Just returned from Virginia about 2 hours ago, I hasten to answer your Letter which your father gave me on my arrival, and expressing to you the deep sorrow I feel at the gloomy temper which still appears throughout the above mentioned Letter—At your age my Son this habit of fretting and complaining is peculiarly particularly to be avoided, as it acquires strength hourly, and renders your days...
52From John Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 12 January 1820 (Adams Papers)
I am much pleased with your frankness in relating the manners and customs of your School—talking playing and whistling are amusements not fit to be indulged or tolerated in the scene of Education for Youth—and you bear an honorable testimony in favour of your excellent School in Boston—I hope your Parents will bring you with them next Summer—and place you again at Mr Goulds most excellent...
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 Dear Charles would cause me considerable uneasiness did I not know that you have the power of remedying largely the evils of which you complaint and that all you want is to exert that portion of resolution or will (which you Amply possess upon most points) to buckle too seriously and earnestly to your studies without suffering your most more pleasing avocations to draw you from...
I enclose you a Letter from one of your young correspondents which was received a few days after your departure and which I suppose you would regret very much to lose. In taking the Desk which your Brother lent you I want to know what you did with the papers which were in it among which the two Contracts of Mr. Van Coble were placed and I am very much concerned at not being able to find them...
In answer to your last Letter I can only say that I regret as much as you do the precipitation with which you left me although I am very confident you will derive much advantage from the change and the happiest results to your future peace of mind—As it regards your immediate situation your father and myself mutually disapprove your plan of Boarding in your chamber alone and would much prefer...
Your two last Letters would have given me much pleasure if they had been more easy to decypher and I must sieze the present opportunity of assuring You that as a correspondent of mine you must endeavour to improve your hand writing which is at present such as to do you no credit and almost impossible for me to read—I question if it would have been easy to me in my best days but now that my...
Your Letter full of complaints my dear Charles reached me yesterday and I am sorry to see you indulge still in a querrulous disposition but a little intercourse with young men I still flatter myself will cure you therefore I shall say nothing farther on the subject— Your Trunk I sent on about ten days since and hope as it was addressed to the care of Mr Cruft you have received it safe with the...
Your Shandean Letter is received with all its apologies and few amendments I will only say that you must remember excuses are inadmissible unless they are precursers of improvement— I shall wait your dissertation with impatience from the specimen already sent it will call for some exertion to understand it. You have siezed with considerable humour the broken method of Stern and I give you...
You reproach me without a cause and I dare say you got your Letter the very day after you wrote—My time has however been very much occupied in sitting for a picture which is not a quarter finished and which it is probable will employ me the whole summer— You complain without reason of your Letter to me which was by no means bad tho’ it was odd but I do not know what you mean by saying you were...
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...
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...
We yesterday went fishing for the first time and to my great astonishment on looking up our Tackle found your rod or rather part of it as Mr. Philip appears to have injured very much and lost one of the peics—It answered the purpose however very and Mary had the benefit of it—Had I known it was not in your Trunk I should have sent it on with the Gun and am very sorry it was omitted I can find...
Poor Mariano is dead. On Sunday Even’—he was sitting reading the new Tragedy of Lord Byron when he laid the Book down and marked the page being as it is supposed siezed with the Cramp and ran across the street to his friend’s room for assistance across the exclaiming to have his arm cut I suppose meaning to be bled—The people thought him crazy and he died immediately after speaking these...
I congratulate you upon the recovery of your spirits; and I do not know what to say about Langdon as I doubt if he is as steady and good a boy as Horner, but if Horner does not enter I cannot know of any person better calculated than Langdon for a Chum On your share of prudence you know best how much I can rely and conduct towards your brother George from whom I have not heard for many weeks...
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...
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...
I was much pleased to observe that you had taken more pains with the writing of your last Letter than you generally do and sincerely thank you for it as all these things prove your affection for me much more strongly than could possibly be manifested by any other method and immeasurably encrease maternal affection by adding esteem to the strong ties of nature—You have yet but little idea of a...
