Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 8
1839-01-20
Cold day. Services and studies as usual. Evening at home. H. G. Gorham.
I read much of Milman’s History of the Jews, in the latter part of which I find some confusion. Perhaps this arises from the great difficulty of the subject. When the Jews ceased to be a united people and to have as such a local habitation, they could of course have no unity in historical treatment. This dispersion of a people, and yet its preservation of its distinctive character in the midst of others are curious facts, and well worthy of meditation.
Attended divine service as usual and heard Dr. Frothingham from 16 Psalm 11. “Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is 176fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” My attention was so little fixed that I can give no great account of this discourse. That of the afternoon attracted me more. Matthew 7. 1. “Judge not that ye be not judged.” A very accurate delineation of the proper rules of judgment of the conduct of others. The objections to hasty to censorious and to envious judgment, while the construction of motives should always be made to depend upon the strict application of the rule of right. Perhaps there is no subject upon which the mind requires to be trained in the true principles so much as in moral judgments.
Read a good Sermon of Dr. Atterbury from Matthew 14. 23. “When he had sent the multitude away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray.” Upon solitary religious meditation as an improvement of the character. How much the world has changed within a thousand years as to this subject.
Evening H. G. Gorham came in, the first time since his Mother’s death. By an oversight consequent upon suffering my Diary to run into arrear, I omitted a notice of my attendance last Monday afternoon at her funeral. By a curious coincidence I have followed to the tomb three members of this same family since I came to Boston to settle. And in all my experience of life I have known nothing to compare with the rapid decline of perhaps as prosperous a family as existed at that time. The death of Dr. Gorham exactly at the summit of his medical reputation, threw his children out of the expectations they might reasonably have formed. The death of his only daughter in childbed broke the heart of her mother, and now three sons are left to make their own way in the world. And this is real life and no romance. Contrast the scene with the late wedding visit and what a fund for moral and religious meditation.1
Dr. John Gorham, Erving professor of chemistry at Harvard, had died in 1829. He was a cousin of ABA’s mother, and the families were close. Among the Brooks and Gorham children, ABA and Julia Gorham were intimates. Julia had married Richard Robins in Oct. 1835 but had died at the birth of her first child in Nov. 1836. With Mrs. Gorham’s death, three sons, Gardner, Warren, and H. G., remained. See vols. 2:167, 195, 360–361; 3:55; 6:254–255; and above, entries for 20 and 22 Nov. 1836.
1839-01-21
Cold day. Time divided as usual. Evening at home.
I have no account to give of my day. Worked with some diligence upon my arrears and also upon the accounts. But the mornings are so 177short as to pass away like nothing. Home where I began Electra in my new edition and read sixty lines thoroughly. I think I make progress in mastering the details of the language. The prepositions and adverbs are the most curious and neglected portion.
After dinner, coins. I propose to labour through these with diligence and steadiness. Evening at home. French and Miss Martineau. A curious mixture of shrewdness and absurdity about her. Crevier and Gibbon. Eliogabalus and his antics.