 | Letters of Mrs. Adams, |  |
TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
I hope you have had no occasion, either from enemies
or the dangers of the sea, to repent your second
voyage to France. If I had thought your reluctance
arose from proper deliberation, or that you were capable
of judging what was most for your own benefit,
I should not have urged you to accompany your
father and brother when you appeared so averse to
the voyage.
You, however, readily submitted to my advice,
and, I hope, will never have occasion yourself, nor
give me reason, to lament it. Your knowledge of
the language must give you greater advantages now
than you could possibly have reaped whilst ignorant
of it; and as you increase in years, you will find
your understanding opening and daily improving.
Some author, that I have met with, compares a
judicious traveller to a river, that increases its stream
the further it flows from its source; or to certain
springs, which, running through rich veins of minerals,
improve their qualities as they pass along. It
will be expected of you, my son, that, as you are
favored with superior advantages under the instructive
eye of a tender parent, your improvement should
bear some proportion to your advantages. Nothing
is wanting with you but attention, diligence, and
steady application. Nature has not been deficient.
These are times in which a genius would wish to
live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose
of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.
Would Cicero have shone so distinguished an orator
if he had not been roused, kindled, and inflamed by
the tyranny of Catiline, Verres, and Mark Anthony?
The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending
with difficulties. All history will convince
you of this, and that wisdom and penetration are the
fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and
leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.
When a mind is raised and animated by scenes that
engage the heart, then those qualities, which would
character of the hero and the statesman. War, tyranny,
and desolation are the scourges of the Almighty,
and ought no doubt to be deprecated. Yet it is your
lot, my son, to be an eyewitness of these calamities
in your own native land, and, at the same time, to
owe your existence among a people who have made
a glorious defence of their invaded liberties, and
who, aided by a generous and powerful ally, with
the blessing of Heaven, will transmit this inheritance
to ages yet unborn.
Nor ought it to be one of the least of your incitements
towards exerting every power and faculty of
your mind, that you have a parent who has taken so
large and active a share in this contest, and discharged
the trust reposed in him with so much satisfaction
as to be honored with the important embassy
which at present calls him abroad.
The strict and inviolable regard you have ever paid
to truth, gives me pleasing hopes that you will not
swerve from her dictates, but add justice, fortitude,
and every manly virtue which can adorn a good
citizen, do honor to your country, and render your
parents supremely happy, particularly your ever
affectionate mother,
| Letters of Mrs. Adams, | |