Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 5
1833-11-09
Fine morning, but it afterwards clouded over and by night was very gusty with rain. I went to the Office and passed my time in read-210ing Milton, but his work is so coarse and so little English that I skipped to some treatises as they originally came from his pen. Several small papers upon the best mode of a Commonwealth interested me much and were in far more English taste. As I was threatened with a recurrence of head ach, I took a long walk and only with partial benefit.
I this day sent to Mr. Everett my Article upon Hutchinson. I cast it upon the waters—Hoping and believing that it contains principles of which I ought not to be ashamed. My afternoon was passed in writing and copying a letter from me to my father about the Lincoln letter,1 which together with the copies made yesterday, I sent away by the Mail. Evening, reading the Fair Maid of Perth, Virgil and Lord Bacon.
CFA to JQA, 9 Nov., LbC, Adams Papers. Pursuing their conversation on revising JQA’s reply to Gov. Lincoln, CFA recommends modification in these particulars: (1) by eliminating such phrases as “carotid artery cutting” and “brotherhood of butchery” so as not to “startle the weak brethren” among the antimasons; (2) by curbing the attack on Gales and Seaton of the National Intelligencer on the ground that despite their weakness on the Bank and on Masonry, “upon matters of general politics their principles are correct,” and “they do not truckle to Jackson and do resist Nullification”; (3) by omitting the attack on Jackson and the kitchen cabinet as having a divisive effect on the antimasonic forces.