“Happy indeed would it have been for Mr. Adams if he had broke his engagement, and not harassed himself with a wife altogether so unsuited to his own peculiar character, and still more peculiar prospects,” Louisa would write 43 years later in her memoir, Adventures of a Nobody. By then Louisa, submerged in bitter memories and flailing for her sanity, said that her health at the time of her engagement was already injured by anxieties “by no means trifling.” Among these she specified her father’s ship idling by and her wedding trousseau in storage. But in a stunning omission, she failed to mention her father’s catastrophic bankruptcy.1
She also remembered her discovery of views that totally differed from John Quincy’s in many essential points. There was a severity bordering on injustice in some of the opinions that she heard him express, and minor concerns of life which grew so intense at one point that a rupture of their engagement had nearly taken place. She claimed proudly that she had shown enough spirit to defend herself in that instance, and more than enough to embarrass herself into apology after each outburst.
What had been theoretically her minor concerns were the essence of John Quincy’s very being. Louisa had an instinctive distaste for his “boasted philosophy,” his pervasive morality, intense patriotism, and even his bookishness which, to Louisa’s mind, endangered his health. The subject of “spirit”—that is, temperament or disposition—was a minefield. Given how painful John Quincy found “so essential a wideness of sentiment between them”—Louisa, a girlish romantic of 22, and John Quincy, a scholar and a dedicated patriot who had turned 30—it was logical to wonder that the couple’s engagement should have survived their stormy correspondence.2
Before their marriage, John Quincy intuitively might have sensed the swaying moods of her emotional makeup. Apart from her later erratic journal-and-memoir writings, her first letters to John Quincy, written at age 21 during their separation of one year and a month, comprise a candid record of their own and pitilessly illuminate the couple’s chasm of differences as well as the would-be bride’s quixotic temperament. Beyond the question of her British birth, her French language, her “taint of Maryland blood,” her cloistered education, her rebellion against the Adams’s political allegiances and philosophy, bitterness, guilt, anger and insecurity stain near and far corners of her letters and, tragically, presage her lifetime of emotional stress.3
At the same time, these letters were truly love letters—even John Quincy seemed surprised at his own eloquence. His affection is unmistakable, his warmth beguiling as he addresses Louisa as “The Companion of my Life,” “My lovely friend,” “dear friend,” “gentle friend,” “amiable friend,” “best friend.” On her part, she responds to her “most tender and most faithful friend,” “loved friend,” “dearest friend.” There was passion in abundance, all of which disproves one historian’s claim that “as in many a successful marriage it cannot be said that the nuptials [of Louisa and John Quincy] sprang from any deep romantic love on either side.” In fact, it appears to be the reverse. There was passion in abundance and though John Quincy claimed a happy marriage, in Louisa’s version it was at times both heartbreaking and maddening.4
A year before she and John Quincy were to be married, Louisa spent the summer “in a very retired way,” in Clapham, then a suburb about four or five miles south of Westminster, while her parents and her two older sisters remained on Cooper’s Hill. It was a very small house, as Louisa described it, rented expressly for her to devote herself to such studies as she—or perhaps her father—hoped “would lessen the immense distances which existed in point of mind and talent between herself” and her future husband. Tended by Celia, her governess, and one other servant, she also seemed to be learning something about cooking lighter fare.5
She was miserably unsure of herself, most immediately about her first attempt to write a letter to John Quincy in response to his query about her opinion of the miniature portrait of himself he had given her. Though she rose to the challenge, she did explain:
“So totally incapacitated do I feel myself for writing were it not through fear of giving you pain I certainly should indulge any avowed aversion to it and decline the task, but judging of your feelings by my own, think it incumbent on me to avail myself of every opportunity of testifying my affectionate esteem for you. ‘Oh Philosophy where art thou now.’”6
As for his picture: she approved the likeness, though the complexion was much too dark and the figure altogether too large. Friends who saw it recently said they should never have known him. She remembered in middle age “the anxiety with which I awaited a letter from Mr. Adams and the terror which assailed me at the idea of answering it.” She claimed further that her governess undertook to correct her letters and to give them such a turn as she thought would be most elegant.7
John Quincy read her first letter ten or fifteen times, so he told her, was entirely sympathetic and agreed that the trouble of writing letters was more than sufficient to counterbalance the pleasure of receiving one. Yet, an ardent and gallant advocate, he predicted that the day would come when instead of being compelled to write, she would take delight in it. Meanwhile, the only fault he could find with her letter was its shortness. “Instead of wishing you had not answered me, I wish you had answered me three times as much, but even for what you did write, I thank you over and over again.” It had what was at all times important to him, “the assurance of your constant affection.”8
