1From John Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 17 August 1825 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for a very pleasant letter, and I supplicate a continuance of them—I have given up the hopes of seeing the family, or any part of it this Year—but when the Marquis is gone I hope to have letters from your Brother, John, and yourself, which will help to keep up my old spirits a little longer, my heart & wishes and Prayers are with you forever—We have nothing to tell you here but...
It is a long time since I wrote you as I have again been very sick and utterly unable to put pen to paper—You may therefore readily imagine that I have nothing to write about any more than yourself as I have had nothing whatever to do with the great world for some time who are kind enough to believe me sick in consequence of the Presidential question—I will acknowledge that it is of a nature...
Your Letter my caused me a mixture of feelings some pleasing some painful the latter because there is an evidence of a temper little calculated to promote the success of your wishes and evincing a disposition to rebel against your fathers order which must end unhappily to yourself—Be assured my dear Son that industry obedience and application will produce the best effects and that while you...
Regularity and method are so essential to the acquisition of real knowledge that the little annoyance of the Bell is a trifle to the good consequences which its sound produces when it reminds you that certain duties are to be performed at certain times—The human mind requires an incessant spur or stimulus to invigorate its action or more properly speaking to force it into certain channels...
Your dear Mother not long since received a Letter from you, in which I read with great pleasure, that you get on at School pretty fast, and that in three weeks you hope to begin College Studies—As it is just three weeks since you wrote that Letter; if your hopes have been fulfilled you will this very day begin upon your College studies; and Oh! how happy shall I be, if you can hereafter write...
Being better to day my dear Charles I hasten to write to you fearful if I delay that a Chill and another attack of fever should prevent me and deprive you of hearing how George comes on—We are at present very anxious on account of a violent spasmodic affection of the muscles which are very considerably contracted and make it impossible to straighten the arm—he moves the fingers but cannot hold...
7From John Quincy Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 20 June 1814 (Adams Papers)
I received your second Letter, dated 23. May, just as I was coming on board the ship at Gothenburg, so that I had not then time to answer it.— The ship was called the John Adams, and I came in her from Gothenburg to this Country— I have written to your Mama, a particular account of the Voyage, and I dare say she will permit you to read it. I was very sorry for Mrs Severin that her house in the...
The last Letter that I wrote you was on the 6th: of this Month, by Mr Shaw—And on Tuesday last I received your Letter of 18 November, but it is not numbered—I have marked it number 8 as it should be; but if you keep copies of all the Letters that you write, I wonder how it comes to pass that you forget to number them. I was quite rejoiced to see this last Letter of your’s so much better...
I was delighted with your Letter and was only sorry you did not mention your health, which I understand has been very indifferent, and which causes me the most serious anxiety: write me I entreat you and beg your good friend Harriet, to write me what your complaint has been, and if you have any cough, I wish you to take the yolk of a new laid egg alone in a spoon every morning when you first...
10From Abigail Smith Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 28 November 1815 (Adams Papers)
I thank you my dear Grandson for your very pretty Letter, as you cannot have any remembrance of your Grandparents. it is the more praiseworthy in you, to write to them, and then your hand writeing is so handsome, that it does you honour for your Age. The house which Your Father has taken in the Country, having a Garden full of fruit and vegetables, must be much pleasanter to you, and to your...
I am rejoiced my Dear Charles to learn that your journey was so pleasant and that the little accident you met with was soon repaired so much to your satisfaction— That you must be very busy I am well aware but the division of your time will render all your occupations easy and I hope your health of which you now complain will soon be entirely restored— I am much better than I was and intend if...
What sort of a Letter was your last and how is it to be answered? to be angry with you is impossible to sympathize with you equally so, and to pity you is showing a degree of contempt for your understanding mortifying to your feelings and wounding to my own. Are you aware that you sent your Letter to the Post without a wafer and that it arrived in that state at your fathers office? do not my...
13From John Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 18 December 1815 (Adams Papers)
Your pretty little letter of October 3rd., mongrel as it is, part English, part French, has diverted me much. I have ran about here, & there, and every where, with delight especially to Auteuil. But my good boy you have many voyages & Journeys to perform, before you can trace all the residences of your vagrant Grand Father. You must go to the Rue de Richlieu to Passy, & to the place de...
You tell me in your last Letter that “you believe you did not write to me, because you had not received a Letter from me” I think you have in some of your former Letters mentioned that you kept a book in which you copied them; by refering to this book you would be able to know positively how the matter stood. but at any rate you must not be so punctilious as to wait for a Letter from me but...
15From John Quincy Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 14 December 1817 (Adams Papers)
A very few days after my arrival in this City, I received your Letter of 19. September, the contents of which I dare say you have before this time forgotten; unless you kept a copy of it, as you remember you used to do, of the Letters that you wrote to me from St. Petersburg, when I was at Ghent. This Letter of yours of 19. September last, I have kept upon my file, ever since I received it;...
