12 February 1815
adams-john10 Neal Millikan
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12. VII. The tendency to dissipation at Paris seems to be irresistible— There is a moral incapacity for industry and application; a mollesse against which I am as ill-guarded as I was at the age of twenty— I received on Friday a Letter from Mr Smith, requesting me to look out for lodgings for him, and Mr Todd promised me yesterday, to call upon me this day at noon, and go out with me for the purpose. He came accordingly and we walked— Among the houses to which I went was the Hotel de Valois, the same house where I lodged with my father in 1778. April the first time I ever was at Paris— It was then a magnificent and elegantly furnished Hotel— It is now altogether in decay, and scarcely furnished at all— Yet the price of the Apartments is as high as at the best Hotels— We also went to the Hotel d’Orleans, Rue des Petits-Augustins, and to one or two others, but I concluded to take lodgings for Mr Smith for one week at the house where I am the 223Hotel du Nord. I went with Todd, rather by accident than design into the Salon d’Exposition and the National Museum, where, intending to spend half an hour, we passed three whole ones, and finally were obliged to withdraw at four O’Clock when the doors were to be closed. The multitude of objects was such as left my mind in a state of confusion— The Apollo; the Laocoon, the Venus de Medicis, with a great number of other antique Statues—the transfiguration of Raphael, the Descent from the Cross by Rubens, and all the master-pieces of painting here collected, contrasted with the glare of colouring, and unnatural attitudes of the pictures at the exposition, took from me all faculty of meditation and almost of discrimination— It was five O’Clock when I came home; and I spent the Evening in my chamber; writing; and endeavouring to retrieve the arrears of this Journal, which had already run up to nine or ten days.

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