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Browsing: Early Diary of John Adams, Volume 1
Docno: ADMS-02-01-02-0010-0001-0001
Recipient: Wentworth, John
Recipient: Dalton, Tristram
Recipient: Quincy, Samuel
DateRange: 1758-10 - 1758-11
[Letters to Three Friends on Studying Law, October–November 1758.]1
To [John] Wentworth.2
[salute] Mon Ami
My letters, for the future will come to you, not from a School House but from the
Cell of an Hermit. I am removed from Worcester to Braintree where I live secluded
from all the Cares and Fatigues of busy Life in a Chamber which no mortal Visits but
myself except once in a day to make my Bed. A Chamber which is furnished in a very
curious manner, with all sorts of Hermetical Utensils.
Here, no Idea of a Lady, of Diversions, of <gay Life> Business or of Pleasure ever enters. Here I read, smoke, think, and sleep. Old Roman
Lawyers, and dutch Commentators are my constant Companions. What ample Provision have
I here accumulated for lasting Felicity! The only Thing I fear is, that all my Passions,
which you know are the Gales of Life, as Reason is the Pilot, will go down into an
everlasting Calm. And what will a Pilot signify, if there is no Wind.
To prevent this I must intreat you to redouble your Letters, which { 65 } always raise a full Gale of Love, sometimes almost a Tempest of Emulation and some
times a Breeze of Envy, and will be sufficient, in Addition to those of a few other
Friends, to waft the Vessell, tho she is not the best of sailors, with full Speed,
along the Voyage.—But what, and where is the Port of my Destination? In sincerity
I am afraid to tell you. Tis however a Harbour, where every Vessell may ride securely.
A Harbour, in which, tho Tempests rage around, and Thunders roll above, and Earthquakes
shudder beneath, neither the Vessell, her Cargo or her Crew, ever receive any Damage.
But to be plain, I am beginning Life anew. I have new Friendships to make, new Employments
to follow, new Concerns, Prospects and Studies, opening before me. And now I have
mentioned Studies, I find my self entering an unlimited Field. A Field in which Demosthenes,
Cicero, and others of immortal Fame have exulted before me! A Field which incloses
the whole Circle of Science and Literature, the History, Wisdom, and Virtue of all
ages.—Shall I dare to expatiate here in full Career, like the nobler Animals, that
range at large, or shall [I] blindly, basely creep, like the mole, or the weezell?—Tell me.
To [Tristram] Dalton.3
How long is it my Friend, since I either received a Letter from you or you from me?
Some years I believe. And how long will it be, e’er another Letter passes between
us? Why If I may judge of the future by the past, I shall receive one from you about
6 months hence, and then an Intermission of 2 or 3 years will succeed. This has been
the Course of our Correspondence, and perhaps you would be as well pleased, if the
Intermission should be of 2 or 3 Centuries, or inperpetuo instead of 2 or 3 years.
You need not hope however to escape so. Whenever I am fatigued with roman Lawyers
and Dutch Commentators, I will set down, and <discharge the Vapours of the Brain, upon Paper, and send it away to you> write to you, as Painters turn their Eyes to a <green> mild pleasant Green Colour after long Attention to black in order to ease and Relieve
the Eye. This is said, (by the Way) in Conformity to the common Place Cant of the
present Day that The study of Law is the most dry, unentertaining study in the World,
which I take to be full as wise as Lady ——s Contempt of Shakespears Tragedies in the
Lethe of Mr. Garrick.4 You have heard many Persons say that the study of Mathematicks and of Physicks is
dry. Others can find no Beauties in Poetry. And I believe them, as undoubtingly as
I believe some others, when they say that Law is dry. Every Thing, my Friend, is dry
in Proportion as it is not understood, and I shall not be { 66 } at all surprised to hear a young Spark whose <whole> Attention is dissipated among Horses and Ladies, (heaven forgive me) fiddles and
frolicks, Cards and Romances, say that the Law is dry.
But to examine this Matter a little, can no Pleasure be found in tracing to their
original sources in Morality, in the Constitution of human Nature, and the Connections
and Relations of human Life, the Laws which the Wisdom of perhaps fifty Centuries,
has established for the Government of human Kind. <No Pleasure in studying the Eloquence of Greece and Rome in those stupendous Monuments
of it which have loeen the Wonder and Delight of every Age, to the present Day?> No Pleasure in the Study of those Remains, those prescious Remains of grecian and
roman Eloquence, which have been <the wonder and delight of> preserved to the Admiration of all Ages, down to the present day? <Far otherwise,> So far [otherwise?] that I assure you, even the <most> Common Law of England, and the precedents and [Statutes?] of former Times, which are most venomously [misused?] at this day, when once their [ . . . ] Language is understood, afford <us all> the Pleasure of Reasoning in as [great?] Perfection as your favourite science of Mathematicks <with the Exception only that we have not always that absolute Certainty, that we have
in Mathematicks.>5
{Folio: 15}Tis true, we are not able to attain, in every Case of Law, that total Certainty which
you have in some Problems and Theorems, nor have you in Mathematicks, the success
in every Problem which you have in some.
