Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 8
1839-04-26
Fine day. Regular distribution. Evening Mr. Brooks, at home.
I was at the Office today and worked pretty vigorously upon my Review, but the work goes slow. I am not sure whether Dr. Palfrey will publish it after all.
Read Ajax which I am desirous to finish before I leave town. The play is remarkable as departing in many respects from the strict rules of the Unities, and also for its singular combination of power and absurdity. The speech of Tecmessa1 strikes me as superior to the more celebrated one of Ajax to his sword. This is a soliloquy the only one in Sophocles that remains to us.
After dinner studying a Pamphlet by a Mr. Quin in the Financial Register.2 Evening, my Wife went to Medford, and I devoted the time to a draft of a paper for Mr. Hunt’s Magazine. Mr. Brooks spent an hour with me.
In the Ajax by Sophocles, a Phrygian king suffers the loss of his domain and the captivity of his daughter Tecmessa, who is taken by Ajax, lives with him, and by him has a son.
A periodical published in Philadelphia from July 1837 to Dec. 1838 by Condy Raguet, on whom see below, entry for 15 May.