 | Letters of Mrs. Adams, |  |
TO MRS. SHAW.
From the interest you take in every thing which concerns
your friends, I hear you inquiring how I do,
how I live, whom I see, where I visit, who visit me.
I know not whether your curiosity extends so far as
the color of the house, which is white stone, and to
the furniture of the chamber where I sleep. If it
does, you must apply to Betsey Cranch for information,
whose fancy has employed itself so busily as to
seek for intelligence even in the minutiæ; and,
although they look trifling upon paper, yet, if our
friends take an interest in them, that renders them
important; and I am the rather tempted to a compliance
from the recollection, that, when I have received
a sentimental letter from an absent friend, I
have passed over the sentiment at the first reading,
and hunted for that part, which more particularly related
to themselves.
This village, where we reside, is four miles from
the learned men. who have inhabited it. Such were
Boileau, Molière, D'Aguesseau, and Helvétius. The
first and last lived near this hôtel, and Boileau's
garden is preserved as a choice relic. As to my
own health, it is much as usual. I suffer through
want of exercise, and grow too fat. I cannot persuade
myself to walk an hour in the day, in a long
entry which we have, merely for exercise; and as
to the streets, they are continually a quagmire. No
walking there without boots or wooden shoes, neither
of which are my feet calculated for. Mr. Adams
makes it his constant practice to walk several miles
every day, without which he would not be able to
preserve his health, which at best is but infirm. He
professes himself so much happier for having his
family with him, that I feel amply gratified in
having ventured across the ocean. He is determined,
that nothing but the inevitable stroke of death
shall in future separate him at least from one part
of it; so that I know not what climates I may yet
have to visit,—more, I fear, than will be agreeable
to either of us.
If you want to know the manners and customs of
this country, I answer you, that pleasure is the business
of life, more especially upon a Sunday. We
have no days with us or rather with you, by which
I can give you any idea of them, except Commencements
and Elections. We have a pretty wood
within a few rods of this house, which is called the
Bois de Boulogne. This is cut into many regular
it looked like Boston and Cambridge Commons
upon the public days I have mentioned. Paris is a
horrid dirty city, and I know not whether the inhabitants
could exist, if they did not come out one
day in the week to breathe a fresh air. I have sat
at my window of a Sunday, and seen whole cartloads
of them at a time. I speak literally; for those,
who neither own a coach nor are able to hire one,
procure a cart, which in this country is always
drawn by horses. Sometimes they have a piece of
canvass over it. There are benches placed in them,
and in this vehicle you will see as many well-dressed
women and children as can possibly pile in, led out
by a man, or driven. Just at the entrance of the
wood they descend. The day is spent in music,
dancing, and every kind of play. It is a very rare
thing to see a man with a hat anywhere but under
his arm, or a woman with a bonnet upon her head.
This would brush off the powder, and spoil the elegant
toupet. They have a fashion of wearing a
hood or veil either of gauze or silk. If you send
for a tailor in this country, your servant will very
soon introduce to you a gentleman full dressed in
black, with his head as white as a snow-bank, and
which a hat never rumpled. If you send to a mantua-maker,
she will visit you in the same style, with her
silk gown and petticoat, her head in ample order,
though, perhaps, she lives up five pair of stairs, and
eats nothing but bread and water, as two thirds of
these people do. We have a servant in our family,
not be guilty of tending table unfrizzed, upon any
consideration. He dresses the hair of his young
master, but has his own dressed by a hair-dresser.
By the way, I was guilty of a sad mistake in London.
I desired the servant to procure me a barber.
The fellow stared, and was loth to ask for what purpose
I wanted him. At last he said, "You mean a
hair-dresser, Madam, I believe?" "Ay," says I,
"I want my hair dressed." "Why, barbers, Madam,
in this country, do nothing but shave."
When I first came to this country, I was loth to
submit to such an unnecessary number of domestics,
as it appeared to me, but I soon found that they
would not let me do without them; because, every
one having a fixed and settled department, they
would not lift a pin out of it, although two thirds of
the time they had no employment. We are however
thankful that we are able to make eight do for
us, though we meet with some difficulties for want of
a ninth. Do not suppose from this, that we live
remarkably nice. I never put up in America with
what I do here. I often think of Swift's High
Dutch bride, who had so much nastiness, and so
much pride.
| Letters of Mrs. Adams, | |