Norwich bulletin., 1922-06-28
Great Mems Love Letters
John Adams to Abigail

Especially interesting to Anericans are the letters of John Adams and his wife, which were written when the con hict began, which made the United States a nation and in the course Of which cor respondence we may trace many Of tie events that attended the formation of the young republic.
 Mrs. Adams letters have been de- servedly famous among her couhtfy-wo- men. They are homely, sensible and not without the eloquence Of the heart. She was a tower of strength to her husband and deserved the name of Portia he seems to have given her. and which she often signs herself in writing to him.
 Like Brutus' Portia, she was well fath- cred and we'll husbanded, and had much of the stuff of the Roman natron in her composition The letters of the par breathe little of the romance of passion, but they are among the best specimens Of letters which spring from a union based on harmony of opinion and high esteem for each others virtues-a union Of real friendship as well as of love-and most of their letters appropriately begin, My dearest friend.''
 A specimen of the way in which John Adams would address his wife Is to be found in the following quotation from letter dated Philadelphia, May 22, 177S:
 "Your sentiments of the duties we owe to our country are such as become the best of women and the best of men. Among all the disappointments and per plexities which have fallen to my share in life, nothing has contributed so much to support my mind as the choice bless ing of a wife whose capacity enabled her to comprehend and whose pure virtue obliged her to approve the views of her husband This has been the cheering consolation of my heart in my most soli- tary gloomy and disconsolate hours
 ''In this remote situation am deprived in a great measure of this comfort. Yet I read and read again your charming letters, and they serve me, in some faint degree, as a substitute for the company and conversation of the writer. I want to take 8 walk with you in the gardn, to go ovr to h common, the plain, the meadow.
 Alas poor imagination How faintly and iInperfectIy do you supply the wants of originality and reality. But instead of these pleasing scenes of domestic life, hope you will not be disturbed with the alarms of war. hope, yet fear And as an answer to a letter from her husband we quote the following from a letter addressed hy Mrs. Adams, and dated 1782:
 T look back to the early days of oul acquaintance and friendship, and, witt an indescribable pleasure, have seen 2 score Of years roll over our heads witf an affection heightened and improved by time, nor have the dreary years of ab' sence in the smallest degree effaeed iron my mind the image of the dear entitled man to whom I gave my heart.
 q cannot sometimes refrain consider ing the honors with which he is invested as badges of my happiness. The un bounded confidence I have in your at tachment to me and. to the dear pledge of our offeetion has soothed the solitar. hours and rendered your absence nor supportable, for had loved you with tn same affection it must have been miser. I to have doubted.
 "Adieu, my dear friend. Why is that I hear from you so seldom, my dea John? Ever remember me as I do you with all the tenderness which it is pos sible for one object to feel for another which no time can obliterate, no dis tance alter, which is always the same i the bosom of
 "PORTIA"