51From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 29 November 1812 (Adams Papers)
I have recd. your valuable Volume, on the diseases of the mind; which will run Mankind still deeper into your Debt. You apprehend “Attacks”. I Say, the more the better. I Should like the Sport So well, that, if I could afford the expence, I would advertize a reward of a gold Medal to the Man of Science who should write the best Essay upon the question whether the Writings of Dr Franklin, or Dr...
52From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 28 May 1812 (Adams Papers)
I will not loose an hour of my Interest of 8 per Cent a Month. I have this moment received yours of 22d.—I could paper my whole house with such ornaments as Franklin wished, for his Study: and from Persons who owed Offices, Fortunes and all their Consequence to me. St Bernard St. Loyala, and St. Dominick, and many other Saints remain in the Calendar and are worshipped, as well as Whitefield...
53Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 17 August 1811 (Jefferson Papers)
I write to you from a place, 90. miles from Monticello , near the New London of this state, which I visit three or four times a year, & stay from a fortnight to a month at a time. I have fixed myself comfortably, keep some books here, bring others occasionally, am in the solitude of a hermit, and quite at leisure to attend to my absent friends. I note this to shew that I am not in a situation...
54From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 27 December 1810 (Adams Papers)
I Sent my Wife to the Post Office this morning with a Letter to you inclosing a Review of Fisher Ames, and as she brought me back yours of the 21, you will receive this by the Same mail. I am well and my good Madam is well at the present Hour but She is a Weather Glass. I am afraid your Prejudices are too fixed to be removed by any Arguments: but I do not find that you make many Proselytes. In...
55From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 25 December 1811 (Adams Papers)
I never was so much at a loss how to answer a Letter, as yours of the 16th. Shall I assume a Sober Face and write a grave Essay on Religion Philosophy, Laws or government? Shall I laugh like Bacchus among his grapes, Wine fats Vatts and Bottles? or Shall I assume the Man of the World, the Fine Gentleman, the Courtier, and Bow and Scrape with a smooth smiling Face, soft words, many compliments...
56From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 8 December 1812 (Adams Papers)
On horseback, on my Way to Weymouth on a Visit to my Friend Dr Tufts I met a Man leading a Horse, who asked if I wanted to buy a Horse. Examining the Animal in his Eyes Ears, head Neck Shoulders Legs Feet and Tail, and enquiring of his Master his Age, history Temper habits &c I found he was a colt of Three Years old that month of November, his Sucking Teeth were not Shed, he was Seventeen or...
57From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 18 September 1812 (Adams Papers)
In the good old English Phrase, I give you ten thousand Thanks for the Muscat Wine of Samos, which is now in my Cellar, in good order and of good Quality. You did not forsee one effect of it. It will increase my Love of Greek and Latin more than my Patriotism. Oh! How I heard a Circle of Ladies, of the first quality, old and middle Aged, and young, praise it last Evening! If indeed there is...
58From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 19 March 1812 (Adams Papers)
The greatest part of the History in your last Letter was well known to me, and I could write you Six Sheets for your three, full of Anecdotes, of a Similar complexion. I wanted no Satisfaction. If I had, your Letter would have given it. The great Character, was a Character of Convention . His first Appointment was a magnanimous Sacrifice of the North to the South: to the base Jealousy, Sordid...
59From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 18 April 1813 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for the Slip of a newspaper. On that Subject my feelings are unutterable. The Day of the Safe return of my Son and his Family, if I Should live to See it, will be the happiest day of my Life. I almost envy you, the Joy on the return of your Benjamin, Thank him for my Samos Muscat. Tell him my Girls Shall all drink his Health in a Bumper of it. I wish my Sons and Grandsons had been...
60From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 21 December 1809 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for the pleasing account of your Family in your favour of the 5th. As I take a lively interest in their Prosperity and Felicity, your relation of it gave me great Pleasure. We have Letters from our Colony navigating the Baltic, dated at Christiansand. They had been so far as prosperous, healthy and happy as such Traveller’s could expect to be. Pope said of my Friend General...
61From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 27 December 1812 (Adams Papers)
Letters! What Shall I Say of Letters? Pliny’s are too Studied and too elegant. Cicero’s are the only ones of perfect Simplicity, confidence and familiarity. Madam Sevignè has created a Sweet pretty little amusing World out of nothing. Pascalls Provincials exceed every Thing ancient or modern: but these were laboured with infinite Art. The Letters of Swift and pope are dull! Frederick’s to...
