Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 4
1831-11-04
Morning cloudy and threatened though it did not rain in fact. I wasted my time very much in preparing my defences for the Winter. Then to the Office where I received letters. One from my Mother1 and one from Mr. James Brown of Cambridge making application about my father’s book which has already been grasped at by several.2 Several visitors, upon dunning and paying errands. Mr. Tenney as punctual as usual. Jos. Adams about J. Q. Adams’ bills which I paid, having been long due.3 Started to perform some Commissions which Mr. T. B. Johnson sent to my Mother to have done.4 I went through with several of them and then took quite a long walk to get rid of an incipient headache.
Returning home, found my Wife in trouble about her Woman who is much worse and fears are entertained for her life. Read part of the Academic Questions,5 though imperfectly today. My fire troubled me again today. I have not yet got the Art.
Evening at Mr. Frothingham’s. Mrs. Parkman, Miss Hall, two Miss Phillipses and W. G. Brooks. Rather stupid. Returned at ten and my head was so bad I went to bed after the Spectator.
New York, 30 Oct. (Adams Papers).
The letter from James Brown, printer, is missing; however, CFA’s reply to him, 8 Nov. (LbC, Adams Papers), 170makes it clear that Brown, like others, had been led to believe by an item in a newspaper that JQA’s biography of JA was approaching readiness for publication.
Joseph Harrod Adams apparently had come as a messenger from John Angier to whom CFA had written a few days earlier that Angier had submitted no bill for J. Q. Adams Jr.’s schooling with him during the more than three months he had been there. On this day CFA paid out $48 on J. Q. Adams Jr.’s account. CFA to Angier, 1 Nov. (LbC, Adams Papers); M/CFA/3, and M/CFA/4.
LCA’s brother, Thomas Baker Johnson (vol. 1:443 and Adams Genealogy), had requested LCA to purchase for him in Boston, shells, candles, spectacles, and socks (CFA to LCA, 5 Nov., Adams Papers).
“Academicae quaestiones” and “Academicarum quaestionum” are in vol. 14 of CFA’s edition of Cicero published at Boston in 1815.