Democracy: An American Novel (Penguin Classics)
Henry Adams
Language: English
Pages: 224
ISBN: 0143039806
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
An instant bestseller when first published in 1880, Democracy is the quintessential American political novel. At its heart is Madeleine Lee, a young widow who comes to Washington, D.C., to understand the workings of power. Pursued by Silas Ratcliffe, the most influential member of the Senate, Madeleine soon sees enough of power and its corrupting influence to last her a lifetime.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America
Beasts and Gods: How Democracy Changed Its Meaning and Lost Its Purpose
A Preface to Democratic Theory (Expanded Edition)
Pleasure of taking her to dinner; Washington was the only city in America where this could have happened, but it was a fact that ladies here were very great sticklers for etiquette; on the other hand he had the sad consolation that she would be the gainer, for he had allotted to her Lord Skye, the British Minister, “a most agreeable man and not married, as I have the misfortune to be”; and on the other side “I have ventured to place Senator Ratcliffe, of Illinois, whose admirable speech I saw you.
Thought she liked him better as he was. The silence was only broken by Carrington’s bringing the conversation back to its starting-point: “Something must be done to keep your sister out of Ratcliffe’s power. I have thought about it till I am tired. Can you make no suggestion?” No! Sybil was helpless and dreadfully alarmed. Mr. Ratcliffe came to the house as often as he could, and seemed to tell Madeleine everything that was going on in politics, and ask her advice, and Madeleine did not.
What lay most heavily on his mind; he should have gone willingly and gladly if it had not been for uneasiness about her; and yet he had till now been afraid to speak openly on the subject. Here he paused for a moment as though to invite some reply. Madeleine laid down her work with a look of regret though not of annoyance, and said frankly and instantly that he had been too good a friend to allow of her taking offense at anything he could say; she would not pretend to misunderstand him. “My.
Indifference. She felt that he would tell her what to do when the earthquake came, and would be at hand to consult, which is in a woman’s eyes the great object of men’s existence, when trouble comes. She suddenly conceived that Washington would be intolerable without him, and that she should never get the courage to fight Mr. Ratcliffe alone, or, if she did, she should make some fatal mistake. They finished their ride very soberly. She began to show a new interest in all that concerned him, and.
Blame him for acts which he had repeatedly defended in her presence and with her tacit assent, on principles that warranted this or any other villainy? The worst was that this discovery had come on her as a blow, not as a reprieve from execution. At this thought she became furious with herself. She had not known the recesses of her own heart. She had honestly supposed that Sybil’s interests and Sybil’s happiness were forcing her to an act of self-sacrifice; and now she saw that in the depths of.