Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 6
1835-03-02
The political news from France is again varied by the late arrival and as I foresaw not for the better. Our exaltation is cooling down and we foresee that matters are not quite so easily settled as we imagined. So goes the world. For my part all I wonder at is that the Nation feels so little national. That the United States does not understand it’s dignity. We are here however among Merchants who value dignity and honor by their dollars at hazard.
Office. I was rather idle. Walk, and Began the Consolatio ad Liviam. I very much relished the first hundred lines. It is uncertain whether Ovid was the Author of this nor can I yet form an opinion for myself upon the internal evidence. Afternoon Grimm. I have a curiosity from an Article in the Foreign Quarterly Review to make myself acquainted with the theory of the Earth by Cuvier but I could not find it at the Athenaeum. Took instead his Regne Animal to give me some idea of his manner.1
Evening Mr. and Mrs. Frothingham. Much talk about the College. The appointment of Mr. Wheaton as Alford Professor. Another importation. This is a little too bad.2 I must try to publish my little Essay.3 I read a little German.
Georges L.C.F.D., Baron Cuvier, Le règne animal distribué d’après son organisation, 4 vols., Paris, 1817.
The information that an appointment to the Alford professorship at Harvard had been effected was at least 88premature and proved incorrect; the Alford chair was unoccupied from 1832 to 1838 (
Harvard Quinquennial Cat.
). The name Wheaton does not appear on any faculty list of the period.
The essay which CFA had been writing for the preceding month on the educational situation at Harvard was apparently never published; nor is there a draft of it in the otherwise nearly complete file that he kept of his literary efforts and that remains in the Adams Papers.
1835-03-03
The Newspapers of the morning contain the Message of the President to Congress covering the Dispatches from France. The substance of these is that Mr. Livingston remains at Paris until he hears from America or is ordered away. The appearances are now all in favor of a rupture but I yet do not believe it will end so. Resumed the reading of the Physiognomical Travels of Musaeus which I gave up before on Account of their difficulty.1 My Winter has not been spent in vain for I find I can now understand tolerably well. The difficulty is in the very numerous compound words not in the Dictionary.
Office. Writing on my work. Walk and Ovid. Afternoon reading de Grimm and Cuvier whose general principles I got an idea of. His arrangement is a simple one and for aught I know very exact. But my acquaintance with the matter is small and poor enough. Began a book of Historical dissertation by Mons. Guizot who is now one of the leading French Statesmen.2 Evening at home. Lord Bacon and my German.
JQA’s copy of Johann Carl August Musaeus, Physiognomische Reisen, 4 vols., Altenburg, 1779, is at MQA.
Probably François Pierre Guillaume Guizot’s Histoire de la civilisation en France, 5 vols., Paris, 1829–1832; see below, entry for 24 March.
1835-03-04
Morning cold but the day was remarkably fine. I awoke with a sore throat and more unpleasant feelings than usual. Office and from thence to the House where I remained some time in assorting pamphlets. This was perhaps imprudent, as the House was very cold and I became much chilled. I wrote my Diary and took a walk. Nothing material. A vast deal of talk and speculation about the French question but in fact very little done. And the whole kettle is boiling. A little of Ovid.
After dinner, I began to feel the approach of head ach which ter-89minated as they generally do with me. This is the second I have had this winter. I managed however to go on and read Grimm and a translation of Cuvier’s Theory of fossils which I have procured for want of the original.1 I also looked over a Pamphlet relating to Harvard University published by Mr. F. C. Gray defending it from many charges commonly made. It is fighting at a windmill. I do not perceive any thing in it within my province.2 In the evening Mr. Shepherd came in and sat for some time. I was growing worse so fast that I had not much time to enjoy conversation. But I could not have read so that I made it out better than if alone. Mr. Brooks went to a Geological Lecture. Retired early.
Vol. 11 of the 16-vol. English edition of Cuvier, The Animal Kingdom, London, 1827–1835, is devoted to “Fossil Remains.”
The pamphlet almost certainly was the Letter to Governor Lincoln in Relation to Harvard University, Boston, 1831, which Francis Calley Gray, a member of the Corporation, had signed and published. CFA, apparently, had turned to it as a part of his background reading in preparing his own article “in relation to Harvard University,” which he had begun more broadly on “the subject of education,” and which had occupied him at intervals during the preceding month (see above, entries for 30 Jan.,