Virginia), [>] (n)
Arthur, Chester, [>]
Arvin, Newton, [>] (n)
Clover Adams Page 37