Henry Adams 



tried mildly to show him that the 

 cost even of success would be too 

 awful to warrant encouraging a hope 

 of it ; and that, with Wall Street 

 against, and Boston to a man, and 

 Grover Cleveland, and the Century 

 Club, and only he and I for it, suc- 

 cess was altogether out of sight. To 

 him that sort of desperate odds was 

 an amusement, and alone gave suffi- 

 cient play to his energies. This was 

 well enough for him ; the trouble 

 was that of all great energies, that 

 the influence never ended with him- 

 self, but dragged his friends into its 

 vortex ; and in this particular instance 

 converted a harmless and respectful 

 servant of all established authority — 

 particularly of despotisms — into the 

 patient ally of the most uneasy and 

 persistent conspirator your Club ever 

 nourished in its bosom. 



He won that stake, in spite of my 

 prophecies, as he had won many 



