1900117 Saturday. (Adams Papers)
A clowdy, dull, Day. Some snow about noon, and rain towards night. σπίζημαι, τα καθαρματα Ψυχησ. Plato. This passage remains a puzzle after examination by several authorities on Greek. It is not an accurate quotation from Plato, and nothing in the context gives a clue to what JA intended by the first word, which makes neither sense nor grammar as it stands. If we may read the first word as the...
1900216 Fryday. (Adams Papers)
A fine morning. A large white frost upon the ground. Reading Hutcheson’s Introduction to moral Phylosophy. A beautiful Day and Evening. Din’d with Major Chandler. Francis Hutcheson, A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy, in Three Books; Containing the Elements of Ethicks and the Law of Nature , Glasgow, 1747 , and later edns., was long a popular textbook in Scotland and America. A number of...
1900315. (Adams Papers)
A fair morning and pretty warm. Kept school. Drank Tea at Mr. Swan’s, with Mr. Thayer.
19004January the 14th. 1756. (Adams Papers)
At Worcester. A very rainy Day. Kept school in the forenoon; but not in the afternoon, because of the weather and my own indisposition. JA had come to Worcester “about three weeks after his commencement” at Harvard to keep a school. (Commencement in 1755 fell on 16 July.) The circumstances of his appointment are related in his Autobiography. The school he kept was the “Center School,” built in...
19005[Harvard and Worcester, 1751-1755] (Adams Papers)
The two last years of my Residence at Colledge, produced a Clubb of Students, I never knew the History of the first rise of it, who invited me to become one of them. Their plan was to spend their Evenings together, in reading any new publications, or any Poetry or Dramatic Compositions, that might fall in their Way. I was as often requested to read as any other, especially Tragedies, and it...
19006[November 1755] (Adams Papers)
We had a severe Shock of an Earthquake. It continued near four minutes. I was then at my Fathers in Braintree, and awoke out of my sleep in the midst of it. The house seemed to rock and reel and crack as if it would fall in ruins about us. 7 Chimnies were shatter’d by it within one mile of my Fathers house. First entry in “Paper book No. 1” (D/JA/1), which is the first in the series of...
19007November 18th. 1755. (Adams Papers)
We had a severe Shock of an Earthquake. It continued near four minutes. I was then at my Fathers in Braintree, and awoke out of my sleep in the midst of it. The house seemed to rock and reel and crack as if it would fall in ruins about us. 7 Chimnies were shatter’d by it within one mile of my Fathers house. First entry in “Paper book No. 1” (D/JA/1), which is the first in the series of...
19008From John Adams to Nathan Webb, with Comments by the Writer Recorded in 1807 (Adams Papers)
All that part of Creation that lies within our observation is liable to Change. Even mighty States and kingdoms, are not exempted. If we look into History we shall find some nations rising from contemp tible beginnings, and spreading their influence, ’till the whole Globe is subjected to their sway. When they have reach’d the summit of Grandeur, some minute and unsuspected Cause commonly...
19009From John Adams to Richard Cranch, 2 September 1755 (Adams Papers)
I promised to write you an account of the scituation of my mind. The natural strength of my facultys is quite insufficient for the task. Attend therefore to the invocation. Oh! thou goddess, Muse, or Whatever is thy name who inspired immortal Miltons pen with a confusion ten thousand times confounded, when describing Satan’s Voyage thro’ Chaos, help me in the same cragged strains, to sing...
19010From John Adams to Nathan Webb, 1 September 1755 (Adams Papers)
The Favour you granted me on aug. 12 was unluckily packeted with a number of Letters and carried to Leicester, but a certain kind Gentleman has just brought it to hand. I will not lessen the pleasure it gave by a Description. But one detestable quality that usually attends your Letters, I find has stain’d it. I think Phylosophers call it, brevity. But, on second reflection I am not surpriz’d....