Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 5
1833-12-28
Fine day. I was at the Office all the morning, occupied in drawing out my Quarterly Account. Mr. Walsh called in, my new Tenant who succeeds Mr. Peabody—Otherwise quite uninterrupted. Walk. Dined by invitation today with P. C. Brooks Jr. Mr. Brooks, his son Edward, and Mr. Frothingham. Pleasant enough.
Returned home, and was gratified to find the missing packet had arrived. I am now prepared. But I never in my life was more at a loss to know what the probable operation of this measure will be. I trust in the support of a higher power through all the trials it may bring upon me, or upon my father.1 He now stands quite free from the effect of consequences personal to himself, and he ought not to regard them at any time.
Evening, reading to my Wife from Miss Edgeworth’s Harrington.2 Her style is fascinating. Plato’s second Alcibiades.
JQA, in the letter CFA had just received, had expressed his awareness of CFA’s apprehensions: “I am giving you a great deal of trouble, and Masonry and Anti-Masonry are putting your virtue to a severe trial at an early age. But it is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth. Stand to your arms, that is to your principles, and do not ... flinch from your Post, and shrink into your shell, at the first approach of the peril which could test them by trial.” (21 Dec., Adams Papers.)
The regular evening readings in the novels of Maria Edgeworth would continue through April, doubtless from CFA’s set of her Works now in MQA; see vol. 4:160.