Sumner's mind had reached the calm of water which receives and reflects images without absorbing them; it contained nothing but itself.

Adams likens Sumner’s mind to a perfectly still surface: it can register the world’s “images” with clarity, but it does not take them in or let them change him. The metaphor implies detachment and self-containment—an intellect that observes and judges without being moved, nourished, or corrected by experience. The final clause, “it contained nothing but itself,” sharpens the praise-turned-critique: such calm may look like wisdom or serenity, but it can also signal sterility, narcissism, or an incapacity for growth. In Adams’s character writing, this kind of mental poise often doubles as a diagnosis of political and moral rigidity—an impressive reflective power that has ceased to be genuinely receptive.