Papers of John Adams, volume 1
I had the Pleasure, a few Days since, of receiving your favour of February 4th.2 I am obliged to you for your advice, and for the manly and rational Reflections with which you inforced it. I think I have deliberately weighed the subject and had almost determined as you advise. Upon the Stage of Life, we have each of us a part, a laborious and difficult Part, to Act, but we are all capable of acting our Parts, however difficult, to the best advantage. Upon common Theatres indeed the applause of the Audience is of more importance to the Actors than their own approbation. But upon the Stage of Life, while Concience Clapps, let the World hiss! On the contrary if Conscience disapproves, the loudest applauses of the World are of little Value. While our own minds commend, we may calmly despise all the Frowns, all the Censure, all the Malignity of men.
We have indeed the liberty of Chusing what Character we shall sustain in this great and important Drama. But to chuse rightly, we should consider in what Character we can do the most service to our fellow men, as well as to our selves. The Man who lives wholly to himself is of less worth than the Cattle in his Barn. Let us look upon a Lawyer: In the beginning of Life we see him, fumbling and raking amidst the rubbish of Writs, indightments, Pleas, ejectments, enfiefed, illatebration and a 1000 other lignum Vitae words that have neither harmony nor meaning. When he getts into Business, he often foments more quarrells than he composes, and inriches himself at the expence 13of impoverishing others more honest and deserving than himself. Besides the noise and bustle of Courts, and the labour of inquiring into and pleading dry and difficult Cases, have very few Charms in my Eyes. The study of Law is indeed an Avenue to the more important offices of the state, and the happiness of human Society is an object worth the pursuit of any man. But the Acquisition of these important offices depends upon
The Physician If he has real Skill and Ingenuity, as things go now, will have no employment. And if he has not skill and Ingenuity, will kill rather than Cure. I have not mentioned the infinite toil and Labour of his Occupation.
The Divine has a Thousand Obstacles to encounter. He has his own and his Peoples Prejudices to Combat—the capricious Humours and Fancies of the Vulgar to submit to—Poverty to struggle with—the charge of Heresy to bear—systematical Divinity, alias systematical vexation of spirit to study and sift. But on the other hand He has more Leisure to inform his mind, to subdue his Passions—fewer Temptations to intemperance and injustice, tho' more to trimming and Hypocrisy—an opportunity of diffusing Truth and Virtue among his People. Upon the Whole I think if he relies on his own understanding more than the decrees of Councils, or the sentiments of Fathers, if he resolutely discharges the Duties of his Station, according to the Dictates of his mind, if he spends his Time in the improvement of his Head in Knowledge and his heart in Virtue, instead of sauntering about the streets, he will be able to do more good to his fellow men and make better provision for his own future Happiness in this Profession, than in any other.
However I am as yet very contented in the place of a School Master. I shall not therefore very suddenly become a Preacher. When I do I hope to live a year or two in the same neighbourhood with you. Had indulgent Heaven thrown me into the neighbourhood of a
P.S. There is a story about Town that I am an Orminian.4
Pray write me, every opportunity, and be so kind as to omit 1/2 dozen wafers in your next. The last was barr'd and barricadoed with 14so many Seals, that I was out of all patience before I could come to the Treasure.5
The Month at Goodspeed's), 19:[134] (Feb. 1948). For other texts and a summary account of how this early and characteristic letter became publicly known, see note 5.
Harvard Graduates
, 13:563–569).
Not found.
Apparently worn away in a crease of the original; illegible in the facsimile. The early printings and transcripts (see note 5) give the name as Dalton, which is unquestionably correct. Harvard Graduates
, 13:569–578).
Thus clearly in the facsimile; indeed the initial letter is heavily overwritten so that it cannot be taken for anything other than “O.” No doubt there is a play on words here: an Arminian was a believer in the possibility of universal redemption and thus an anti-Calvinist; but what JA meant by an “Orminian” is his own private joke with Cushing.
Nantucket Gazette, 1 Feb. 1817, followed by JA to Cushing, 19 Oct. 1756, below. It there has the caption “To Mr. Charles Cushing, School Master, in Newbury,” which we may assume is the address on the cover of the unlocated original. The contributor of both letters, who signed himself “P.,” gives no hint of how these “literary curiosities” came into his hands. Both were reprinted in the Boston Daily Advertiser of 5 March 1817, and a few days later Charles Cushing, son of the recipient, wrote to JA from Roxbury a letter very apologetic in tone, saying he could not possibly explain how these private letters, long in a trunk in the family's possession, got into circulation except by an act of theft, which he considered an “atrocity” that would have greatly distressed his father (Cushing to JA, 10 March 1817, Adams Papers). In a prompt reply, JA reassured the younger Cushing that he should give himself no further trouble about this “riddle”:
“The Letters, while they have afforded some amusement to my Friends, have excited many tender recollections as well as serious reflections in me. I was like a Boy in a Carrefour in a Wilderness in a strange Country, with half a dozen roads before him groping in a dark night to find which he ought to take. Had I been obliged to tell your Father the whole Truth, I should have mentioned several other pursuits, Farming, Merchandize, Seas, and above all War. Nothing but want of Interest and Patronage prevented me from inlisting in the Army. Could I have obtained a Troop of Horse or a company of Foot I should infallibly have been a Soldier. It is a problem in my Mind to this day whether I should have been a Coward or a Hero.” (To Charles Cushing, 13 March 1817, NhPoA; LbC, Adams Papers.)
