Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 5
1834-01-08
A very beautiful day. Our weather this season has been uncommonly mild and open. I went to the Office. The Editor of the Advocate sent me a proof of my father’s Address this morning and in going over it without the MS, and afterwards with it I was taken up nearly my whole time. It engrossed three hours morning and afternoon and after 244all I did not look over the whole. Mr. Davis was not elected today so that it became necessary to put off the publication until Friday.
Mr. Frothingham dined with me, for the first time for a very long while. He talked much of Dr. Stevenson and of his affliction. Miss Julia Gorham took tea and spent the evening here so that I was disappointed of my promise to go to see Mr. Brooks. J. W. Gorham her brother came in afterwards. I read a little of Mackintosh and copied the letter to my father.
1834-01-09
I was again engrossed the whole morning in correcting proof. Mr. Davis was this day elected Governor,1 and the Address will appear tomorrow. I finished at about one o’clock. My Accounts, Diary and every thing else have gone backward in the mean time. I hope this will put an end to my share in political affairs for this year. I have had some moments of trial and have got through them pretty well.
Walk. In the Afternoon, read Bacon and Virgil. Finished and sent my letter to my father and felt as if I might now begin anew.2 My own prospects however are mortified. My article in the North American has sunk without a struggle, and I am to make no literary or any other sort of reputation.3 Well, if it must be so, it must. Evening, Miss Edgeworth’s Ormond, and Sir James Mackintosh.
In the Senate Davis received thirty votes, Morton four, and there were three abstentions (Columbian Centinel, 10 Jan., p. 2, col. 3).
To JQA, 6–9 Jan. (Adams Papers). CFA’s sense that his political antimasonry had come to its end was echoed by his father: “I have now taken my leave of them as a party. There is perhaps nothing that makes it desirable that they should continue to exist as a party excepting to prevail upon the Legislature” (to CFA, 18 Jan., Adams Papers).
Such discouragement was recurrent following the publication of each of CFA’s articles, irrespective of manifestations of reader interest of some sort that were almost always forthcoming. In this instance, appreciative notice was to come from his father: “I have been reading your review ... with great satisfaction.... Your severity consists in your moderation. I should have handled him more roughly and perhaps not have done him so much justice” (to CFA, 31 Jan., Adams Papers).
1834-01-10
Mild day. I went to the Office and passed my time in making up the arrears of the last few days. My fathers Address appeared this morning in the Advocate1 but it did not appear in the Advertiser. I did not suppose it would.
Walk. Then I went according to invitation to dine with Mr. Brooks—245Company, Mr. John Parker, Mr. Dudley Hall, R. D. Shepherd, R. D. Tucker, P. C. Brooks Jr. and myself. Tolerably pleasant but nothing remarkable. I returned home at dark and passed a quiet evening reading Ormond to my Wife. Lord Bacon.