Part 14 (1/2)
In other letters she ill.u.s.trated observations in the same spirit by these quotations:
”Shall I determine where his frowns shall fall, And fence my grotto from the lot of ALL?”
”Prompt at every call, Can watch and weep and pray and feel for ALL.”
One evening, at his house in F street in Was.h.i.+ngton, he spoke of Judge Parsons, of his depth and subtlety, and the conciseness of his language.
”Soon after I entered his office he said to us students--'Lord Bacon observes that ”reading makes a full man, conversation a ready man, writing a correct man.” Young gentlemen, my advice to you is, that you study to be full, ready and correct.' I thought,” said Mr. Adams, ”that I never heard good advice so well conveyed.”
He was asked by the writer whether he had ever received any acknowledgment of his services, any mark of grat.i.tude from the colored people of the District? ”None,” said he--”except that I now and then hear, _in a low tone_, a hearty G.o.d BLESS YOU! That is enough.”
It was enough; enough for recompense and for justification, since we are in the sad pa.s.s that justification is needed--since
”Virtue itself of Vice must pardon beg, And pray for leave to do him good.”
So then, in this Republic there are millions of human hearts, which are not permitted to love a benefactor, and dare not utter for him an invocation, kindred to their devotion to G.o.d, except ”in a low tone!”
When in 1846 Mr. Adams was struck the first time with palsy, he was visited by Charles Sumner, who sat much by his bedside. As he became better, he said one day to his visitor: ”You will enter public life; you do not want it, but you will be drawn into the current, in spite of yourself. Now I have a word of advice to give you. _Never accept a present._ While I was in Russia, the Minister of the Interior, an old man, whose conscience became more active as his bodily powers failed, grew uneasy on account of the presents he had received. He calculated the value of them, and paid it all over to the Imperial treasury. This put me to thinking upon the subject, and I then made a resolution never to accept a present while I remained in the public service; and I never have, unless it was some trifling token, as a hat or cane.”
A neighboring clergyman, to whom this conversation was related, exclaimed--”A hat! That cannot be, for he never had any but an old one.”
It was a tradition in Cambridge that Mr. Adams, while Professor in the University, was noted for indifference to personal appearance, and his well-worn hat was particularly remembered.
In the relation of husband Mr. Adams showed the same fidelity and devotedness which characterized him in every other. He was united to a woman whose virtues and accomplishments blessed and adorned his home. In a letter written shortly after his n.o.ble vindication of the character of woman, and the propriety and utility of their intervention in public affairs, he said:
”Had I not, by the dispensation of Providence, been blessed beyond the ordinary lot of humanity in all the domestic relations of life, as a son, a brother, and a husband, I should still have thought myself bound to vindicate the social rights and the personal honor of the pet.i.tioners, who had confided to me the honorable trust of presenting the expression of their wishes to the legislative councils of the nation. But that this sense of imperious duty was quickened within my bosom by the affectionate estimate of the female character impressed upon my heart and mind by the virtues of the individual woman, with whom it has been my lot to pa.s.s in these intimate relations my days upon earth, I have no doubt.”
In 1840 he had a severe fall, striking his head against the corner of an iron rail, which inflicted a heavy contusion on his forehead, and rendered him for some time insensible. His left shoulder was likewise dislocated. This occurred at the House of Representatives after adjournment. Fortunately several members were within call, and gave him the most tender and a.s.siduous a.s.sistance. He was carried to the lodgings of one of them, and a physician called. With the united strength of four men, it took more than an hour to reduce the dislocation. ”Still,” says a witness of the scene, ”Mr. Adams uttered not a murmur, though the great drops of sweat which rolled down his furrowed cheeks, or stood upon his brow, told but too well the agony he suffered.” At his request he was immediately conveyed to his house; and the next morning, to the astonishment of every one, he was found in his seat as usual. He was accustomed to be the first to enter the House and the last to leave it.
