Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
Have a care, that you do not let Captain Duane know, that I am
reading Cicero de Senectute again: because he will immediately insert in his Aurora
Borealis, that I recollected, those Words in the 17th
Chapter “nihil ei tam regale videri, quam Studium agri colendi.”1 He will Say that there is nothing in building
Stone Wall, or in collecting Heaps of Compost, but the tang of Royalty and Monarchy,
which Socrates and Xenophon and Cicero perceived, which attracts my Esteem and
affection: and all the Germans and all the Irish and all the Quakers and Anabaptists
will Say they believe him: and the Presbyterians will shake their heads and say it is
too true.— The Captain will quote the Words “Nun quam terra recusat imperium,” as
mathematical demonstration that my taste for Agriculture is only a fruit of my arbitrary
Disposition and despotic Principles.
I wonder how the Captain, will announce the Arrival of your Brother?2 What Ingenuity of Malignity and what Impudence of Mendecity, his Genius and his forehead will furnish upon this Occasion excites my Curiosity.
I dont recollect to have seen an Aurora since I became Monarch of stony field, Count of Gull Island, Earl of Mount Arrarat, Marquis of Candlewood Hill, and Baron of Rocky Run.— But I confess I now wish to see all that the Aurora, shall say on the Arrival of J. Q. A. Send them to your affectionate Father
RC (NUtM:Proctor Autograph Coll.); addressed: “Thomas B. Adams / Philadelphia”;
internal address: “T. B. A.”; endorsed: “John Adams Esqr:
/ 15 Septr 1801 / 28th: Recd / Do Ansd”; notation by JA: “J. Adams.” LbC (Adams Papers); APM Reel 118. Tr (Adams Papers).
Here and below in the paragraph, JA quoted Cicero’s
De senectute: “Nothing more befitting royalty than zeal
in husbandry” and “Earth … never protests a draft” (Cicero, De
senectute, transl. W. A. Falconer, Cambridge, 1923, ch. xv, xvii).
JA also wrote to TBA on 9 Sept., quoting more extensively
from the same work and discussing JQA and LCA’s travel plans
(Adams Papers).
The Philadelphia Aurora General
Advertiser, 5 Sept., made no comment other than reporting that
JQA’s arrival brought “nothing new.”