Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 6
1835-03-02
The political news from France is again varied by the late arrival and as I foresaw not for the better. Our exaltation is cooling down and we foresee that matters are not quite so easily settled as we imagined. So goes the world. For my part all I wonder at is that the Nation feels so little national. That the United States does not understand it’s dignity. We are here however among Merchants who value dignity and honor by their dollars at hazard.
Office. I was rather idle. Walk, and Began the Consolatio ad Liviam. I very much relished the first hundred lines. It is uncertain whether Ovid was the Author of this nor can I yet form an opinion for myself upon the internal evidence. Afternoon Grimm. I have a curiosity from an Article in the Foreign Quarterly Review to make myself acquainted with the theory of the Earth by Cuvier but I could not find it at the Athenaeum. Took instead his Regne Animal to give me some idea of his manner.1
Evening Mr. and Mrs. Frothingham. Much talk about the College. The appointment of Mr. Wheaton as Alford Professor. Another importation. This is a little too bad.2 I must try to publish my little Essay.3 I read a little German.
Georges L.C.F.D., Baron Cuvier, Le règne animal distribué d’après son organisation, 4 vols., Paris, 1817.
The information that an appointment to the Alford professorship at Harvard had been effected was at least 88premature and proved incorrect; the Alford chair was unoccupied from 1832 to 1838 (
Harvard Quinquennial Cat.
). The name Wheaton does not appear on any faculty list of the period.
The essay which CFA had been writing for the preceding month on the educational situation at Harvard was apparently never published; nor is there a draft of it in the otherwise nearly complete file that he kept of his literary efforts and that remains in the Adams Papers.