For a number of years, no incidents occurred in the life of Miss Adams which claim peculiar notice. It is a long road, with only here and there a milestone. She continued to write, but on subjects not at all congenial with her own taste. She was enthusiastic, and a great lover of poetry and fiction; but on these subjects she distrusted herself, and made it her constant study to accommodate her mind to common life. Her History of New England is evidence of her perseverance in this purpose, as that work was undertaken soon after the second edition of her ‘View of Religious Opinions.’
In her memoirs, she mentions her difficulty of procuring books that would aid her in her purposes. The very uncommon faculty she possessed of comprehending, and making her own, the information a book contained, greatly assisted her labors. She was invited to pass a week or two at the late President Adams’s, at Quincy, with the offer of his library as an inducement to accept the invitation. He was much struck with the rapidity with which she went through folios of the venerable Fathers; and made some pleasant remarks in consequence, which induced her to speak of their contents. He then found, that, while she had been turning over leaf after leaf, she had been culling all that could be useful in her labors. She possessed the power of application to an uncommon degree, and was often so entirely engrossed in her subject, as to be unconscious of the lapse of time. This abstraction gave rise to many little anecdotes. It was said that she often spent days at the Atheneum; and that the librarian, after some ineffectual attempts to disengage her from her book, would lock the door, go home to his dinner, and return again, and find her in the same spot; and unconscious either of his absence, or that the dinner hour was past. A friend repeated this account to her, and asked her if it was true. She said in reply, ‘It is very much exaggerated, I don’t think it ever happened more than once or twice.’
It was on a visit to Boston, that Miss Adams first saw Mr Buckminster. He was then at college, and about sixteen years old. Those who knew him will not think her description of him an exaggerated one. ‘He had then,’ she said, ‘the bloom of health on his cheek, and the fire of genius in his eye. I did not know from which world he came, whether from heaven or earth.’ Though so young, he entered fully into her character; and before they parted, he gave her a short, but comprehensive sketch of the state of literature in France and Germany. After he became the Pastor of Brattle street Church, he, with Mr Higginson, and Mr Shaw the active founder of the Atheneum, proposed to Miss Adams, who, from an enfeebled constitution, had begun to grow infirm, to remove to Boston; at the same time procuring for her, through the liberal subscription of a few gentlemen, an annuity for life. She had then commenced her History of the Jews; and nothing could have been more favorable to its progress, or to her own ease of mind, than this benevolent arrangement. She could never speak of her benefactors without deep emotion.
From the Rev. Mr Buckminster she received the most judicious, and extensive assistance. She was in the habit of visiting him in his study, and had his permission to come when she pleased, to sit and read there as long as she pleased, or take any book home and use it like her own. Perhaps people are never perfectly easy with each other, till they feel at liberty to be silent in each other’s society. It was stipulated between them, that neither party should be obliged to talk. But her own language will best describe her feelings. ‘Mr Buckminster would sometimes read for hours without speaking. But, occasionally, flashes of genius would break forth in some short observation, or sudden remark, which electrified me. I never could have gone on with my history, without the use of his library. I was indebted to him for a new interest in life. He introduced me to a valuable circle of friends; and it was through him that I became acquainted with Mrs Dearborn, whose kindness and attention to me have been unceasing. His character was the perfection of humanity. His intellectual powers were highly cultivated and ennobled. Yet even the astonishing vigor and brightness of his intellect were outdone by the goodness of his heart.
‘No thought within his generous mind had birth,
But what he might have own’d to heaven and earth.’
Mr Buckminster assisted Miss Adams’s researches, and procured information for her, relative to the Jews. He took a warm interest in this oppressed people, and often prayed for them during communion service, in the same language in which Jesus had prayed for them. ‘Father, forgive them! for they know not what they do.’ For about two years after the removal of Miss Adams to Boston, she enjoyed this intercourse, visiting his study with the utmost freedom.
It is impossible not to look back with admiration upon the benevolence that prompted these kind attentions; and it is not a difficult effort of imagination to enter the library, and to view these laborious, and dissimilar students together. The one, distinguished by the natural ease, grace and elegance of his manners; the other, timid and helpless. The one, treading with the elastic step of youth, and the other declining into the vale of years; yet both drawn together by those sympathies, which spring from the fountain of perfect and everlasting good. Who would not be touched by the spectacle of a young man of distinguished talents, equally sought by the world of science, and of fashion, extending a helping hand, and devoting a portion of his valuable time, to a timid and helpless female, shrinking from the ills of life; but who indeed derived her happiness from the same sources that he did, literature and religion! When, from indisposition, she omitted for any length of time her visits, a kind note, or a still kinder call alleviated the infirmities of her health. But this happiness was not to last. Miss Adams was only one among the many who beheld Mr Buckminster disappear, at the early age of twenty-eight years, ‘in all the brightness of his honors, and without any twilight coming over his fame.’
Miss Adams corresponded with literary characters both abroad and at home, but she never preserved any copies of her own letters. She wrote with great simplicity, and singleness of heart, without any display, and set no value on her own composition. She had, indeed, a singular standard of judging. It was her firm persuasion, that she never wrote anything original. ‘It is other people’s thoughts,’ said she, ‘that I put into my own language.’ Were all writers brought to the same test, there are few that could claim much originality of thought; though the rich and varied modes of expression, and the different views which different minds take of fundamental truths, often give them the grace and charm of novelty. In this opinion of herself, however, she seems to refute her position; as it must be acknowledged that this view of her own works is rather original among authors. Her defect was, underrating, instead of overrating her powers. Her mind was like a well cultivated garden, stored with fruits and flowers, and watered by pure streams. But they were streams that flowed on just as nature had intended. There were no cascades, nor fountains, nor serpentine walks, nor rare exotics. All was simple, and natural.
Her timidity was excessive. It pervaded her whole character, and sometimes palsied the efforts of her mind. In her youth she amused herself with writing tales of fiction. ‘But,’ she said, ‘they all took their color from her own life. She could do nothing but kill and destroy; and when her situation became happier, and her mind more cheerful, she could not endure the sight of them.’ When very young, her health being in a feeble state, and not expecting to live long, she determined to write a number of letters to her young friends, after the manner of Mrs Rowe’s; intending they should reach them mysteriously, immediately on her death. But fortunately for the Jews, and for literature, her anticipations were not realized. She was early in life much in the habit of committing poetry to memory; and this she never forgot. ‘I could repeat poetry,’ said she, ‘I believe for three months together; and though I am now continually troubled by forgetting where I have laid a knife, a pencil, or a pen, yet the long poems I learned in my youth, I can repeat as accurately as ever.’ She went on to observe, that these recollections did not give her so much pleasure as might be supposed; for, as this poetry was selected when she was young, much of it was not of a kind which her maturer taste and judgment could approve.