The style of the book affects the reader's understanding. C., with his father in 1850, introduces Henry to life in the near South, its appealing informality contrasting with the horrors of slavery, which the Adams family is devoted to eradicating even though it will mean Civil War. A trip to Maryland, Virginia and Washington D. But his world is rapidly changing, a theme that will affect Henry's education throughout the book. Henry is a child of privilege that, as much as anything, shapes the outer direction of his life. Summers at his paternal grandparents' home in nearby Quincy bring freedom, delight, hope, and a close relationship with Grandfather John Quincy Adams, formerly the sixth President of the United States. Winters in Boston are filled with restraint, rules, confinement, school, and a sense of order that is thrillingly interrupted by wild snowball fights. Through a series of impressions, he introduces the reader to Henry's boyhood world. "Probably no child, born in the year, held better cards than he," the narrator says of the birth of Henry Brooks Adams in Boston, Massachusetts, on February 16, 1838.
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