1From Abigail Smith Adams to Catherine Nuth Johnson, 13 July 1810 (Adams Papers)
you will Smile my dear Madam when I tell you, that I began a Letter to you, wrote two pages, and was then call’d down to company, left it upon my table by the side of a window, and when I returnd to finish it, it had taken to itself wings and flown away, not a trace of it could I find pray have the faries borne it to you in its unfinished state as a punishment to me for having so long delayed...