 | Letters of Mrs. Adams, |  |
TO MRS. SHAW.
I received, by Dr. W—, your kind letter of February
14th. He was very punctual to his commission.
He has been three times to visit us. He came out this
afternoon to let me know that he should leave Philadelphia
on Tuesday. By him I have to thank my dear
sister for three letters, and to confess myself much
in arrears. 'T is in vain to say that I have had a
sick family; that I have had a large family; that I
have been engaged in company. These are poor
excuses for not writing; nor will I exculpate myself
by alleging that I wanted a subject. My pride would
not suffer such a plea. What, then, has been the
cause? "Confess freely, and say that it was mere
indolence,—real laziness," as in truth I fear it has
been. Yet conscience, that faithful monitor, has
reprehended me very, very often. I was very sick;
(so sick, that I have not yet recovered the shock I
New York. When I got to this place, I found this
house just calculated to make the whole family sick;
cold, damp, and wet with new paint. A fine place
for an invalid; but, through a kind Providence, I
sustained it, though others suffered. Happily, after
a very tedious two months, Thomas recovered so as
to get abroad; but his health is now very infirm, and
I fear an attendance upon two offices through the
day, and studying through the evening at home, is
not calculated to mend it. But it is a maxim here,
that he who dies with studying dies in a good cause,
and may go to another world much better calculated
to improve his talents, than if he had died a blockhead.
Well, knowledge is a fine thing, and mother
Eve thought so; but she smarted so severely for
hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of
it since.
We have had a very severe winter in this State,
as you may judge when I tell you that we have
consumed forty cords of wood in four months. It
has been as cold as any winter we have at the northward.
The 17th and 18th of this month I dined
with all my windows open, put out the fires, and ate
ice to cool me; the glasses at 80, This is the
20th. Yesterday it snowed nearly the whole day,
and to-day it is a keen northwester; and I presume
it will freeze hard to-night. Yet the verdure is
beautiful; full as much as I shall find by the middle
of May in Massachusetts, where I hope then to be.
Yet I shall have some regrets at leaving this place,
upon me. I am told that this spot is very delightful
as a summer residence. The house is spacious.
The views from it are rather beautiful than sublime;
the country round has too much of the level to be
in my style. The appearance of uniformity wearies
the eye, and confines the imagination. We have a
fine view of the whole city from our windows; a
beautiful grove behind the house, through which
there is a spacious gravel walk, guarded by a number
of marble statues, whose genealogy I have not
yet studied, as the last week is the first time I have
visited them. A variety of fine fields of wheat and
grass are in front of the house, and, on the right
hand, a pretty view of the Schuylkill presents itself.
But now for the reverse of the picture. We are
only two miles from town, yet have I been more
of a prisoner this winter than I ever was in my
life. The road from hence to the pavement is one
mile and a half, the soil a brick clay, so that, when
there has been heavy rain, or a thaw, you must
wallow to the city through a bed of mortar without
a bottom, the horses sinking to their knees. If it
becomes cold, then the holes and the roughness are
intolerable. From the inhabitants of this place I
have received every mark of politeness and civility.
The ladies here are well-educated, well-bred, and
well-dressed. There is much more society than in
New York, and I am much better pleased and satisfied
than I expected to be when I was destined to remove
here.
| Letters of Mrs. Adams, | |