62From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 25 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
I received yesterday your new Edition on Animal Life and Madam read it in the evening to me and all the Family, to the great delight and Edification of Us all. Whether it is all solid or not we can not say: but there are Ideas enough thrown out to excite and employ the attention and Investigation of all the Philosophers, Physicians and Surgeons. Accept of all our Thanks for this favour....
63From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 14 August 1811 (Adams Papers)
Upon honor, now, Rush! You cannot be serious in calling me, mad, to my Face! I learned a proper Answer to you, in Bedlam in England. In one of the Visits I made to that Hospital, I took a few Turns in the Area, where Some of the most harmless of the patients are permitted to walk. One of them a decent looking Man joined me, and conversed very Sensibly but with much animation for Some time: but...
64From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 29 December 1812 (Adams Papers)
I have not done with your Letter of the 19th: I care not half, so much about Red Heifer, as I do about the Taureau blanc, the white Bull of Voltaire…. “All volition the Effect of his will, operating upon mind.” My pious learned Parson Wibert, once said to me “I believe God is the Author of sin; but I would not say it, because of the dangerous tendency of it.” My Friend! read in virgil;...
65From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 24 June 1812 (Adams Papers)
The Decadency of Government is obvious, through the World and it is to be feared the cause of it is the general Relaxation of family discipline. It becomes you and me Seriously to consider whether We have not contributed our Share to this general Evil. Within a few days, my Rib had the boldness to Say to me “When you write to Dr Rush, you String together Epithets and Adverbs and Substantives,...
66From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 21 February 1813 (Adams Papers)
Yours of the 8th is yet unanswered.—I beg your Pardon for hinting, tho in jest at my Antinovanglian Prejudice. I do believe you as free from it as you ought to be, or as I am. Dearly as I love New England, I know it, and its faults. Your Idea of Pensilvania is perfect. In a few days you will See that I have been reviewing an old Scene. In 1775, You will See how the Committee on Trade and on a...
67From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 14 May 1810 (Adams Papers)
What can I say to my Friend in return for his Letter of 26th of April? My Grief for the Melancholy Fate of my Friend John is only equalled by My Sympathy with his amiable Family. In the midst of Grief remember Mercy. Richard remains to you as well as another Son, and several Daughters who do honor to their Parents and their Country. Oh that John had imitated the Example of his Father, and...
68From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 31 August 1809 (Adams Papers)
If I were not as disinterested as a Patriot, I should answer every Line from you as soon as recd. in order to get another. Your favour of Aug. 14 is yet, to my Grief unacknowledged. Neither Colonel Duane nor any other Newspaper will follow me through the long Journey I have undertaken. I am not certain that the Patriot will have Patience and Perseverance enough. In short I shall be so tedious...
69From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 4 January 1813 (Adams Papers)
Be pleased to accept my humble Duty for the notice you have condescended to take of me. I will do my best to shake a little animation into my Master for a few days or months or possibly years. But what is the prospect before him? What can he expect? or hope? or wish? He is 77 and more: three and twenty years will make him 100. thirteen years will make him 90: three years will bring him to...
70From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 13 October 1810 (Adams Papers)
Mrs Adams Says She is willing you Should discredit Greek and Latin, because it will destroy the foundation of all the Pretensions of the Gentlemen to Superiority over the Ladies, and restore Liberty, Equality and Fraternity between the Sexes. What does Mrs Rush think of this? Hobbes calumniated the Classicks, because they filled young Mens heads with Ideas of Liberty, and excited them to...
71Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 16 January 1811 (Jefferson Papers)
I had been considering for some days whether it was not time, by a letter, to bring myself to your recollection, when I recieved your welcome favor of the 2 d inst. I had before heard of the heart-rending calamity you mention, & had sincerely sympathised with your afflictions. but I had not made it the subject of a letter, because I knew that condolances were but renewals of grief. yet I...
72From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 17 August 1812 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the Eighth, is another Monument to virtue and Piety, I would rather have your Birth and descent than that of any Howard or Montmorency, any Bourbon or Austrian, any Guelph or Stewart. The Antifederalists, Democrats, Jacobins, Republicans and Frenchmen, for all these Shades of Faction, and graduations of Party united twenty Years ago, to raise a popular clamour against me, for...
73From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 1 September 1809 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for yours of Aug. 25 and the Papers enclosed. They are very high and very warm. You pretend that you have outlived your Patriotism; but you deceive yourself. Your feelings contradict your Assertions. You can never get rid of your Amor Patriæ and attachment to your Natale solum. At your age and mine it would perhaps be better for our Tranquility if we could outlive all our public...
