"My impression has been, and still remains, that other objects ought to have a preference; and those will suffice to consume all I shall at present devote to such purposes. "With my best wishes for the health, prosperity, and happiness of yourself and family, I remain, "Very truly yours." HENRY ADAMS TO TILDEN "1607 H STREET, WASHINGTON, _24 Jan., 1883_. "DEAR SIR,--Your kind letter of the 12th, acknowledging the receipt at some past time of a copy of _New England Federalism_, reached me yesterday. I am forced to confess that I have equally forgotten sending you the book, and can recall nothing except the fact that I sent you my _Life of Gallatin_ in consequence of assistance which you rendered me in regard to it. Probably the other book was sent in the same connection. I am quite sure that while in Europe, where I went for papers after the _Gallatin_ appeared, I received a letter of acknowledgment from you for the volume. "To do justice to Gallatin was a labor of love. After long study of the prominent figures in our history, I am more than ever convinced that for combination of ability, integrity, knowledge, unselfishness, and social fitness Mr. Gallatin has no equal. He was the most fully and perfectly equipped statesman we can show. Other men, as I take hold of them, are soft in some spots and rough in others. Gallatin never gave way in my hand or seemed unfinished. That he made mistakes I can see, but even in his blunders he was respectable. "I cannot say as much for his friends Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, about whom I have been for years hard at work. In regard to them I am incessantly forced to devise excuses and apologies or to admit that no excuse will avail. I am at times almost sorry that I ever undertook to write their history, for they appear like mere grasshoppers kicking and gesticulating on the middle of the Mississippi River. There is no possibility of reconciling their theories with their acts, or their extraordinary foreign policy with dignity. They were carried along on a stream which floated them, after a fashion, without much regard to themselves. "This I take to be the result that students of history generally reach in regard to modern times. The element of individuality is the free-will dogma of the science, if it is a science. My own conclusion is that history is simply social development along the lines of weakest resistance, and that in most cases the line of weakest resistance is found as unconsciously by society as by water. "I am very truly y'rs, "HENRY ADAMS." JOHN BIGELOW TO TILDEN "THURSDAY MG., _April 19_ (_1883_). "MY DEAR GOVERNOR,--Referring to the request of L. Smith Hobart, of New Haven, in regard to your collegiate residence at New Haven, I find myself only partially prepared to answer his questions, and though I had it on my mind when I saw you Tuesday morning to question you of other matters, I left without bethinking me of that duty.