Diary of John Quincy Adams, volume 2
This day the government met, upon the subject of the disorders of which the Sophimores were guilty, last Wednesday. I was examined, but could give no information, upon the subject. Wilson is in sad terrors, and will I think probably come under censure: I past an hour or two with Mr. Ware, this evening after prayers.1
Solomon Vose
2 of Milton, Suffolk C, was 20 the 22d. of February; a vain, envious, malicious, noisy, stupid fellow, as ever disgraced God's Creation; without a virtue to compensate for his Vices, and without a spark of genius to justify his arrogance; possessing all the scurrility of a cynic with all the baseness of a coward
232 A soul callous to every sentiment of benevolence, and incapable of receiving pleasure, but from the pain of another. This severity of description is not dictated merely by personal resentment: he has done all in his power to injure me it is true, but his attempts have been made with the concealed, poisoned arrows of dastardly envy, not with the open arms of a generous enemy: independent however of every selfish sentiment I cannot help despising him, and his injuring me, has only added a sentiment of aversion, which I never will disguise.3
Written later in JQA's more mature hand, enclosed in parentheses, and placed just before the sketch of Vose is “carried too far.”
Vose studied law and set up his practice at Northfield, Mass.; in 1805 he moved to Augusta, Maine (Albert K. Teele, The History of Milton, Mass., 1640 to 1887, Boston, 1887, p. 511).
Written at the end of the entry in a different hand and encircled: “rather warm John.” This was possibly written by CA, who not only roomed with JQA but also had a history “of prying into, and meddling with things which are nothing to him” (entries for 27 July 1786, and 17 Jan. 1787, above).