There is not a virtue that can abide in the female heart but it was
the ornament of hers. She had been fifty-four years the delight of my
father's heart, the sweetener of all his toils, the comforter of all
his sorrows, the sharer and heightener of all his joys. It was but the
last time when I saw my father that he told me, with an ejaculation of
gratitude to the Giver of every good and every perfect gift, that in
all the vicissitudes of his fortunes, through all the good report and
evil report of the world, in all his struggles and in all his
sorrows, the affectionate participation and cheering encouragement of
his wife had been his never-failing support, without which he was sure
he should never have lived through them....
[Footnote 45: From the "Diary." Adams's mother was Abigail Smith
Adams, daughter of the Rev. William Smith of Weymouth, Mass. Her
letters, which have been much admired, have been published in a work
entitled "The Familiar Letters of John Adams and his Wife."]
Never have I known another human being the perpetual object of whose
life was so unremittingly to do good. It was a necessity of her
nature. Yet so unostentatious, so unconscious even of her own
excellence that even the objects of her kindness often knew not whence
it came. She had seen the world--its glories without being dazzled;
its vices and follies without being infected by them. She had suffered
often and severely from fits of long and painful sickness, always with
calmness and resignation. She had a profound, but not an obtrusive
sensibility. She was always cheerful, never frivolous; she had neither
gall nor guile.
Her attention to the domestic economy of her family was
unrivaled--rising with the dawn, and superintending the household
concerns with indefatigable and all-foreseeing care. She had a warm
and lively relish for literature, for social conversation, for
whatever was interesting in the occurrences of the time, and even in
political affairs. She had been, during the war of our Revolution, an
ardent patriot, and the earliest lesson of unbounded devotion to the
cause of their country that her children received was from her. She
had the most delicate sense of propriety of conduct, but nothing
uncharitable, nothing bitter. Her price was indeed above rubies.