74From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 13 February 1811 (Adams Papers)
In your Favour of the 4th., according to my Judgment you have given up the whole Controversy. You have no Objection, you say to teaching the youth in our Schools to read the dead Languages. By reading them, no doubt you, meant that they should so read them as to understand them. and they can be read to be understood, in no Way so well as by Writing and Speaking them. I therefore regret very...
75From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 13 May 1812 (Adams Papers)
Say what you will, that Man is in a poor case who is reduced to the necessity of looking to Posterity for Justice or Charity; and he who is obliged to fly to Newgate and to Cobbet for consolation, is in a more forlorn Situation Still. Col. P. is entertaing and instructing the Public by a new series of addresses to the People, the fourth number of which I read in Dr Parks Repertory last night,...
76From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 28 August 1811 (Adams Papers)
Your Letter of the 20th., My dear Friend, has filled my Eyes with Tears,—and, indurated Stoick as I am, my heart with Sensations unutterable by my Tongue or Pen. Not the Feelings of Vanity, but the overwhelming Sense of my own Unworthiness of Such a Panegyrick from Such a Friend. Like Louis the 16 I Said to myself Qu’est ce, que J’ay fait pour le meriter. Have I not been employed in Mischief...
77From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 10 February 1812 (Adams Papers)
your Dream is out, and the Passage you read in the History that Richard was reading is come to pass: notwithstanding you said you believed no History but the Bible. Mr Mediator! You have wrought Wonders! You have made Peace between Powers that never were at War! You have reconciled Friends that never were at Enmity! You have brought again Babylon and Carthage long Since into Existen...
78From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 20 January 1813 (Adams Papers)
Answer or rather acknowledge my Letters by half a dozen at a time. I have a number of Anecdotes to write you, more for the sake of having them copied by my Females and recorded in my Letter Book, than for any valuable Use to you, tho they may amuse You. On Wednesday 13th. of this month I dined with our late Lt. Governor Gray, in Company with Vice President Gerry, General Boyd, Commodore Rogers...
79From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 14 March 1809 (Adams Papers)
Your Anecdotes are always extreamly Aprospros and none of them more So than those in your Letter of Mar 2d The King of Spain who attempted to purify the Streets of Madrid was the Father and the Grand father of the two Animals now in Napoleons Menagerie. And the only bon mot that ever I heard of him was upon that occasion. He Said “his good People of Madrid were like Babies who having dirtied...
80From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 10 July 1812 (Adams Papers)
I beg you would not consider yourself obliged to answer my Letters. Your Time is prescious, mine of no Value. I thank you for the contrast. Striking it is. General Mifflin behaved nobly. But Muhlenbourgs, Coxes &c &c how did they? In Strong and Goodhue you See the Whiggism or rather the Republicanism, of Strait Hair ; as well as in Pickering. Liberty sometimes wears Strait Hair: but Strait...
81From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 12 September 1811 (Adams Papers)
Suum cuique decus Posteritas rependit, has some Truth in it and you have addressed several Examples of it: But it is by no means an universal Aphorism; nor do I believe it to be generally true. You seam to think that Integrity is less envied than Talents. This Question deserves consideration. Under the Roman Emperors nothing was envied so much as Integrity or even the Appearance or suspicion...
82From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 4 September 1812 (Adams Papers)
Little can be added to your distinctions of Principles and delineation of Parties, in your Letter of the 21st of August. Permit me, however to intimate one Idea. The pious and virtuous Hamilton, in 1790 began to teach our Nation Christianity, and to commission his Followers to cry down Jefferson and Madison as Atheists, in league with The French Nation, who were all Atheists. Your “British...
83From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 21 January 1810 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for “the light and Truth” as I used to call the Aurora, which you sent me. You may descend in a Calm, but I have lived fifty years in a storm, and shall certainly die in one. I never asked my son any questions about the Motives, Designs or Objects of his Mission to Petersbourg. If I had been weak enough to ask, He would have been wise enough to be silent; for although a more dutiful or...
84Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 6 March 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved some time ago a letter signed ‘ James Carver ,’ proposing that myself, and my friends in this quarter should subscribe & forward a sum of money towards the expences of his voyage to London & maintenance there, while going thro’ a course of education in their Veterinary school, with a view to his returning to America , and practising the art in Philadelphia . the name, person &...
85From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 21 June 1811 (Adams Papers)
As Charité commens par soi même, or as We more elegantly express it, as Charity begins at home, I shall first resent the domestic part of your dramatic Dialogue, of the 13th. The prosperous and promising Circumstances of every Branch of your Family gives me unfeigned Pleasure. The only exception is to be deplored, but not in despair. Richard is my Friend by a Sort of Inheritance. He cannot...
