A Cycle of Adams Letters 18611865 Author:Worthington Chauncey Ford Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: drawn quite a prize in Wells. He seems to have pleased every one and you don't know how strange it seems to have some one here who really takes an interest in an... more »d means to manage the Parish. I had a short talk with him the other evening and was much pleased. He evidently understands the people here and is going to make his mark, and I have little doubt that if he lives, you '11 find the Parish a very different thing when you come home from what it was when you went away. .. . Charles Francis Adams To His Son London, June 7, 1861 For after all that may be said, there is not and cannot be any assimilation of manners and social habits between Americans and English people. All intercourse with the aristocratic class is necessarily but formal. We are invited everywhere, and dine out almost every day, but this brings us no nearer. Everybody is civil, but each one has his interests in England, so that a stranger is but an outsider at best. . . . You may be more interested to know a little about the House of Commons. My diplomatic privilege gives me the entree there, and I have used it twice. The last time was at the close of the debate on the budget, when it was generally understood that the fate of Mr. Gladstone, if not of the whole Cabinet hung on the decision. More than six hundred members were present, and the array showed great equality on the two sides of the House. I had attended on the Monday before and had made up my mind that if thedivision should follow, the opposition would prevail by a decided vote. The ministry however had influence enough to command an adjournment, and on Thursday the case stood differently. The attack was neither so vigorous nor so confident, whilst the defence was bolder and more strenuous. The first effective stroke came from L...« less