extra, extra read (post) all about it

So far the trend of these posts has been of confusion and dislike. Maybe I am crazy, but although it has been taking me a VERY long time to sort through the material, I am quite enjoying Henry's slow and painstaking education. His biased and brutal opinions of others make me laugh. For example, Henry Adams notes that a woman who dressed in style is either "an American or 'fast' " and that "a southerner, with his slave-owning limitations, was as little fit to succeed in the struggle of modern life as though he were still a maker of stone axes [and] living in caves." Ouch.

Young Adams has many judgmental opinions of others and tends to hold himself in high esteem. It is evident in the first third of the book through his restlessness in Boston, Harvard, Berlin, and especially London as his father's private secretary. As a man of privilege and wealth from birth, he tends to take his travels and formal training for granted. He kind of seems like a spoiled brat to me, nevertheless an entertaining brat. Eventually, his family moves back to the United States after the end of the Civil War and he continues to add to his education. Darwin's scientific theory of evolution and the US currency serve as sources of education for the older Henry Adams, and he is also blossoming into a well-respected writer/ professor. The lack of death in the earlier chapters seems to be balanced by the death of his sister and suicide of his wife in the middle section.