31From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 1 May 1807 (Adams Papers)
I thank you, my dear Sir for the promptitude of your Answer to my last Letter, and for inclosing the misterious one to you, which however has every Appearance of honesty about it. My Daughter Started the Idea that it might be our Friend Wm. Smith of Charlestown who married Miss Izzard: but the Date of the Letter is New York. My Daughter, upon my Receipt of your Letter wrote to her Husband on...
32From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 21 May 1807 (Adams Papers)
I return you, the Letter of Edward Smith. Time may or may not unriddle this whimsical Mystery. It might however in the mean time to put Us on our guard against Intrigues. My not preserving a Copy of my Letter to Dr Nathan Webb (for he was a Physician) is no Wonder: for I never kept a Copy of any Letter, till I became a Member of Congress in 1774. The observation of your Son Richard is very...
33From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 23 May 1807 (Adams Papers)
I received at an Exhibition of Musick in our polite Village of Mount Woollaston, on thursday, your Letter relative to Mr Loude, and sent it immediately to Dr Tufts by his Lady, that the Young Gentlemans Friends might be informed of his Situation. I lament the untimely decline of a Youth, although I never Saw him, who has been represented to me, as one who injured his health by too intense an...
34From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 23 June 1807 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favour of the ninth of this Month, and conveyed to Dr Tufts your Letter to him, who desireses me to express to you the high sense he has of your Benevolence And Humanity to Mr John Loude. The Doctor will write you, as soon as he can find means of conveying to the Parents of that unfortunate youth the money you enclosed. What Shall We Say, my Friend? A pious and virtuous...
35From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 25 June 1807 (Adams Papers)
John Bunjan, if he had written my last Letter to you would have called it an history of Gods Judgments against Lyars and Libellers. Such indeed it seems to be. A great Number of others might have been added, and two or three at least ought to have been. Phillip Freneau is one of the Number: but I know not in what Light to consider him. A Libeller, he certainly was not only against me but...
36From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, September 1807 (Adams Papers)
I want to write an Essay.—Whom Shall I choose for a Model?—Plutarch, old Montaigne, Lord Bacon, Addison, Johnson, or Franklin? The last, if he had devoted his Life to the Study might have equalled Montaine in Essays or La Fontaine in Fables: for he was fitter more fitted for either or both than to conduct a Nation like Prony or Colbert. I am however too round about, to imitate the close,...
37From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 1 September 1807 (Adams Papers)
It is rare, that a Letter of yours remains so long upon my Table unacknowledged as has that of July 9th. Crudens Apophthagm is well worthy of your Remembrance and that of your Posterity for forty times forty years more. It is the only Clue to the Labyrinth of the World, the only key to the Riddle of the Universe. “Some Crimes are punished to prove a Providence; others escape to teach a future...
38From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 11 November 1807 (Adams Papers)
I have, long before the receipt of your favour of the 31 of October, supposed that either you were gazing at the Comet or curing the Influenza: and in either case, that you was much better employed than in answering my idle Letters. Pray! have our Astronomers at Phyladelphia, observed that Stranger in the Heavens? Have they noted its Bearings and Distances, its Course and progress! whence it...
39From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 28 December 1807 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your printed lecture on the humanity Economy and other virtues, which require of us, more attention to our domestick animals, and especially to their diseases. We see our horses, horned cattle, sheep, swine and other species, as well as our cats and dogs, sick or wounded and no body knows what to do with them or for them, so that a broken bone or a fit of sickness is almost...
40From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 3 January 1808 (Jefferson Papers)
Dr. Waterhouse has been appointed to the Marine hospital of Boston as you wished. it was a just tho small return for his merit in introducing the Vaccination earlier than we should have had it. his appointment makes some noise, there & here being unacceptable to some: but I believe that schismatic divisions in the medical fraternity are at the bottom of it. my usage is to make the best...
41From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 18 January 1808 (Adams Papers)
What a pitty it is; and indeed what a Shame it is, that We have not a Word in our language to express the idea of the French Word Naiveté ? There is not a figure of Rhetorick So impressive as this is ’tho it is no figure, but the most perfect simplicity. I know not whether it is possible to define it. Neat and plain, Seems to be flat and poor. Simple Nature, is not Satisfactory. Simplex...
42From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 25 February 1808 (Adams Papers)
Your two last Letters have puzzled me. In one you tell me that your Citizens are clamorous against the Residence of Congress at Washington. Now Washington was the Father of the Columbian Territory, the City of Washington and the Residence of Congress in it: and Washington Jefferson and L’Enfant were the Triumvirate who planned the City the Capitol and the Prince’s Palace. In your last Feb. 18...
