131From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 25 October 1809 (Adams Papers)
I received yesterday your new Edition on Animal Life and Madam read it in the evening to me and all the Family, to the great delight and Edification of Us all. Whether it is all solid or not we can not say: but there are Ideas enough thrown out to excite and employ the attention and Investigation of all the Philosophers, Physicians and Surgeons. Accept of all our Thanks for this favour....
132From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 21 December 1809 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for the pleasing account of your Family in your favour of the 5th. As I take a lively interest in their Prosperity and Felicity, your relation of it gave me great Pleasure. We have Letters from our Colony navigating the Baltic, dated at Christiansand. They had been so far as prosperous, healthy and happy as such Traveller’s could expect to be. Pope said of my Friend General...
133From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 21 January 1810 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for “the light and Truth” as I used to call the Aurora, which you sent me. You may descend in a Calm, but I have lived fifty years in a storm, and shall certainly die in one. I never asked my son any questions about the Motives, Designs or Objects of his Mission to Petersbourg. If I had been weak enough to ask, He would have been wise enough to be silent; for although a more dutiful or...
134From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 11 February 1810 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for yours of the first and the two Packetts. Who are they who furnish the Aurora with Such an infinite quantity and Variety of Compositions? There must be many hands, of no small Capacity or Information. In one you Sent me before, there was an Anecdote of a Plan of Washington to attack Philadelphia which was communicated to General How by a Person in his Confidence. The Narrator affirms...
135From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 14 May 1810 (Adams Papers)
What can I say to my Friend in return for his Letter of 26th of April? My Grief for the Melancholy Fate of my Friend John is only equalled by My Sympathy with his amiable Family. In the midst of Grief remember Mercy. Richard remains to you as well as another Son, and several Daughters who do honor to their Parents and their Country. Oh that John had imitated the Example of his Father, and...
136From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 28 June 1810 (Adams Papers)
I acknowledge my fault in neglecting to answer two or three of your last favours. I now thank you for the Letters and the “Light and Truth” as I ought used to call the Aurora. What are We to think of all these Adventurers? Tom Paine, Cobbet Duane Carpenter, Walsh, Bristed? with twenty &cas. Are they all Sent out here, by Administration or opposition, French or English, Scotch or Irish? Our...
137From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 6 August 1810 (Adams Papers)
Your Exhortation to Punctuallity and your Tic doulourouse had scarcely been read to my Family before a Lady Mrs. Quincy came in and took them away. This Lady, one of the best and wisest, had a Relation Mrs Sturgis afflicted with this tormenting Tic, to whom She carried your Pamphlet, who has circulated it in Boston, till I am told every Physician in Boston has read it. I have heard of two...
138From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 1 September 1810 (Adams Papers)
I have been entertained and diverted with the humour and the Wit of my Old Friend O Brian as you call him. The Jackass and the Cow, are most excellent Animals in their place and in their own sphere. None more useful. But neither is very well qualified for Legislators or Politicians: or to pursue the figure and hunt down the Allegory. Neither would make a figure at the new Markett Races, or in...
139From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 16 September 1810 (Adams Papers)
I am much obliged by your favour of the 8th. Oh how I wish, I had time to write, and you Patience to read The Anecdots I could dictate concerning “Chapmans” in New England! all “able bodied Men.” I deceived you a little by an Inference of my own from what The Edinborough Reviewers had written. I know not that they have mentioned you by Name or your Works by their Titles: but I read in them “If...
140From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 13 October 1810 (Adams Papers)
Mrs Adams Says She is willing you Should discredit Greek and Latin, because it will destroy the foundation of all the Pretensions of the Gentlemen to Superiority over the Ladies, and restore Liberty, Equality and Fraternity between the Sexes. What does Mrs Rush think of this? Hobbes calumniated the Classicks, because they filled young Mens heads with Ideas of Liberty, and excited them to...