Of her second letter—it was more charming than the first and he was sure if she would have the resolution to practice a little, she would form a really elegant style. “No friend to hereditary honors, but a great partisan for hereditary practices,” if she did not write with eloquence, “It would be entirely owing to yourself if you should not.” As for her remarks about his picture—he could hope it would convey the feelings of the original, expressed his affection for her “beyond the reach of any expression that can be given to the pencil, the pen or the tongue.” He never could be happy far from her, it was a consolation to have her share that sentiment.9
Louisa did dare to broach (more graciously) the probability that John Quincy’s father would be the next president, and should that be the case, she offered John Quincy with sincere pleasure her congratulations. “You know my friend I am not ambitious of any thing but your affection and in that my wishes are unbounded.” Her Mamma and sisters united in best wishes for his health and happiness—“For my own I leave you to imagine.”10
Judging from John Quincy’s response, Louisa had touched a nerve. “You tell me you are not ambitious, but will offer me your congratulations of my father, should he be placed at the head of the American government,” he had written on July 9. “Indeed, my friend, that is a high station, but I have no ambition to see him placed in it. For like all other high stations it is planted with thorns and surrounded with dangers.” Besides, the more conspicuous his father became in the world, the more incumbent it would be on John Quincy to prove himself not unworthy to be his son. And already, he had “a heavy burden on that account to bear” and did not wish to see it increased. For himself, he was not ambitious of rank, “but it is impossible to be indifferent on the point of reputation.”11
Perhaps the burden he perceived was the legacy or the destiny that he hoped to fulfill in partnership with Louisa—his parents being his inspiration—as he defined in a single paragraph the ideals and goals of his life that would endure until his death, but the dream and reality of those ideals she tragically could never appreciate or fully embrace. Gravely envisioning “the American nation one of the first upon Earth . . . as far as may ever be in my power,” he wrote Louisa, “I will strive to promote it.” He spoke to her with entire confidence, because whatever his conduct or his fate might be, “your interests are now united to mine, to be separated only by death.”12
By July, there was a gap of “five tedious weeks,” as Louisa wrote, between letters, their delivery being utterly dependent on the whims of sea transport. In response, John Quincy apologized: the next time he would try to write by Hamburg. But, he wrote, she was never to believe for a moment that absence could erase her memory from his heart. “No, my best friend; to you it is devoted; from you all its hopes of domestic happiness in this life are received.”13
There was a second letter from Louisa dated July 25, far more cheerful in tone, written to congratulate him on his appointment as minister plenipotentiary to Portugal. George Washington had proposed the nomination on May 28, 1796, and the Senate passed it on May 30. Which meant, Louisa joyfully assumed, that he would soon return to London.14
The official letter, dated June 11, had informed John Quincy of his appointment but that for several reasons the transfer of his services to Portugal must be postponed. He was to remain on as minister at The Hague until notified otherwise, possibly by early autumn. Somewhat startled by this news, he noted the next morning that he had not been able to pay attention to his Italian studies, and supposed that he might perhaps find it necessary to suspend them entirely at least for the present. “The circumstances mentioned yesterday,” he realized, “give an entirely new turn to my affairs, and presents new objects which must command my immediate application.”15
It was as though he suddenly awakened to the gravity of his commitment to Louisa. With plans to remain until spring, and an attempt at bolstering Louisa’s faltering spirits, he wrote on August 13 of his hope of terminating sooner than he would otherwise have expected “the vile embarrassments which made our separation absolutely necessary.”16
For her own happiness in facing these diplomatic obligations and delays, he asked her to acquire the faculty not merely of acquiescence to unavoidable inconveniences, but even of a cheerful conformity to things that must be endured, and above all to establish an invariable rule never to express an opinion of general or national nature. He hoped she would forgive him this “intimation,” but he had often found that nothing was more natural and nothing more offensive than tactless comments about foreign nations or on numerous classes of people. Further, he knew her heart was so good that he could not conceive of anything said by her would “ever give dissatisfaction to anyone.”17
