Your Apology for not having written before was accepted by your grandmother. To be attentive to our guests is not only true kindness, but true politeness: for if there is a virtue which is its own reward, hospitality is that virtue. We remember slight attentions, after we have forgotten great benefits; sweetness of temper, easiness of behaviour, and kindness of disposition, are peculiarly...
62From Abigail Smith Adams to William Smith Shaw, 1 October 1808 (Adams Papers)
Shall we ever have the pleasure of a visit from you at Quincy. I can Scarcly credit that you Should be so intirely weaned from a place, and Friends whom you once loved and esteemed. I know your avocations are numerous—your time fully occupied, but you may have leisure to visit the Atheneum, when your Friends here are to be no more seen. your uncle and Aunt Cranch have both been very sick. your...
I began a Letter to you on Sunday last in which I informed you that your Sister S. Adams and Abbe arrived here the week before in good health & spirits, that they left your Mother Sisters & Son well. John has written me a Letter by them which is the first I have received from them him, tho he frequently writes to his Grandfather. I shall not fail replying to him. Susan has been a month at...
Your Letter of Sepbr 25 together with Carolines came safe to hand, but I have been in a kind of Turmoil ever since, and never felt retired, or quiet enough to sit down to my pen. It is a great misfortune to me that I cannot see to write in an Evening, without injury to my Eyes. your Aunt Cranch’s sickness has lain heavey at my heart. She is I hope recovering, but she has been much broken down....
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...
I am indebted to you for two Letters one of the last bearing date Novbr 20th. & 24th. I am always rejoiced to see your handwriting, altho the contents of your Letters some times give me pain, and none more so than those which contain an Idea that your Relatives, and Friends have not exerted themselves for you as they might have done. With respect to william. Your Father himself went to Town:...
What is the reason I do not get a Letter from my Mother I think I hear you say? Why I will tell you Child. I have Sat down more than once, got through one page, been interrupted, laid it by—untill it seemd of no value. I love to be by myself when I write and that is a difficult thing in the winter season. the parlour your Father occupies all the forenoon in reading or writing. it is proper he...
68From Abigail Smith Adams to Cotton Tufts, 17 January 1809 (Adams Papers)
my Son J Q Adams has an opportunity of employing the Sum I have which is payd of Eight pr Cent Stock. will you be so good as to draw Such an order as will enable him to receive it, and inclose it to me I Shall go to Town tomorrow he will leave Boston on monday DNDAR .
69From Abigail Smith Adams to John Quincy Adams, February 1809 (Adams Papers)
The Saturday after you left Boston, I went to Town, and brought up George. he went the next week to his uncle Cranch’s, and goes daily to school to mr Whitney. he appears well pleased, and learns to the Satisfaction of mr Whitney as I hear, who has put him into Lattin, which George Says is not so hard as French, in his French Bible his Aunt hears him daily. he is a Good Boy, save now and then,...
I have not written to you this year! and this is the second month of it, and let us ask the rising year, now open to our view yet wrapped in darkness, whither dost thou lead? Let cheerful hope receive the welcome guest, gratefully recollecting the many blessings of the past year, and committing ourselves to the wise and overruling providence, who suffers not a sparrow to fall to the ground...
I will write you a line the first I have attempted, to tell you I am getting better I hope tho very slowly. I am very weak, and not a little anxious to hear how my dear Abigail is. sick as I have been I regret that she is from home, tho I doubt not you will receive every attention and kindness, but you must das assistance, and have a home, more particularly so in Sickness—as soon as you think...