Great writers are also avid readers. Enjoy these fascinating
excerpts of letters from Abigail to her husband, John Adams.
Source: Massachusetts Historical Society
History during the years
1775-1777: The invasion of the British
upon the American colonies
QUOTE
"Humanity obliges us to be affected with the distresses and miseries of
our fellow creatures. Friendship is a band yet stronger, which causes us to
feel with greater tenderness the afflictions of our friends. And there is a tie
more binding than humanity, and stronger than friendship, which makes us
anxious for the happiness and welfare of those to whom it binds us. It makes
their misfortunes, sorrows and afflictions, our own."
QUOTE [on the
need to take care of our health and the inevitability of death]"The fabric
often wants repairing and if we neglect it the Deity will not long inhabit it,
yet after all our care and solicitude to preserve it, it is a tottering
building, and often reminds us that it will finally fall."
QUOTE "Your
minute description of the persons you have seen are very entertaining to
me."
QUOTE "I am
not conscious of any harm that I have done, or wished, to any mortal. I bear no
malice to any being. To my enemies, (if any I have), I am willing to afford
assistance; therefore towards Man, I maintain a conscience void of
offense."
QUOTE "Your
desire that I would write at every opportunity is punctually observed by me,
and I comply with your request, although I have nothing more to say than How do
ye? and when will you return? These questions perhaps may appear trifling to
others, yet to me they are matters of the highest importance."
QUOTE "I
hope I have drawn a lesson from that which will be useful to me in the future,
viz. never to say a severe thing, because, to a feeling heart, they wound too
deeply to be easily cured."
QUOTE [December,
roads impassible] "Alas! How many snow banks divide thee and me, and my
warmest wishes to see thee will not melt one of them."
QUOTE "We
are told that all the misfortunes of Sparta were occasioned by their too great
solicitude for present tranquility, and by an excessive love of peace they
neglected the means of making it sure and lasting. They ought to have
reflected, says [ancient Greek historian] Polybius, that as there is nothing
more desirable or advantageous than peace, when founded in justice and honor,
so there is nothing more shameful and at the same time more pernicious when
attained by bad measures, and purchased at the price of liberty."
QUOTE "We
have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with
them."
QUOTE [on noting
the town's readiness for military invasion] "We live in continual
expectation of alarms. Courage I know we have in abundance, conduct I hope we
shall not want, but powder—where shall we get a sufficient supply?"
QUOTE [as war is
becoming an immediate reality] "I do not now wonder at the regard the
ladies express for a soldier—every man who wears a cockade appears of double
the importance he used to, and I feel a respect for the lowest subaltern in the
army."
QUOTE "The
Day; perhaps the decisive Day is come on which the fate of America depends. My
bursting heart must find vent at my pen."
QUOTE [on the
military occupation] "The present state of the inhabitants of Boston is
that of the most abject slaves under the most cruel and despotic of
tyrants."
QUOTE "How
difficult the task to quench out the fire and the pride of private ambition, and to sacrifice ourselves
and all our hopes and expectations to the public weal."
QUOTE "My
pen is always freer than my tongue. I have wrote many things to you that I
suppose I never could have talked."
QUOTE "I am
more and more convinced that Man is a dangerous creature, and that power
whether vested in many or a few is ever grasping, and like the grave cries
give, give."
QUOTE "Be
kind enough to burn this letter. 'Tis wrote in great haste and a most incorrect
scrawl it is."
QUOTE "I
want to say many things I must omit, it is not fit to wake the soul by tender
strokes of art, or to ruminate upon happiness we might enjoy, lest absence
become intolerable."
QUOTE "How
many are the solitary hours I spend, ruminating upon the past, and anticipating
the future, whilst you overwhelmed with the cares of state, have but few moments
you can devote to any individual. All domestic pleasures and enjoyments are
absorbed in the great and important duty you owe your country, "for our
country is as it were a secondary God, and the first and greatest parent. It is
to be preferred to parents, wives, children, friends and all things, the Gods
only excepted. For if our country perishes, it is as impossible to save an
individual, as to preserve one of the fingers of a mortified hand." Thus
do I suppress every wish, and silence every murmur, acquiescing in a painful
separation from the companion of my youth, and the friend of my heart."
