Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

A. Adams Epigraph

Introduction

Part I

1 “A Legacy More Valuable than Gold or Silver”

2 “A Great Deal of Room for Me to Grow Better”

3 “Some Compensation for My Not Being with My Friends at Braintree”

4 A Journal

5 “Almost at the World’s End”

6 “Promise to Produce a Worthy Character”

7 “A Son Who Is the Greatest Traveller of His Age”

8 “A Sister Who Fulfills My Most Sanguine Expectations”

9 “Your Ever Affectionate Brother”

10 “The Sentiments of My Heart as They Rise”

11 “Study Is My Mistress”

12 “A Student in the Office of Theophilus Parsons”

13 “Exposed to the Perils of Sentiment”

14 “On the Bridge between Wisdom and Folly”

15 “I, Too, Am a Scribbler”

16 “The Times Change and We Change with Them”

Part II

17 “The Magnitude of the Trust and My Own Incompetency”

18 “The Usual Mixture between Sweet and Bitter”

19 “The Age of Innocence and Thoughtlessness”

20 “Albeit Unused to the Melting Mood”

21 “Oh My Louisa!”

22 “For the Friend of Your Life”

23 “Wise and in the Best Interests of the Country”

Part III

24 “To Turn Weariness Itself into Pleasure”

25 “Painful Retrospection”

26 “No Small Difficulty”

27 “Another Feather against a Whirlwind”

28 “Like a Fish Out of Water”

29 “Apostasy”

Part IV

30 “In Honorable Diplomatic Exile”

31 “Whether of Peace or War”

Afterword

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Illustrations

About the Author

Copyright