Having dutifully reviewed financial matters and those of diplomatic protocol, John Quincy now turned to matters of Louisa’s education. Knowing that she was spending part of the summer at Clapham, he was positive that she had used the time to advantage, and it would give him pleasure to hear in detail of everything she found interesting to herself, for example, her progress on the harp. But she was not in all of this to think he was setting himself up for a mentor, for he was at the same time asking for her advice and opinions with equal freedom in return. Perhaps he sensed that he was treading on sensitive ground and hoped to leave Louisa in a happier place for, curiously, though he had repeatedly warned her of his lengthened stay at The Hague, he now allowed for the possibility that his leave might come earlier than expected.18
Louisa was totally charming, candid and humble in response. She took pleasure in the thought of his return. But, she had to confess, it aroused fears that had never before presented themselves. When she reflected on the part in life she would have to act, given the little she had seen of the world, her conscious deficiency was manifest, and she already thought she saw him blush for her awkwardness. But then she knew the generosity of his disposition and could count on him to forgive and encourage her “by your kindness to mend.”19
She faltered but rebounded somewhat on his next question: how she spent her time in Clapham. She wished her friend had touched on any other subject, for she must candidly confess she had profited little by her retirement but then, she said, it is “yourself who are the cause by (shall I say it) intruding too often in my thoughts.”20
The letters both parents had written to him in a week’s span in August emphatically reconfirmed their doubts about Louisa, every nuance of which they had already made known to him in prior months. Suspicion that the senior Adamses’ opinions may have been colored by their knowledge of Louisa’s parents’ elaborate lifestyle had already been hinted at in Abigail’s thanks for the cloaks she had received the previous May. At that time, she had written to her son, “The young lady who undertook the commission shows that she inherits the taste of elegance which her Mamma is conspicuous for.”21
His father wrote on August 7, 1796, congratulating John Quincy on his appointment to Portugal and for what he knew of his proposed marriage by this time. How a “young lady of fine parts and accomplishments, educated to drawing, dancing and music,” was to fare under the restrictive circumstances of being the wife of a minister in a foreign country was the next question. However domestic and retired from the world she may have been in her father’s house, when she came to shine in a court among the families of ambassadors and ministers of state, “if she has not some prudence and philosophy, uncommon to her sex, she would be in danger” of involving him “in expenses far beyond your appointment.”22
From his mother, he received a letter (written just three days after his father’s) that clearly suggests that the two in Quincy had not only discussed but wholly agreed on their concerns about their son’s choice of bride. But, at least the first paragraph brought news that John Quincy was longing to hear. His appointment as minister was the last nomination President Washington made before Congress ended and had taken place after his father had gone home “without it ever being hinted to him.” Proud in response, hoping his mother would not attribute it to anything like filial ingratitude, that idea gave him singular pleasure. He could support very well the thought of being indebted for his advancement to his father’s merits, but he could not bear that of attributing it to his father’s “agency.”23
What especially pleased his mother was the unanimous vote he had received, added proof, she said, of their country’s confidence in him and of the approval of the president who had honored and promoted him. But then, she was also worried. She readily admitted “This new appointment my dear son has filled my mind with a thousand anxieties on your account.” The engagement he had made in London would no doubt lead him there on the way to Portugal, and she wondered too, echoing her husband shamelessly, about the young lady’s adjustment: “Without any knowledge of experience of the world, to be introduced into the manners, luxuries, dissipations and amusements of a foreign court? Placed in an elevated station with examples before her eyes of a style of living altogether incompatible with her future views and prospects in America?”24
As if that picture wasn’t bleak enough, and even allowing that the wife he would eventually bring home stateside was born of an American father, how might she assimilate to their manners, customs and habits without too much pain? Abigail remained unconvinced. “Who can answer for her, after having been introduced into the dissipations of a foreign court?”25
John Quincy had tactfully considered his mother’s observations “full of tenderness as well as of the prudence” as were usually to be found in her counsels. He also reassured her that he had thought it his duty to be very explicit with the lady on the subject of his future prospects in America.26
Very soon and increasingly, John Quincy would find he misjudged Louisa. All may have been explained, even understood, but all was not approved. His moralizing made her irritable; she felt diminished by his assumptions, depressed by his gloomy thoughts. Obviously he was the beneficiary of far too many parental lectures on the subject of prudence and, as a dire result, the debonair, even flirtatious suitor had turned moralizing, arch, would-be mentor, who insistently raised nagging issues that seemed unfriendly, if not hurtful, in Louisa’s opinion.