At length I feel well enough to write you again though I have no reason to hope that my correspondence will be renewed with any regularity for some time— Your Letters my dear boy would afford me much more pleasure if there was a less peremptory and positive tone about them—Be assured that it is always possible to be manly and respectful at the same time and that we can better show our...
71From John Quincy Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 30 January 1822 (Adams Papers)
You are well aware, because you have mentioned it in more than one of your letters to this place, with how much sorrow I have learnt that at the close of the first term of your studies at the University you were found upon the scale of scholarship among the very lowest in your Class. At the same time it is said that nothing exceptionable has been observed in your personal deportment. That you...
Your Letter is this moment brought to me and would certainly have afforded me more pleasure could I perceive any of those evidences of a desire to improve in your hand writing about which you Know I am so solicitous— I have always been ready to rely on the promises of my children when they have been seriously made and give full confidence to yours more especially on account of the uneasiness I...
73From John Quincy Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 18 February 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have received, and duly reflected upon your Letter of the 10th instt. and approve very cordially of the determination you have taken, of exerting yourself by diligence to acquire a respectable standing in your Class—From this day your term begins, and if you carry your Resolution into effect I shall not only never have any inducement to repeat the proposal which I made you in my last Letter;...
I know why it is but I write with so much difficulty and feel so much averse to undertake it I am ever procrastinating the answers to the Letters that are addressed to me this will account to you for h not having an answer to your last and though a miserable excuse must be accepted until something or other occurs to restore me to my wonted capacity and habits—I have the utmost reliance and...
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...
Why will you give way to despondence? the time you have been at College has been too short in any way to decide upon your Scholarship and you should not dwell too much upon your standing as long as you exert yourself to improve it—I am told that it is not customary to let young men know any thing about it for fear of exciting jealousy therefore you cannot ascertain what is perfectly immaterial...
77From John Quincy Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 18 May 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have learnt from some of the Letters which you have lately written to your Mother and your Brother, that you express yourself dissatisfied with your situation at the University, and that you have repeatedly intimated the desire of leaving it— My motive in placing you there, was to furnish you with the means of passing through life in the exercise of a liberal profession—By debarring yourself...
I am sorry to say that your last Letter was so badly written that I could scarcely read it and I again implore you to write a larger hand and you will soon get rid of the cramped style which you have acquired I suppose you have been passing an agreeable Vacation at Quincy and found your Grandfather quite well—and as usual occupied in all perusing all the new publications—Your father has...
What is the reason you do not write me? Are you determined to relinquish all intercourse with your Mother or are your avocations so very severe arduous that you cannot find a little time to devote to me—Commencement now approaches fast are there any very distinguished scholars in the present Class or is it to be very mesquin? George is quite pleased with our Washington Summer contrary to his...
You seem by the facetious tone of your Letters when you honour me with any to imagine that I have a very high opinion of your conduct and the steadiness of your character and take wonderful pains to assure me that you are not exempt from human frailty—do not be uneasy on this score! In the first place you are my Son and have a little of the Mother in you. In the second your very demure people...
I yesterday received your Letter and could not help smiling at poor Shaws distress though I really do not see why he grieves about the Books. Surely he did not pretend to go want them for his Atheneum? If not why does it concern him?—Your Grandfather is the best judge of what is to be done and his advisers know best what they are after—He appears now to be in the hands of a Judge —I wont say a...
How I wish I could divide myself and fly to nurse you my poor Boy—If your Uncle had not still to suffer one or more operations you would see me as soon as the Boats could convey me to you—Your sad picture of the ennui which you endured is striking but I hope you benefited from your study of the rights of Woman which spite of the prejudices existing against Miss Woolstoncroft are undeniable and...
