Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 7

Wednesday 22d.

Friday. 24th.

Thursday. 23d. CFA

1837-02-23

Thursday. 23d. CFA
Thursday. 23d.

Morning snow which lasted all day, but it became mild towards evening and rained. I went to the Office and from thence upon various commissions which kept me much occupied during the whole day. I now propose to look about me a little for the purpose of procuring furniture for my building. I find the cost of this will not be trifling. Perhaps there is nothing in the world more deceptive than building. Estimates appear so fair and yet in the end prove utterly inadequate. My mode of life has also been of late a curious one, as I have been 190going upon a scale of advanced expense without having yet realized any advance of income.

Home where I read a portion of the Port Royal Greek Grammar.1 Afternoon, Burnet and Forster. Evening, Lamartine and Chateaubriand. The two accounts are not at all in the same taste and temper. Both proceeding from imaginative men, the one sees the East in light, the other looks rather upon it when it is dark.

1.

A copy of Port Royal, New Method of Learning with Facility the Greek Tongue, transl. T. Nugent, London, 1817, is at MQA.