To Samll. Quincy.6
<How surprizingly we how inviolably>
How resolutely, how inviolably, how surprizingly we have preserv’d and pursued The
Resolution <we took> of writing each other upon <Law.> Points of Law, which we took at Weighmouth.—<But> Oh my Friend how easily we are <bro’t> fired to lawdable Determinations! But <oh> proh Dolor, how soon are such Determinations forgot?—Quite as suddenly as the Vows
of perpetual Constancy made by a young Fellow, when in the most violent Hurry. This
has some how or other recalled to my Memory a Pice of Advice, which Polonius gives
to his Daughter in Shakespears Hamlet.
{ 67 } The soul is no less Prodigal in lending the Tongue Vows, when the Blood glows with
Ambition of getting Learning or Virtue, than when it burns with a very different Passion,
the Passion alluded to in these Lines. And perhaps the Protestations of the Lover,
are as sincere as the Resolutions of the scholar. And as the generous Lover, who by
such Vows, has deceived and deflowered an innocent, virtuous Lady, would think him
self bound in Honour, and in Conscience, to fullfill his Promises, so should the generous
Schollar esteem it a violation of his Conscience, a base, ungenerous, debauching and
ruining of himself, to forget his Vows of Industry.
I do know
When the Blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the Tongue Vows. These Blazes oh my Daughter
Giving more Light than Heat, extinct in both,
You must not take for Fire.
For my own Part, my Conscience reproaches me with a long series of such Self Perfidy!
I start sometimes, and shudder at myself, when the Thought comes into my mind how
many million Hours I have squandered in a s[t]upid Inactivity neither furnishing my mind nor exercising my Body. Yet new Reflections
continue to arise, and I every Day determine to begin a new Course of Life tomorrow.
My Resolutions are like bubbles, they are perpetually rising to the surface of the
stream and then are [broke?] and vanish by every puff of Wind. Yet new ones rise and die in perpetual succession.
In order to connect the preceeding Letter with this, let me add [that?] to taste this Pleasure, active Industry, and not now and then a sudden Resolution
alone, is necessary.—And now I have mentioned Resolutions how [unwilling?] and [remainder missing]7
2. John Wentworth (1737–1820), later Sir John, was a classmate, correspondent, and, until the Revolution separated
them, a warm friend of JA’s. He became the last royal governor of New Hampshire, a loyalist exile, and lieutenant
governor of Nova Scotia.
Much of the correspondence between JA and Wentworth has been lost. In the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 5 (1851):414/6, appears an undated letter from JA to Wentworth, which is known in no other version and which creates a small puzzle
concerning the letter-draft in JA’s Diary Fragment. The printed letter touches on the very topics dealt with in the
draft (though in entirely different language), was certainly sent because it was in
the hands of a Wentworth descendant in 1851, and begins: “I resume with Pleasure my
long neglected Pen ... to inform you that I am still alive, and well; that I am removed
from Worcester to Braintree where I expect to live and die.” It must therefore have
been written in Oct. or Nov. 1758 and virtually precludes the possibility that the
present letter, making the same announcement, was actually sent. Or was it sent to
someone other than Wentworth, the stated addressee?
On Wentworth see JA, Diary and Autobiography, 1:4; 2:308; 4:85; Lawrence Shaw Mayo, John Wentworth, Cambridge, 1921; Sibley-Shipton, Harvard Graduates, 13:650–681.
3. Tristram Dalton (1738–1817), of Newbury (later Newburyport), another classmate of JA’s, “read law for pleasure” but married a rich wife and be• { 68 } came a merchant, shipowner, and U.S. senator (Sibley-Shipton, Harvard Graduates, 13:569–578; Benjamin W. Labaree, Patriots and Partisans: The Merchants of Newburyport, 1764–1815, Cambridge, 1964). The Adams Papers files show that Dalton and JA corresponded intermittently for over forty years.
4. Lethe; or, Esop in the Shades, a farce produced at Drury Lane in 1740 and afterward published, was David Garrick’s
first play. In it a character named Mrs. (not Lady) Riot tells Charon when she confronts
him on the banks of the river Lethe: “Your Taste here, I suppose, rises no higher
than your Shakespears and your Johnsons; oh you Goats and Vandils! in the Name of Barbarity take ’em to yourselves, we are tir’d of ’em upon Earth—one
goes indeed to a Playhouse sometimes, because one does not know how else one can kill
one’s Time—every body goes, because—because—all the world’s there.”
6. Samuel Quincy (1734–1789), Harvard 1754, son of Col. Josiah Quincy of Braintree and brother of Hannah Quincy,
the “Orlinda” of the Diary Fragment, studied law with Benjamin Prat and was admitted
to the bar with JA in Nov. 1758. He and JA were to be friends, colleagues, and rivals until the Revolution, when Quincy, who
held a lucrative crown office, took the loyalist side and became a permanent exile.
See JA, Diary and Autobiography, 1:47, 50 ff., 109, 252; 2:2, 14, 72; 3:261, 273, 289, 295; Adams Family Correspondence, 1:122–123, 128, 130–131, 152; Sibley-Shipton, Harvard Graduates, 13:478–488. Copley’s portrait of Quincy, about 1767, appears as an illustration in the present volume.
7. It is not beyond question whether this paragraph is part of the letter to Quincy or
a detached reflection. But in respect to both substance and position (since it has
a slight interval of space separating it from the preceding text) it appears to be
distinct from the letter.
Cite web page as: Founding Families: Digital Editions of the Papers of the Winthrops and the Adamses, ed.C. James Taylor. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2018.
http://www.masshist.org/apde2/
http://www.masshist.org/apde2/