Louisa, as it turned out, was not the only one eager to meet with John Quincy in London. Though casually broached initially, the desire to meet was almost in fact quite desperate where her father was concerned. In response to his several inquiries, John Quincy told Joshua Johnson that letters from America made it more uncertain than ever how long he would be detained.
As of November 9, he had reason to believe that he would not be leaving until quite late in the spring or the beginning of summer. And as Johnson mentioned the need of going to America early in the spring, John Quincy was resigned to the necessity of postponing until his own return to America “those arrangements which I had hoped might be settled at an earlier period, and upon which the happiness of my future life will essentially depend.” He had received no letters from Louisa, and he hoped, he told her on November 15, that he might attribute her silence to her usual aversion to writing, rather than to any remains of the temper which he had been sorry to observe in her last letter. He also addressed the painful prospect of his detention at The Hague.27
And so their minuet had begun. Up to this point, though Louisa had not disputed the integrity of his advice, she frankly was in no position to absorb, let alone practice, what he advised. With her, every reference to postponement gave her more uneasiness than she was capable of expressing. She told John Quincy on November 29, that “stronger judgment enables you so happily to philosophize,” and so her weakness must appear to him in an unfavorable light. But in self-defense, when she reflected how few lessons she had received from the school of disappointment, he might be more inclined to pardon than to blame.28
From this open admission, he was not to imagine she was supinely yielding to the tyranny of unavailing complaint. On the contrary, she would prove that she had not neglected her dear friend’s repeated lessons, and was still worthy of his much valued affection. Her sentiments on his retreat into books ran deeper. If he valued her happiness, he would relinquish a habit that must ultimately prove so injurious to his health. As to the mental improvements he so justly recommended, she would if possible acquire them, though she was too distracted at the moment to pay the requisite attention to profitable study.29
As for his future plans—it is here for the first time that she hints at her knowledge of her father’s financial plight, which dictated that she would receive no dowry—she implores John Quincy, “whatever might be their mutual uneasiness, never to resign any situation on my account, as it is not my lot to add to your future welfare.”30
Louisa’s letters were delivered to John Quincy the morning of December 20. He had risen after eight, just at daylight, late for him—he had to forgo his feast on Tacitus before his breakfast, but he knew perfectly well that “late evenings make late mornings.” First off, he apologized to Louisa for what seemed to be an inevitable continuance of their separation. It had been his hope, he explained, that they might in the interim establish in this exchange of letters a “free, open and unlimited confidence in each other” which he had always sought in their relationship and still thought necessary.31
That mutual confidence in one another was never more necessary than now, apparently, but with dire consequence, judging from Louisa’s volatile response. According to four bulky paragraphs, jarringly polite with lawyerly logic and incendiary wording, John Quincy totally negated Louisa’s proposal that her father embark for America by way of Holland that they might meet once more for a few days.
