Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 5
1834-02-23
Dull rainy day. I arose late from the disturbed night caused by the child. Attended divine service all day and heard Mr. Frothingham preach. Ephesians 2. 12. “Having no hope and without God in the world.” The discourse seemed directed at the present inclination towards the infidel principle. It touched upon the distressing nature of a state without hope, and the absence of support in a God. My 268thoughts wandered in spite of me. Proverbs 16. 25 and 14. 12 the same words being contained in both. “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways of death.” A startling text, but a true one. It may seem curious that what a man does from the belief that he is right is not innocent, but as in this world’s affairs a person fails of success for want of judgment to conduct prudently, so in those of the other, one can err from neglect of or opposition to that knowledge which guides to safety.
Read a sermon of Atterbury. Romans 11. 16. “If the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root be holy, so are the branches.” This was a discourse delivered to the sons of the Clergy upon a day of commemoration. It touched upon the advantages and corresponding obligations of their condition. But it touched lightly upon the disadvantages of the English Church system which makes the toil and the pecuniary benefit and honor fall to different persons, and frequently gives the latter to the least worthy. Quiet evening at home.
1834-02-24
Cloudy day. I went to the Office, but my time was much taken up by Mr. Walsh who came and conversed three hours. This is a little too much although I like his conversation because it is not frivolous. His subjects are generally literary, political or historical—So that my time is not so completely lost. Walk. The relief in the money market which was felt last week does not hold on. There was a great pressure Saturday and an extensive bankruptcy.
Afternoon, Dubos—A long section upon the Music of the Ancients. A curious idea of his to resolve the ancient theatrical representation into something resembling our modern operatic performances with the remarkable addition that while one man sung or spoke in recitative, the other did the gestures. What more ridiculous idea can present itself to the mind, yet this is justified by our author, who is all alive for the unities of the French Stage and talks of the necessity of keeping up the illusion. Such are the curious workings of the human mind. Evening. Vivian, a very moral Story, and continued my labours upon German.
1834-02-25
Snowy morning and an appearance of recurring winter. I went to the Office but did very little. Mr. Walsh came in and conversed upon 269English History so long, that my leisure was pretty much taken up. I do not think such use of time absolute waste, and I felt gratified today that I could remember so clearly the succession of British Ministries from the time of Anne.
Walk was short as I went to see some of Mr. Cogswell’s books. He is selling his Library having made a bad business of his Round hill School.1 I do not however propose to buy. Afternoon passed at home reading Dubos. Finished the account of the ancient Stage. Finished also the play of the Self Tormentor. The characters of Menedemus and Chremes are strong delineations of human nature. I do not perceive that husbands adopted a different tone then from that which they often assume now. Evening at home, Vivian, and German.
Joseph Green Cogswell in 1823 at Northampton with George Bancroft had established Round Hill, an experimental school remarkable in a number of ways, but which had been at various times beset by troubles including a revolt of students during which they had consigned their masters to a dungeon while they themselves went on a week-long spree at a Northampton hotel (Charlotte Everett to Edward Everett, 10 March 1830, MHi:Everett Papers).
Cogswell’s distinguished career, however, earlier and later was largely concerned with books. He, along with George Ticknor and Edward Everett, had studied at Göttingen in 1817. He traveled widely in Europe, met and corresponded with Goethe. When he returned to Harvard in 1820 to become librarian and professor of mineralogy and geology, he brought for the College library the Ebeling collection of 3,000 volumes and 11,000 maps and charts. It was in discouragement at the lack of interest there in the development of the library that he left to found Round Hill. Much later he was to become John Jacob Astor’s adviser in establishing for the public the Astor Library in New York City, its superintendent, and the compiler of its printed catalogs 1848–1861 (
DAB
; Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard
, p. 266). His own book collection must have been a substantial one. The Columbian Centinel gave the sale notice in its news columns, an unusual procedure, recommending it to “the attention of scholars.... These books were selected by Mr. Cogswell when in Europe, and a large portion of them are works which can rarely be purchased in this country” (25 Feb., p. 2, col. 2).