Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 2
1828-05-30
Morning at the Office. Finished Blackstone’s Commentaries which I have read carefully over and it has taken me five months. I do not 242feel as if I was master of it all either, though this is the third reading I have given to it. Conversation with George. Report concerning Russell Jarvis sent me by John. Reflections upon Mr. Stetson’s testimony.1 Afternoon passed in reading and in copying Executive Record. The weather damp and rainy with thunder so that I did not walk. Evening finished Cicero’s Oration for Quintius.
See entry for 21 April, and note, above. Caleb Stetson, to whom JA2 had addressed his hostile remarks about Russell Jarvis, testified that on the next day he had asked a friend “to state to Mr. Jarvis that I had no personal concern in that conversation with Mr. Adams.” At the same time he rather weakly disavowed having expressed his “disapprobation of Mr. Adams’ conduct” (Report on the Assault by Russell Jarvis, House Report No. 260, 20 Cong., 1 sess., p. 29).
1828-05-31
Letter to my mother after which went to the Office but not to do much. Heard that Mr. Emerson had been taken alarmingly ill at Concord on Monday last. I have always thought he would not live very long although he may survive this.1 Rainy and disagreeable all day. Afternoon at home copying Executive Record and then went to Medford with Chardon Brooks. It poured the whole way. Found the family at M. much as usual. Had some conversation with Abby of rather a serious nature and reflected much upon her observations.
Violently deranged, Edward Bliss Emerson had to be taken to the asylum in Charlestown. He soon recovered his sanity, but his physical health, undermined by tuberculosis, was permanently broken (Ralph L. Rusk, The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson, N.Y., 1949, p. 127).