I have been so unwell it has not been in my power to answer your last Letter—Poor John—Has the belle passion again seized his imagination it is not yet time for it to occupy his heart —Is this the cause of his poetic ardour and his fits of absence—Tell him I shall be much hurt if he does not write me soon for though I will make all possible allowance for love I must not be forgotten— Your...
84From John Quincy Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 3 October 1822 (Adams Papers)
It is long since I had the pleasure of writing to you or of receiving a Letter from you; yet there has not been a day when you have been absent from my mind and from my heart. I learnt with sorrow and great anxiety that you had been sick, and hope that you have entirely recovered. The accounts that I received of your proficiency were that you had improved in your standing with the Class, and...
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...
John in his last Letter to me tells me that you make a secret of my Letters to you and will not let him see them—I did not think you were so boyish more especially since you have become a Sophomore—Do not then embitter by such nonsense the hours you have to spend together and be assured that the affection of your Mother is so equally divided between her Sons that each is the equal object of...
87From John Quincy Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 28 October 1822 (Adams Papers)
In replying to your Letter of the 12th. instt. I might begin, by asking an explanation if its first paragraph—You say that you was taught to think when you came back from Europe, that your Letters were only an incumbrance—It has always given me pleasure to receive Letters from you, and I cannot imagine to what you refer in your supposition to the contrary—If the assurance is necessary from me...
I am so concerned at the style of your last Letter I hasten to answer it immediately although I have not had it more than an hour. Your health which is so precious to both your father and myself is our first care the state of your mind the next—If the first I charge you to take great care. You know the remedies I always apply for a cough as unfortunately you have had too much experience of...
89From John Quincy Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 10 November 1822 (Adams Papers)
I have received your Letter of the 2d. instt and trusting entirely to the faithfulness of the account which you give in it, of your own conduct, am prepared as I have before promised you to make every allowance for the interruption of your studies occasioned by your infirm state of health—Hoping that it is now permanently recovered, I flatter myself you will make henceforth the proper use of...
I am very anxious about you my dear Boy as the time approaches for your visit and I pray both you and John to be usefull careful to have warm clothing and not to travel in the night—Your health is I hope entirely re-established for I should dread the idea of your undertaking such a journey—We shall have a merry winter in the House provided we can conduct ourselves tolerably well and mix...
Your Letter came yesterday and was received with even more pleasure than they generally are from its amiable and grateful tenor. Every advancement you make in your education or rather in the mutual improvement of both mind and heart is an additional blessing to you and to us and you will feel the delight accruing from it in the pleasure derived from the expansion of your own intellect and...
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...
I have been so sick with the Influenza it has not been possible to write independent of which the perpetual round of dissippation in which I have lived seems to have deadened all my faculties and destroyed all the little gleam of light which was wont to illumine my ideas when I wished to throw them on paper—Party’s of every description being done with there is not a word of news stirring and...
The easy manner in which you appear to take your College studies is diverting to me I confess but notwithstanding all your boast’s I flatter myself I shall assist at your Commencement with as much pleasure as I anticipate at John’s—The effect that your brothers success has produced upon your fathers spirits is such as to produce the greatest emulation in his Children for he has recovered his...
Your father was amused by your last Letter and glad to learn that you were pleased with any part of your studies and thinks that your distate of Mathematics may decrease as you advance in your course—George is gone to Rockville to visit Johnson whose health is very indifferent in consequence he says of severe study and probably some other nameless causes—He has not been up since you saw him...
Your brother my Dear Charles is much better and his arm doing well though it will probably be a long time before it will be of any use to him. He is entirely without fever and his health in consequence of leaving off tobacco in all its forms is better than it has been a long time. Both his Surgeons have agreed that he is undermining and destroying his Constition which cannot support any...
Your Letter is this moment brought me and I really cannot conceive what you mean my Dear Charles by John’s thirteen Letter a week or who the numerous correspondents can be from whom he receives them—I am perfectly sure that neither of you could take time to read them much less to answer them—The roads have been so bad that the course of the Mails has been much interrupted and I fear I have not...
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...
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...