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Article: The Selected Letters of Henry Adams.
- Article from:
- The Nation
- Article date:
- June 15, 1992
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1992 The Nation Company L.P. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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It is tempting to dismiss as anachronisms both Henry Adams, an epitome of his type, the genteel bigot; and the letter, an artifact of the drawing room and the study, of the era before the telephone. Private, plotting, the letter seems the perfect medium for Adams to have turned to in privileged alienation: "I am much flattered if regarded as bric-a-brac of a style,--dixhuitieme by preference, rather than early Victorian," he wrote with stubborn pleasure to Henry James in 1909. Through correspondence Adams could simultaneously vent his frustration with the changes wrought by the rise of industrial capitalism, in which he saw his own disempowerment, and work to sustain the ...