The Education of Henry Adams

On April 12, 1859, the semester at the Gymnasium ends; Henry happily leaves Berlin with three friends from Harvard. For the next eighteen months, Henry will pursue "accidental education" traveling through Europe. Although his German continues to improve, an attempt at studying law in Dresden is short-lived. At the end of June, the young men begin a tour of Bavaria, Switzerland, and the Rhine country. Another winter in Berlin seems unbearable. Italy beckons. Early in 1860, Henry begins a "pleasant series of letters," as he calls them in a letter to his brother Charles; they are published in the Boston Daily Courier. In April, Henry visits his older sister, Louisa Catherine, who lives in Florence with her husband, Charles Kuhn. Adams ultimately concedes that he has become "a tourist, but a mere tourist, and nothing else."