Diary of John Adams, volume 1
Read in Gilbert. Went to Monatiquot to see the Raising of the new Meeting House.1 No Observations worth noting.
I have not Spirits, and Presence of mind, to seek out scenes of Observation, and to watch critically the Air, Countenances, Actions and Speeches of old men, and young men, of old Women and young Girls, of Physicians and Priests, of old Maids and Batchelors. I should chatter with a Girl, and watch her Behaviour, her answers to Questions, the workings of Vanity and other Passions in her Breast. But objects before me dont suggest proper Questions to ask, and proper Observations to make, so dull and confused at present is my mind.—Betsy Niles affects to trip lightly across the floor, to act with a Sprightly Air, and to be polite. But she is under Restraint, and awe, from her Unacquaintance with Company. Saw Lawyer Thachers Father,2 at Mr. Niles’s. He said old Coll. Thatcher of Barnstable was an excellent man. “He was a very holy man. I used to love to hear him pray. He was a Counsellor, and a Deacon. I have heard him say, that of all his Titles, that of a Deacon, he tho’t the most honourable.”3—Q
Monatiquot (variously spelled) was an ancient name frequently used by JA and others for the settlement on the Monatiquot River in present Braintree— at that time the Middle Precinct of Braintree. The “new Meeting House” was that of the Second Parish, to which Rev. Samuel Niles, Harvard 1699, had long ministered. See Pattee, Old Braintree and Quincy
, p. 7, 56, 285–286; also map in CFA2, Three Episodes
, vol. 2: following p. 578.
Quotation marks supplied, here and above, around what is certainly a direct quotation from old Mr. Thacher.
Went to Boston.
Bob Paine. I have ruined myself, by a too eager Pursuit of Wisdom. I have now neither Health enough for an active Life, nor Knowledge enough for a sedentary one.
Quincy. We shall never make your great fellows.
Thus Paine and Quincy both are verging to Despair.
Paine. If I attempt a Composition, my Thoughts are slow and dull.
Paine is discouraged, and Quincy has not Courage enough to harbour a Thought of acquiring a great Character. In short, none of them 52have a foundation that will support them. P. Chardon seemed to me in the directest Road to Superiority. Pains Face has lost its Bloom, and his Eye its Vivacity and fire. His Eye is weak, his Countenance pale and his Attention unsteady. And what is worse, he suffers this decline of Health to retard, almost to Stop his studies. And Q’s dastard soul is afraid to aim at great Acquisition.
Paine (to me). You dont intend to be a Sage, I suppose.
Oh! P. has not Penetration to reach the Bottom of my mind. He dont know me. Next time I will answer him, A Sage, no. Knowledge eno’ to keep out of fire and Water, is all that I aim at.