QUOTE "I can
not say that I think you very generous to the ladies, for while you are
proclaiming peace and good will to men, emancipating all nations, you insist upon
retaining an absolute power over wives. But you must remember that arbitrary
power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be
broken—and notwithstanding all your wise laws and maxims we have it in our
power not only to free ourselves but to subdue our masters, and without
violence throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet."
QUOTE "What
can be the reason I have not heard from you since the 20 of April, and now 'tis
the 27 of May. My anxious foreboding heart fears every evil, and my nightly
slumbers are tortured; I have sent, and sent again to the post office, which is
now kept in Boston at the office of the former Solicitor General, not one line
for me, although your handwriting is to be seen to several others. Not a script
have I had since the General Assembly rose, and our worthy friend Warren left
Watertown. I fear you are sick. The very idea casts such a gloom upon my
spirits that I cannot recover them for hours, nor reason myself out of my
fears."
QUOTE "My
heart is as light as a feather and my spirits are dancing. I received this
afternoon a fine parcel of letters and papers [from you] by Coll. Thayer, it
was a feast to me. I shall rest in quiet I hope this night."
QUOTE [signature,
on the distance between them] "O that I could annihilate space."
QUOTE "I
this day received by the hands of our worthy friend a large packet, which has
refreshed and comforted me. Your own sensations have ever been similar to mine.
I need not then tell you how gratified I am at the frequent tokens of
remembrance with which you favor me, nor how they rouse every tender sensation
of my soul, which sometimes find vent at my eyes, nor dare I describe how
earnestly I long to fold to my fluttering heart the dear object of my warmest
affections. The idea soothes me, I feast upon it with a pleasure known only to
those whose hearts and hopes are one."
QUOTE "I
feel no great anxiety at the large armament designed against us. The remarkable
interventions of heaven in our favor cannot be too gratefully acknowledged. He
who fed the Israelites in the wilderness, who clothes the lilies of the field
and feeds the young ravens when they cry, will not forsake a people engaged in
so righteous a cause if we remember his loving kindness."
QUOTE "I
received a letter from you by Wednesday Post 7 of July and although I think it
a choice one in the literary way, containing many useful hints and judicious
observations which will greatly assist me in the future instruction of our
little ones, yet it lacked some essential ingredients to make it complete. Not
one word respecting yourself, your health or your present situation. My anxiety
for your welfare will never leave me but with my parting breath, 'tis of more
importance to me than all this world contains besides. The cruel separation to
which I am necessitated cuts off half the enjoyments of life, the other half
are comprised in the hope I have that what I do and what I suffer may be
serviceable to you, to our little ones and our country; I must beseech you
therefore for the future never to omit what is so essential to my
happiness."
QUOTE "Last
Sunday after service the Declaration of Independence was read from the pulpit
by order of counsel. The Dr. concluded with asking a blessing upon the United
States of America even until the final restitution of all things. Dr. Chauncy's
address pleased me. The good man, after having read it, lifted his eyes and
hands to heaven -- God bless the United States of America, and let all the
people say amen. One of his audience told me it universally struck them."
QUOTE "P.S.
We are in such want of lead as to be obliged to take down the leads from the
windows in this town."
QUOTE "I
have spent the 3 days past almost entirely with you. The weather has been
stormy, I have had little company, and I have amused myself in my closet
reading over the letters I have received from you since I have been here."
QUOTE [staying at
her aunt's house] "I have possession of my aunt's chamber in which you
know is a very convenient pretty closet with a window which looks into her
flower garden. In this closet are a number of book shelves, which are but
poorly furnished, however I have a pretty little desk or cabinet here where I
write all my letters and keep my papers unmolested by anyone. I do not covet my
neighbor's goods, but I should like to be the owner of such conveniences. I
always had a fancy for a closet with a window which I could more peculiarly
call my own."
QUOTE "Here
I say I have amused myself in reading and thinking of my absent Friend,
sometimes with a mixture of pain, sometimes with pleasure, sometimes
anticipating a joyful and happy meeting, while my heart would bound and
palpitate with the pleasing idea, and with the purest affection I have held you
to my bosom till my whole soul has dissolved in tenderness and my pen fallen
from my hand./How often do I reflect with pleasure that I hold in possession a
heart equally warm with my own, and full as susceptible of the tenderest
impressions, and who even now while he is reading here, feels all I
describe./Forgive this reverie, this delusion, and since I am debared real,
suffer me, to enjoy, and indulge in ideal pleasures—and tell me they are not
inconsistent with the stern virtue of a senator and a patriot."
