Adams Family Correspondence, volume 13
On Tuesday Mr T. B. Adams left Us, at
Eleven in the stage for New York & Boston and consequently Quincy.— I should have
been glad to have held him till I could carry him with me: but I thought it my Duty to
comply with his desire, both for his sake and yours.— He Seems determined to settle in
Phyladelphia.— He would have a happier Life, and be a more important Man in Quincy: But
I must do & say as My Father did to me: leave him to his own Inclination and
acquiesce in it as a dispensation of Providence. You will find him very agreable and
pleasant.
By the time he returns, I expect the Plague will drive him out, again.— It is undoubtedly here lurking about the City all this Winter. Tazewell did not die of it: but I suppose of an Appoplexie tho they call it a Pleurisie.
We had Yesterday a large Company: C. J. McKean and the Judges & Lawyers of Pensylvania with some Members of Congress:
all very agreable. I am reading the K. of Prussias Correspondence with Voltaire
D’Alembert &c He is forever talking of his Age Infirmities, Decline & Decay. His
Memory is going. His Imagination is gone— His Teeth fail— His Limbs are stiff &
goutty— He is broken— He is old— &c &c &c—1 Yet at last When he was really old and broken he
could not bear to hear of it.
His Phylosophy was bad enough: tho not so bad is that of others then & since. His Wit is to me a little dull— His humour heavy—391There is an Affectation of Gaiety, which however does not make the Reader very gay.—2 Frank waits for my Lettr.
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs A”;
endorsed: “J A Febry 1 / 1799.”
JA was reading and annotating Frederick II’s
correspondence with Voltaire and Jean le Rond d’Alembert in volumes 8 through 12 of
Oeuvres posthumes de Fréderic II, 16 vols., Berlin,
1788, 1789; the comments on the effects of aging appear on 10:71, 86–87, and
12:45.
JA also commented on Frederick II’s writings in a 25 Jan. letter to AA: “I shall never imitate his Idolatry for Voltaire. His Materialism appears to me very Superficial. He insists upon being all matter, without knowing what matter is. The Monades, the Etres Simples, the Atoms, the Molecules organniques, all these Grupes & Fictions are as nonsensical as the Occult qualities— Human Knowledge cannot penetrate so deep.— I was profoundly learned in all that Jargon at twenty Years of Age— But found it all Useless; and renounced it, for Fee simple and Fee tail” (Adams Papers).