 | Letters of Mrs. Adams, |  |
TO MRS. SMITH.
I received your kind letter of February 12th, as
well as one, by Mr. Storer, of February 2d. I have
been every day since thinking that I would write to
you, but a superior duty has occupied all my time
for six weeks past. I have been only two days
(when I was too sick to attend) absent from the
sick bed of your grandmother. Your desire, that
her last days might be rendered as comfortable as it
is possible to make them, has been fulfilled. There
has been no attention on my part, nor any comfort
in my power to render her, that she has one moment
wanted. She had spent a day with me the week
me from hearing from her for a couple of days. I
then learnt that she had a violent cold, as it was
supposed. I went immediately to see her, and
found her sick with a lung fever. Her granddaughters
have been affectionate, tender, and watchful
of her, but she has lived all the days of her appointed
time, and is now ready to depart. Her
senses are bright and quick, her hearing better than
for years past. Upon looking back she has no regrets;
upon looking forward she has all hope and
comfort. Her hourly wish is to be at rest. She
took her leave of me this evening, with her blessing
upon me and mine to the latest posterity. I told her
to-day that you desired to be remembered to her.
She asked me if I thought there was any thing,
which she had, that you would accept of. I answered,
that what she had I thought her granddaughters,
who were with her, deserved, and that I was sure
you would value her blessing more than any thing
else. "Well," she replied, "I pray God to bless
her and her children; and tell all who belong to me
to consider, that a virtuous and a religious life is the
only solid comfort upon a death-bed." She has
mourned much, since her sickness, that she should
never see your father again; but she now seems
reconciled to the thought of her approaching dissolution,
which cannot be far distant. She has no rest,
night nor day, her cough is so constant and troublesome;
and she can take scarcely any nourishment.
If she had reached the 17th of this month, she would
upon a similar occasion, "that my constant attendance
upon her has indeed affected my mind very
much, and lessened my desire of long life, since the
best that can come of it is a miserable benediction."
"Nothing," says Seneca," is so melancholy a circumstance
in human life, or so soon reconciles us to
the thought of our own death, as the reflection and
prospect of one friend after another dropping around
us. Who would stand alone, the sole remaining
ruin, the last tottering column of all the fabric of
friendship, seemingly so strong, once so large, and
yet so suddenly sunk and buried?"
Present me kindly to all my friends. In some
future letter I may notice several things in yours;
but my mind is too much solemnized by the scene
before me to add any thing more, than that I am
| Letters of Mrs. Adams, | |