Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 4
1832-01-11
Morning mild and pleasant to the feeling but a very bad day in respect to the walking. I went to the Office as usual and made use of all my time, first in making up my Diary and Accounts, and then in taking off the fair Copy of my last Number of the Treasury Report Review. I did not complete it. This is a much greater task than it seems to be. It has filled five Sheets of Foolscap Paper and that written pretty closely on all four sides. The exercise however has been a very good one. I have found the benefit of it as well in clearing my own ideas as in subjecting me to labour and finish the explanation of them.
I had a considerable number of Commissions to attend to so that I went out early and spent an hour and a half in performing them. Mr. Brooks dined with us quietly. After dinner, I sat down to read the 219Treatise ascribed to Cicero, called Consolatio, written by him after the death of his daughter, but I do not for some reason think it is the genuine one. I therefore left off in the middle to begin Ernest’s Critical Preface.1 Evening, finished the German’s Tale which is very ably done from first to last. Afterwards, read over the 18th book of the Iliad and the Spectator.
To complete his survey of the works of Cicero, CFA, having finished the volume devoted to works not definitely in the canon, the last in his edition, now turned to the first volume, in which were the editorial prolegomena and the works on rhetoric. See the following entry.
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).