Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 6
1836-04-26
Morning fine, I went to the Office. My things are all moved into my old quarters and make them not a little confined. But I am so little at them that they will do very well. Diary and Accounts.
Received a letter from my father giving a long detail of matters during the Session.1 He seems to be in about as bad spirits politically as I am. The state of affairs in this country is hardly favorable to an independent man who will ask favors of nobody, and be under obligations to none. My spirits have been a little otherwise depressed within a few days.
Walk. Home, Livy which I read with pleasure. Afternoon, Sismondi—Italian Literature, Goldoni and his successors. Then Ariosto whose story is amusing and then Fouqué. I wish to finish this story of the Magic Ring which after all plays a part only at the last. I think I shall find more pleasure in the book of travels of Forster which I have at the office.2 My Wife went to Quincy today with Mrs. Miller and did not return until after tea. I walked as the air was warm and then home where I read Madame d’Abrantes, Swift.
21 April (Adams Papers).
Copies of Johann Georg Adam Forster’s Ansichten von Niederheim von Brabant, 3 vols., Berlin, 1791, and Voyage philosophique et pittoresque, sur les rives du Rhin, 3 vols., Paris, [1795], are now in MQA.
1836-04-27
Clear day. It would be ludicrous for me to describe how I spent my morning. Suffice it to say, that it was partly in talking with Mr. Walsh and partly in burning up old Account books which have been long laying about my rooms reminding me of the vanity of human expectations in the life and death of Bob New, barber.1
Mr. A. H. Everett called in to know when his room would be ready. I told him tomorrow, and he said he should then try to get in his things. He told me that Simpson was the person likely to succeed Mr. Henshaw in the Collectorship, inasmuch as the County Committee had voted to recommend him. So it is—Democratic enough. Mr. Henshaw understands a thing or two as well as his neighbours. Walk and home, Livy. Afternoon, Sismondi upon Alfieri, Ariosto and Fouqué.
Little John continued so unwell that my Wife concluded at last to send for Dr. Bigelow who announced that he was threatened with scarlet fever—A thing that frightens me always. I was depressed as 378I always am in such cases, and felt the presence of Gardiner Gorham as rather irksome. Swift, Conduct of the Allies.
In 1830 CFA had been the administrator of the estate of Robert New, whose story, a melancholy one, had impressed itself upon Adams with particular poignancy. See vol. 3:221–222; vol. 4:77.