ABSTRACT
In the fall of 1868 a new actor came on the scene in Washington. The capital was still dusty, still provincial. Yet it was a true city—small enough to be a stage for those who would be actors, attentive enough to enjoy a well played role. He came into the city with William M. Evarts, who had picked up the lonely young man on a street in New York and asked him to come to his house in Washington until he could find a place of his own. One must picture Henry Adams at this time as an opinionated young man, full of enjoyment as well as fight. With such friends as Moorfield Storey and Sam Hoar, the son of Judge Ebenezer Hoar, of Massachusetts, he formed a kind of front. The political and newspaper world was the background. But the core of his life was a private place.
