Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 8

Monday 15th. CFA

1839-07-15

Monday 15th. CFA
Monday 15th.

Fine day but not entirely without rain. At home. Dine and evening at the Mansion.

I spent the morning in reading excepting a short time devoted to a 265modification of my article. It was pleasant to be able to go over the words of others, and not to be always marshalling them for one’s self. Read a part of the Diplomatic correspondence of the Revolution, some chapters of Texier on the Roman affairs and a little of Lessing’s very ingenious dissertation upon fable. He is certainly an extremely acute critic.

As my Wife took an early dinner to go to Boston, I went down to the Mansion to dine. Afterwards, Tacitus and some work in the garden and on my grounds. Evening again below.

Tuesday 16th. CFA

1839-07-16

Tuesday 16th. CFA
Tuesday 16th.

Fine day. Morning to town. Afternoon at home reading. Evening at the Mansion.

I rode to town and was occupied the greater part of my time in various commissions. Walked up to see my house in Acorn Street vacated today but found it shut up, so that I had my walk for nothing.

Nothing new. After dinner finished the second book of the Annals of Tacitus. This review is interesting if not useful. A little work besides, after which Grimm.

Evening at the Mansion which seems to be our regular course.

Wednesday 17th. CFA

1839-07-17

Wednesday 17th. CFA
Wednesday 17th.

Fine day and warm. At home. Dine at the Mansion and evening.

This season is a fine one although the early part of it has proved so inconvenient. The summer weather is now setting in finely.

Mr. Hunt has sent me another letter with a request for an examination of Alexander Hamilton’s Pamphlet.1 I have felt a little inclined to make some strictures upon it before this and so I sat down today to try my hand at them. But I did not go very far.

Read some of Texier and more of Lessing. Dinner with the family below. After it, the third book of the Annals of Tacitus. The Claudian family do no honor to human nature. Tiberius seems to have been a singular mixture of discordant elements, but a thorough politician of a small scale. Grimm who is always amusing to me. Evening at my father’s.

1.

Letter missing.

Thursday 18th. CFA

1839-07-18

Thursday 18th. CFA
Thursday 18th.

Warm day. Morning to town. After dinner at home. Evening at the Mansion.

266

Although not my day, I went to town this morning, partly for the purpose of accommodating my father who wished to go in and partly to attend to my house in Acorn Street which has lost the best tenant I ever had. The weather extremely warm. And as has often happened with me, I had more to do in walking than usual.

Returned as usual. Afternoon Tacitus book 3d of Annals, c. 20 to 40. I find this particular book is one with which I am not so well acquainted. Grimm and Le Comte, finishing the first volume of the latter.

My last paper upon South Carolina was published this morning with which I am inclined to think I shall terminate my labours for the Courier. It is a little observable how tenaciously the press adheres to it’s rule of entire silence respecting any thing I write. It carries it so far as in the case of what I write under my name for the New York Magazine, to omit my particular article in the general notice of that publication which has that signature whilst they notice the one I wrote anonymously.1 There is something rather complimentary in this, but it is uphill work. I believe I am beyond the day of discouragement. Evening at the Mansion.

1.

Notices of the first issue of Hunt’s Merchants’ Mag. had been printed in a number of newspapers since its publication in June. None, apparently, that had come to CFA’s attention singled out for mention his signed article that had appeared in the issue (above, entry for 25 June). The irony that impresses him here probably derives from the praise recently given his unsigned and misattributed North American Review article (above, entry for 4 July). His second signed article in Hunt’s (below, entry for 25 July) would be praised as “a lucid, practical, and philosophical exposition” in the Quincy Patriot (10 Aug., p. 2, col. 4), but this would receive no mention in the Diary, nor would it assuage the bitterness he felt over his neglect in the Boston press.