Page:The Ladies of the White House.djvu/130

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ABIGAIL ADAMS.

of history are the truest, safest sarcophagi of greatness, and embalm in their records the lives of the master-workers. Not in marble or bronze be her memory perpetuated, for we need no such hieroglyphics in this country of free schools. Place her history in the libraries of America, and the children of freedom will live over her deeds. To the crumbling monarchies of Europe on their way to dissolution, it may be necessary to erect statues of past greatness, that some shadow of their nothingness may remain as warnings; but the men and women of revolutionary memory are become a part and parcel of this government, whose very existence must be wiped from the face of the earth ere one jot or title of their fame is lost.

In viewing the character of Mrs. Adams, as it looms up in the pages of the past, we can but regret that she occupied no more enlarged sphere. The woman who could reply as she did to the question, (" Had you known that Mr. Adams would have remained so long abroad, would you have consented that he should have gone? ")—could have filled any position in civil life. "If I had known," she replied, after a moment's hesitation, "that Mr. Adams could have effected what he has done, I would not only have submitted to the absence I have endured, painful as it has been, but I would not have opposed it, even though three more years should be added to die number. I feel a pleasure in being able to sacrifice my selfish passions to the general good, and in imitating the example which has taught me to consider