While it was unpleasant to explain, to go over the same reasons again as he had many times before to her dismay and that of her parents, he knew it was in her best interests that he do so. Though it pained him to knowingly displease her by dashing her wishes and plans, he was convinced that it was in her interest and satisfaction to be “clear and explicit.” Obviously firm, he sought in deep frustration to convince Louisa that there was no way to reconfigure their circumstances for the simple reason that “My present situation is not improved in point of fortune.” Furthermore, while he remained at The Hague in his present unsettled condition, without orders, without authority, without power to move—exposed to dismissal from public service by a probable “revolution” in the administration of the American government—“it was an act of absurdity” toward himself and of cruelty toward her to connect the fortunes of any amiable woman indissolubly with his.” In short, he put their marriage on hold.32
The last of December, the weather remarkably mild, John Quincy took a walk, wrote a letter to Louisa and spent the evening at home “to close the year with sober meditation. Not perfectly well,” he added. But he seemed quite content in his review of the past months in The Hague, which, contrary to the indulgence of London, had been “a time of as steady and constant application” as ever occurred in the course of his life.33
One month later, on January 31, the picture of contentment gave way to despair, and he wrote in his diary, “A profound anxiety has taken possession of my mind.” No doubt his wrenching correspondence with Louisa in the intervening month accounted in part for his turbulent spirits. But looking ahead, a note in his diary of March 4 was also telling. It was the day the new administration of the United States was to begin, and still uncertain about the elections and his father’s fate, he wrote, “Everything has contributed to accumulate anxiety upon this event in my mind. Futurity laughs at our foresight. I can only pray for the happiness and prosperity of my country.”34
Clearly, John Quincy had been savaged by concern over the machinations of his father’s candidacy as well as the uncertainty of his own role and his own future. As the son of the president, promotion, as he told his mother, “must be altogether out of the question.”35
Meanwhile, as of January 7, John Quincy had not heard from Louisa since early November. Her father’s letter had told him that she was unwell, and he wrote that he hoped she had recovered her usual good spirits and had reconciled her mind to the longer separation which they “were doomed to suffer.”36
Somewhat to this point, he recommended a book—“I must read a little, though with your admonition always in mind,” he apologized—recently published by the Swiss-born Parisian writer, Madame de Staël. It was a treasure, he thought, on the influence of passions on the happiness of individuals and nations, “all passions being merely sources of unhappiness that the love of glory, ambition, vanity, love . . . confer on us mortals.” And that if we must live, “nothing but philosophy, study and the practice of beneficence could make life tolerable or give us a semblance of happiness.” Madame de Staël, being very much addicted to passions, was of course very unhappy “but thought herself for that reason the better qualified to warn others.”37
As he had believed the book very ingenious, he thought Louisa would find it well worth her time. It would show her what a figure one of her sex can be when she undertakes to philosophize, although he allowed affectionately that “you should continue susceptible of one passion at least,” rather than adopting altogether the philosophy of Madame de Staël.38
Perhaps Louisa’s silence provoked further concern about her proposed meeting at The Hague and accounts for the apologetic tone of John Quincy’s next letters. He was sorry, knowing she waited with such great expectations, that his letters only confirmed disappointment. But for all his amiable rationalizing, besides objections beyond their control, he did remind her of another flaw in her plan: She must be aware, in the eyes of the world, that her coming to The Hague would have an appearance “consistent neither with your dignity, nor my delicacy.”39
And then there was the question of how much John Quincy knew at this time about Joshua Johnson’s devastating financial plight. More than he wished, most likely, judging from their earlier correspondence in which Johnson mentioned sales of tobacco that had put him “very much at a loss.”40
Quite direct about his intentions, Johnson had pressed John Quincy for specific plans about when he should see him in London and how long he would stay. Polite in response, hopeful that Johnson would find in America a more favorable settlement than he expected, John Quincy said it was impossible to gauge the time of his return.
