"I have not forgotten the excellent lessons which I received from my grandmother, at a very early period of life. I frequently think they made a more durable impression upon my mind than those which I received from my own parents. Whether it was owing to a happy method of mixing instruction and amusement together, or from an inflexible adherence to certain principles, which I could not but see and approve when a child, I know not; but maturer years have made them oracles of wisdom to me. Her lively, cheerful disposition animated all around her, whilst she edified all by her unaffected piety. I cherish her memory with a holy veneration, whose maxims I have treasured, whose virtues live in my remembrance--happy if I could say they have been transplanted into my life." The concluding aspiration was more than realized, because Mrs. Adams lived more than the fortunate subject of her eulogy, and more than any American woman of her time. She was cheerful, pious, compassionate, discriminating, just and courageous up to the demand of the times. She was a calm adviser, a zealous assistant, and a never failing consolation of her partner, in all his labors and anxieties, public and private. That the laborers might be spared for the army, she was willing to work in the field. Diligent, frugal, industrious and indefatigable in the arrangement and details of the household and the farm, the entire management of which devolved upon her for a series of years, she preserved for him amidst general depreciation and loss of property, an independence, upon which he could always count and at last retire. At the same time she responded to the numerous calls of humanity, irrespective of opinions and parties. If there was a patriot of the Revolution who merited the title of _Washington of women_, she was the one. It is gratifying to know that this rare combination of virtue and endowments met with a just appreciation from her great husband. In his autobiography, written at a late period of life, he records this touching testimony, that "his connection with her had been the source of all his felicity," and his unavoidable separations from her, "of all the griefs of his heart, and all that he esteemed real afflictions in his life." Throughout the two volumes of letters to her, embracing a period of twenty-seven years, the lover is more conspicuous than the statesman; and she on her part regarded him with an affection unchangeable and ever fresh during more than half a century of married life. On one of the anniversaries of her wedding she wrote from Braintree to him in Europe: "Look at this date and tell me what are the thoughts which arise in your mind. Do you not recollect that eighteen years have run their circuit, since we pledged our mutual faith, and the hymeneal torch was lighted at the altar of love? Yet, yet it burns with unabating fervor. Old ocean cannot quench it; old Time cannot smother it in this bosom. It cheers me in the lonely hour."