Ever since I read "The Education of Henry Adams," I've thought of its author, the great-grandson of our second president and grandson of John Quincy Adams, as a sanctimonious little prig.

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Reading his "St. Michel and Chartres" didn't alter my opinions.

I guess I was only partially right. I've finished "Clover Adams: A Gilded and Heartbreaking Life," by Natalie Dykstra (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26) and have come to know Henry and his wife "Clover" in a more complete light.

"Clover," a belle of the Brahmin ball if ever there was one, married Henry in 1872, when the historian was on the brink of becoming famous.

They seemingly lived a charmed life, hobnobbing with all the "right" people in both Boston and Washington, where Henry Adams took a job as undersecretary of state.

Butall was not right at the beautiful home on H Street or their summer home with riding horses, et al. Marian "Clover" Hooper, daughter of a wealthy Boston physician, had suffered tragedies in her youth, deaths of relatives.

In her adulthood she was bright, witty and the friend to movers and shakers like William Tecumseh Sherman and Henry James.

She traveled the world with Henry, (the honeymoon in Europe lasted a year). Nevertheless she went childless and had episodes of severe depression.

Finally, she found refuge in a hobby that overtook her: photography.

Hope College professor Natalie Dykstra has studded her beautifully researched books with photos that Clover took in the last two years of life.

They are beautiful, but so sad one wants to weep when looking at them. Dykstra has painstakingly