Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 8
1838-11-25
Severely cold. Service all day. Reading and evening to see Mr. Brooks.
The thermometer was near zero this morning. I read some of Milman’s History of the Jews and attended as usual divine service at Chauncy place. But the exercises were interrupted in an unusual manner by an alarm of fire which scattered the congregation. The Stove having been heated overmuch caught the
Afternoon to Mr. Lothrop’s where I heard him preach from John 9. 1465. “I am the light of the world.” Christianity considers man in four relations—as a social, intellectual, physical and moral being, and acts upon him in all.
Read a Sermon by a Mr. Trebeck from Ephesians 4. 26. “Be ye angry and sin not.” A reasonable examination of the real nature of anger, its bad effects and its allowable limits. The evening was taken up by a call at Mr. Brooks’. Nothing material. Miss Harriet Welsh and Mr. Degrand at my house.
1838-11-26
Cold and clear. Office. Afternoon my father off. Evening quiet at home.
My time today was taken up scarcely with my knowing how. Engaged in Accounts at the Office until noon when I went home and made the arrangements for my father’s going off. After an early dinner I accompanied him with my two boys John and Charles to the Railway depot. it was piercing cold but the Cars were close and comfortable.
My father has been with me two days over a fortnight during which time I have enjoyed his society as I always do.1 Indeed I shall miss him very much as now I have not one single friend of any intimacy in the City. Davis appears to be in irrevocable eclipse, Walsh has vanished and I never had any others. Well, I must seek in the amusement of literary occupation for the substitutes, and in the growth of my family affections.2
Read Burr, and after an unsuccessful attempt at a visit, made another effort at a concluding paper.
“I have been living more than a fortnight in indolent enjoyment at my Son’s house, without being troubled with the distracting cares of a family, without being dunned, and without disturbance of any kind. From this delightful dream ... I was this day compelled to awake”
(JQA, Diary, 26 Nov.).
Writing to his mother some weeks later, CFA returned to reflection on his situation with a conclusion recollecting Paradise Lost, XII, 646: “The few persons who formerly visited me socially and in a quiet way have taken other courses so that I am driven to form a taste for crowds. T. K. Davis has cut ‘the fus colored circles’ as too aristocratic, and me as being a consolidationist in politics, so that I see nothing of him. Walsh has evaporated for all that I know to the contrary, and [Edmund] Quincy has banished the intemperance of conviviality for the intemperance of Abolitionism. A. H. Everett is vegetating in Roxbury or elsewhere and never comes near me. So that the world is all before me where to choose just as if I was beginning it anew” (6 Feb. 1839, Adams Papers).
1838-11-27
Cold and clear. Usual division of time. Evening, visits.
At the Office today making up arrears. The division of occupation now becomes so monotonous that I hardly deem it worth while to 147record it. I resumed the Alcestis of Euripides going over what I had already read. This practice must be adhered to.
Continued Burr, and resumed my voluntary task of making a Catalogue of the Athenaeum coins. In order to remove them from danger, when my house was entered, I put them into a trunk in great disorder, which will cost me some additional labour.
Made another unsuccessful visit to Mr. and Mrs. Edward Blake and then went to see Mr. and Mrs. Frothingham with whom we spent an agreeable hour. Finished the last of my numbers. They will not pay the cost.