Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 4
1832-01-12
The Morning was cold again and felt worse than if we had never had mild weather. I went to the Office as usual and consumed my Morning in finishing the fair Copy of my fifth number upon the Treasury Report. This concludes the work much to my satisfaction.1 It is rather remarkable but I think I wrote the three last numbers better and more easily than the two first. It is probably the facility which exercise upon some given subject produces. My mind having thought in the exact manner which can only produce clear writing. This it is I must cultivate. Clear and accurate thinking. From which speaking and writing both follow. Took a walk and returned home.
Afternoon read the rest of the Critical Preface of Ernesti, and part of his Dedication to Stigliz which I admire very much.2 It conveys what I have often thought. Yet the remarks he makes of the spirit of the period when he wrote apply with increased force to the present day.
Evening. My Wife and I executed our long purposed visit to Edward Brooks and his Wife. I saw their Child which is a small, lively little creature, and their new House which is somewhat more in character with the situation he ought to hold in Society.3 After our return, I read the reviews and the Spectator.
The final number of CFA’s series of articles on the Treasury report was printed on 17 Jan. in the Advertiser & Patriot (p. 1–2). It consists primarily of an attack on what seemed to CFA a drift in the report toward a weakening of the Federal Government by the Secretary’s stand against any measures which would create a Treasury surplus. CFA’s position was that it was imperative to create and maintain a surplus for such national uses as would almost certainly emerge.
In the Opera of Cicero in John August Ernest’s recension published at Boston in 1815 (see above, vol. 3:364–365; also above, entry for 8 Sept. 1831), both the preface and the dedication to Christian Ludovic Stigliz, to which Ernest’s name is affixed, are of substantial length.
The Edward Brookses had moved from Bulfinch Place to 31 Chesnut Street (
Boston Directory, 1832–1833). Medford
, p. 531).