Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 8

Tuesday. 29th.

Thursday 31st.

Wednesday 30th. CFA

1838-05-30

Wednesday 30th. CFA
Wednesday 30th.
Philadelphia

The morning was clear and beautiful as we rose with the sun to prepare for our Journey. After a rapid breakfast we started from the house for the Railway depot, taking leave of my father, I. Hull, and those of the household who were up. It is now just a month since I reached this place, a month of much enjoyment to my Wife and myself, as a relaxation from the cares of life.

My reception at the Metropolis has been better than I had any rea-55son to expect. My personal vanity has been flattered as much by the attentions bestowed by many here, as by absence of them from others; but my gratification has arisen from a better motive, the improved health of my Wife.

The spectacle of politics has not made me more in love with the trade as it is here carried on, and I am a little fearful that my way of viewing them will never become popular enough to be practicable. Be this as it may. My motto remains the same, and will do so, I hope, through all the vicissitudes of life. I am grateful to the divine being for my present position, and will remain content however he may regulate my line of usefulness.

We reached Baltimore by eight o’clock, and after an hour and a half of delay during which I walked into the town with Louisa, we started again for Philadelphia. The trip was favourable and the day could not have been finer. But towards the last of it there was delay. We went through in the cars as far as the road is finished and were then transferred to omnibuses, which completed the three miles very slowly and heavily.

Accidentally a small spark from the engine adhered to the ball of my eye which gave me acute suffering until I was able to extract it in the city but not until after the inflammation had become quite considerable. At last after five o’clock we reached the Marshall House where we stopped, and after dinner and a brief stroll down Chesnut Street, I returned with so violent a head ach and so much fatigued that I was glad to go early to bed, but the noise of the house was incessant until after midnight.