Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 2
1828-02-19
Wrote a letter to my father. Beautiful Morning. Blackstone at the Office. Did not see any of the Brooks family today. Afternoon, Hutchinson. Conversation with Mr. Hobart on politics, there being some resolutions before the Legislature of the State. Evening at home reading Cicero and the Preliminary Treatise of the Library of Useful Knowledge, an excellent work carried on by a society of gentlemen in London.1
Presumably the eight-page prospectus of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, published in London in 1825 (BM, Catalogue
).
1828-02-20
Morning occupied in reading. The weather is extraordinary for this season and quite reconciles me to remaining here. Ward Brooks is better by the last accounts, although if he is in a Consumption I do not see how he is to get out of it, at least by remaining there. Office, reading Blackstone. Afternoon, Hutchinson. Conversation with George. Evening at home reading Cicero and Executive Record.
1828-02-21
Morning occupied in reading the philosophy of the ancients.1 After breakfast, at the Office reading Blackstone until one o’clock when I started to go to Medford. It rained pretty fast during my ride but I found my road much better than I had expected. The family small as it has become, were very well and they had encouraging news from Baltimore. Julia Gorham is still remaining there. Time passed much as usual, and I felt as happy as a man in love does. There is a good deal of pleasure in sentiment, but when reduced to paper by description, it is so little capable of it as to excite ridicule and contempt. In passing therefore some of my happiest moments, I am content to leave them only in the memory.
A set of André Dacier’s Bibliothèque des anciens philosophes, 5 vols., Paris, 1771, is in the Stone Library.
1828-02-22
Returned to town. The weather astonishingly mild for the season. Read Blackstone and Hutchinson at the Office during the day. Nothing occurred worth noticing. This is the anniversary of Washington’s birth day and puts me in mind of a happier one a year ago although this was not without it’s pleasure. It is now a year since I entered into my present engagement. That it has so far been productive of nothing 216but good to me, I am sure, and so far as I am able to make it, it shall not cease to be so, the result is in the hands of a higher power. Evening finished the first book of Cicero de Officiis and wrote Executive Record.