Mr. Adams was that _rara avis_, a good talker who is a good listener as well. This in some measure accounts for the many distinguished men among his intimates; he possessed, besides, a positive genius for friendship, not often found in our hurried land, and his company was eagerly sought by such overworked men as Roosevelt, John Hay, Saint-Gaudens, John La Farge, and Cabot Lodge. Though Henry Adams accomplished more than most people, he gave the impression of a certain large leisure and of always having time for his friends. This was in part due to his having a fortune large enough to make him independent, yet not so cumbrous as to bring heavy responsibilities, and in part to the tragedy of his married life. In middle age he lost a beloved wife. All the pain and mystery of his irreparable loss his friend, Saint-Gaudens, was able to express in that shrouded bronze figure, popularly called Nirvana, that broods over her grave in Rock Creek Cemetery. No happily married person can hope to compete in the capacity of friendship with such a man as Adams, if for no other reason, because the day is but twenty-four hours long. He was working, I think, at this time on that unique volume, “The Education of Henry Adams.” Interesting as it is, the book does not do justice to its hero, and leaves behind a curious sense of disappointment and thwarted ambition that one did not feel in the man himself. The same thing is true of the autobiography of his brother, Charles Francis Adams. Both the Adamses were men of uncommon ability, gifted far above the average of their fellows; each attained an enviable distinction in their day and generation, yet in their memoirs they seem to confess themselves woefully disappointed with life. Different interpretations have been made of this attitude of frank disillusionment, in both brothers. I believe it to have been purely temperamental. “Is life worth living?” “It all depends upon the liver.” The last time I met Henry Adams I found him delightfully mellowed, like a russet apple in the month of February. His wit was less caustic; it was as if, in spite of himself, the man were softening. It could not have been long after this that he said to the friend who bore him company during the latter stage of the journey: “I have not heard my wife’s name spoken for over twenty years. That was a great mistake.” The mistake was largely his own. His friends believed--and no man ever had warmer friends--that Mr. Adams did not wish them to mention his wife after her tragic death. So, wittingly or unwittingly, he and they entered into a conspiracy of silence that was only broken when the sands of his life were nearly run. [To Laura Richards.] Washington, March 15, 1910.