Mr. Everett tells us that he had his seat by the side of the veteran, and that he should not have been more surprised to miss one of the marble pillars from the hall than Mr. Adams.
That this painful accident did not impair the vigor of his mind is evident from the fact that he subsequently argued the Amistad case, and sustained the fierce contest of three days on the expulsion resolution in the House. It was three years later also that he made the journey for the benefit of his health, which turned out an improvised and continuous ovation. He had designed merely to visit Lebanon Springs. He was so much pleased with his journey thus far into the State of New-York, that he concluded to prolong it to Quebec, Montreal, and Niagara Falls, and return to Ma.s.sachusetts through the length of the empire State. This return was signalized by attentions and homage on the part of the people so spontaneous and unanimous, that nothing which has occurred since the progress of La Fayette, has equalled it. ”Public greetings, processions, celebrations, met and accompanied every step of his journey.” Addresses by eminent men, and acclamations of men, women, and children, who thronged the way, bore witness of the deep hold which the man, without accessories of office and pageantry of state, had of their hearts. Of this excursion he said himself towards the close of it, ”I have not come alone, the whole people of the State of New-York have been my companions.” In the autumn of the same year he went to Cincinnati to a.s.sist in laying the foundation of an observatory. This journey was attended by similar demonstrations. At a cordial greeting given him at Maysville, Kentucky, after an emphatic testimony to the integrity of Mr.
Clay, he made that renewed and solemn denial of the charges of ”bargain and corruption.”
He suffered a stroke of paralysis in November, 1846, but recovered, and took his seat at the ensuing session of Congress. He regarded this as equivalent to a final summons, and made no subsequent entry in his faithful diary except under the t.i.tle of ”posthumous.” After this he spoke little in the House.
In November, 1847, he left his home in Quincy for the last time. On the twentieth of February he pa.s.sed his last evening at his house in Was.h.i.+ngton. He retired to his library at nine o'clock, where his wife read to him a sermon by Bishop Wilberforce on Time. The next morning he rose early and occupied himself with his pen as he was wont. With more than usual spryness and alacrity he ascended the stairs of the Capitol.
In the House a resolution for awarding thanks and gold medals to several officers concerned in the Mexican war was taken up. Mr. Adams uttered his emphatic _No!_ on two or three preliminary questions. When the final question was about to be put, and while he was in the act of rising, as it was supposed, to address the House, he sunk down. He was borne to the speaker's room. He revived so far as to inquire for his wife, who was present. He seemed desirous of uttering thanks. The only distinct words he articulated were, ”This is the end of earth. I am content.” He lingered until the evening of the twenty-third, and then expired.
Thus he fell at his post in the eighty-first year of his age, the age of Plato. With the exception of Phocion there is no active public life continued on the great arena, with equal vigor and usefulness, to so advanced an age. Lord Mansfield retired at eighty-three; but the quiet routine of a judicial station is not as trying as the varied and boisterous contentions of a political and legislative a.s.sembly. Ripe as he was for heaven; he was still greatly needed upon earth. His services would have been of inestimable importance in disposing of the perilous questions, not yet definitively settled, which arose out of unhallowed war and conquest.
There is not much satisfaction in dwelling upon the general effusions of eloquence, or the pageantry which ensued. A single glance of guileless love from the men, women and children, who came forth from their smiling villages to greet the virtuous old statesman in his unpretending journeys, was worth the whole of it. The hearty tribute of Mr. Benton, so long a denouncer, has an exceptional value, the greater because he had made honorable amends to the departed during his life. That he was sincerely and deeply mourned by the nation, it would be a libel on the nation to doubt. His remains rested appropriately in Independence and Faneuil Halls on the way to their final resting place, the tomb he had made for those of his venerated parents. There he was laid by his neighbors and townsmen, sorrowing for the friend and the MAN. His monument is to stand on the other side of the pulpit.
Happy place which hallows such memories, and holds up such EXAMPLES.
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