QUOTE "You
know not how disappointed I was tonight when the post came in and I received no
letter from you. 'Tis the first Saturday's post which has come in since I have
been in town without a letter from you. It has given me more pain tonight than
it would any other time, because of some false and foolish reports, I hope./I
will not, more than I can help, give way to rumors which I have no reason to
believe true. Yet at such a time as this when all the malice of satan has
possessd our foes, when they have recourse to secret poison, assassination and
every wicked art that hell can muster, I own myself alarmed and my fears
sometimes overpower me./But I commit you to the great guardian and protector of
the just, and trust in him that we shall meet and rejoice together, in spite of
all the malice of earth and hell.../Little Charles stands by and sends duty to
Pappa, says, Mamma, did you get any letters on Saturday? No. Then, why do you
write, Mamma?"
QUOTE "How
unfeeling are the world! They tell me they heard you were dead with as little
sensibility as a stock or a stone."
QUOTE "I
know your health must greatly suffer from so constant application to business
and so little exercise."
QUOTE "While
you are engaged in the senate, your own domestic affairs require your presence
at home, and your wife and children are in danger of wanting bread. If the
senate of America will take care of us, as the senate of Rome did of the family
of Regulus, you may serve them again, but unless you return, what little
property you possess will be lost. In the first place, the house at Boston is
going to ruin. When I was there I hired a girl to clean it, it had a cart load
of dirt in it. I speak within bounds. One of the chambers was used to keep
poultry in, another sea coal, and another salt. You may conceive how it looked.
The house is so exceeding damp being shut up, that the floors are mildewed, the
ceiling falling down, and the paper moldy and falling from the walls. I took
care to have it often opened and aired while I tarried in town. I put it into
the best state I could."
QUOTE "I
know the weight of public cares lie so heavy upon you that I have been loathe
to mention your own private ones."
QUOTE "The
best accounts we can collect from New York assure us that our men fought
valiantly. We are in no ways dispirited here, we possess a spirit that will not
be conquered. If our men are all drawn off and we should be attacked, you would
find a race of amazons in America."
QUOTE "There
are particular times when I feel such an uneasiness, such a restlessness, as
neither company, books, family cares or any other thing will remove, my pen is
my only pleasure, and writing to you the composure of my mind."
QUOTE "What
is said of the English nation by Hume in the reign of Harry the 8th may very
aptly be applied to them now, that they are so thoroughly subdued that, like
eastern slaves, they are inclined to admire even those acts of tyranny and
violence which are exercised over themselves at their own expense."
QUOTE "The
young folks desire Mamma to return thanks for their letters which they will
properly notice soon. It would have grieved you if you had seen your youngest
son stand by his Mamma and when she delivered out to the others their letters,
he inquired for one, but none appearing he stood in silent grief with the tears
running down his face, nor could he be pacified until I gave him one of mine.
—Pappa does not love him, he says, so well as he does brothers, and many
comparisons were made to see whose letters were the longest."
QUOTE "I sit
down to write although I feel very languid; the approach of spring unstrings my
nerves, and the south winds have the same effect upon me which Brydon says the
Siroce winds have upon the inhabitants of Sicily. It gives the vapors, blows
away all their gaiety and spirits and gives a degree of lassitude, both to the
body and mind, which renders them absolutely incapable of performing their
usual functions./He adds that it is not surprising that it should produce these
effects upon a phlegmatic English constitution; but that he had just had an
instance that all the mercury of France must sink under the weight of this
horrid leaden atmosphere."
QUOTE "I
really think this letter would make a curious figure if it should fall into the
hands of any person but yourself—and pray if it comes safe to you, burn it./But
ever remember with the tenderest sentiments her who knows no earthly happiness
equal to that of being tenderly beloved by her dearest Friend."
QUOTE "'Tis
ten days I believe since I wrote you a line, yet not ten minutes passes without
thinking of you. 'Tis four months wanting 3 days since we parted, every day of
the time I have mourned the absence of my Friend, and felt a vacancy in my
heart which nothing, nothing can supply. In vain the spring blooms or the birds
sing, their music has not its former melody, nor the spring its usual
pleasures. I look around with a melancholy delight and sigh for my absent
partner. I fancy I see you, worn down with cares, fatigued with business, and
solitary amidst a multitude."
