(p. 222)
probably not lost much by reason of the non-completion of the
contemplated volumes. He could have made no other contribution to the
history of the country at all approaching in value or interest to the
Diary, of which a most important part was still to be written. For a
brief time just now this loses its historic character, but makes up
for the loss by depicting admirably some traits in the mental
constitution of the diarist. Tales of enchantment, he says, pleased
his boyhood, but "the humors of Falstaff hardly affected me at all.
Bardolph and Pistol and Nym were personages quite unintelligible to
me; and the lesson of Sir Hugh Evans to the boy Williams was quite too
serious an affair." In truth, no man can ever have been more utterly
void of a sense of humor or an appreciation of wit than was Mr. Adams.
Not a single instance of an approach to either is to be found
throughout the twelve volumes of his Diary. Not even in the simple
form of the "good story" could he find pleasure, and subtler delicacies
were wasted on his well-regulated mind as dainty French dishes would
be on the wholesome palate of a day-laborer. The books which bore the
stamp of well-established approval, the acknowledged classics of the
English, Latin, and French languages he read with a mingled sense of
duty and of pleasure, and evidently with cultivated appreciation, (p. 223)
though whether he would have made an original discovery of their
merits may be doubted. Occasionally he failed to admire even those
volumes which deserved admiration, and then with characteristic
honesty he admitted the fact. He tried Paradise Lost ten times before
he could get through with it, and was nearly thirty years old when he
first succeeded in reading it to the end. Thereafter he became very
fond of it, but plainly by an acquired taste. He tried smoking and
Milton, he says, at the same time, in the hope of discovering the
"recondite charm" in them which so pleased his father. He was more
easily successful with the tobacco than with the poetry. Many another
has had the like experience, but the confession is not always so
frankly forthcoming.

Fate, however, had in store for Mr. Adams labors to which he was
better suited than those of literature, and tasks to be performed
which the nation could ill afford to exchange for an apotheosis of our
second President, or even for a respectable but probably not very
readable history. The most brilliant and glorious y