Two early transcripts of both letters to Cushing, probably from the Advertiser text, remain among the Adams Papers. An entry in J. Q. Adams' Diary for 19 Aug. 1829 explains their presence: “copies of them made by Mrs. S. B. Clarke
RC of the present letter appeared at least once in the autograph market before 1948; it was lot 3 in the Hess sale at the Anderson Galleries, New York city, 24 Jan. 1908.
I am set down with a Design of writing to you.—But the narrow Sphere I move in, and the lonely unsociable Life I lead, can furnish a Letter with little more than Complaints of my hard fortune. I am condemnd to keep School two Years longer. This I sometimes consider as a very grievous Calamity and almost sink under the Weight of Woe.—But shall I dare to complain and to murmur against Providence for this little Punishment, when my very Existence, all the Pleasure I enjoy now, and all the Advantages I have of preparing for hereafter, are Expression of Benevolence that I never did and never could deserve? Shall I Censure the Conduct of that Being who has poured around me, a great Profusion, of those good Things that I really want, because he has kept from me other Things that might be improper and fatal to me if I had them. That Being has furnished my Body with several senses, and the world around it with objects suitable to gratify them. He has made me an erect Figure, and has placed in the most advantageous Part of my Body, the sense of Sight. And He has hung up in the Heavens over my Head and Spread out in the Fields of Nature around me those glorious Shows and appearances with which my Eyes and my Imagination are extremely delighted. I am pleasd with the beautiful Appearance of the Flower, and still more pleased with the Prospect of Forrests and of Meadows, of verdant Feilds and Mountains covered with Flocks, but I am thrown into a kind of Transport when I behold the amazing Concave of Heaven sprinkled and glittering with Starrs. That Being has bestowed upon some of the Vegetable species a fragrance that can almost as agreably entertain our sense of smell. He has so wonderfully constituted the Air we live in, that by giving it a particular Kind of Vibration, it produces in us as intense sensations of Pleasure as the organs of our Bodies can bear in all the varieties of Harmony and Concord. But all the Provision that he has made for the Gratification of my senses, tho very engaging Instances of Kindness, are much inferiour to the Provisions for the Gratification of my nobler Powers of Intelligence 16and Reason. He has given me Reason to find out the Truth, and the real Design of my Existence here, and has made all Endeavours to promote that Design, agreable to my mind, and attended with a conscious Pleasure and Complacency. On the Contrary, he has made a different Course of Life, a Course of Impiety and Injustice, of Malevolence and Intemperance, appear shocking and deformed to my first Reflection. He has made my Mind capable of receiving an infinite Variety of Ideas from those numerous material Objects with which we are environed. And of retaining, compounding and arranging the vigourous Impressions which we receive from these into all the Varieties of Picture and of Figure. By inquiring into the Scituation, Produce, Manufactures &c. of our own, and by travailing into, or reading about other Countries, I can gain distinct Ideas of almost every Thing upon this Earth at present, and by looking into history I can settle in my mind a clear and a Comprehensive View of the Earth at its Creation, of its various Changes and Revolutions, of its progressive Improvement, sudden Depopulation by a Deluge, and its graduall Repeopling, of the Growth of several Kingdoms and Empires, of their Wealth and Commerce, their Wars and Politicks, of the Characters of their principal Leading Men, of their Grandeur and Power their Virtues and Vices, of their insensible Decays at first, and of their swift Destruction at last. In fine we can attend the Earth from its Nativity, thro all the various Turns of Fortune, through all its successive Changes, thro all the Events that happen on its surface, and all the successive Generations of Mankind, to the final Conflagration, when the whole Earth with its appendages shall be consumed by the furious Element of Fire. And after our minds are furnishd with this ample store of Ideas, far from feeling burdend or overloaded, our thots are more free, and active, and clear than before, and we are capable of spreading our acquaintance with Things much further. Far from being satiated with Knowledge our Curiosity is only improved and increasd, our Thoughts rove beyond the visible diurnal sphere, range thro the immeasurable Regions of the Universe, and loose them selves amongst a Labyrinth of Worlds, and not contented with knowing what is, they run forward into Futurity, and search for new Employment there. Then they can never stop! The wide, the boundless Prospect lies before them! Here alone they find Objects adequate to their Desires. Shall I now presume to complain of my hard Fate, when such ample Provision has been made to gratify all my senses, and all the Faculties of my soul? God forbid.1 I am happy and I will remain so, while Health is indulgd to me, in Spight of all the other 17Adverse Circumstances that Fortune can place me in. I expect to be joked upon, for writing in this serious manner, when it shall be known what a Resolution I have lately taken. I have engagd with Mr. Putnam to study Law with him, 2 years, and to keep the school at the same time.2 It will be hard work, but the more difficult and dangerous the Enterprize, a brighter Crown of Lawrell is bestowed on the Conqueror. However I am not without Apprehensions concerning the success of this Resolution. But I am under much fewer Apprehensions than I was when I thought of preaching. The frightful Engines of Ecclesiastical Co
Compare the similar reflections, including some almost identical language, under dates of 7 and 22 Aug. 1756 in JA's Diary and Autobiography
, 1:40–41, 43–44.
“22
On Harvard Graduates
, 12:57–64, and numerous references in JA's Diary and Autobiography
.
The protracted and disagreeable case of Rev. Lemuel Briant, Harvard 1739, minister of the First or North Church of Braintree and a reputed Arminian, was fresh in JA's mind. See JA, Diary and Autobiography
, 3:262; Sibley-Shipton, Harvard Graduates
, 10:341–348.