At last my dear Charles I find a moment of leisure to address you not having had a moment since you left us disengaged from company—We have been out every night and the parties have generally been pleasant Mrs. Calhoun’s was an imitation of ours but did not take the Miss Roberdeau’s Miss Pleasanton Miss McKnight Miss Selby and one other whose name I have forgotten—They were all dressed...
As Mr. Pope is so good as to offer to convey your skates to Boston I have siezed the opportunity of writing you a few lines in answer to your Letter my dear Charles which was very gratifying to me as it afforded ample proofs of your being good at school by the compliment so handsomely paid you by Mr. Gould—Such a compliment when it is addressed by a person in the capacity of a master or...
When I left you I did not think you were so soon to assume the sacerdotal vestment but I sincerely congratulate you on having even the external appearance of that which I so much advise and of course cannot wish to shorten the term which places you in so respectable a light— That you should be eclipsed is not remarkable at all—but that you should make great exertions to shine by your own light...
Your last Letter my dear Charles quite revived my spirits as it re-assured me concerning yours which had really alarmed me and your father very much We are in the depths of distress on another account which is the removal of your Uncle and Aunt Smith to Pensacola where he is appointed Naval Officer a place which it is expected will become very valuable at present he is to have 1000 Dollars a...
Still in this City I again write you and probably for the last time until I get home—Your last Letter pleased me very much I discovered more attention to composition and an easier and more correct style than in any before received—Your time will now however be so constantly occupied that you will have but little leisure to form a continued correspondence with me but I shall expect to hear from...
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...
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...
The Mail is this moment arrived and as I am at leisure I hasten to answer your Letter which is a very good one if it had been a little more legible to read.—Hard things to get at are we know often thought more valuable but Enigma’s but would be worthless if we never discovered their meaning—I therefore again pray you to attend to your hand writing and to write a large hand which will correct...
I enclose you a Letter from one of your young correspondents which was received a few days after your departure and which I suppose you would regret very much to lose. In taking the Desk which your Brother lent you I want to know what you did with the papers which were in it among which the two Contracts of Mr. Van Coble were placed and I am very much concerned at not being able to find them...
150From John Quincy Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 3 October 1822 (Adams Papers)
It is long since I had the pleasure of writing to you or of receiving a Letter from you; yet there has not been a day when you have been absent from my mind and from my heart. I learnt with sorrow and great anxiety that you had been sick, and hope that you have entirely recovered. The accounts that I received of your proficiency were that you had improved in your standing with the Class, and...