Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 5

Friday. 25th.

Sunday. 27th.

349 Saturday. 26th. CFA

1834-07-26

Saturday. 26th. CFA
Saturday. 26th.
Medford

An excessively hot day. After despatching my business, I returned to town. These visits are short but necessary to keep up my father’s spirits which sink upon the return to quiet and solitude.1

At Boston I was very busy, first in Accounts, then in copying a Letter for my father to John following up the other. He wishes to bring him to settle in Quincy. I do not know but this is the only course in which he might do good.2 But if he accepts the invitation my position is most essentially changed and many of my views disappear. Not with any great regret on my part indeed, for I can easily adapt myself to the new circumstances. My time was so much engrossed that I did not execute all my work.

Returned to Medford. Afternoon quiet. Read Puckler Muskau Volume 1 which is more German than the rest. Ovid, and Madame de Maintenon. It was so warm that I was very languid.

1.

“The thoughts of the future haunt me in my dreams; of which I had a cruel one last Night” (JQA, Diary, 26 July).

2.

In this new “supplicatory letter” (Diary, 26 July), JQA wrote:

“You have met with severe disappointments, but let them not overcome your resolution or your perseverance. There are prospects incomparably more favourable for you here than any that it is possible should arise for you in Washington.... Washington is no place for enterprize. Here so long as I live and have a house over my head, it shall be yours and your children’s and when I depart it may with prudence, industry, and frugality secure to you and them an independent existence.

“Here my father began his career upon nothing, he lived a long life of vicissitudes but always a life of honour, always with a modest competency.... Here he found a refuge from the Hurricane of Political conflict. I have done the same. The ruin of all his fortunes and the destruction of his family would have been inevitable after his Presidency if he had taken his residence in any of our cities. My own situation has been similar to his. My preservation from ruin hitherto has been my retirement here, and here is a last resort for my children to maintain their independence when they meet with nothing but disappointment elsewhere.”

(To JA2, 26 July, Adams Papers.)