1 November 1818
adams-john10 Neal MillikanRecreationFamily Relations (Adams Family)
430 November 1818

1. VI: Sunday. I was compelled reluctantly to devote this day to the duties of my Office—to prepare the draft of a despatch with Instructions to A. Gallatin and R. Rush, conformably to the decisions of the late Cabinet Meetings— It occupied the day, with the exception of an hour and a half before dinner, in which I took a long solitary walk, and another hour in which I was engaged in reading the Letters that came by the Mail. none from Boston or Quincy! not even that promised by Harriet Welsh! As the scene closes she is too constantly occupied to find a moment for writing, and how can she take the pen to dissolve that last hope, which she had led us still to cherish? My Mother was an Angel upon Earth— She was a Minister of blessing to all human beings within her sphere of action. Her heart was the abode of heavenly purity. She had no feelings but of kindness and beneficence— Yet her mind was as firm as her temper was mild and gentle— She had known sorrow—but her sorrow was silent— She was acquainted with grief; but it was deposited in her own bosom— She was the real personification of female virtue—of piety—of charity, of ever active, and never intermitting benevolence— Oh! God! could she have been spared yet a little longer!— My lot in life 431has been almost always cast at a distance from her. I have enjoyed but for short seasons and at long distant intervals the happiness of her Society— Yet she has been to me more than a Mother. She has been a Spirit from above watching over me for good, and contributing by my mere consciousness of her existence, to the comfort of my life— That consciousness is gone; and without her the world feels to me like a solitude— Oh! what must it be to my father, and how will he support life without her who has been to him its charm?— Not my will, heavenly father, but thine be done!

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