emory poor enough.

"I answer your question,--Is death an evil? It is not an evil. It is a
blessing to the individual and to the world; yet we ought not to wish for
it, till life becomes insupportable. We must wait the pleasure and
convenience of the 'Great Teacher.' Winter is as terrible to me as to you.
I am almost reduced in it to the life of a bear or a torpid swallow. I
cannot read, but my delight is to hear others read; and I tax all my
friends most unmercifully and tyrannically against their consent.

"The ass has kicked in vain; all men say the dull animal has missed the
mark.

"This globe is a theatre of war; its inhabitants are all heroes. The
little eels in vinegar, and the animalcules in pepper-water, I believe,
are quarrelsome. The bees are as warlike as the Romans, Russians, Britons,
or Frenchmen. Ants, caterpillars, and canker-worms are the only tribes
among whom I have not seen battles; and Heaven itself, if we believe
Hindoos, Jews, Christians, and Mahometans, has not always been at peace.
We need not trouble ourselves about these things, nor fret ourselves
because of evil doers; but safely trust the 'Ruler with his skies.' Nor
need we dread the approach of dotage; let it come if it must. ******, it
seems, still delights in his four stories; and Starke remembered to the
last his Bennington, and exulted in his glory; the worst of the evil is,
that our friends will suffer more by our imbecility than we ourselves.
* * * * * * * * *
"In wishing for your health and happiness, I am very selfish; for I hope
for more letters. This is worth more than five hundred dollars to me; for
it has already given me, and will continue to give me, more pleasure than
a thousand. Mr. Jay, who is about your age, I am told, experiences more
decay than you do.
"I am your old friend,
"JOHN ADAMS."

This correspondence excited attention in Europe. The editor of the London
Morning Chronicle prefaces it with the following remarks:--

"What a contrast the following correspondence of the two rival Presidents
of the greatest Republic of the world, reflecting an old age dedicated to
virtue, temperance, and philosophy, presents to the heart-sickening
details, occasionally disclosed to us, of the miserable beings who fill
the thrones of the continent. There is not, perhaps, one sovereign of the
continent, who in any sense of the word can be said to