"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 Washington, 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 gratitude from the colored people of the District? "None," said he—"except that I now and then hear, in a low tone, a hearty God bless you! That is enough."
It was enough; enough for recompense and for justification, since we are in the sad pass 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 God, 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 noble 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 petitioners, 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 pass in these intimate relations my days upon earth, I have no doubt."