I received yesterday my dear Charles your Letter of the 4th. and hasten to answer it as I really feel anxious lest the heated atmosphere in which you appear to have lived for the last week or two should produce have a bad effect and produce the fever which is so common at Cambridge towards the end of a term and generally so frightfully infectious— We are much obliged to you for the information...
Your Letter of the 10th. my Dear Charles afflicted me very much as it still betrayed the same spirit which has already cost your brother so much and which if not timely quelled may end in crimes at which my soul shudders with horror—Let me ask you once more, are you or any of the young person’s who are at College while your passions are excited to fury I say are you capable of judging...
Since my return home my Dear George Charles I have been so much engaged it has been almost impossible for me to write more especially as I have been even more sick than ever and even my intellect seems to suffer from these constant attacks— Genl La Fayette has passed through our City and like all Meteoric lights has illumed our horizon for a few days and I fear darkened many of the pockets of...
I am afraid that you read my letters in as great a hurry as you appear to do every thing else otherwise I cannot conceive how it is possible you should pretend to understand that I ever counselled you to become acquainted with dissipated Characters after I knew them to be such—When I wrote to you concerning it—I knew but little of him and only partially recommended him to your notice as he...
Our winter routine has begun and as usual I am plunged into the depths of visits invitations dinners &c &c &c— It is singular just after reading Randolph that I should have become acquainted with the supposed Author of the Work and that his conversation should have produced conviction in me that the supposition is not incorrect—Speaking of the Painters I could have fancied I was reading the...
At last my dear Charles I find a moment of leisure to address you not having had a moment since you left us disengaged from company—We have been out every night and the parties have generally been pleasant Mrs. Calhoun’s was an imitation of ours but did not take the Miss Roberdeau’s Miss Pleasanton Miss McKnight Miss Selby and one other whose name I have forgotten—They were all dressed...
22From John Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 10 August 1816 (Adams Papers)
I see little in this Play but the Manners of the Atheanians and The Naivete et Nettite du Style. The Miseries of Domestick Life; when all Confidence is wanting: between Parents and Children Masters and Servants, Friends and Neighbours, Husbands and Wives, Lovers and Mistresses; are held Up to View in a Mirror. Such Morals are surely no better than those of London or Boston, Paris or New York....
23From John Quincy Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 12 August 1814 (Adams Papers)
Your Letter of 15 July, gives me much pleasure, as it always does to receive a Letter from you; and it would have given me still more, if it had been better written—Comparing it with your former Letters which I have on file, I find it not so well written as either of the others, although the first of them is dated nearly three months before. Your brother George learnt with much difficulty to...
As Mr. Pope is so good as to offer to convey your skates to Boston I have siezed the opportunity of writing you a few lines in answer to your Letter my dear Charles which was very gratifying to me as it afforded ample proofs of your being good at school by the compliment so handsomely paid you by Mr. Gould—Such a compliment when it is addressed by a person in the capacity of a master or...
When I left you I did not think you were so soon to assume the sacerdotal vestment but I sincerely congratulate you on having even the external appearance of that which I so much advise and of course cannot wish to shorten the term which places you in so respectable a light— That you should be eclipsed is not remarkable at all—but that you should make great exertions to shine by your own light...
Your last Letter my dear Charles quite revived my spirits as it re-assured me concerning yours which had really alarmed me and your father very much We are in the depths of distress on another account which is the removal of your Uncle and Aunt Smith to Pensacola where he is appointed Naval Officer a place which it is expected will become very valuable at present he is to have 1000 Dollars a...
27From John Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 15 May 1816 (Adams Papers)
you are a frolicksome little fellow; and I delight in your Fun with your School mates as heartily as you do, because it proves that you are all good natured and good humoured and live together in harmony. When I lived in Holland, the Dablers in English laughed a little, sub rosâ at a question put by William the fifth Prince of Orange to a Stranger who Spoke the Language “What for a Countryman...
Still in this City I again write you and probably for the last time until I get home—Your last Letter pleased me very much I discovered more attention to composition and an easier and more correct style than in any before received—Your time will now however be so constantly occupied that you will have but little leisure to form a continued correspondence with me but I shall expect to hear from...
As I hear there has been a great fall of snow during the last week or two in Boston I suppose you have seen many of those booby huts which you wrote me about last winter and perhaps have rode in one—I am not fond of them for they are apt to make me sea sick and should like much better to have a pretty Russian Traineau— As it is also the season for skating I must renew my cautions both to John...
30From John Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 10 August 1816 (Adams Papers)
Do you See, in these Plays of Terence, which are the Translations from Menander, the Character of the Athenians? Are not the Slaves Superior Beings to the Citizens? Every Smart Expression; every brilliant Image, every Moral Sentiment is in the Mouth of a Slave. To be Sure, however, Masters and Slaves are nearly on a Level, in Principles of Conduct. MHi : Adams Papers. {{Included with...