The Life of Albert Gallatin

Name: The Life of Albert Gallatin
Author: Adams, Henry

Adams, Henry

Gallatin, Albert, 1761-1849

The meeting of the Pennsylvania Legislature, of which he was still a
member, recalled him to business; but his story may now be best gathered
from his letters to his future wife:


            GALLATIN TO MISS NICHOLSON.


  PHILADELPHIA, 25th July, 1793.

... For four years I have led a life very different indeed from what I
was wont to follow. Looking with equal indifference upon every pleasure
of life, upon every object that can render life worth enjoying, and, of
course, upon every woman, lost in a total apathy for everything which
related to myself, alive only to politics (for an active mind must exert
itself in some shape or another), I had become perfectly careless of my
own business or my private fortune.... Of course I led the most active
life as a public man, the most indolent as an individual.


  27th August, 1793.

... And yet you think that I can improve you. Except some information
upon a few useful subjects which you have not perhaps turned your
attention to, I will be but a poor instructor. Women are said generally
to receive from a familiar intercourse with men several advantages, one
of the most conspicuous of which I have often heard asserted to be the
acquirement of a greater knowledge of the world, in which they are
supposed to live less than our bustling sex. There, however, I am but a
child, and will have to receive instruction from you, for most of my
life has been spent very far indeed from anything like the polite part
of the world. I had but left college when I left Geneva, and the
greatest part of the time I have spent in America has been very far from
society, at least from that society I would have relished. Thence,
although I feel no embarrassment with men, I never yet was able to
divest myself of that anti-Chesterfieldan awkwardness in mixed companies
which will forever prevent a man from becoming a party in the societies
where he mixes. It is true the four last years, on account of my
residence in Philadelphia, I might have improved, but I felt no wish of
doing it; so that whilst I will teach you either history, French, or
anything else I can teach or you wish to learn, I will have to receive
far more important instructions from you. You must polish my manners,
teach me how to talk to people I do not know, and how to render myself
agreeable to strangers,--I was going to say, to ladies,--but as I
pleased you without any instructions, I have become very vain on that
head....


  25th August, 1793.

[Sidenote 1793]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

The Life of Albert GallatinAdams, Henry

History

The Life of Albert Gallatin

Adams, Henry

Gallatin, Albert, 1761-1849

The meeting of the Pennsylvania Legislature, of which he was still a
member, recalled him to business; but his story may now be best gathered
from his letters to his future wife:


            GALLATIN TO MISS NICHOLSON.


  PHILADELPHIA, 25th July, 1793.

... For four years I have led a life very different indeed from what I
was wont to follow. Looking with equal indifference upon every pleasure
of life, upon every object that can render life worth enjoying, and, of
course, upon every woman, lost in a total apathy for everything which
related to myself, alive only to politics (for an active mind must exert
itself in some shape or another), I had become perfectly careless of my
own business or my private fortune.... Of course I led the most active
life as a public man, the most indolent as an individual.


  27th August, 1793.

... And yet you think that I can improve you. Except some information
upon a few useful subjects which you have not perhaps turned your
attention to, I will be but a poor instructor. Women are said generally
to receive from a familiar intercourse with men several advantages, one
of the most conspicuous of which I have often heard asserted to be the
acquirement of a greater knowledge of the world, in which they are
supposed to live less than our bustling sex. There, however, I am but a
child, and will have to receive instruction from you, for most of my
life has been spent very far indeed from anything like the polite part
of the world. I had but left college when I left Geneva, and the
greatest part of the time I have spent in America has been very far from
society, at least from that society I would have relished. Thence,
although I feel no embarrassment with men, I never yet was able to
divest myself of that anti-Chesterfieldan awkwardness in mixed companies
which will forever prevent a man from becoming a party in the societies
where he mixes. It is true the four last years, on account of my
residence in Philadelphia, I might have improved, but I felt no wish of
doing it; so that whilst I will teach you either history, French, or
anything else I can teach or you wish to learn, I will have to receive
far more important instructions from you. You must polish my manners,
teach me how to talk to people I do not know, and how to render myself
agreeable to strangers,--I was going to say, to ladies,--but as I
pleased you without any instructions, I have become very vain on that
head....


  25th August, 1793.

[Sidenote 1793]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The Life of Albert Gallatin

The Life of Albert Gallatin

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