I am charmed to find by your last letter that you pass your time so agreeably at Ghent: it would be almost a pity that the Congress should break up, as by all account you have derived so much benefit from your residence, and this Climate is so injurious, that the idea of your returning to sink again into the state of into inanity into which you had fallen, is so painful I could almost wish for...
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...
Tomorrow week being the 1st. March I presume this must be the last letter I address to you at Washington supposing you will set off on your journey home the earliest opportunity after the Session closes— I yesterday recieved your favor of the 9th. and was rejoiced to find that you supported the extreme severity of the Cold with so much philosophy Poor Quincy, what would he have done here when...
154From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Quincy Adams, 3 August 1821 (Adams Papers)
Mr. Shaw brought me your letter last night of the 29 and you may be assured I will attend to the confidential injunction it contained— At the same time I will take the liberty of expressing my doubts as to the propriety of shrinking thus for ever from any manifestation of the publick feeling which it is natural to expect (and which with our Institutions which are altogether popular) it is...
155From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Quincy Adams, 20 July 1806 (Adams Papers)
I last night recieved your letters of the 10 and 13 together and the extreme satisfaction of learning that your long silence was not caused by any new misfortune and that your health and that of our dear children was good. Your mother and, Sister Smith both wrote me last week who writes in better spirits than I expected. I am not surprizedat any thing Yrujo does. He has every reason to think...
156From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Adams, 17 June 1818 (Adams Papers)
You tell me that the highest prize in the Lottery is only 5000 dollars therefore you have not purchased my Ticket as I wished to make an experiment of your luck I suppose you think 5000 dollars a paltry prize however I should like you to purchase me a ticket in any of the Lotteries in which you can procure one for $4 and 50 Cents, or 5 which I see advertised in all the Boston papers and beg it...
157From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Quincy Adams, 8 July 1824 (Adams Papers)
Your Letter is this moment brought me my dear John and I confess I was very much disappointed in not seeing you in propria personea as my last epistle was to be considered positive if your father did not go soon to Boston—I trust however that the one I last sent will induce you to start immediately— I had written thus far when it occurred to me that John would probably have left Washington...
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...
159From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Quincy Adams, 7 August 1814 (Adams Papers)
I am so exhausted by fatigue that it is with the utmost difficulty I can scrawl a few lines having just return’d from a Fète at Pavloski which lasted two days & Nights I may say as you know at what hour the Balls break up The fète was most beutiful and we recieved every possible mark of Distinction the Emperor spoke to me and asked where you were I told him you had seen at Ghent he said he had...
160From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Adams, 27 April 1819 (Adams Papers)
I yesterday received your highly complimentary Letter which of course gratified my affection very much. I will not say my vanity for I am by no means certain that your praise is merited; on the contrary I am almost always dissatisfied with my own Letters, which are always dictated by the impulse of the moment; very useless, and little or no attention paid either to language or style—In writing...