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Monday, May 28, 2007

John Adams to Abigail [To his wife]
President's House, Washington City,
2 November, 1800
My Dearest Friend,
We arrived here last night, or rather yesterday, at one o'clock, and here we dined and slept. The building is in a state to be habitable, and now we wish for your company. . . .
I have seen only Mr. Marshall and Mr. Stoddart, General Wilkinson and the two commissioners, Mr. Scott and Mr. Thornton. I shall say nothing of public affairs. I am very glad you consented to come on, for you would have been more anxious at Quincy than here, and I to all my other solicitudines mordaces, as Horace calls them, ie., "biting cares," should have added a great deal on your account. Besides, it is fit and proper that you and I should retire together, and not one before the other. Before I end my letter, I pray heaven to bestow the best blessings on this house, and on all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.
I am, with unabated confidence and affection, your
John Adams
-from The Friendly Craft: a Collection of American Letters edited by Elizabeth Deering Hanscom, Ph.D. (New York: Macmillan, 1908) p. 12-13.
Posted by Pepys (r.p.m.) at 12:03 a.m. Labels: Miscellaneous


 Pepys (r.p.m.)
A daily letter from the past for present reflection. They run the gamut from witty to weepy and reveal the foibles and fortitudes of their correspondents--on the whole, literary types and their ilk. Makes me think that people really haven't changed all that much. I enjoy reading them, as does my wife, and we thought it would be a type of shared commonplace book. I have recently changed the title from simply "Letters" to "Postman's Horn" thinking of my alter-ego, Chumley, at Chumley and Pepys on Books, who posted a blog, March 15, 2007, with this in the title.
 post horn