Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 3
1831-02-17
Morning beautifully mild and warm even. This seems to give us a taste of a new Season. I went to the Office as usual and was occupied in writing, making up my Accounts and reading. I examined the transfer book of the Boylston Market Association and draughted an Alphabetical list of Stockholders, which was perhaps needless, but I like to arrange things regularly. I read a little of Enfield which did not interest me.
Upon my return home I found Miss Abby S. Adams, who had come in at last to spend a few days with my Wife. She looks ill, though not by half so badly as one would be led to suppose from her Account of it. She appears pleased with her engagement to Mr. Angier.1 I hope it will prove fortunate with all my heart.
Evening and afternoon devoted by me to study. I continued the Orations against Verres beginning with that upon the Corn law, which I found easier than I had expected. I read also a little of Justinian’s Institutes,2 an Ode of Horace, the Grammar and the Tatler.
When a few days earlier CFA wrote his father of the engagement of JQA’s niece, Abigail Smith Adams, to John Angier, who conducted a large school for boys in Medford, CFA called him “a very respectable and worthy man,” and to her brother he wrote, “we believe she has chosen well.” His comments in later entries suggest that he modified this view on further acquaintance. See CFA to JQA, 13 Feb., LbC; CFA to Thomas B. Adams Jr., 20 Feb., LbC; CFA to JQA, 28 Feb., LbC; all in Adams Papers; also Adams Genealogy.
At MQA are four editions of Institutionum juris civilis expositio including one with CFA’s bookplate, Paris, 1757. At this time, however, CFA was reading a translation by George Harris, London, 1761, borrowed from the Athenaeum.