43From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 18 April 1808 (Adams Papers)
I have your favour of the 5th. My dear Mrs Adams bids me present her friendly regards to you and Mrs Rush and all your family, and to say to you that she has read your Letter with pleasure excepting what relates to a Gentleman from whom she had before a great Esteem, and all she can Say upon that Subject is that she wished she had not read it. In my jocular prayer to the Saint I meant No...
44From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 20 June 1808 (Adams Papers)
I give you this Title for the present only. I Shall Scarcely allow you to be a political, moral, or Christian Philosopher, till you retract Some of the Complaints Lamentations, Regrets and Penitences in your Letter of the 13th.—But more of this presently. Mr John Reed, the first Lawyer who left a great Reputation in our State, in the Administration of Governor Shirley was a Councillor, or in...
45From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 25 July 1808 (Adams Papers)
Handsome Bradford, of thy City, allarmed me, the other day at our Athenaeum in Boston, by telling me, that Dr Rushes Business had amazingly encreased and was encreasing. Knowing thine Ardor in thy Profession, I was apprehensive that thy Zeal for the Health of the Sick would Soon eat thee Up, and consequently that thine Ether would escape from this Colluvies of Humanity to the Regions of...
46From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 31 August 1808 (Adams Papers)
Instead of preparing for Commencement, I am answering your delicious Letter of the 24th.—But where to begin or where to end! I will follow your own order. If I had ever heard that a Pen of Tacitus had been preserved among the Reliques of Antiquity, I Should Swear you had Stolen it to draw the Character of the most conspicuous moral political and military Character Phenomenon of this Age.— I...
47From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 8 September 1808 (Adams Papers)
I will not Stand upon Ceremonies, with you, and wait for the Return of a Visit, or an Answer to my last Letter. Whatever proportion of Loyalty to an established Dinasty of Kings, or whatever taint of catholic Superstition there may be in the present Sensations of the Spanish People, I revere the Mixture of pure Patri or however their Conduct may have been excited by British or Austrian Gold, I...
48From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 27 September 1808 (Adams Papers)
That Rosicrusian Sylph, that Fairy Queen Mab, or that other familiar Spirit whatever it is, that inspires your nightly dreams, I would not exchange, if I had it, for the Dæmon of Socrates. You have more Wit and humour and Sense in your Sleep, than other People I was about to Say, than you have yourself when awake. I know not whether I have ever read two finer Allegories, than the two you have...
49From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 10 October 1808 (Adams Papers)
The three Classes of People in Boston, who direct our public Affairs are the Same as those you describe in your favour of 22 of Sept. It gives me great pleasure, to learn that our old Friend Mr Clymer is as he always was a pure-American. I cannot however boldly defend the long Continuance of the Embargo. I thought it at first a necessary Measure, but was fully apprehensive it could not be long...
50From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 13 October 1808 (Jefferson Papers)
This will be delivered you by my grandson Th Jefferson Randolph, who goes to Philadelphia to attend a course of lectures in Natural history Anatomy & Botany. he will also attend the lecturer in Surgery, but as an amateur, and with a view to the care of a family when he shall have one, in a country situation where we have no surgeons & want them every day. he may then recollect and apply what...
51From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 22 December 1808 (Adams Papers)
I know not whether I shall make you smile or weep, excite your ridicule or pity or contempt when I reveal to you the mistery of my long delay to answer your last Letters. But before I unriddle that unusual negligence, I must say a few words concerning our Friend Whartons Attachment to Prophecies and his habit of applying them to passing events. I have no objection to the Study, but I am aware...
52From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 23 January 1809 (Adams Papers)
What Signify Clamours against Commerce Property Kings Nobles Demagogues Democracy, the Clergy Religion? For to each and all of these has the Depravity of Man been imputed by some Philosophers. Rousseau says the first Man who fenced a Cabbage yard ought to have been put to death. Dr but Diderot says the first Man who Suggested the Idea of a god ought to have been treated as an Enemy of the...
53From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 20 February 1809 (Adams Papers)
When you informed me that Mr Cooper in his Life of Dr Priestly had ascribed to that Philosopher, the first hint of the Perfectibility of the human Mind, I answered you that this was the Doctrine of the ancient Stoicks. My Memory did not Serve me with details and I referred to no authorities, not thinking it worth while to Search Books upon Such a Subject. But within a day or two I have...