Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 4
1832-11-09
My father left this morning early for Providence. He goes to Washington to assume new cares and incur more praise or odium according as chance may direct. The disastrous result of the Presidential Election throws a gloom over the political affairs of the Country which is deeper and darker than it ever has been before.1 The fate of 395our currency is sealed, and the Judiciary is in imminent danger. Office ceases to be honorable and vicious principle is every where triumphant.
I went to the Office. Read Lingard apud Henry 8. Here begins the interest of his, alias a Catholic history. At noon, I returned home for the purpose of going out and paying visits with my Wife. The day was delightful. Called at Mrs. Webster’s, Dr. and Mrs. Kirkland, Mrs. Crowninshields,2 and Mrs. Sparks’—Two at home and two out. Mrs. Sparks is a bride and an interesting woman.3 Dr. Kirkland has just returned from Europe and looks like an old Beau. His lean Pantaloon is “a world too wide for his shrunk shank,” and he in the midst of his decay mental and corporeal indulges a foppery which never became or even would have been thought of in his early days. The spectacle is a melancholy one.4
Afternoon, reading over Stone’s book. The luxury of my library is very great. Evening. Gardiner Gorham passed an hour,5 after whom Edward Brooks came in. The rumor of the death of Dr. Spurzheim is not correct.6
Although the election in Massachusetts was still three days away and the result in New York was not yet known, the voting in Pennsylvania, Maine, and New Hampshire had been so overwhelmingly in favor of electors committed to the reelection of President Jackson that the outcome in the nation already seemed clear.
On Mrs. Benjamin Williams Crowninshield, see vol. 1:30; her residence was at 1 Somerset Place (
Boston Directory, 1832–1833).
In October Jared Sparks had married Frances Anne Allen of Hyde Park, N.Y. Although they were to occupy the Craigie House in Cambridge, it would appear that they were now living in Boston, perhaps at his former residence, 3 Somerset Court (
DAB
, under Sparks;
Boston Directory, 1832–1833). Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of Sparks is reproduced as an illustration in the present volume.
Dr. John Thornton Kirkland had married Elizabeth Cabot only a few months before he resigned as president of Harvard. Following the resignation in 1828, they had traveled widely in the United States and abroad and had only recently taken up residence in Boston (vol. 1:12; vol. 2:226; and the notice of Kirkland in
DAB
).
Gardner Gorham was a brother of Julia Gorham (CFA, Diary, 1 May 1833).
See entry for 12 Nov., below.
1832-11-10
My health is declining in spite of myself. The distress I endure every morning is something more than the vision of a hypochondriac. Yet it is aggravated by want of occupation. I know not what to turn my attention to but this I know that something must be done or I shall be very good for nothing.
Went to the Office and read Lingard — The Catholic account of the Reformation. Prejudiced but not with any appearance of intentional unfairness. He has hit upon the great truth without appreciating it, 396and without seeing the effect it produces upon the whole of his history. The struggle of Luther was the struggle of the human mind, for liberty, moral, religious, political and ecclesiastical. Its consequences are not yet fully developed, both in good and in evil.
A walk at one. I propose to adhere strictly to exercise this winter. Afternoon, reading Antimasonry. I read and read but am not yet master enough of the subject to compose. Discouragement in all my preceding undertakings gives me little hope upon this. Evening. Read to my Wife two or three interesting lives of Painters—Copley and Mortimer.1
A fourth volume of Allan Cunningham’s Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters and Sculptors had recently been published in the Harper’s Family Library edition (see above, entry for 11 March, note). John Singleton Copley, John Hamilton Mortimer, George Romney, William Owen, and Sir Henry Raeburn, whose lives CFA was reading during November, are all included in this volume, which CFA borrowed from the Athenaeum.