Two weeks later, when Johnson had supposed that “it was more than probable” that he would see his prospective son-in-law at The Hague, John Quincy’s response was entirely negative. The same message went off to Louisa: “The purpose for which I presume you intended the journey is impracticable.”41
Several letters of Louisa’s had crossed with John Quincy’s. At first, buoyed by his assurance of affection, she was ardent in reciprocation. But this was mid-January and just days later, on January 17, she was shattered on reading his “very decisive letter” of the past December 20, so intensely “astonished and mortified” by him that she could scarcely believe he knew to whom he was writing.42
She was also very sorry to discover that they had not perfectly understood each other, that he had misinterpreted her intentions. As far as the trip to Holland was concerned, he had indulged himself in unnecessary apprehension concerning her expectations. In fact, she implied, it was occasioned in the first place by his letter to her father in which he wrote that he would be “compelled to relinquish the hopes so fondly raised” that had moved her kind and honored parents to try to alleviate their distress.43
As a result, her father had generously told her that his affairs might oblige him to quit Holland and offered to embark from England that they might have the satisfaction of meeting once more, which she “fondly and foolishly imagined would have been mutual.” But as things stood now, she would go to America and he to his embassy where, she prayed, “to the great disposer of events to grant that peace to your bosom. . . .”44
But she was far from finished. Though she apologized, she had long since, she assured John Quincy, “ceased to think writing trouble.” She clearly had not overstated her claim when it came to communicating: five pages worth of the fullness of her anger, in particular in the case of his frequent repetition of the words “suspicion and distrust” in several of his former letters. She could not conceive what he meant by them or to what he alluded. When she had looked to her beloved friend for every indulgence, from whom she least expected unkindness, he only added to her distress by the peremptory harshness displayed throughout his letters.45
“Believe me,” she added, she should be wary to have him or anyone in the world say that she wished to force herself upon any man or into any family. As to further grievances—he appeared to regret plans for her to go with him to Lisbon, and if such was the case, he had certainly taken an improper method of showing this regret. But if this was not so, she begged his pardon for having even thought it.46
Regarding his recommendation of Madame de Staël’s book—she intended to read it though she could with pleasure inform him that he had been a more able instructor in philosophy than the author could be. She had acquired a great deal of knowledge lately and thought after perusing her book, that she would become adequate to every trial.
And more, if he had found it painful to write to her in such a harsh style, could he judge what it must be to her, “whose mind must be doubly wounded at the idea of having give rise to it.” Then too, this boasted philosophy that she had heard so much of, “Ah my beloved friend,” it was “indeed a dreadful thing.” She had too much reason to dislike it, as she saw too plainly that it dictated his every motion and guided his pen in contradiction, she hoped, to his feelings. She also remembered the time when he could see no fault in his Louisa, but alas how he had changed, charging her now with impropriety of conduct and even hint of want of delicacy.47
But she was determined to heal their precarious relationship. She asked John Quincy to destroy and if possible to erase from his memory the unfortunate letter which had been productive of their mutual anxiety, and to rest assured that she would never again offend him with anything of the sort. However long their separation might be, she would find that she was as capable of bearing it as himself, and she hoped in time to convince him that she possessed both fortitude and dignity sufficient at least to conceal any unbecoming emotions, if not entirely to conquer them.
But the damage was done and her apologies did not hold. He had decided, and told her so, but for the profound affection and indissoluble attachment he felt for its writer, that he must reply to a letter he thought most kindly used by leaving it without any reply at all. Sensing that he had no alternative, he had begun his answer that noon and finished only after dinner. Obviously, both hurt and offended by her assertion of spirit, “Let us,” he pleaded, “understand one another, Louisa.”48
He had always expected and intended that the communication of sentiments between them should be free, candid, open and undisguised: “and if on either side they should occasionally give pain I have trusted that the certainty of mutual affection would at least secure the most favorable instruction, that nothing sarcastic, nothing bitter, nothing invidious would ever pass between us, that expostulation itself would speak the language of love, and that spirit would never be needed or called in aid for the settlement of our differences.”49
At the same time, he continued that he could assure her that he never thought her disposition deficient in spirit and was fully convinced she had as much of it as could be consistent with an amiable temper, but there was such a thing as going too far. “I do most cordially wish my amiable friend that you may never have occasion to know whether I should possess a proper degree of spirit or not in opposition to you.”50
