10 June 1781
adams-john10 Religion
5

Sunday June the 10th 1781. This morning I got up at about 7 1/2 o’clock breakfasted and at about 9 o’clock Pappa, brother Charles & myself went to 6the English presbyterian Church and heard a Sermon; the text was in Thessaloniens 1st: 5 Ch: 17th vs. “pray Without ceasing”

We got home at about eleven o clock as we came out of the Church we found Mr Jennings in the Coach, he said he had been deterred by his barber: we din’d at home; Mr Jennings din’d with us; At two o’clock brother Charles and Myself went again to Church; our text was in the Psalms: after Church we went to Mr Kaa’s to see Mr Bordly but he was gone out to take a walk; but we found Mr Jennings, Mr Brush,1 Dr: Brown, Mr: Greves & two other gentlemen, & soon after Mr Bordly came in. We stay’d there some time and then Mr Jennings came with brother Charles and 7Myself to Pappa’s house; the other gentlemen went to take a walk; at about 6 o’clock Pappa and Mr Jennings went out together, and brother Charles and I, went to see Mrs: Sigourny2 and Ingraham they were gone to take a walk, but the ladies were at home, we found Mr Thaxter there, some time after the Gentlemen came home; we stay’d there about an hour and at about 7 o clock we came back again; we found Mr Guild and Mr Jennings here; at about Nine o clock we went to Madm: Chabanel’s; we found her, and the young ladies at home, but Mr Le Roi and young Mr Chabanel were gone out; we supp’d there and got home at about 10 1/2 o’clock. At 8At about 11 o’clock we went to bed.3

From Shakespear.

Chap. 2.

Jaques) “All the world’s a Stage

And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts His acts being seven ages. At first the infant Mewling and pewking in the nurse’s arms. And then the whining school-boy with his satchel, And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woful balad Made to his mistress’ eye-brow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden & quick in quarrel; Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth; And then the Justice, In fair round belly, with good capon lin’d, With eyes severe, & beard of formal cut, 9Full of wise saw’s & modern instances, And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice Turning again toward childish treble pipes, And whistles in the sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness, and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.[”]

As You like it Act 2d: Sc: 9th:

1.

Eliphalet Brush, New York shipowner and merchant, who returned to America from Amsterdam in late September with dispatches to congress from JA. He and his brothers, sons of a prominent Huntington, N.Y., merchant, owned extensive plantations in Demarara, British Guiana, now called Georgetown, Guyana (Conklin Mann, “Thomas and Richard Brush of Huntington, Long Island,” N.Y. Geneal. and Biog. Rec., 67:21, 132 [Jan., April 1936]; Adams Family Correspondence, 4:219).

 2.

Charles Sigourney, a Boston merchant and partner in the Amsterdam mercantile firm of Sigourney, Ingraham & Bromfield (Sigourney to Aaron Lopez, 6 March 1781, MHi:Wetmore Coll.; JA, Diary and Autobiography , 2:453–454, 456; Boston Directory, 1789). See also entry for 19 Aug. 1780, note 3 (above).

 3.

Here follows “Chap. 2.” on about one and one-half pages in the Diary, 28 lines, beginning, “All the world’s a stage,” from As You Like It.

A A