Well, Charles, how comes on the file? is yours as big as John’s? are your walks so delightful you cannot get one moment of time to write me? or are you so busy in giving your french Lessons to your friend Dawes that you are obliged to decline my correspondence?—I am so perfectly sure that you have some very good reason for your silence I by no means wish to reproach you—But as it is long time...
Why what is the matter my Son? surely when you wrote your last Letter you must have been suffering from a billious attack and saw every thing with a jaundiced eye? yet the Roast Beef and Plum Pudding seemed to pro duce such excellent effects I hope it was only a little qualm and does not require any very violent remedies—As to the Shirts I left some linen at Quincy which may be made for you...
Just returned from Virginia about 2 hours ago, I hasten to answer your Letter which your father gave me on my arrival, and expressing to you the deep sorrow I feel at the gloomy temper which still appears throughout the above mentioned Letter—At your age my Son this habit of fretting and complaining is peculiarly particularly to be avoided, as it acquires strength hourly, and renders your days...
24From John Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 12 January 1820 (Adams Papers)
I am much pleased with your frankness in relating the manners and customs of your School—talking playing and whistling are amusements not fit to be indulged or tolerated in the scene of Education for Youth—and you bear an honorable testimony in favour of your excellent School in Boston—I hope your Parents will bring you with them next Summer—and place you again at Mr Goulds most excellent...
It is a long time since I wrote you as I have again been very sick and utterly unable to put pen to paper—You may therefore readily imagine that I have nothing to write about any more than yourself as I have had nothing whatever to do with the great world for some time who are kind enough to believe me sick in consequence of the Presidential question—I will acknowledge that it is of a nature...
Your Letter my Dear Charles would cause me considerable uneasiness did I not know that you have the power of remedying largely the evils of which you complaint and that all you want is to exert that portion of resolution or will (which you Amply possess upon most points) to buckle too seriously and earnestly to your studies without suffering your most more pleasing avocations to draw you from...
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...
In answer to your last Letter I can only say that I regret as much as you do the precipitation with which you left me although I am very confident you will derive much advantage from the change and the happiest results to your future peace of mind—As it regards your immediate situation your father and myself mutually disapprove your plan of Boarding in your chamber alone and would much prefer...
Your two last Letters would have given me much pleasure if they had been more easy to decypher and I must sieze the present opportunity of assuring You that as a correspondent of mine you must endeavour to improve your hand writing which is at present such as to do you no credit and almost impossible for me to read—I question if it would have been easy to me in my best days but now that my...
Your Letter full of complaints my dear Charles reached me yesterday and I am sorry to see you indulge still in a querrulous disposition but a little intercourse with young men I still flatter myself will cure you therefore I shall say nothing farther on the subject— Your Trunk I sent on about ten days since and hope as it was addressed to the care of Mr Cruft you have received it safe with the...