There has never been another character in American history quite like Adams. His real portrait, self-painted, peers at the world from between the covers of his monumental diary, in which he communed with himself unreservedly, and expressed his opinion of men and their motives with brutal frankness. He was a professional statesman of a high order. Entering upon diplomatic duties in his youth, he knew the cross-currents of world politics at an age when most Americans are laboriously projecting themselves into the politics of their immediate neighborhood. From his earliest years he had been in contact with great minds, and with men of power and broad vision. A thorough scholar, he was, at the same time, a man of the world. Conscious of his ability and his advantages, cold and reserved, and dignified to the point of frigidity, it is not difficult to understand his supercilious attitude toward men less favored, and yet placed in lofty station. Inspired by the highest ideals of public service, holding himself under such rigid discipline as to have made himself immune to the small vices, placing duty above friendship, scarcely ever yielding his dignity to mirth, and on those rare occasions smiling sardonically, he stood upon an isolated peak--of humanity, and yet separated from it.[405] No one living the monastic life could have lived more by rule, or have scourged himself more faithfully to his tasks. Of friendships, he knew little from experience. Naturally of a suspicious disposition, he suspected treachery where it was not. Holding to no ordinary standard of perfection, he could not forgive the imperfections of his fellows. Even the transcendent genius of Clay could not hide from him the great man’s lack of education. One searches the pages of his diary in eager quest of some complimentary references--there are scarcely any. That he bitterly realized his isolation is clearly disclosed. “I am a man of reserve,” he wrote, “cold, austere and forbidding manners. My political adversaries say a gloomy misanthrope; my personal enemies, an unsocial savage. With a knowledge of the actual defects of my character, I have not had the pliability to reform it.” That such a man, entertaining such an opinion of his own merits and the failings of his contemporaries, should have consented to serve in the lower House of Congress, after having served in the Presidency, can only mean that he loved his country and sought the opportunity for service. That it was not to punish his enemies, we shall find on more than one occasion when he took his stand with the Administration of the man who displaced him. Not least among the merits of Adams was his capacity to work in serious coöperation with McLane in the moulding of the tariff of 1832.