John Adams to Abigail Adams, 1 February 1799
John Adams to Abigail Adams
Phil. Feb. 1. 1799
My dearest Friend
On Tuesday Mr T. B. Adams left Us, at Eleven in the stage for New York & Boston and consequently Quincy.— I should have been glad to have held him till I could carry him with me: but I thought it my Duty to comply with his desire, both for his sake and yours.— He Seems determined to settle in Phyladelphia.— He would have a happier Life, and be a more important Man in Quincy: But I must do & say as My Father did to me: leave him to his own Inclination and acquiesce in it as a dispensation of Providence. You will find him very agreable and pleasant.
By the time he returns, I expect the Plague will drive him out, again.— It is undoubtedly here lurking about the City all this Winter. Tazewell did not die of it: but I suppose of an Appoplexie tho they call it a Pleurisie.
We had Yesterday a large Company: C. J. McKean and the Judges & Lawyers of Pensylvania with some Members of Congress: all very agreable. I am reading the K. of Prussias Correspondence with Voltaire D’Alembert &c He is forever talking of his Age Infirmities, Decline & Decay. His Memory is going. His Imagination is gone— His Teeth fail— His Limbs are stiff & goutty— He is broken— He is old— &c &c &c—1 Yet at last When he was really old and broken he could not bear to hear of it.
His Phylosophy was bad enough: tho not so bad is that of others then & since. His Wit is to me a little dull— His humour heavy—There is an Affectation of Gaiety, which however does not make the Reader very gay.—2 Frank waits for my Lettr.
J. A
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A”; endorsed: “J A Febry 1 / 1799.”
1. JA was reading and annotating Frederick II’s correspondence with Voltaire and Jean le Rond d’Alembert in volumes 8 through 12 of Oeuvres posthumes de Fréderic II, 16 vols., Berlin, 1788, 1789; the comments on the effects of aging appear on 10:71, 86–87, and 12:45.
2. JA also commented on Frederick II’s writings in a 25 Jan. letter to AA: “I shall never imitate his Idolatry for Voltaire. His Materialism appears to me very Superficial. He insists upon being all matter, without knowing what matter is. The Monades, the Etres Simples, the Atoms, the Molecules organniques, all these Grupes & Fictions are as nonsensical as the Occult qualities— Human Knowledge cannot penetrate so deep.— I was profoundly learned in all that Jargon at twenty Years of Age— But found it all Useless; and renounced it, for Fee simple and Fee tail” (Adams Papers).