The detached library, a few yards from the home of John Adams
Wednesday
(Part 1 of trip log here.)
Arrived at the rare book room of the Boston Public Library today. This would be the consummation of the sight experience of Adams' library. Now I would not merely admire the volumes from afar but acquire carnal knowledge in the form of touch and smell (no, not taste; I'm no bibliophager!)
I had requested eight or ten volumes from the library a few weeks prior. Mostly religious in nature and mostly so that I could see what comments Adams made in the margin. I figured they'd be entertaining and they were, given as he was to bombast.
I arrived with trepidation, aware that we had a good cop/bad cop situation going on here. I had corresponded via email with Dawn, who was helpful and cheerful given that a non-scholar/Ohioan was daring to visit this treasure trove. Fellow traveler Mark was skeptical. "You really think they're going to let you touch those books?" Sandy, who had corresponded separately with a different staff member, received a curt reponse to her request to visit the rare book room: "Why do you want to see these books? Are you a scholar?". Sandy decided not to go and headed off to the Boston Aquarium with Mark. We wondered if the name "Sandy" was a handicap, as compared to "Thomas", though it was probably just reflected the difference between Jacob (Sandy's interlocutor; not his real name) and Dawn. [No gender-related discrimination - see Dawn's comments in the Update near bottom of this post.]
I made sure to ask for Dawn at the reception desk and she was very warm and pleasant. I also met Jacob, who looked like a younger version of the historian Michael Beschloss. In fairness to him, he went the extra mile when I asked about a painting in the room - he interrupted his work and showed me another.
The first volume I examined was a book called "The Institutions of Moses and the Hindoo Religion". It was uncut and so it was apparently never read by Adams. (I have a few books like that too.) The book mentions the crisis in the 18th century, which is also the crisis of our time:
...in an age in which many who occupy a distinguished rank in life pay little attention to [Christianity], in which many openly abandon the profession of it, and in which many of those who profess their belief of it appear (if we may judge men's feelings and sentiments by their conduct) to have no just sense of its real value. Not to be ashamed of Christ in such circumstances as these is of no small merit...The next volume was William Godwin's 1796 "Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness". In the flyleaf Adams excoriates this book as the most lying of all books in the "universal library". No hyperbole was spared.
Godwin writes, "there is not a talent we possess...for which we are not responsible at the tribunal of the public treasury, to pay into a bank of common advantage." Adams writes in the margin, "True! Upon the supposition of a God, moral gov't, & future."
Adams writes later next to a paragraph about ancient democracy: "Athens was not a democracy. All this is pitiful Sophistry."
Godwin says that anarchy is not a bad thing, and is preferable to men than despotism. He writes "anarchy is short-lived" and Adams comments, "Why? Because it soon convinces men that Despotism is the less wild of the two."
___
The next volume was a collection of theological tracts by Richard Watson, Lord Bishop of Landaff, a professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. The book was dedicated to the queen of England: "I am not a flatter by anyone's estimation yet...I flatter my Queen...she is the best of wives and best of mothers". Would he know, not being her wife or child?
One tract was a "treatise concerning the course of the present corruption of Christians and Remedies Thereof".
"We preach to people who are no sooner out of the church but they meet at home and in their ordinary business, with perpetual hindrances to holiness, and with temptations, which it is certain they will not withstand. Such hearers may be preached to long enough, before they will reap any fruit from what they hear."Watson's causes of Christian corruption include: 1) Ignorance (i.e. want of instruction) 2) Prejudice and false notions concerning religion 3) Maxims and sentiments which are made use of to authorize corruption 4) Abuse of Holy Scripture 5) a false modesty 6) the delaying of repentance 7) Sloth in matters of religion 8)worldly business 9) abuse of particular callings (his remedy concerning state in life or profession is to flee it if it is bad in itself and if it is lawful take care not to render it dangerous by neglect of duties.)
____
The last volume was "A Cordial for Low Spirits" by Thomas Gordon, author of "The Independent Whig".
In the back, someone had scrawled in large cursive lettering (not Adams, much more modern script): "a good book for those that love it but it is bad for them that don't love it." Profound.
The "cordial" was mostly polemical in spirit. One line that caught my eye, just before decrying "popery": "I have never fully discovered the reason before; why out church is always in danger. In danger it will always be unless fixed on a more solid basis and foundation." (Hmm...might I suggest the rock of Peter? *grin*) And so ended the rare book room portion of the visit.
____
A homeless man sat next to me in a plush anteroom to the Boston Public Library reading room. There's an irony that the homeless who have made the BPL their defacto home and who have nothing in the way of worldly goods enjoy these sumptuous surroundings, albeit with much pain during closing hours. Reminds me of how Ham of Bone always says that he has a library of hundreds of thousands of books, i.e. the local library. He who travels lightest, travels farthest.
____
UPDATE: I sent Dawn a link to this post as a way to thank her for making the materials accessible and here was part of her reply:
The situation with the Adams Library is bit of an oddity; I am in charge of the Adams Library collection (which is grant funded and therefore well-staffed), while Eric is in charge of everything else. Part of what you experienced is that I simply have more time to give to patrons. The other part is that people at the BPL have wildly varying philosophies/attitudes about access (which you experienced). The difference in response between you and your friends definitely wasn't about gender, and I'm sorry about how that happened; it was just [Jacob] and me being different people.
I'll finish this long Boston trip log with the song about the subways we heard at the olde Irish pub:
Let me tell you the story
Of a man named Charlie
On a tragic and fateful day
He put ten cents in his pocket,
Kissed his wife and family
Went to ride on the MTA
Charlie handed in his dime
At the Kendall Square Station
And he changed for Jamaica Plain
When he got there the conductor told him,
"One more nickel."
Charlie could not get off that train.
Chorus:
Did he ever return,
No he never returned
And his fate is still unlearn'd
He may ride forever
'neath the streets of Boston
He's the man who never returned.
Gallery
Irish Hunger Memorial
Another view.
This was as close as we got to the Green Monster.
The old burying ground.
Increase & Cotton Mather's tomb.
Boston Public Library courtyard.
Sculling on the Charles.
Boston Public Library
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