He also took exception to her claim on several occasions of thinking herself honored by her connection with him. “My dignity, my station or my family have no sort of concern with any subject of debate between you and me.” When he spoke of her dignity in a former letter, he meant, and could mean only, the dignity of her sex and of her personal character.51
As to her complaints, John Quincy found both sides “remote from the sober medium of reason.” Her proposal to come to The Hague was adopted by her without a full consideration of its natural and inevitable consequences, but, he assured her, without the faintest shadow of indelicacy in her heart. He apologized “from the deepest of my heart for every word which may have continued one particle of superfluous asperity.” He had always believed in “you, my Louisa,” and still believed she possessed “a virtuous heart, an intelligent mind, an accomplished person and a gentle disposition, all of which qualities contributed to inspire the strong affection” that he has for her. But he never seriously believed or pretended that he believed her exempt from the common and universal imperfections of humanity, from occasional errors of the mind and varieties of temper.52
The letter had been a challenging one to write, so much so that in his diary the next day John Quincy found himself “somewhat relieved from the pressures of correspondence which I have for some time labored.”53
Fortunately, Louisa’s “kind and affectionate letter” of January 27 which offered congratulations on the certainty of his father’s election seemed also to suggest a ray of hope that their tribulations might be at an end. “Oh my Louisa! Let us forever discard a subject of correspondence, which tends mutually to excite sensations of a nature so different from these. Let our only exchange of sentiments,” he begged, “be that of tenderness and love.”54
And the following month, his February 20 letter too was an apology of sorts, and a confession and confrontation as well. If the restoration of sober reason counted for anything, then he had to admit that the time of the latter part of his residence in London, though indeed a time of delight, had also been a time of too much indulgence. Yet, he assured her: “I am the man I was when you first knew me,” but now much more estimable, and much more respectable than he had been for two or three month before he left her.55
Louisa, too, wished to make amends. She had burned her previous letter, wished she hadn’t sent others: “I regretted my folly, and felt sincerely ashamed of my ridiculous conduct—Dictated by anger, without time for reflection.” But she also wanted to deserve his esteem, for “by doing this I am convinced I shall secure your affection.” Asking his pardon, she promised never again to try his temper nor assert her spirit, and trusted that he would “never again have occasion to write any thing but what the tenderest love dictates, and what your Louisa may peruse, without feeling the painful sensations which this moment agitates her bosom.”56
On a cold, windy March 11, John Quincy took a walk to the seashore, about three miles from The Hague. The English coast was opposite, and though far beyond the reach of sight, his eyes settled on the borders of the horizon while his imagination carried him the rest of the way to Louisa in London.
Thinking about Louisa, he obviously sensed their many differences, worrisomely so, and wished to clarify these concerns. For one, her attitude toward what she called his “bookishness” (which implied a preference for solitude versus socializing) was seriously bothersome. He had to try to have her understand that “the ardent love of literature tended to confirm, to increase, to exalt every virtuous and laudable affection.” He told her what books meant to him, and how he could always return to them with pleasure, how they left “no languor, no satiety, no littleness of indolence upon the mind.” Further, they were often the only refuge of one to whom the common course of society was now more than ever insipid. But he had noted in two or three different letters that she was not satisfied with this propensity of his and inclined to use her influence over him to divert him from his books. He should not have thought it necessary to review the discussion between them on this subject, except for Louisa’s remark that his attachment to them was “hurtful to my temper.” He did not agree.57
It was still more painful to see her consider the time which he dedicated to improvement as a time lost to her. He considered the union for life between two persons of sense and honesty as something more than a mere living together, and that one of its greatest objects and of its charms was a mutual exhortation and encouragement of each other to every honorable pursuit and every laudable employment. The subject he thought important with regard to her happiness as it was to his own in their future connection, and he wished her to adopt at once the conviction that he considered arguments to the contrary as little better than frivolous.
Finally, while in London John Quincy had repeatedly talked to Louisa about serving his country, that it was not merely “an ambition but a duty,” that “every interest and every feeling inconsistent with it must forever disappear.” He could not refuse to perform, especially at a moment when there was danger and inconvenience attending it. At the same time he was aware of its inherent sacrifice, since it touched not only on his own happiness but hers as well. It was, after all, what required his continued presence in Europe.58
Though Louisa could not help but agree “respecting your attachments to your country,” that his impassioned commitment was most certainly a virtue, “virtue,” she thought, “may be carried to too great a height.”59