86From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 18 July 1812 (Adams Papers)
Your Letter of the 8th, my dear Friend is pleasing and it is painfull to me, in a high degree. You are not less allarmed, than I am grieved, at the opposition to the general Government in our State. But I am more allarmed and grieved at the Apologies furnished for it by that general Government in their Stupid Embargo and their wicked refusal to build a few Frigates. You will daily read more...
87From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 27 December 1810 (Adams Papers)
It was but yesterday that I was able to obtain the inclosed Review of Works of Mr Ames, which you or rather your Son wished to See. You and I, are So much better employed that I presume Political Pamphlets are Beneath your Notice as well as mine. You are employed in healing the sick and extending the Empire of Science and Humanity. I, in reading Romances in which I take incredible Delight. I...
88From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 11 February 1810 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for yours of the first and the two Packetts. Who are they who furnish the Aurora with Such an infinite quantity and Variety of Compositions? There must be many hands, of no small Capacity or Information. In one you Sent me before, there was an Anecdote of a Plan of Washington to attack Philadelphia which was communicated to General How by a Person in his Confidence. The Narrator affirms...
89From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 29 January 1813 (Adams Papers)
You have enough of Smiths letters e’er this and Waterhouse’s too, all which you will be so good as to return. What the consequences of Smiths Election will be I know not. I anticipate no advantage to him but he will either correct the Policy and war of the administration in some degree, or he will ruin it and himself with it, most probably. Manly’s Ship was not a “private Ship of war.” It was...
90From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 17 January 1811 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the 10th, is just come from the Post Office. I thank you for reading the Pamphlet, which considering the more interesting Studies and Labours of your Profession, I consider as a favour. With your Letter I received a Packet of Letters from my Son and Daughter at Petersbourg, dates as late as 25: October. I wish I could print these Letters: but I dare not. A Fathers Partiality...
91From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 19 July 1812 (Adams Papers)
Your delightful Letter of the 13th received Yesterday now in turn must receive my grateful Acknowledgements. Is it a dream? Or is it Biography? When I write my Life in obedience to your Commands, I ought to insert in it the Anecdote, that once upon a time I had the Pleasure and the honour, in your and your Brothers Company, and at the invitation of both, to make a visit, to your amiable...
92From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 1 August 1812 (Adams Papers)
We have been in such hurry of late that if I have mentioned your Letter of 18th of June, I have not taken any particular Notice of it. You and I have both been to blame. You, for destroying your Notes of the Revolution; I, for keeping none, and making very few. You have much Merit in preserving the Pamphlets you have given to the oratorical Controuler, who is a Phenomenon, for who ever heard...
93From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 19 December 1811 (Adams Papers)
When I was a Boy, not ten years old, I heard Smith Richard Thayer, a great Authority, say “When Duty and Interest go together, they make Staving Work” By your own Shewing it was Richards Duty to be over ruld or ruled over by his Wife: and by my Shewing I shall make it appear to be his Interest. He will Soon be Secretary of the Treasury. Or he may be a Judge of the Supream Court, or an...
94From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 18 January 1811 (Adams Papers)
As I am never weary of Writing to you, because I write always without thinking, I am not sorry to be obliged to begin another Letter and another Sheet. J. Q. A in a Letter to his Brother T. B. A. dated St. Petersburg 27. October 1810 has these Words, vizt “I wish you to procure and Send to me a specimen of every one of the Coins of the United States Mint of the United States, of...
95From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 21 December 1812 (Adams Papers)
Never! Never be weary, in the Ways of well dreaming! any one of your Dreams worth to the Moralist and the Statesman any Fable of Esop or Phedrus, La Fontaigne, More or Gay. And why should your ancient Wisdom deny itself the Relaxation of a little folatre. Gaiety, where it gives so much pleasure to your Friends hurts the feelings of nobody, and Communicates useful Instruction to all— My Dream...
96From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 12 April 1809 (Adams Papers)
Thank you for your favor of the 1st. I might have quoted Job as well as St Paul, as a Precedent: but as I mix Religion with Politicks as little as possible, I chose to confine myself to Cicero. you advise me to write my own Life. I have made Several Attempts but it is so dull an Employment that I cannot endure it. I look So much like a Small Boy in my own Eyes that with all my Vanity I cannot...
97From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 15 February 1813 (Adams Papers)
All that I have written you, hitherto, upon the history of the Original of our Navy, was from Memory, without thinking of Book or Paper. But in the course of my lucubrations I thought of the Journals of the Congress; waste Paper, which Seems to be forgotten by Mankind, and which I myself with the rest of the fashionable World have rarely opened for 35 Years. I had a long time to Search among...