JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.
Quincy, September 3, 1816.
Dear Sir,—Dr. James Freeman is a learned, ingenious, honest and benevolent man, who wishes to see President Jefferson, and requests me to introduce him. If you would introduce some of your friends to me, I could, with more confidence, introduce mine to you. He is a Christian, but not a Pythagorian, a Platonic, or a Philonic Christian. You will ken him, and he will ken you; but you may depend he will never betray, deceive, or injure you.
Without hinting to him anything which had passed between you and me, I asked him your question, "What are the uses of grief?" He stared, and said "The question was new to him." All he could say at present was, that he had known, in his own parish, more than one instance of ladies who had been thoughtless, modish, extravagant in a high degree, who, upon the death of a child, had become thoughtful, modest, humble; as prudent, amiable women as any he had known. Upon this I read to him your letters and mine upon this subject of grief, with which he seemed to be pleased. You see I was not afraid to trust him, and you need not be.
Since I am, accidentally, invited to write to you, I may add a few words upon pleasures and pains of life. Vassall thought, an hundred years, nay, an eternity of pleasure, was no compensation for one hour of bilious cholic. Read again Molliores Spsyke, act 2d, scene 1st, on the subject of grief. And read in another place, "on est payè de mille maux, par un heureux moment." Thus differently do men speak of pleasures and pains. Now, Sir, I will tease you with another question. What have been the abuses of grief?
In answer to this question, I doubt not you might write an hundred volumes. A few hints may convince you that the subject is ample.
1st. The death of Socrates excited a general sensibility of grief at Athens, in Attica, and in all Greece. Plato and Xenophon, two of his disciples, took advantage of that sentiment, by employing their enchanting style to represent their master to be greater and better than he probably was; and what have been the effects of Socratic, Platonic, which were Pythagorian, which was Indian philosophy, in the world?
2d. The death of Cæsar, tyrant as he was, spread a general compassion, which always includes grief, among the Romans. The scoundrel Mark Antony availed himself of this momentary grief to destroy the republic, to establish the empire, and to proscribe Cicero.
3d. But to skip over all ages and nations for the present, and descend to our own times. The death of Washington diffused a general grief. The old tories, the hyperfederalists, the speculators, set up a general howl. Orations, prayers, sermons, mock funerals, were all employed, not that they loved Washington, but to keep in countenance the funding and banking system; and to cast into the background and the shade, all others who had been concerned in the service of their country in the Revolution.
4th. The death of Hamilton, under all its circumstances, produced a general grief. His most determined enemies did not like to get rid of him in that way. They pitied, too, his widow and children. His party seized the moment of public feeling to come forward with funeral orations, and printed panegyrics, reinforced with mock funerals and solemn grimaces, and all this by people who have buried Otis, Sam Adams, Hancock, and Gerry, in comparative obscurity. And why? Merely to disgrace the old Whigs, and keep the funds and banks in countenance.