Yet, this was but a momentary depression, for he uttered in almost the same breath—
Everything will be cleared up in a reasonable time.
Amid the constant daily duties he found real solace in his scientific pursuits; indeed when he was quite prepared to abandon all his activities he declared of his experiments that he could not stop them for
I consider them as that study of the works of the great Creator, which I shall resume with more advantage hereafter.
He advised his friends Lindsey and Belsham—
I cannot express what I feel on receiving your letters. They set my thoughts afloat, so that I can do nothing but ruminate a long time; but it is a most pleasing melancholy.
Far removed from European events he was nevertheless ever keen and alert concerning them. Then the winter of 1797 appears to have been very severe. His enforced confinement to home probably gave rise to an introspection, and a slight disappointment in matters which had formerly given him pleasure. For example, he puzzled over the fact that on his second visit to Philadelphia, Mr. Adams was present but once at his lectures, and remarks—
When my lectures were less popular, and he was near his presidentship, he left me, making a kind of apology, from the members of the principal Presbyterian Church having offered him a pew there. He seem
ed to interest himself in my favour against M. Volney, but did not subscribe to my Church History ... I suppose he was not pleased that I did not adopt his dislike of the French.