Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 3
1830-04-19
This was the first morning that the Spring Season had manifested itself in an unequivocal manner, and therefore quite delicious. The air was soft and made our ride returning from Medford quite agreeable. I went to the Office and enjoyed a morning totally uninterrupted from any visit of any kind but not on that account entirely well spent. My books are at home and having finished Graham, I had nothing else to begin upon, so that I did little except to look over the series of letters written to my brother George by my father.1 They are deeply interesting to me as evincing his constant unabated affection and anxiety for him and the trouble that his procrastinating conduct occasioned. If ever there was a son who had advantages from his father, it was he, and his mind and taste merited a better fate. But the past is not to be recalled, and we submit under the affliction more readily when we suppose that it is probably for the best.
The afternoon was passed in my study writing a rough draft of my Essay upon our early History. I was tolerably well satisfied with what I had accomplished, and if I can do it all in the same manner I hope it will do as my first effort in a long composition. But it will need revision and reflection, and my time is very short. I have so many in-217ducements to continue it that I anxiously hope they will carry me through the necessary labour. The days have now grown so long that I have but a short time to read Eustace to my Wife and we progress slowly. After it, I accomplish something, and this evening finished my father’s Lectures which have done me good.
For the period from Oct. 1823, when GWA began to assume the management of JQA’s affairs in Boston, to GWA’s death in 1829, almost all of JQA’s frequent letters to him, both the retained copies in letterbooks and recipient’s copies, remain in situ. It is safe to conclude, therefore, that the file is practically complete. In contrast, however, only five letters from GWA to JQA during the some period have been located, all recipient’s copies in the Adams Papers. CFA, on the basis of his own repeated statements in the diary that he had destroyed papers of his brother, must bear the major responsibility for the loss. However, we do not know whether GWA was systematic in keeping letterbooks, and we do know that JQA did not keep complete files of personal letters received. On the related problem of JA2’s letters, see above, entry for 14 Oct. 1829, note.