Your sentiments of the importance of education in women are exactly agreeable to my own. Yet the _femmes savantes_ are contemptible characters. So is that of a pedant universally, how muchsoever of a male he may be. In reading history, you will generally observe, when you light upon a great character, whether a general, a statesman, or philosopher, some female about him, either in the character of a mother, wife, or sister, who has knowledge and ambition above the ordinary level of women, and that much of his eminence is owing to her precepts, example, or instigation, in some shape or other. Let me mention an example or two. Sempronius Gracchus and Caius Gracchus, two great though unfortunate men, are said to have been instigated to their great actions by their mother, who, in order to stimulate their ambition, told them that she was known in Rome by the title of the mother-in-law of Scipio, not the mother of the Gracchi. Thus she excited their emulation and put them upon reviving the old project of an equal division of the conquered lands (a genuine republican measure, though it had been too long neglected to be then practicable), in order to make their names as illustrious as Scipio's. The great Duke who first excited the Portuguese to revolt from the Spanish monarchy was spurred on to his great enterprise by a most artful and ambitious wife, and thus indeed you will find it very generally. 134. ABIGAIL ADAMS. Boston, 25 August, 1776. I sent Johnny[154] last evening to the post-office for letters. He soon returned, and pulling one from under his gown gave it me. The young rogue, smiling and watching mamma's countenance, draws out another and then another, highly gratified to think he had so many presents to bestow. I took the liberty of sending my compliments to General Lincoln, and asking him some questions which you proposed to me, but which I was totally unable to answer,[155] and he has promised a particular reply to them. As to provisions, there is no scarcity. 'Tis true they are high, but that is more owing to the advanced price of labor than the scarcity. English goods of every kind are not purchasable, at least by me. They are extravagantly high. West India goods articles are very high, all except sugars, which have fallen half since I came into town. Our New England rum is four shillings per gallon; molasses the same price; loaf sugar two and fourpence; cotton-wool four shillings per pound; sheep's wool two shillings; flax one and sixpence. In short, one hundred pounds two years ago would purchase more than two will now. House rent in this town is very low. Some of the best and genteelest houses rent for twenty pounds a year. Ben Hallowell's has been offered for ten, and Mr. Chardon's for thirteen pounds six shillings and eight pence.