Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 4
1831-12-02
The winter sets in with great severity. The cold this morning for the season was very great. I went to the Office. Engaged there in drawing up my Accounts for last Month and balancing my Books. My father’s affairs in pretty good condition. Did not experience so much inconvenience from yesterday as I expected. But I took a walk notwithstanding the cold in order to obviate any probable difficulty. Then home. Abby had a letter from my Mother giving but a poor Account of the health of John’s child.1 I am afraid that is a bad business.
Read in the Afternoon a considerable part of the fifth Tusculan upon the happiness of virtue. In which it appears to me the ancient Philosophers entangled themselves in their own webs. I did not quite finish it, because Gorham Brooks came wishing us to go to the Theatre. Mr. Hackett performed his usual Caricatures of American Character. Mr. Fletcher a series of Attitudes from Classical designs which are worth seeing and a man imitated the Actions of a Monkey.2 Such is the Dramatic taste of the present day! Returned home and read the Spectator.
LCA to ABA, 30
The Tremont Theatre offered James Henry Hackett as Col. Wildfire, a Kentuckian, in The Lion of the West, a comedy in four acts. The play was followed by “Mr. Fletcher, from the Theatre Royal Drury Lane” in “Venetian Statues”; a scene from Down East, a farce; and a drama in one act, Savage of the Island, or the Ourang Outang, in which M. Gouffe took the part of the orangutan (Boston Patriot, 1 Dec., p. 3, col. 4). On DAB
; on Fletcher and Gouffe, see Odell, Annals N.Y. Stage, 3:569.