Your Letter, my dear Caroline, gave me pleasure. As all your’s are calculated to enliven the spirits, I take them as a cordial, which during the residence of the baldpated winter and a close confinement to my chamber for several weeks, I have been much in want of. And now what return can I make you—What can you expect from age, debility and weakness? Why, you shall have the return of a...
This morning’s post brought me your letter of the 20th. We were all delighted; grandfather’s tears watered his cheek when he read the letter; Susan skipped with all her warmth and ardour, into every part of the scene. “In joyous youth, what soul hath never known, Thoughts, feelings, taste, harmonious to its own.” S. walked her mile and a half to communicate the grateful tidings; every heart...
303From Abigail Smith Adams to Caroline Amelia Smith De Windt, 28 May 1808 (Adams Papers)
Your letter of May the 8th, your grandpapa brought home with him from church, on Sunday the 20th; owing to sickness I was not able to go, and am yet confined to my chamber. My fever and cough are both leaving me, and I hope a few days more will give me health sufficient to enjoy the fine season. I have been reading a novel called the Wild Irish Girl. Why the term wild is given, I know not,...
my dear Caroline must be informd that her Grand mothers Eyes are so much afflicted as to oblige her to put on the Green Shade which her dear Mother made for her Grandfather, and this prevents her reading or writing for the present, Yet she cannot refrain from addressing a few lines to her to acknowledge her welcome Letter of and to congratulate her upon the Restoration of peace to their...
I can scarcly belive that I have not written to my dear Girl for so long a time as two months, yet upon opening her Letter in replie to mine, I find it bears Date 28 Sep’br This Letter I hope will receive a double welcome for it incloses one from your Friend which of them I know not, but it came under cover to your Grandpappa this week. Your Aunt E. Adams has been sick almost ever since she...
If you find as many joyful faces to receive you, as you have left sorrowful hearts behind you, you will have no reason to complain. When upon former occasions you have been separated from me, it was always with the expectation of having you again with me; since I have considered you as mine, you have been to me one of the chief props and supports of my declining years. By your watchful...
307From Abigail Smith Adams to Caroline Amelia Smith De Windt, 21 June 1816 (Adams Papers)
It was with a heavy heart and trembling hand, that I yesterday broke the seal of your letter to your uncle. I knew that he was gone to Boston, and as I had not any letter myself, I could not wait in such suspense; the contents of the letter has left me little expectation of hearing that the lamp of life is not nearly extinguished. I had written thus far, when Louisa brought me the paper, with...
delightfull praise! like summer Rose that brighter in the dew drop glows— they were Sweet Drops from the heart to the Eyes both of your grandfather & grandmother when I read to him the two Letters to your Father and uncle this day in praise of your Mother. you could not have offerd a Sweeter incence to your Grandfather— to know that flowing from the hand of Friendship in a Strain of Sincerity...
I write you a few lines just to say that I send your mother a century Sermon, preached in this town when your Grandfather was about four years old. He says he recollects the day—as his mother carried him to meeting and pointed out to him the old lady Penniman mentioned in the Sermon said to be near an hundred years old—The Sermon had got out of print—A number of persons who wished to preserve...
310From Abigail Smith Adams to Caroline Amelia Smith De Windt, 3 May 1813 (Adams Papers)
I inclose you a volm from Harriot, and I have written to your Mother so late, that I have not a brain prolific enough to entertain you. I could inform you that our old gardner went to France this winter and did not expect to return soon enough to garden, and we have got another in his stead, who like most successors, finds fault with his predecessor, that this should have been so, and that...