Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 5
1833-02-22
A beautiful day. I went to the Office later than usual, having been engaged by Conant from Weston who came at last with some Wood, and he also paid me a sum of Money.1 Time taken up in writing and reading.
Made a little progress in Gouverneur Morris. It is to his credit that he was opposed to the miserable expedient resorted to by the Federal party to prevent the election of Mr. Jefferson. His subsequent conduct is not in accordance with that beginning.
I walked earlier than usual to accompany Mr. Peabody.2 Dined at Mrs. Blake’s with a few young men invited by Edward. R. Sturgis, W. E. Payne, N. Silsbee Jr., a Mr. Baker from Northampton, I believe, S. P. Blake and the ladies. Conversation tolerably pleasant—A good deal of it political. How difficult it is for a man to talk much and be prudent. Yet if he does not talk, he is voted a bore. I endeavour always to be guarded but my tongue now and then outruns my reason. We got up from table at about seven o’clock and I went home.
Quiet evening with my Wife. Read to her a little more of the Legends of Killarney which are poor enough. I afterwards looked over the Introduction to Alison on Taste.3
Silas (or Amory) Conant remained as lessee of the farm and woodland at Weston bequeathed to JQA by W. N. Boylston. See vol. 2:228; 3:17, 20; 4:294.
Oliver William Bourn Peabody, brother-in-law of A. H. Everett and his assistant at the
North Amer. Rev.
, occupied the office just across from CFA’s at 23 Court Street and was a frequent walking companion (vol. 3:336, 378–379).
The reading of Archibald Alison’s Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste (1790) marked a renewal of CFA’s continuing interest in 18th-century treatises on the principles of art.